ABSTRACT:
This paper seeks to identify Knowledge Management concepts that relate to
the implementation of KM practices in higher education development, especially
for
Keywords: Knowledge
management, Old KM style, Second generation KM style, Sufficiency economy, Royal decree,
Occupation curriculums, Ordinary curriculums.
Recently, the number of internet
access users has been increasing sharply due to globalization. Therefore,
information patterns have transformed the electronic information systems by the
use of cyber technologies. As a result of this, knowledge transmission patterns
within academic organizations must develop and change the education systems in
order for information to be effectively transmitted. Consequently, Knowledge
Management Method is becoming a perfect education development tool for all
academic levels. Branin (2003) states that Knowledge
Management Method (KM) has been applied to the education industry since the
post World War II and sputnik era of 1950 to 1975. Basically, Knowledge Management
(KM) is the tool of academic development that improves the information systems
and academic resources patterns within and outside organizations in order to be
effectively accessed. Interestingly, KM is a very new field in the higher
education development of
Basically, the knowledge management concept has always been evolving depending on world developments since post World War II so it can be classified into two concept eras - the old knowledge management style and the second generation knowledge management style (Fireston, 2003). On the one hand, the old knowledge management viewpoint assumed that knowledge of an organization already existed within the institution’s boundaries so the intellectual capital of the whole organization could depend on the knowledge of arriving and departing employees, especially in the form of tacit knowledge. As Fireston (2003) also mentioned, the characteristic of the old knowledge management was “all about getting the right information to the right people at the right time” in order to arrange “the right information for the right people at the right time”. All institutions must consider the distribution of their organizational knowledge base and organizational structure carefully. On the other hand, the second generation knowledge management viewpoint assumes that knowledge of all institutions not only exists within the organization’s boundaries but knowledge is able to be created by the adaptivity requirements of the organization itself continuously in order to compete with other competitors or enemies. Thus, knowledge of organizations may be created by human sharing activities from a competitor’s paradigms that relate to life and experience (Fireston, 2003). Fireston (2003) also supported the idea that knowledge management is not only useful for the arrangement processes, which refer to the capture, codification, sharing, and distribution of knowledge but the managing knowledge production processes, which are knowledge making, knowledge creation, and knowledge discovery. These are other means that make second generation knowledge management beneficial. Therefore, second generation knowledge management means the fulfillment of demand and supply knowledge that is the direct result of the processes managing of the organizations. Therefore, it can be concluded that knowledge management concepts are able to divide into two management styles which are influenced by technologies development and the period of time.
According to Petrides and Nodine (2003) the use of knowledge management method in education enables the encouragement of the greater intelligence, practical know-how, and effectiveness of education institution management. Knowledge management in education also offers the superiority of practical assessment framework that depends on the effectiveness of information management (Petrides and Nodine, 2003). Kidwell, Vander Linde and Johnson (2004) also demonstrated that the benefits of the use of KM method in higher education can classified into five main categories, such as the benefits on the research processes, the curriculum development processes, student and alumni services, administrative services, and strategic planning so these issues can explained in detail consecutively. Firstly, KM is very useful for the research processes because it helps to encourage the competitiveness condition and responsiveness for exciting research grants, contract and commercial. KM development in academic institutions can assist to reduce the wasted time period resulting from the wrong track of research directions and the resources searching processes and collecting period. KM may helpful to facilitate with the interdisciplinary in the research process. As a result of this, internal and external services of institutions may improve themselves automatically and the cost of organization administration may be reduced respectively because the complicated and the extravagant procedures are eliminated by KM procedures. Secondly, KM is also helpful to the curriculum development processes because KM is able to enhance the quality of curriculums and programs, efforts in faculty development, and quality of administrative services. The amelioration of responsiveness in the academic institutions by incorporating lessons for all officials together is one of the other effects of KM development within the organization. Thirdly, the use of KM development in higher education also has many advantages for the students and alumni services because KM can improve all student services, such as library, academic measurement, general information, and information technology support services within the main campus and minor campuses. This means that the efficiency of faculty and staff service has been improved by KM development process directly. This may lead to all alumni to get better services from their oracle institutions. Fourthly, the KM is able to help the administrative services in academic organizations by focusing on the administrative services, efforts of development, administrative decentralization, administrative policies, and responsiveness and communication capabilities. Finally, the use of KM method in higher education will have many benefits for strategy planning of academic organization, such as strategy planning decentralization, sharing internal and external information, market-focus strategy plans, and sharing knowledge from a variety of resources (Kidwell, Vander Linde and Johnson, 2000). It can be found that the use of knowledge management in higher education will have many direct benefits for academic institutions.
Nevertheless, there are so many problems that are the direct result of knowledge management practices. Firstly, knowledge epistemology and ontology on all information are very difficult to identify the definitions and sources clearly, and the implementing of knowledge classification or assessment is also hard to indicate or select appropriate performance concepts in order to fulfill the new knowledge management. Secondly, social processes and community of practice for knowledge management are very complicated to define the constancy performance in terms of complex adaptive systems. Thirdly, knowledge categories are very confusing to classify in form of tacit, implicit, articulate and explicit knowledge because of the difficulty of distinguishing between them. Fourthly, knowledge management activities which are created for encouraging KM processes must be in agreement with the organization’ s goals, social processes, organization behavior, and organization strategy. Fifthly, knowledge management implementations do not have the constancy concepts because alternative models of KM procedures from many creators which are based on knowledge culture have been applied differently to institutions in terms of environmental, culture, and behavior. Sixthly, knowledge management measurement also complicates the selection of appropriate implementations for evaluating KM impact in the form of economic and non-economic benefits and knowledge. Finally, the implementation that relates to sustainable innovation in KM performance must create and design the development models for the organizations themselves so it may have complications for new KM developers because of the lack of experience. It may be represented that there are some complicated problems during knowledge management processes in order to achieve the desired result.
Basically, the jurisdiction of
all
To sum up, there are many
benefits from the use of knowledge management in higher education but there are
also some problems that occur when knowledge management processes take place
but the benefits outweigh to the negatives. Therefore, all academic
institutions in
References:
Branin, J.J. (2003), ‘Knowledge Management in
Academic Libraries: Building the knowledge Bank at the
Firestone, M.J. (2003), The New
Knowledge Management: A Paradigm and its Problems,
Kidwell, J.J., Vander Linde, M.K., Johnson, L.S. (2000), ‘Applying Corporate Knowledge Management Practices in higher education’, EDUCAUSE QUARTERY, no. 4, pp. 28- 33.
Petrides, A.L., Nodine, R.T. (2003), Knowledge management in education: defining the landscape, The institution for the study of knowledge management in education Press, USA.
Contact the Authors:
Associate Professor, Prayong Thitithananon, Dean of Faculty of Industrial Technology, Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University, 2 Ratchathani Road, Muang District, Ubon Ratchathani Province Thailand 34000; Telephone: +66 045-352083; Mobile phone: +66 081-7906658; Facsimile: +66 045- 352083; Website: www.ubru.ac.th; Email address: prayong@ubru.ac.th, pthitithananon@yahoo.com
Mr. Tasapong Klaewthanong
(M.Eng.Sc.UNSW), The lecturer of Faculty of
Industrial Technology, Department of Industrial Management, Ubon
Ratchathani Rajabhat
University, 2 Ratchathani Road, Muang
District, Ubon Ratchathani
Province Thailand 34000; Telephone: +66
045-352083; Mobile phone: +66
089-7183002; Facsimile: +66 045- 352083; Website: www.ubru.ac.th;
Email address: Tasapong_k@hotmail.com, Tasapong_k@yahoo.com.au