Knowledge Management Basics
Practical Action
What do we mean by knowledge networking?
“Knowledge networking is an old idea, but new computing and communication technologies
such as digital libraries and communication facilities are changing the landscape of how such
networking operates. It is essential that we understand how the knowledge is
codified/described and what is the role of media in supporting the knowledge network.
The organization and interconnection of knowledge components leads to knowledge networks.
Of course, knowledge networks precede modern computing and communication technology.
Knowledge networking is an essential component of most social relationships, ranging from
families and friendships to companies, professional organizations, and governments. Such
social organizations play a critical role in sifting, selecting, organizing, verifying, and vetting
the information that becomes knowledge, and in providing arenas for the actions that both
manifest and communicate knowledge.” [Directions in Knowledge Networking: Advances and
Opportunities, Gary M. Olson and Daniel E. Atkins]
“Knowledge technologies have long played a major role in shaping how we work together.
Everyone knows that communication technologies like the telegraph and the telephone had
profound impacts on knowledge work, making it possible to organize work in radically
different ways. Indeed, from the mid nineteenth century to today emerging knowledge
technologies have produced new forms of working together at a dizzying pace, and there is no
slow-down in sight.
As information professionals we are of course interested in how knowledge networks are
affected by the changes in information technologies. However, digital libraries are just one of
the kinds of knowledge technologies that are emerging, and it is important to understand the
bigger arena of new knowledge technologies in order to understand how knowledge work will
be advanced by even such a specific technology as digital libraries.
In our vision of knowledge technologies, we propose that there are three interlinked kinds of
capabilities that are needed:
Person-to-person technologies: these are those communication and computing technologies
that link people with each other. Much that goes under the general title of groupware fits
here.
Access to digital knowledge repositories: these are the wide array of stores of information and
knowledge that we can access in order to accomplish our work. This refers to digital libraries
and all manner of data bases and on-line information repositories.
Remote access to the physical world: this refers to the capability to access and even interact
with remote parts of the physical world. This might include such remote objects as scientific
or engineering instruments, cameras, or various specialized devices.
All of these can be used to relax constraints on space and time in access to and the use of
knowledge in the service of human goals. We are in the midst of a period of enormous
organizational innovation and experimentation. Concepts like distributed groups, virtual
organizations, knowledge networks, and electronic communities are bantered about in both
the popular and scholarly press. While there is no lack of hype about what these new
organizational forms might offer, there is also widespread discussion about the difficulties
created by the new technologies. The pace of technology creation is much faster than the
growth of understanding about their effects, but researchers and the funding agencies that
support them are increasing their investment in studies of technology in actual practice.”
[Directions in Knowledge Networking: Advances and Opportunities, Gary M. Olson and Daniel
E. Atkins]
“We propose a broad, but outcome-oriented, definition for knowledge work; knowledge work
has the acquisition, creation, packaging, or application of internal and external knowledge as
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