To Improve the Learning Experience of the First Trimester Undergraduate Students in an Australian University's Offshore Campus: A Knowledge Management Methodology

Due to the successful implementation of knowledge management (KM) in many commercial organizations, KM has been recently extended to higher education institutions (HEIs) to manage scholar knowledge, and institution policies and procedures. To address the lack of insight in regards to the engagement of tertiary students to manage knowledge at a course level, a KM methodology is proposed to allow students to interact with lecturers in and outside large lecture halls to create, disseminate, use and evaluate knowledge. The proposed methodology provides electronic, telecommunication and manual channels to allow students to ask questions in lectures when they fail to understand any incoming knowledge delivered by academics regardless of time and space constraints. Knowledge developed based on students’ questions can further be evaluated and extended using mechanisms to comment and recommend features. In additional, students are able to create new knowledge and to solve problems using incoming knowledge as the methodology which can enhance knowledge understanding throughout the learning process. The proposed methodology was applied to a business computing course at an undergraduate level, conducted in an offshore campus of an Australian university in the third trimester of 2012. The methodology was evaluated using quantitative analysis. The findings show that the majority of the students agreed the computerized tool incorporated in the methodology (Facebook) could enhance their learning experience by allowing students to ask for, share, discuss and extend knowledge. In particular, the knowledge Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission. Improve the Learning Experience of the First Trimester Undergraduate Students 194 management system provided additional channels and a platform for those who are passive and preferred not to seek help from lecturers directly, due to cultural or other reason.