KM-Master Course, 2004 Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents C3: Collaborative Knowledge construction & knowledge sharing Thierry NABETH INSEAD CALT – The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies, Fontainebleau, France
How to manage knowledge in a community context The main issues of Collaborative knowledge construction & Sharing knowledge. Motivation, resistance, etc Addressing the issues Rewarding contribution? Transparency Digital environments for Collaborative knowledge construction and knowledge sharing In wikis? In Blogs In knowledge management platforms?
The main issues of Collaborative knowledge construction & Sharing knowledge. The motivational issue People do not see their interest in spending time Knowledge = power, and resistance to change? People see knowledge sharing as a threat Effectiveness of the process Can be a time consuming activity with limited value Managing tacit knowledge We are talking here of the management of the tacit knowledge. (see tacit knowledge specificity)
Addressing the knowledge sharing & capitalization issues motivation Self motivation (altruism, …) Social: Reputation, recognition, pressure, … Economic: Monetary reward, bonus Organizational: roles Knowledge manager, Knowledge engineer, Community organiser, etc. Compulsion In which context can it work? What about the use of compulsion in network? Other?
Addressing the knowledge sharing & capitalization issues Mechanisms, Transparency (translucence) Social pressure People recognition Economic mechanisms: measuring and rewarding value creation Productivity: help the individual work process Example of economic mechanisms: Inkass (K trading) http://www.inkass.com/ IQPort (did not work)
Digital environments for Collaborative knowledge construction and sharing The different categories of tools: Description What are the supported processes Centralized versus decentralised, control (roles, etc.) People motivation Quality? Advantage/disadvantages? Different (complementary) tools Wikis, Forums, blogs, recommendation systems, KM management systems (such as CMS) Other?
Wikis Description : Advantage/disadvantages Examples: Collaborative definition of terms linked with one another Mainly centralized, control: open to everybody to post. reviewing process? Motivation: recognition, altruisms? Advantage/disadvantages Ease of use, Scalability Lost control of the content by the user? Examples: Wikipedia, VCAI wiki, …
CMS Description : Advantage/disadvantages Examples: Shared repository, project management Mainly centralized. Control: usually limited to an organization (access control). Definition of roles: K-worker, K-manager Motivation: pressure from the organization, bonus, etc. Advantage/disadvantages Robust, possibility of strong control & coordination (project), versioning, support for th work process Heavy Examples: KM systems (1rst generation), SourceForge?, …
Blogs Description : Advantage/disadvantages Examples: Collection of stories, strong temporality decentralized, control: each person control his/her blog. Motivation: capture personal memory, support for the social network,… Advantage/disadvantages Ease of use, easy capture of experiences (stories) and opinions No central space? Examples: Expert blogs, VCAI blogs of the students, …
Collaborative knowledge construction and sharing in VCAI The different tools: VCAI Wiki VCAI Blogs VCAI blog Blogs of the students - email, Yahoo group, etc. Discussion What worked, what didn’t work? Students’ motivation. (some contributed, others didn’t)