A Review of Literature on Knowledge Management using ICT in Higher

Education

Prof. Ms. Ulka Toro(Gulavani) Dr. Milind J. Joshi Associate Professor, Bharati Vidyapeeth Systems Analyst, Institute of Management, Kolhapur. Computer Center, India, Shivaji University Email : sg4906@gmail.com Kolhapur.

Abstract : The paper aims to survey the role of Knowledge Management (KM) using Information and

Communication Technology (ICT) in higher education by conducting literature review and classification of articles from 2000 to 2012 in order to explore how KM technologies and applications have been developed in

this period. The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the last decade has

opened new avenues in Knowledge Management that could play important roles in meeting the prevailing

challenges related to sharing, exchanging and disseminating knowledge and technologies in the higher

education. This paper provides a high level overview of KM using Information and Communication Technology

(ICT) in higher education. A critical analysis is done by studying attempts made by professionals to implement

KM using ICT in higher education .

Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge Management, ICT, Network, higher education

1.Introduction : Knowledge is a capacity of people and communities

to continuously generate and renew themselves to

meet new challenges and opportunities. The growth

of the advanced service sector and the increasing

need of immaterial labour, have contributed

dramatically to change the way in which knowledge

is produced, disseminated and consumed.

Knowledge is a dynamic and smooth flow of

specialized experiences, values and insights. A

number of people, perceiving the value of measuring

intellectual assets, recognized the growing

importance of organizational knowledge as a

competitive asset. Universities and other higher

education institutions are involved in knowledge

creation, dissemination and learning hence they are recognized to be in the knowledge business.

.

Knowledge Management (KM) concept is

introduced in the beginning of 1990. Knowledge

management is concerned with the exploitation and development of the knowledge assets of an organization with a view to furthering the organization’s objectives Jennifer Rowley . KM is a

systematic, organized, explicit and deliberate

ongoing process of creating, disseminating,

applying, renewing and updating the knowledge for

achieving organizational objectives[Elias M. Awad

et. al., (2008). Knowledge management is

concerned with the exploitation and development of

the knowledge assets of an organization with a view

to furthering the organization’s objectives. The

knowledge to be managed includes both explicit,

documented knowledge, and tacit, subjective

knowledge. Management entails all of those

processes associated with the identification, sharing

and creation of knowledge. This requires systems for

the creation and maintenance of knowledge

repositories, and to cultivate and facilitate the

sharing of knowledge and organizational learning

Davenport et. al., (1998). KM has three basic

elements i.e. generation of new knowledge,

dissemination of the knowledge and application of

the knowledge. Organizational culture, technological

tools and human beings are the key elements

required for managing knowledge more effectively

for better education delivery in time phased manner,

Petrides et. al, (2003) . With KM higher education

institutes are better able to increase student retention and better graduate rates, work to analyze the cost

effective use of technology to meet more enrolment,

transform existing transaction based system to

provide information and compete in an environment

where institutions cross state and national borders to

meet student needs anytime/anywhere.

There have been many higher education

Institutions that have implemented KM principles,

methods, practices or tools. This paper provides a

high level of overview and attempts made by higher

education institutions about implementation of KM

using ICT. The rest of the paper is organized into

four sections . In the first section, overview is given

about the related work performed in higher

education related to KM using ICT , followed with

the tabular representation of different ICT tools and

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application area is discussed . Further findings and

suggestions are given and then paper is concluded.

2. Review of the related work in Knowledge

Management using ICT : ICT is a body of thought that focus on how

information is managed. A wide range of ICT tools

is used to create, codify and share knowledge across

both geographical and temporal boundaries. In this

section an attempt is made to conduct review of

literature related to implementation of KM using

ICT in higher education and then critical analysis is

done.

Jennifer Rowley (2000) made a study on

implementation of KM in higher Education in United Kingdom and reported that the existing

facilities like libraries , electronic collections of

learning materials, networks for e-mail

communication, and management information

system provide data on the student profile. With the

help of JANET network researchers and academic

staff have access to electronic documents, email,

access to network resources, training and awareness

etc. Jillinda J. Kidwell et al., (2001) stressed the

importance of KM techniques and technologies in

higher education which helps for decision-making

capabilities, reduced product development cycle

time i.e. curriculum development and research,

improved academic and administrative services and

reduced costs. He suggested to design web based

portal to offer the services such as research details,

curriculum development and its revision, faculty development programs, student services, career

placement services, alumni association services , for

accounting section and human resources details .

Saxena Anurag (2003) asserted the application of

KM technologies in different areas like study

material development data, student registration data,

support services data, study material production and

distribution data and evaluation and certification

data for distance education courses in IGNOU.

Through the work (John H. Milam , 2004)

emphasises the application of KM in higher

education with the help of web portal which is used

intensively for team collaboration and groupware,

natural language queries of data, sharing information

on best practices and anytime/anywhere online

learning. For sharing and distributing knowledge in

the organization, technologies suggested are data warehouses, data mining, and virtual reality

modelling to visualize and transcend extraordinarily

complex, transaction-based data. Rathinavelu et.

al.(2004) explored the importance of ICT to create

and share high quality multimedia contents through

web based knowledge sharing system by developing

Kshare system for collaborative learning among

teachers and students through intranet within the

institution to acquire, utilize and share knowledge by

using ICT.

A formal approach to the use of blogs as

learning spaces in the higher education sector has

been proposed by Jeremy B Williams, et al.(2004)

by conducting a survey about the usage of Blogs in

Harvard Law School, the Brisbane Graduate School

of Business (BGSB) at Queensland University of

Technology (QUT).In the paper, The

Implementation of Knowledge Management System

In Taiwan’s Higher Education, (Yaying Mary et al.,2005) states the application of knowledge

management systems in a private college in Taiwan,

which is facing administrative challenges and

cutting-edge competition. A complete technical and

organizational infrastructure is built by outsourcing

tailor-made Gweb e-KM solution software on Lotus

Domino System by creating a culture of

knowledge sharing using organization-wide

vocabulary. Jonice Oliveira et. al.[2005] has

proposed GCC - An environment for knowledge

management in Scientific Research and Higher

Education Centres.

Nory B. Jones et al.(2007) throws a light on

development of a web-portal to connect researchers

in university to fill a perceived gap in knowledge

sharing and accessibility within the University using

knowledge management methodologies. Web portal facilitate knowledge acquisition, sharing and

discovery by allowing people to publish documents,

share ideas, work collaboratively and store

information and knowledge in easily searchable

repositories. Neil Witt et al., (2007) in his study on

KM approach to developing communities of practice

amongst university and college staff suggested to

establish Higher Education Learning Partnerships

Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

(HELP CETL) to support staff involved in the

delivery of higher education level from foundation

degrees through a network of nineteen further

education colleges. To achieve this, a KM system

using a Community of Practice (CoP) Framework

was investigated and then employed as the key

HELP CETL communication and information

sharing tool. Prayong Thitithananon et al. (2007) explores an implementation of KM practices in

Thailand’s Higher Education development by using

ICT tools for improving the current education

systems in order to be agreement with the royal

decree of rules and regulations in excellence of

country management . Alok Sharma(2007) prepared

a software tool EDULOGIC for engineering

institutions for imparting quality education in a

highly structured, controlled and quantified manner.

The data, content and results produced over

contiguous years build the necessary ground for

managing the related accumulated knowledge for

students and faculty. Ruslai Abdullah[2007]

discussed the role of KMS for the benefit of faculty

communities in higher learning institutions to

promote knowledge sharing, storage and capture and

represent the knowledge. Author has further

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prepared a model of groupware facilitation for

knowledge sharing in higher learning institutions by

using K Portal, database server.

Noa Aharony (2008) made an investigation

on the use of Wiki in a Knowledge Management

Academic Course to support discussion during the

process of creating and sharing knowledge, for the

delivery of class curriculum and projects and to enable students and instructors to be in a continuous

discussion, which can be used as a knowledge

repository. The research is focused on comprising

wiki pages which were gathered from knowledge

management wiki course in Israel and aims to

explore and analyze the application and use of a

wiki, a key concept of Web 2.0 , in a knowledge

management academic course. Meena Kharatmal

(2009) has stated the objective of GNOWSYS for

managing library, knowledge management,

Information gateways(portals) and distributed

semantic grid for publishing knowledge. Using

GNOWSYS it is possible to develop semantic

network, concept graphs and circle diagrams .Frank

Nyame-Asiamah[2009] has stated to examine the

contributions and suitability of the available

knowledge management (KM) technologies, including the Web 2.0 for exploiting tacit

knowledge. It proposes an integrated framework for

extracting tacit knowledge in organisations, which

includes Web 2.0 technologies, KM tools,

organisational learning (OL) and Community of

Practice (CoP).

Thomas Bebensee et. al. (2009) explored

the Web 2.0 applications as a means of bolstering up

KM by conducting research in Germany by using

free Web 2.0 tools for collaborating and sharing files

with each other among students. Marjan

Mansourvar(2010) has stated that web portal as the

type of knowledge management system provides a

rich space to share and search information as well as

Communication services like free email or content

provision for the users. S.Rajlakshmi et al. (2011)

has prepared the Info-Ca-Sh dynamic web content

knowledge portal for information exchange of

knowledge among faculty and students. The knowledge portal Info-Ca-Sh focuses on the

improvement in knowledge collaboration,

codification, and social network analysis of higher

educational Institutions. Xiang Liu (2011) examines

how Chinese college students use Web 2.0

technologies for Personal knowledge management

and identifies existing problems in PKM

applications. Author also discussed the use of wiki

or blog to share or transfer knowledge. Nur Razia

Mohd Suradi(2011) has discussed about the

deployment of K-Portal by using open source tools

JOOMLA , PHP programming language , MySql as

database and Apache Tomcat as a web server. The

purpose is to catalyst centre of knowledge

information and encourage knowledge sharing

culture among academic staff, within UNISEL by

using K-Portal.

3. ICT Tools and Resources in Higher Education

: From the Related Work discussed above, it is

observed that KM uses ICT tools in higher

education for effective transfer and sharing of

knowledge. ICT tools are sued for communication,

collaboration, and networking functionality to

support knowledge capture, storage, structure and

distribution.

\Table1 : ICT Tools and Resources in Higher Education

Authors, Year Application Area ICT Tools

Jennifer Rowley (2000, 2006) Researchers and academic staff have access to

electronic documents , email, network resources ,

training and awareness , digitisation, pre-prints and

grey literature.

JANET network

Jillinda J. Kidwell, Karen M.

Vander Linde, Sandra L.

Johnson (2001)

Institutional Marketing, building community among

student and faculty, gateway for finding information

about university resources, curriculum development

and its revision, faculty development programs

Web based Portal , Lotus

Notes

Saxena Anurag , Khare, Pankaj,

and Misra, R.P. (2003)

Application of KM technologies in different areas

like study material development data, student

registration data, support services data, study

material production and distribution data and

evaluation and certification data for distance

education courses in IGNOU.

National digital repository

by IGNOU

John H. Milam (2004) Team collaboration and groupware, natural language

queries of data, sharing information on best practices

and anytime/anywhere online learning.

Web Portal , data

warehouses, data mining,

and virtual reality modelling

Rathinavelu et al(2004) Sharing of lecture notes, discussion forum,

WebOPAC, e-Books

K-Share web based

knowledge sharing tool

Jeremy B Williams, Joanne

Jacobs (2004)

Blogs for knowledge sharing purpose. Use of Blogs

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Yaying Mary (2005) By creating a culture of knowledge sharing using

organization-wide vocabulary.

Gweb e-KM solution

software on Lotus Domino

System

Jonice Oliveira, Jano M. de

Souza, Rodrigo Miranda, Sérgio Rodrigues [2005]

GCC: An Environment for Knowledge Management

in Scientific Research and Higher Education Centres

Personal Blogs and mental

maps , virtual communities

Alok Sharma , Harvinder Saini,

Raviteja Tiruvury[2007].

EDULOGIC - Used to check performance of

students and faculty and highlight the performance of

weaker group .

Software EDULOGIC

Nory B. Jones, Darylyne

Provost [2007]

To facilitate knowledge acquisition, sharing and

discovery by allowing people to publish documents,

share ideas, work collaboratively and store

information and knowledge in easily searchable

repositories.

University Research Web-

Based Knowledge Portal

Neil Witt, Anne McDermott,

Mike Peters and Mark Stone

[2007]

A Knowledge Management Approach to

Developing Communities of Practice amongst

University and College Staff

HELP CETL -

Communication and

Information Sharing Tool.

Prayong Thitithananon,

Tasapong Klaewthanong, Ubon

Ratchathani (2007).

To improve the current education systems Implementation of KM

practices in Thailand’s

Higher Education development by using ICT

tools

Ruslai Abdullah, (2007) Management of knowledge for student courses, to

improve internal document management, to increase

the level for information and knowledge

dissemination

K Portal, database server,

search engine,

videoconferencing,

discussion room

Noa Aharony[2008] Useful for creating and sharing knowledge, for

delivery of class curriculum and projects, useful to

support searching and indexing for retrieval of

information, used as a knowledge repository,

collaboration among students

Use of Wiki

Thomas Bebensee, Remko

Helms and Marco Spruit [2009]

Web 2.0 applications as a means of Bolstering up

Knowledge Management

Web 2.0 tools like Dropbox,

Google Docs , Spreadsheets

and Mindmeister, wikis,

GoogleApps etc.

Meena Kharatmal, Sandhya R.,

Nagarjuna G. [2009]

Information gateways(portals) ,distributed semantic

grid for publishing knowledge , data exchange , to

manage user profile, digital libraries, and to develop

semantic network, concept graphs, circle diagrams .

Web portal GNOWSYS

Frank Nyame-Asiamah[2009] Used to exploit tacit knowledge, provide access to

collaborative work capabilities, executive cognitive

support, enterprise knowledge portals, personal

information portal, & electronic discussion boards.

web 2.0 technology, web

based portal, SMS, PDA,

Marjan Mansourvar, Norizan

Mohd Yasin (2010)

Used to share and search information, to prepare

electronic catalogue, system integration & content

management.

Web Portal

S.Rajlakshmi et.al. (2011) The tacit and explicit knowledge of the registered

users , documents are shared and captured using web

portal.

Info-Ca-Sh dynamic web

content knowledge portal,

use of Blog and Twitter as tacit codification tools.

Xiang Liu (2011) Used for Students’ Personal Knowledge

Management

Web 2.0 Technology like

wiki or blog

Nur Razia Mohd Suradi, Hema

Subramaniam(2011)

To catalyst centre of core information, encourage

knowledge sharing culture, to discuss topics

regarding research interest group, Teaching material

details, collaboration details

K-Portal, open source tools

JOOMLA , PHP

programming language ,

MySql as database and

Apache Tomcat as a web

server.

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4. Findings & Suggestions :

From the above table it is clear that to facilitate

more expressive exchanging, sharing and

dissemination of knowledge and its management,

effective implementation of knowledge

management in higher education is required.

Colleges and universities have significant

opportunities to apply knowledge management

practices to support every part of their mission.

Good ICT infrastructure is an inevitable

precondition for any successful introduction of KM

approaches and methods into higher education.

Commonly used KM tools/ technologies are

Information and Communication Technology

(ICT), Knowledge-Based Systems, Data Mining,

Artificial Intelligence, Modeling, together with

their applications on different research and problem

domains. Faculties and students in higher education

uses ICT tools such as PPT, LCD, General

application software, Internet, Intranet, CDs, DVDs

etc. to distribute and share their knowledge. In

higher education institutions , web based

application tools uSed are Web Portal, Search

Engines, Blogs, Wiki, Chat session and

Discussion forums to share and generate

knowledge. ICT Tools and resources allow,

ubiquitous and multi channel access and delivery of

information, storing and retrieval of

data/information, development of interoperability

between systems, communication and exchange of

information in computer supported collaborative

learning. Also the approaches like data mining and

knowledge discovery open new avenues in higher

education for understanding the phenomenon and

more importantly in devising methods which will

ensure better teaching and learning process.

Kidwell et al (2000) asserted that if knowledge

management tools are applied effectively, they

could result in better decision-making capabilities,

reduced product development cycle time (for

example, curriculum development and research),

improved academic and administrative services,

and reduced costs.

5.Conclusion :

To face the competition and diminishing

supply of students, colleges can only survive by

creating core competencies in today’s environment

. Along with the technology to succeed in the usage

of knowledge management in higher education , it

is necessary that, the mind-set of people should

change from my knowledge to our knowledge. We

must try to make the institutional information base

accessible to all the members of the institution . If

we can develop collaboration and knowledge

sharing, it will be a great boo for institutions. The

requirement is proper cooperation, coordination

and collaboration among the employees in the

higher institution .

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