Exploiting The
Potential Of Intranets For Managing Knowledge In Organisations
Abdus Sattar Chaudhry, Nor Ainah Ali,
Damayanti Iman Abadi, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication
and Information, Singapore
ABSTRACT:
Intranet has been embraced by many organisations to support their knowledge
management. The use of knowledge resources available through intranets,
however, seems to be fairly low chiefly due to employees’ difficulties in
finding relevant information. This paper reviews the use of intranets for
knowledge management focusing on the experience of the stakeholders in relation
to the use of intranet in a public sector organization in
Keywords: Knowledge management, Intranets, Knowledge organisation,
Content management
1. Introduction
Today, intranet also
prevails as an organisational knowledge base. It has advantages over prior
digital knowledge bases in that it facilitates the capturing and handling of
unstructured and implicit knowledge, in comparison to database management
systems that require very structured schemas to be effective.
Intranets that are networked across organisational boundaries are seen as
user-friendly and cost effective ways of achieving the goal of facilitating knowledge
sharing (Skyrme, 1997). This is an important factor from the knowledge
management (KM) perspective since it enables the organisation more freedom in
sharing information not intended for competitors (Stenmark, 2002). Intranet can also
be seen as an infrastructure that allows collaborative KM systems to grow and
adapt to changing organisational needs.
Capitalizing on an intranet
as a KM tool is indeed a complex task that involves making a myriad of choices and
decisions that can directly affect the ultimate success of the venture. Because
knowledge can be fluid and ephemeral, organisations can only communicate and
collaborate effectively through the intranets and exploit their competitive
advantage of sharing if specific techniques and processes are adequately put in
place. Firstly,
information that is placed on the intranet must be carefully selected,
organised and structured according to a consistent policy (Rowley, 2000). This
should be aided with mechanisms that facilitate navigation for effective search
(Delphi Group, 2002a & 2002b). The crux of the issue for almost every
aspect of the intranet,
however, is the core
consideration that knowledge is made readily accessible. Everything should serve the main goal of enabling
users to find what they need (Futterman, 2001).
There have been very few
specific studies on how knowledge should be organised and content should be
managed on the intranet. It is worth noting, however, that there are two
clashing paradigms over the issues of control in intranet management. One
paradigm asserted that centrality of control is the key to effectively
manageable intranets (Ciborra, 2000; Curry and Stancich, 2000; Damsgaard and
Scheepers, 2000). Another paradigm rejected such centralised control, for
instance, Stenmark (2003) argued that innovation and knowledge creation in the
intranet should not be limited to a certain group of people only. He also
believed that all information should be made accessible for all
employees, supporting Malhotra’s (2000) assertion that nobody could
safely decide what information is relevant to whom in today’s volatile
environment.
We
conducted a study of
the intranet of a local organisation focusing in particular on knowledge
organisation and content management. We reviewed the salient features of the
intranet, the use of intranet as a preferred source of organisational
knowledge, the relevance of the knowledge provided on the intranet in the
context of work, the organisation and presentation of knowledge resources to
facilitate information discovery and management of contents with respect to
their currency, authority and reliability. We also gathered users’
suggestions to optimise and exploit the use of the intranet as a KM tool. This
paper reports the results of this study. The name of the organisation is not
mentioned on the request of the organisation.
This organisation was selected as a case study mainly because of the
researchers’ exposure to the use of the site. It was also considered
appropriate as most of the staff had access to the intranet. The intranet
structure was similar to other public sector organisations.
The study was carried out
in two phases. The first phase focused
on collecting information about the site using a checklist. The
checklist was used to collect crucial information on the main features of the intranet pertaining
to knowledge organisation and content management. These include questions pertaining to
searching and browsing capabilities, the classification system, issues of
metadata, resource selection, and authority control and documents life cycle
parameters. The following steps were taken to populate the information on the
checklist: browsing through the intranet, random interviews on informal basis to
a few stakeholders, interview with the IT consultant in-charge of the intranet.
The stakeholders’ interaction with the intranet was observed in the
context of their work and working environment.
The second phase focused on
a survey to obtain stakeholders’ feedback on the use of the intranet. The
questions asked were generated from the informal interviews and the literature
reviewed. The questionnaire is given in
Appendix B. The second phase focused on
a survey to obtain stakeholders feedback on the use of the intranet. The
questions asked were generated from the informal interviews and the literature
reviewed. Questionnaires were sent along
with a cover letter that described the objectives of the survey and assured the
respondents that the information provided would remain confidential and would
only be used for research purposes in an aggregated manner. A list of potential
survey respondents was obtained from the Human Resource Department in the
organisation. Questionnaires were sent to 72 officers. They were briefed during
a management meeting on the purpose of the survey. The final response rate was
48 percent.
Initial findings from the
observations and informal discussions with the employees about the intranet
suggested the following points:
¨
The intranet was gaining popularity as a tool for knowledge
dissemination and sharing.
¨
The information on the intranet was growing at an exponential rate as
the organisation grew in size to meet the increasing need of the stakeholders.
¨
It was becoming increasingly difficult and time consuming to access
information on the intranet with the rapid growth of information which were not
adequately organised.
The above findings formed a
catalyst to the formulation of the checklist and the survey questionnaires used
for data collection. Dated collected on
the usage using the two instruments were reflected in an aggregated manner as
the results sought to provide the overall trends in the use of the intranet as
a tool to facilitate KM.
The findings are discussed
in two parts. Part 1 delves in discussing the salient features of the intranet
based on the checklist, while Part 2 discusses the use of the intranet based on
the survey questionnaire. A summary of features related to browsing and
searching capabilities provided are given in Table 1.
Table 1: Salient Features Of
The Intranet
Information Organization
|
Status |
|
|
Yes |
No |
|
|
Provision of searching and
browsing capabilities |
Ö |
|
|
Provision of a system for classification, e.g. controlled
vocabulary |
|
Ö |
|
Structuring of subject categories to reflect professional vocabularies |
|
Ö |
|
Use of metadata to organize resources |
|
Ö |
|
Inclusion of thesaurus browser |
|
Ö |
|
Use of taxonomy software |
|
Ö |
|
Compliance with interface usability heuristics |
|
Ö |
|
Content Management |
Status |
|
|
Yes |
No |
|
|
Availability and enforcement of
enterprise-wide standards for content management in the organization’s
Intranet |
|
Ö |
|
Availability of standard policies
and guidelines |
|
Ö |
|
Institution of standard procedures
for formally reviewing and validating mission critical Intranet content
before publication |
|
Ö |
|
Content could be tracked according
to date of creation or last update |
Ö |
|
|
Automatic routing of outdated
content to reviewers for validation or retirement |
|
Ö |
|
Availability of explicit rules for
the retirement or validation of resources that are older than preset expiration dates, if
any |
|
Ö |
It was also noted that
there was no specific person who was put in-charge to monitor the use of the
intranet although an IT intranet manager was around to assist with the
technical problems. The onus of the authenticity, integrity and validity of
contents rests on the shoulders of the content providers.
The findings from the
survey revealed that the intranet was becoming more prevalent and there was a
growing recognition of its use in relation to information sharing and
discovery. The general observation made was that the intranet was not being
exploited to its fullest potential and that knowledge was not well-organised
and contents were not sufficiently managed to facilitate knowledge sharing and
discovery. These might impede the effective use of the intranet as a KM tool.
3.1. The Use
Of Intranet As A KM Tool
All employees in the
organisation were asked about the frequency of intranet use in their day-to-day
work (see Figure 1 for details).
Figure 1: Frequency Of Intranet Use On Daily
Basis
As evident from Figure 1,
more than 50 percent of the respondents accessed the intranet daily, which is
indicative of its important role as a source of organisational knowledge. The
frequently used categories on the intranet are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Frequently Accessed Categories
In order to assess
users’ needs, respondents were asked to suggest additional categories
which they felt should be included on the intranet. Seven respondents indicated
that the precedent database should be included, 10 respondents indicated
personnel database, 14 respondents indicated the bulletin board and eight
respondents indicated the creative corner. Precedent database, for example
encourages knowledge re-use, bulletin board encourages the exchange of tacit
knowledge while the personal database functions as a knowledge map, which can
assist in the location of expert knowledge within the organisation.
When asked to appraise the
current information organisation on the intranet, the majority (56 percent)
responded with “reasonably effective”, while 8 percent said
“very effective”, 3 percent said “not effective”, and
the remaining 33 percent stated “not very much effective”. The findings
implied that although information organisation on the intranet was fairly
acceptable for more than half of users, improvements were considered necessary.
With regard to how useful
the intranet for finding work related tasks, most respondents (88 percent) found
intranet helpful as it provided key information and pointers to valuable
information, while 9 percent of respondents felt that intranet did not help
them much when they needed to do work-related tasks and only 3 percent of
respondents neither agreed nor disagreed. It appeared that the content of
intranet is practically useful for most users.
3.2. Perception On The Organisation’s
Intranet
All employees were asked
about their perception of the intranet. Table 2 shows the distribution of
respondents’ perception on the organisation’s intranet. An
important factor to consider as regards to whether or not an intranet functions
well a KM tool depends on how easy and fast the organisational knowledge can be
accessed. The results of this study revealed that many of the employees were of
the opinion that this function was fulfilled by the organisation’s
intranet. In addition to facilitate information discovery, information has to
be well-structured and organised.
Table 2: Respondents’
Perception On The Organisation’s Intranet
|
Statement |
Strongly
agree
|
Agree
|
Neutral |
Disagree
|
Strongly disagree |
|
Intranet provides important sources of
organisational information |
3 |
59 |
38 |
- |
- |
|
Access to the right information is easy and
fast |
6 |
35 |
38 |
15 |
6 |
|
Information is well structured and organised |
3 |
26 |
44 |
24 |
3 |
|
Information is very current and up-to-date |
6 |
15 |
47 |
32 |
- |
|
Expired
information is systemically deleted or archived |
- |
12 |
47 |
38 |
3 |
|
The general layout, look and feel of the
intranet are great |
3 |
12 |
64 |
21 |
- |
|
The
interface is user-friendly to facilitate searching and information retrieval |
- |
21 |
76 |
3 |
- |
|
Enables
departments to share information within their departments |
3 |
59 |
38 |
- |
- |
|
Enables
departments to share their information with other departments |
6 |
32 |
62 |
- |
- |
|
An important channel for finding about
changes to company policies, processes or systems |
6 |
38 |
53 |
3 |
- |
3.3. Problems
In Using The Organisation’s Intranet
The respondents identified
a number of problems that they encountered when using the intranet. The problems
varied from navigation and usability issues to content organisation of the
intranet (see Figure 3 for details).
Figure 3: Problems In Using The Intranet
As shown in Figure 3,
“information not well-organised” and “contents not
systematically managed” emerged as the top two problems, among others, on
the use of intranet. These findings suggested that content organisation of the
intranet requires serious improvements. Behind the top two problems,
users’ lack of awareness on intranet contents came up as the next major
problem. The lack of awareness might have happened due to poor socialisation
and “marketing” efforts into the intranet culture. The finding
implied that it is indispensable for organisations to promote the benefits of
intranet and cultivate their interests for using intranet for day-to-day office
duties. Although “information not well-organised” came up as the
top problem in using intranet, most respondents were neutral about the content
organisation (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Perception On The Intranet Content
Organisation
3.4. The Practices Of Organising Emails As
Regards To Information Organisation
Our survey also attempted to obtain a sense of
respondents’ email organising behaviour as regards to organisation of
information. An individual’s emails organisation can be mainly
distinguished from (a) sorting and organising incoming mails (and attachments)
in folders and subfolders after reading, or (b) printing the emails and
attachments (if any), then after reading, file the print-outs into proper
categories. It was revealed that only 45 percent of respondents (made up from
28 percent and 16 percent, see Figure 5) maintained these practices.
Figure 5: Practice In Relation To Emails
3.5. Suggestions For Intranet Improvements
We elicited
respondents’ suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the intranet
as described below:
¨
To redesign the user interface, with emphasis on fonts, icons and
background colour;
¨
To conduct a “spring cleaning” of the intranet (there were
many content pages that were duplicated)
and to standardise information type as far as possible;
¨
To allow for more on-line transactions;
¨
To keep the information updated and to delete outdated information so
that the information is not so cluttered;
¨
To allow for more precise keyword search; and
¨
To appoint an administrator or manager to be in-charge of the intranet,
e.g. to look into information organisation and content management.
Respondents were further
asked to comment if the intranet would become more helpful by transforming it
into a portal. The question elicited responses from only 71 percent of
respondents, with over 87 percent of the responses received was negative. The
high rate of negative responses could be attributed to unfamiliarity with the
concept of information portal, as reflected in some responses that stated
“I have no idea” or sought clarification on the difference between
an information portal and a corporate website.
The
main aim of this study was to address the organisation’s intention of
exploiting the potential of the intranet for managing knowledge. While most of the employees
indicated preference for online sources and verbal communication, they
highlighted “information not well-organised” and “contents
not systematically managed” as the two main problems that impede
usability of the intranet. This is consistent with what has been implied by
Rowley (2000) expressing concerns that the sheer enormity of information
available and the corresponding lack of organisation of the information could
create chaos.
As indicated in the tables
and figures presented in the earlier section of the paper, intranet was seen by
employees as an important source for obtaining organisational information and a
tool that facilitates knowledge sharing within and across departments. But the
low usage demonstrates that the organisation has not been able to leverage the
potential. There dos not seem to be an emphasis in the organisation under study
about the role of the intranet to create and share knowledge on a daily basis.
The intranet should rest on an information perspective grounded in real user
needs and based on actual user activities. From an awareness perspective, the
intranet design should alert the users both of relevant information and of
other knowledgeable users. The intranet should facilitate collaboration by
applying a communication perspective that allows both ad hoc and well-defined
groups and communities of practice to engage in dialogue.
A vital factor for an
intranet to function as a KM tool is the ease and speed with which information
could be accessed and retrieved.
Unfortunately, only 21 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed
that the organisation’s intranet had sufficiently fulfilled this
function, while 38 percent responded “neutral” and 59 percent
either disagreed or strongly disagreed. To facilitate easy and fast access, it
is imperative that the information has to be well structured and organised. The
information should also be current and up-to-date and the expired information
should be systematically deleted or archived so that the intranet is not
cluttered with information that is no longer needed nor useful. Additionally,
the user interface must be user-friendly to facilitate searches and information
retrieval as it affects the usability of the intranet.
Kelly (1999) had proposed
the application of controlled vocabulary and metadata on the Weyerhaeuser
intranet. While automatic indexing may be effective initially, she said that
further enhancement by a taxonomy expert is still necessary for customizing the
taxonomy to the users’ terminology, as well as other refinements. The
Delphi Group (2002a, 2002b) highlighted the importance of the application of a
thesaurus browser and a taxonomy structure to the intranet. (Coyne, 2002)
stressed on compliance with usability heuristics. It is imperative to note that
accessibility and usability are closely related, as
they both improve satisfaction, effectiveness, and efficiency of users.
At the user interface
level, what could be done is to create a browsing environment using browser
hierarchies, interchangeable mediating representations and knowledge maps. The
objective of such an environment is to leverage the human mental model to make
inferences about knowledge, rather than relying on the machine to make those
inferences. Browser hierarchies can allow the user to rapidly navigate
knowledge. Graphical and outline mediating representations can allow the user
to visualise and easily manipulate knowledge. Knowledge maps work together so
that the user can extract knowledge that fulfils the criteria specified.
To avoid labour intensive
approaches, it is also recommended that the organisation develop a content
management system, which is a critical element of any good KM strategy. Sound
content management will ensure that organisational memory information is
captured, retained, and made accessible, and that information is deleted before
the volume becomes burdensome.
The fast changing working
environment has increased the need to review the use and role of the intranet
as a KM tool to ensure its fullest potential to meet new demands and
requirements. The review of features and
survey of the employees’ current usage patterns was helpful in providing
insights into the factors that inhibit its effective use. The two main
drawbacks, as observed, were that knowledge was not well-organised and that
content was not sufficiently managed to facilitate knowledge sharing and
discovery. In order for the intranet to be effective as a KM tool, these two
pertinent problems need to be solved and contents re-packaged to improve
usability and usefulness. This indicates that while technological
infrastructure is important to implement an intranet, an intellectual
infrastructure is needed to maximise the use of knowledge resources available
on the intranet. This requires use of taxonomies, metadata, and browsing
structures to organise information and manage content to facilitate resource
discovery.
Ciborra, C. (2000). A
critical review of the literature on the management of corporate information
infrastructure. In C. Ciborra et al. (eds), From Control to Drift.
Curry, A., and Stancich, L.
(2000) The intranet – an intrinsic component of strategic information
management? International Journal of Information Management, 20,
249-268.
Coyne, K.P. (2002). BellSouth:
A Winning Intranet. Available from:
http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200211/ij_11_04_02a.html (last access 4
April 2008).
Damsgaard, J., and
Scheepers, R. (2000). Managing the crises in intranet implementation: a stage
model. Information Systems Journal, 10(2), 131-149.
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& Content Classification: Market Milestone.
Available from: http:// durbinwebdev.net/JG-WebPC/Mike's-JG-WebPC-Backup/All%20Saxotech%20stuff/WP_2002_TAXONOMY.PDF
(last access 4 April 2008).
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& Content Classification: Market Milestone Report for LingoMotors.
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Making content findable: how to help your Intranet search engine do a better
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Knowledge organisation for a new millennium: principles and processes, Journal
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Appendix A: Checklists
Knowledge Organisation and
Presentation
|
Status |
|
|
Yes |
No |
|
|
Does
the Intranet allow both searching and browsing capabilities? |
|
|
|
Does the Intranet provide a system
for classifying the information, such as controlled vocabulary for the content
providers to work with when classifying the information? |
|
|
|
Are
subject categories structured in order to reflect professional vocabularies
and the different ways to access information? |
|
|
|
Is
metadata being used to organise resources? |
|
|
|
Does
the Intranet include a thesaurus browser that assists users by highlighting
unexpectedly related and relevant information? |
|
|
|
Is
anyone at working with taxonomy software currently? |
|
|
|
Do the design standards comply with usability heuristics? |
|
|
|
1. How is information presented for
users to navigate? |
||
|
Content
Management |
Status |
|
|
Yes |
No |
|
|
Is the KM/Corporate Center setting and
enforcing enterprise-wide standards for content management in the
organisation’s Intranet? |
|
|
|
Are
the six types of policies, namely, content, design, administrative, legal,
security and usage that are needed for an Intranet are in place? |
|
|
|
Have the organisation instituted procedures
for formally reviewing and validating mission-critical Intranet content
before it is published? |
|
|
|
Can the organisation track Intranet
content according to date of creation or last update? |
|
|
|
Is outdated content automatically routed
to reviewers for validation or retirement? |
|
|
|
Does the organisation have explicit
rules for the retirement or validation of resources that are older than
preset expiration dates? |
|
|
|
How is technical
and creative excess and content overload avoided? |
||
|
What about access control? |
||
|
2.
What about authority and quality control? |
||
|
3.
What is the organisation’s official document publishing process
and policy? |
||
|
4.
What are the life cycle parameters? |
||
|
How are the resources selected? |
||
|
Is there anyone who is monitoring the use? |
||
|
How do
categories get updated and expanded? |
||
|
What is
the diversity of the documents? |
||