Knowledge Management in Online Distance Education

Most organisations realise that “knowledge” is a strategic resource that gives them sustainable competitive advantage and helps them achieve long-term organisational goals. With the realization that knowledge is a core resource, organisations are now attempting to manage knowledge in a more systematic and more effective way. However, managing knowledge is not always an easy task. In particular contexts, such as online distance education, knowledge is distributed across both time and space and may be constrained by social, cultural and language differences. In such cases, the support of best practices in Knowledge Management (KM) could be problematic. This paper studies online distance education provision to identify the major problems that hinder KM practices. Focussing on online learning communities in which knowledge creation and knowledge sharing are essential elements, it tries to develop a set of guidelines to help overcome problems using tools and techniques from KM.

[1]  C. P. Goodman,et al.  The Tacit Dimension , 2003 .

[2]  Margaret Gorts Morabito.  Foundations of Distance Education. , 1997 .

[3]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  What's your strategy for managing knowledge? , 1999, Harvard business review.

[4]  Peter Herriot,et al.  Trust and Transition: Managing Today's Employment Relationship , 1998 .

[5]  Gustavo Stubrich.  The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization , 1993 .

[6]  C. Handy.  Trust and the virtual organization , 1999 .

[7]  Feng Li,et al.  Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice , 2000 .

[8]  R. Slavin.  Developmental and motivational perspectives on cooperative learning: a reconciliation , 1987 .

[9]  P. Drucker.  Post-Capitalist Society , 1993 .

[10]  P. Senge.  The fifth discipline : the art and practice of the learning organization/ Peter M. Senge , 1991 .

[11]  David W. Johnson,et al.  Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research , 1989 .

[12]  Ellen Christiansen,et al.  Making distance learning collaborative , 1995, CSCL.

[13]  Jane Andersen.  Knowledge Management in Education , 2002, SECIII.

[14]  Paul Duguid,et al.  Universities in the Digital Age , 1996 .

[15]  John M. Silvester,et al.  The Social Life of Information: Brown, J.S., & Duguid, P. (2000). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. ISBN 0-87584-762-5. 320 pages , 2000, Internet High. Educ..

[16]  Jean A. Dobos.  Collaborative learning: Effects of student expectations and communication apprehension on student motivation , 1996 .

[17]  Jennifer Rowley,et al.  From learning organisation to knowledge entrepreneur , 2000, J. Knowl. Manag..

[18]  Feng Li,et al.  The geography of business information , 1995 .

[19]  Paul Hildreth,et al.  Communities of practice in the distributed international environment , 2000, J. Knowl. Manag..

[20]  Chris Argyris,et al.  Knowledge for Action: A Guide to Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change , 1993 .

[21]  Starr Roxanne Hiltz,et al.  The “Virtual Classroom”: Using Computer‐Mediated Communication for University Teaching , 1986 .

[22]  John Seely Brown,et al.  Book Reviews : The Social Life of Information By John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. 320 pages , 2000 .

[23]  I. Nonaka,et al.  Enabling Knowledge Creation , 2000 .

[24]  Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa,et al.  Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams , 1999, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[25]  Mark E. Hepworth,et al.  Geography of the Information Economy , 1989 .

[26]  Judith V. Boettcher.  Distance Learning: The Shift to Interactivity , 1999 .