Knowledge Application

KM typically addresses one of two general objectives:

–Knowledge reuse to promote efficiency

–Innovation to introduce more effective ways of doing things.

Knowledge application refers to the actual use of knowledge that has been captured or created and put into KM cycle.

Knowledge reuse, the process whereby useful nuggets of knowledge or knowledge objects are made available in a library of such objects. 

These knowledge objects can be annotated references, components (programs or text), templates, patterns, or other types of containers.

The success of knowledge application appears to be :

- a function of the characteristics of the individual, of the knowledge content,

- the purpose of reuse for the particular task at hand,

- And the organizational context or culture

Knowledge Application at the Individual Level

•Characteristics of Individual Knowledge Workers

–A strong outgoing personality was important in knowledge sharing irrespective of qualifications and prior experience (Webb, 1998).

–Individual characteristic may include:

•Personality style

•Preferences regarding how they best learn

•How they prefer to receive the information

•How they can be helped to put the knowledge to work.

•Characteristics of Individual Knowledge Workers

–One way of visualizing personalization is to think of the one-person company or the one-person library.

–Personalization and profiling is currently a popular means of characterizing visitor to a given web site. 

–Profiling technologies can be used to follow or trace a given individual’s interactions with a number of corporate memory interfaces.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives

–Knowledge application, however requires the knowledge workers have attained much higher levels of comprehension such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. 

Task Analysis and Modeling

•Task analysis studies what knowledge workers must do with respect to specific actions to be taken and/or cognitive processes that must be called upon to achieve a particular task.

•The most commonly used method is task decomposition, which breaks down higher-level tasks into their subtasks and operations.

•The lower levels may make use of task flow diagrams, decision flowcharts, or even screen layouts to better illustrate the step-by-step process that has to be undertaken in order to complete a task successfully. 

EPSS

 Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) defined as an integrated electronic environment that is available to and easily accessible by each employee and is structured to provide immediate, individualized online access to the full range of information, software, guidance, advice and assistance, data, images, tools, and assessment and monitoring systems to permit job performance with minimal support and intervention by others.

Knowledge Application at the Group and Organizational Levels

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) are tools aimed at supporting knowledge management.

They evolved from information management tools that integrated many aspects of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) environments with information and document management systems. 

Key characteristics of a KMS are support for:

1.Communication among various users,

2.Coordination of users’ activities,

3.Collaboration among user groups on the creation, modification, and dissemination of artifacts and products,

4.Control processes to ensure integrity and to track the progress of projects.

KMS provides support for many information functions, including:

1.Acquiring and indexing, capturing, and archiving,

2. Finding and accessing,

3.Creating and annotating,

4. Combining, collating, and modifying,

5.Tracking.

Knowledge Reuse

There are three major roles required for knowledge reuse:

•Knowledge Producer, the person who produced or documented the knowledge object.

•Knowledge Intermediary, who prepares knowledge for reuse by indexing, sanitizing, packaging, and even marketing the  knowledge object.

•Knowledge reuser, who retrieves, understands, and applies it. 

Davenport et al. (1998), make distinction between repositories:

-External knowledge (gathered from competitive intelligence, demographic, or statistical data from data reseller, and other public sources)

-Internal  knowledge repositories (Informal: Transcript of group discussions, e-mails, or the other forms of internal communications)

E-learning & KM Application 

Many organizations have integrated KM applications with e-learning or technology-mediated learning (as opposed to traditional classroom – based teaching)

E-Learning can therefore be seen as another type of knowledge-sharing channel, one that makes use of technologies such as computers or the web and one that also requires  a very high degree of social presence and media richness.