A Knowledge Management Model for Effective Knowledge Dissemination

Prachi Raje1, Seema Shah2 Lecturer, Dept of Computer Engg, D. J. Sanghvi college of Engineering, Vile Parle (W), Mumbai 400057 rajeprachi@gmail.com 2 Faculty, Patni Computers Systems, Mumbai seema.shah@patni.com; 4.seema@gmail.com
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Abstract All institutions inherently store, access, and deliver knowledge in some or the other manner. Almost every institution in this country will make reference to the capturing of knowledge, the sharing of knowledge and the delivery of knowledge from faculty to students. Higher education institutions have significant opportunities to apply Knowledge Management (KM) practices in their profession. This paper discusses the basic concept of knowledge, its management, the techniques used to manage knowledge. We also present a model for enhancing the teaching learning process through knowledge management. Next we discuss importance of KM for educational institutes and the effective Knowledge dissemination plan for SVKMs D. J. Sanghvi COE. The model is based on the grid architecture which shares the existing underutilized resources and gets all available information under one roof. Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge Management (KM), Educational Institute, Grid

1. Introduction
With the growing cost for education and competition among educational institutes, it has become very important for organizations to recognize what they know, preserve it, share it and apply where possible. All institutions inherently store, access, and deliver knowledge in some manner. Almost all institutions in India will make reference to capturing, sharing and the delivery of knowledge from faculty to students. Higher education institutions have significant opportunities to apply knowledge management practices to support every part of their mission to educate the student fraternity [1]. In institutes KM is used to examine more effective ways to teach particular subjects and to track student grades, attendance patterns, and even suspension data. On college campuses, some administrators have focused on helping faculty and staff develop a set of practices to collect information and share what they know, leading to action that improves services and outcomes as part of a university-wide program review. Using KM in higher education can lead to better decision-making capabilities, reduced product development cycle time (for example, curriculum development and research), improved academic and administrative services, and reduced costs. The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we first give a brief overview of knowledge management followed by a detailed account of the techniques used in the next section. In section 4 and 5 we describe the educational institutes perspective to KM and the proposed KM architecture respectively. The KM implementation and the KM dissemination plans are presented in the two subsequent sections 6 and 7. We next conclude the paper with closing remarks.

2. Overview of Knowledge Management

Knowledge is defined as facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject [5]. In knowledge-management circles, knowledge may refer to recorded information or to internalized information that is very difficult or impossible to record and communicate completely. In other words, the term knowledge is used very loosely. A popular framework for thinking about knowledge proposes two main types of knowledge, namely explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is documented information that can facilitate action. It can be expressed in formal, shared language, for example formulas, equations, rules, and best practices. Explicit knowledge is packaged, easily codified, communicable, and transferable. On the other hand Tacit knowledge is know-how and learning embedded within the minds of the

people in an organization. It involves perceptions, insights, experiences, and craftsmanship. Tacit knowledge is personal, context-specific, difficult to formalize, difficult to communicate and more difficult to transfer. Knowledge Management comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning. Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives and are intended to achieve specific outcomes, such as shared intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation. One aspect of Knowledge Management, namely knowledge transfer, has always existed in various forms like on-the-job peer discussions, formal apprenticeship, corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs. With computers becoming more widespread, specific adaptations of technology such as knowledge bases, expert systems, and knowledge repositories have been introduced to further simplify the process. Knowledge Management programs attempt to manage the process of creation (or identification), accumulation and application of knowledge across an organisation. In our case, it can be teachers, school administrators, and learners telling each other stories, preserving what they know works or doesnt work for one situation for use again in the future. KM as the practice of selectively applying knowledge from previous experiences of decision making to current and future decision making activities with the express purpose of improving the organizations effectiveness. Knowledge management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusion, use and exploitation. It requires turning personal knowledge into corporate knowledge than can be widely shared throughout an organization and appropriately applied.

3. Techniques for Knowledge Management

For knowledge management, we need to pay close attention to issues of collaboration, organizational learning, best practices, workflow, intellectual property management, document management, customer-centric focus, and using data effectively [4]. Widely used KM initiatives include portals that use the web to span communication across an entire enterprise and to promote department to department relationships. The Internet is also used intensively for team collaboration and groupware; natural language queries of data; sharing information on best practices; and anytime/anywhere online learning. According to a survey conducted by Knowledge Management magazine and International Data Corporation (IDC) about the state of KM, the primary business uses or domains of KM include capturing and sharing best practices, providing training, corporate learning, managing customer relationships, enhancing web publishing, enhancing supply chain management etc. The various techniques used to manage knowledge are e-learning, data warehousing, data mining, digital dashboard etc. E-learning is one of the most important KM practices, is geared most often to students as online customers, not to employees as part of capitalizing on their knowledge as an intellectual asset. The e-learning focus in KM is on "just-in-time knowledge," delivered anytime and anywhere, with the traditional "course" disaggregated into "knowledge chunks." Data warehouses, data mining, and virtual reality modeling are used as new ways to visualize and transcend extraordinarily complex, transaction-based data. The concept of the "executive information system" is taken much further with the use of digital dashboards for monitoring critical processes and performance measures. While a digital dashboard is a customized solution for knowledge workers that consolidates personal, team, corporate, and external information and provides single-click access to analytical and collaborative tools. It brings an integrated view of a company's knowledge sources to an individual's desktop, enabling better decision making by providing immediate access to key business information. The goals for the digital dashboard are to focus on critical information, integrate information from a variety of sources, use company knowledge fully, and work with the same information in the office or on the move. In addition, there is a special new focus on attention management tools that are designed to address the problem of information overload and help executives focus with personalized web portals to monitor their unique priorities and mission.

4. Educational Institutes perspective to KM

The survey by Knowledge Management IDC found that the top reasons for organizations adopt KM are retaining expertise of personnel, increasing customer satisfaction, improving profits, grow revenues, supporting e-business initiatives, shortening product development cycles and providing project workspace to all employees. Public and

private higher education institutions alike respond to the phenomenal growth of online courses, cyber colleges, and virtual universities. They would also justify the same reasons to adopt KM. It is with KM that colleges will be better able to increase student retention and graduation rates; retain a technology workforce in the face of severe employee shortages; expand new web based offerings; work to analyze the cost effective use of technology to meet more enrollment; transform existing transaction-based systems to provide information, not just data, for management; and compete in an environment where institutions cross state and national borders to meet student needs anytime/anywhere.

5. The Proposed Knowledge Management architecture

Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering aspires to be a world-class institution for education, training, research & development in engineering by providing modern infrastructural facilities, competent faculty and active forum for interaction. With the mission to prepare competent engineers, technocrats and researchers for various sectors of industries to meet the challenges and help industry and society for better life, the institute promotes all best practices to teach and learn. The institute is well equipped with fast speed network, high processing capacity processors and servers, high capacity storage space and security. Provided with these facilities, it is easy to upgrade institute with knowledge management strategies for better teaching and learning process.

Fig 1: KM model architecture Figure 1 describes the general knowledge management model for an organization. The model is based on the grid technology to provide access to different resources available. It is useful for both trainer and student. The model works as repository for students where they can get course material, presentations and manuals. They can search through available research papers and knowledge base to find related work in the area. Different retrieval techniques can be applied to fetch the related documents. Teachers would form the backbone of the Education Grid with their constant feedback and fruitful support through the Course Expert Groups, Content Authors and channelising the materials and programs. Teachers would be the main channels for the students to access the services of the Education Grid. Teachers can utilize the existing materials approved by the grid and at the same they can also create their own contents for the local use. This will help them to horn their own methods of instruction depending up on the level of students of various classes. Further it gives them the option of reusing the materials and contents from time to time. 6. KM implementation plan

The KM system as shown in figure 2 consists of 3 major parts, namely the Resource centers, clients and network backbone [3]. The resource centers may be the computers from different departments having different information

and different software to handle them. The clients are any computers accessing data, provided with front end required. The third part is network backbone with Internet connectivity

Fig 2: KM system 7. Knowledge dissemination plan

To succeed in our objective of fruitful knowledge dissemination we must essentially remember the key points [1]. Firstly start with strategy. Before doing anything else, determine what you want to accomplish with knowledge management. Organizational infrastructure, human resources, financial measurements of success, and information technology should support knowledge management. Next is to think of technology as an enabler, and measure the impact of KM in financial terms, such as cost reductions, customer satisfaction, and speed to market. Subsequently seek a high-level champion for the initiative, someone who believes in its benefits and who can advocate as needed. Then select a pilot project for knowledge management, ideally one with high impact on the organization but of low risk to build credibility for knowledge management. If possible, make the pilot one that participants will enjoy and find rewarding. To proceed further we must next develop a detailed action plan for the pilot that defines the process, the IT infrastructure, and the roles and incentives of the pilot project team. Finally after the pilot, assess the results and refine the action plan 8. Conclusion

We have first explained the basic concepts of KM followed by the various techniques used for it. Next, considering the benefits accrued to an Engineering institute we have proposed the KM model. With this architecture it will be easy to use the available resources additionally for knowledge management without incurring the extra cost of hardware. We have proposed a model based on the infrastructure available at D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, but in general it can be used with any institute supporting the use of computer for teaching and learning process. To conclude we feel that this model is feasible and will prove beneficial to all stakeholders, namely the teachers and students alike. References: [1]Applying Corporate Knowledge Management Practices in Higher Education by Jillinda J. Kidwell, Karen M. Vander Linde, and Sandra L. Johnson [2]IT Based KM In Indian Higher Education System: Addressing Quality Concerns And Setting The Priorities Right by Ashish Kumar, Arun Kumar [3]Gnyan Setu Data Grid Architecture for Distributed Learning and Knowledge Management Across Institutions by Seema Shah and Dr Sunita Mahajan. [4]Knowledge Management in Technology Education by Diptendu Dutta, Sourav Chakraborty, Piyal Sarkar [5]Wikipedia