Knowledge management in academia: A proposed framework

While the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge management are essential in industry, relatively little attention has been devoted to how these same concepts can be applied to higher education. Despite the ready availability of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the increasing familiarity of faculty and students with these tools, many universities seem reluctant to release their firm hold on learning paradigms that predate the information revolution by centuries. We believe that the necessary infrastructure is largely in place to begin to fundamentally reengineer knowledge creation and delivery based on principles of knowledge management and organizational learning. In this article we first introduce a model of knowledge creation and delivery that can be implemented by teams of students and faculty members in universities. We demonstrate, through description of a practical application of the complete knowledge creation and delivery cycle, how the theoretical model can be implemented and how the entities involved interact in the cycle. Finally, we describe the product of one cycle implementation, a WebBased Virtual Learning Environment designed for an introductory Information Technology course for undergraduate business students.