of Higher Education Programs and Services Portfolios ... students and graduates with the conceptual and technological means for a Personal Knowledge ...
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
developing their skill for long periods of time. In fact, he found that 10,000 hours is the common touchstone for how long it takes to achieve mastery” (Gratton 2011, 63).
Figure 1: Academic Value Chain (SGS 2009) Resulting in the 10 Commitments (10 Cs) of a Graduate School’s Mission Statement1
1
Ten Commitments of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) at University of Botswana (UB), developed by the author: Compliance: To support national development and excellence in higher education, SGS aligns its processes to Follow Best Practices, and gears the qualification types, structures, and durations of its programs to fully comply with international Norms & Standards and national qualification frameworks. Capacity: To Enable Sustainable Development aligned to growth projections of the National Development Plan and beyond, SGS prepares for adequate Resource Allocations (e.g. facilities, staff complement, space for research students), encourages its constituents to engage in its governance and information processes (rules and regulations, documentation, promotion), and provides opportunities for induction and development in order to advance the frontiers in all academic key performance areas (teaching, research, service, leadership). Capability: SGS strives to create an enabling and productive academic environment and rewarding learning experience for all its students and partners to support outcome oriented Learning & Teaching and to Facilitate Delivery according to UB’s Graduate Attributes and Employability Strategy. Creativity: To Stimulate Excellence and encourage multidisciplinary Research & Innovation, SGS supports basic, applied, and action research endeavors in all disciplines, promotes co-operations with external stakeholders, and facilitates curricular activities for the relevant engagement and capacity building. Collaboration: To Foster Professional and Academic Partnerships, SGS engages in Networks & Outreach activities with the explicit aim to add value to the partner’s organization and/or services and to promote sustainable growth and mutual benefit (e.g. short-term modules for incoming students, short courses, compatibility with credit systems, consulting-style group projects, in-company research projects, soft-skill development). Credibility: To provide an enabling environment where informed decision can guide the quantitative and qualitative Growth of Operations based on a concentration of time, effort and resources, SGS assumes Academic Leadership and engages in reviews and proposals to align its strategy and portfolio in the context of UB’s objectives and strategic priority areas. Controlling: To facilitate transparency and accountability, SGS Tracks Performance and Monitors Quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of its processes and programs and provides respective Results & Evidence to the relevant internal and external stakeholders regularly, timely, and accurately. SGS further assures that all program documentations and promotional material are correct, complete, and up-to-date and seeks confirmation of its standing by internal/external peer reviews and accreditation agency audits. Competitiveness: To serve all Botswana’s citizen in a wide range of careers and career stages, SGS offers Choice & Convenience by organizing its courses, Programs and Services to ensure flexible access, to cover current contents, to comprise multi-disciplinary dimensions, and to suit and attract organizations and sponsors. In this process, SGS engages with the relevant stakeholders to establish market needs and to set-up/cultivates advisory boards, offers demand-led and strategically important programs, creates awareness concerning existing opportunities, and assists in career advising and recruitment processes. Competencies: To safeguard the interests of Graduates & Researchers and Provide Value to their current and future employing organizations, SGS aligns its teaching, learning, mentoring, and assessment strategies with academic and professional learning outcomes and standards and provides documented evidence of achievements through audits and surveys. Contribution: To Assure Relevance in the context of the National Development Agenda, SGS actively supports Vision 2016, national and relevant SADC policies and priorities through its projects and programs and reflects on the respective undertakings, Outcomes & Impacts through its reporting and promotional activities. (SGS 2009)
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
However, due to the forces of technology and globalization over the last decade, work is undergoing a process of fragmentation which will continue to accelerate. Gratton identifies the consequences as the slipping control over constant interruptions, the loss of time for real concentration, and less learning by observation and reflection. "In order to write a personal career script that can bring fulfilment and meaning", she recommends attending to and growing one's three sources of capital or resources (Gratton 2011, 68, 196-201): 1.
2.
3.
Intellectual capital (IC) will become increasingly important in the creation of valuable jobs and careers. To succeed one has to differentiate oneself from the crowd by building depth and by putting in the time and resources to create a body of knowledge and skills - not only in one single but multiple areas. Social capital (SC) as the sum of one's relationships and the extent and depth of one's networks will become ever more vital. Since finding and keeping regenerative relationships will be key competence, they will have to be crafted and nurtured in conscious ways. Emotional capital (EC) as the source of self-understanding and self-reflection will turn out to be crucial to enable human capital formation or accumulation and its optimal exploitation (Gendron 2004, 2). Emotional Capital also encompasses the capacity to build emotional resilience and fortitude that will be so important for taking courageous action.
With a yearly workload of up to 1,800 hours for an academic qualification, the content and proficiencies covered at a university - irrespective of alumni networks, eLearning or short course opportunities later on - are neither sufficient to grow these capitals adequately nor do they actively prepare to confront post-university capacity development demands and, with it, to build an individual’s standing and confidence. With competitive pressures on organizations continuing to grow, so does the need for greater flexibility and skill sets; hence: Responsibility for self-development and lifelong learning is now in the hands of the individual, who increasingly controls the development of his/her career and destiny. […] In the world of the modern knowledge worker, it has become necessary for individuals to maintain, develop and market their skills to give them any chance of competitive advantage in the job market in both the short and long term. (Pauleen & Gorman 2011, 12, 12) But what if an institute of higher learning would not only succeed in accomplishing the generic learning outcomes set by its qualification authority, but also provide its staff, students and graduates with the conceptual and technological means for a Personal Knowledge Management System (PKMS) whose backing and support would encompass the full life span of an individual’s academic and professional career?
The Opportunities for Personal Knowledge Management Systems Unfortunately, adequate responses from the worlds of academia and technology are still lacking: About 100 years ago, higher education restructured to meet the needs of the industrial age. It has changed little since, even as the internet has transformed life. Another revolution is needed to modernize universities and prepare graduates for a 21st-century working environment. [Instead,] we continue to prepare students as if their career path were linear, definite, specialized and predictable. We are making them experts in
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
obsolescence. We are doing a good job of training them for the 20th century (Davidson 2011). Digital technology has not yet achieved significant improvement in the quality and scale of education, nor any radical change in the model of education. […] On that analysis, our education systems are doomed to irrelevance and inefficiency, unable to even begin to meet the challenges of the 21st century, because they cannot rethink themselves fast enough (Laurillard 2009, 323, 324). Simply putting materials online is not enough. The important question is not “Is online education as good as (or better than) traditional education?” but, “How can the online technology be used to transform education?” (Thille 2010, 73-74) There is growing anxiety in America about higher education. A degree has always been considered the key to a good job. But rising fees and increasing student debt, combined with shrinking financial and educational returns, are undermining at least the perception that university is a good investment. Concern springs from a number of things: steep rises in fees, increases in the levels of debt of both students and universities, and the declining quality of graduates. (Economist, 2012) While today we have many powerful applications for locating vast amounts of digital information, we lack effective tools for selecting, structuring, personalizing, and making sense of the digital resources available to us. […] Designing interoperable tools with personal agency in mind empowers individuals and institutions to build, adapt, and integrate custom educational solutions in a manner that best meets their needs. (Kahle 2009, 32, 37) The good news is that these unresolved issues can all benefit from Personal Knowledge Management Systems pursuing the integrated concept put forward by Levy. Based on the assumption of decentralized autonomous capacities and nourished by creative conversations of many individuals' personal knowledge management, PKM systems are envisaged to constitute "the elementary process that makes possible the emergence of the distributed processes of collective intelligence, which in turn feed it." Accordingly, “one of the most important functions of teaching, from elementary school to the different levels of university, will therefore be to encourage in students the sustainable growth of autonomous capacities in PKM” (Levy, 2011). This paper fully supports this notion based on further literature research as well as the extensive experience of the authors in diverse professional settings. During the 90s, one author responded to these challenges and the resulting prototype has been continuously expanded and used personally for career support as a management consultant, scholar, professor, and academic manager. Recent advances in development/hosting platforms have now provided a viable opportunity for innovation and the conversion and advancement of the prototype into a marketable application across multiple platforms and environments. In parallel to this ongoing software migration and development process, recent papers published, accepted, or currently under review have explored a number of pertinent issues: Attending to the general troubles of individuals managing their knowledge, four distinctive challenges at acquisition/ preservation, collaborative, capacity development, and conceptual level have been discussed. It has been shown that they can be constructively addressed by assimilating recognized models and approaches from other disciplines (Schmitt, 2012). By taking the Ignorance Matrix as a point of departure, its Personal Learning Cycles were analyzed and seven PKM Wastes were identified in need to be minimized with assistance of PKM Systems (Schmitt, 2013e). Given the changing sphere of work and the growing importance of knowledge workers in the creative class, the lack of progress in developing Personal Knowledge Management Systems is emphasized
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
on the pretext of Bush’s 1945 vision of a Memex. PKMS are further investigated with their potential impact in the context of organizational competitiveness. (Schmitt, 2013f).
Supporting Knowledge Acquisition and Preservation Despite all the technological advances, we still take copies and store them in diverse arrays of devices or make mental notes only. Over time, copies deteriorate, memories fade and with it the ability to recall the locations and contents of our fragmented personal knowledge inventories and archives. Nevertheless, we are unable to part with our accumulated hard and soft copies which slowly but steadily lapse from potential value towards dead ballast. We also long for better support for identifying and filling knowledge gaps, detecting and correcting flaws, and deciding on suitable means for evaluating and advancing our repositories including the recording of related to-dos, progress, processes, and feedback (Schmitt 2012). Hand-outs, readers, books and journals – a good third of the academic workload is dedicated to self-study. By adding note-takings, online sources, and readings for dissertations and research papers, the pages to deal with resemble a massive undertaking, subsequently followed up by further contents due to life-long learning exercises, professional assignments and private interests. Much of it is redundant and what remains only partially potentially relevant for one’s future utility. Being able to identify the essential elements and to capture, store, recall, combine, apply and share this knowledge (timely and adequately) is a key strategic competency for both, organizations and individuals. To support it, a digital quartermaster needs to offer the means to reference sources (e.g. books, papers, web sites, systems, events) and to either store them completely or to pick from them the bits of information found possibly to be useful. For any actual and upcoming professional relationship, one’s accumulated repository would be equivalent to the lobola (xhosa word) or dowry a spouse brings into a marriage. As a result, each element comprehended represents a potential building block for developing further know-how, skills and technology. Dawkins’s concept of memes (Dawkins 1976, 209ff) and Koch’s notion of business genes (Koch 2001, 50-61) not only provide a conceptual underpinning for the related recombination and mutation processes in reality but also offer an outline of the system functionalities to be supplied by the digital quartermaster in form of a Personal Knowledge Management System. A service-minded university ought to be keen to provide such an innovative technology and with it digitalized material covering the relevant academic content to its students (and staff), stored on personally owned and manageable repositories accessible throughout their academic and professional career. Storing contents on university systems not accessible after graduation or proprietary systems with entry barriers and/or objectionable cost-benefits for individuals, entrepreneurs, and employers are solutions neither adequate nor sustainable (Schmitt, 2014f).
Facilitating Knowledge Development Information supply is ever expanding2 and so are cross-publicized fragments of media and research outputs. Instead of concentrating on the creative or innovative objectives set, time is lost in dealing with redundant findings and on mundane tasks of sorting, ordering, and referencing. This predicament is amplified by an absence of an all-encompassing, underlying, conceptual, and practical PKM model, so that we have to rely on improvised 2
"In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totalled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day." (Bohn & Short 2009, 7).
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
practices to (mis-)guide the integration of newly gathered data, information, and experiences into our existing fragile frames of personal knowledge (Schmitt 2012). By predominantly concentrating on the essential elements of a source (the memes3), a memebased personal knowledge management system is populated ideally by information-structures in an atomic state, perfectly understandable alone by themselves but being able to be used at any later time in combination with other memes without piggybacking irrelevant or potentially redundant information. To make subsequent use of them requires the variation of an original meme in a creative manner as well as further novel input by the user. As Koch reminds us, not the physical script matters but the ideas it contains; "it must be valued, either for its own intrinsic appeal or because it can help to deliver other things that people want, or help to deliver them at a higher quality level or using fewer resources" (Koch 2001, 53). To warrant high reusability, entries are qualified according to pre-defined types (e.g. area, concept, process, tool) and can be captured as original citation, re-phrased content, translation, note, or in query and answer format. As Distin points out in "The Selfish Meme": "In recombination, existing memes are appropriately recombined in new situations, creating new ways of thought and novel effects, perhaps as the result of previously recessive memes' 'effects' being revealed in the reshuffle". As a result of mutations, "copies will not always be exact, and the idea or skill in question may change in some way en route". In science, for example, "existing theses are reshuffled perhaps in the light of new evidence - and this may lead to unforeseen consequences, or even to a fresh hypothesis" (Distin 2005, 40, 185).
Compliance with Pirelli and Card’s Foraging and Sensemaking Process During an authoring process, the user scans his/her accumulated knowledge base to find appropriate memes for composing a desired script (e.g. thesis, paper, article, lecture, presentation). Any gaps will be filled with a provisional to-do-entry. If suitable matches are found, they are selected, replicated/adapted and sequenced, either in their original formats or as already preassembled memeplexes4; alternatively, the user’s own creative input is called for. In a shared PKMS environment, the access to a script-in-progress can be expanded for team members’ benefits and contributions. Any finalized script can be left in the knowledge base as a public source with all links kept intact and thence even replicated by sharing/copying it to other compatible knowledge bases. Alternatively, it can be converted into an electronic or paper version for publication and wider diffusion. However, the resulting linear structure is no longer able to keep all of the information-rich causative references. The above short summary of the PKM processes supported by the system (Schmitt 2013d, 2013g, 2014d) is meant to show some of the leverage such a technology is able to impart on academic and professional learning and authorship. The envisaged scope of the PKMS-in-progress concept has also been found compliant with Pirolli's and Card's Notional Model of the Sensemaking Loop for Intelligence Analysis (Schmitt 2013c, Pirolli & Card 2005).
The Significance of the Higher Education Environment
3
"Memes are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life" (Brodie 2008). "A Meme is a (cognitive) information-structure able to replicate using human hosts and to influence their behavior to promote replication" (Bjarneskans 1999). "A Meme is a unit of information that evolves over time through a Darwinian process of variation, selection and transmission. Memes are virtual, and have no intentions of their own, they are merely pieces of information in a feedback loop. This loop facilitates their continued replication (sometimes in the company of other memes), with their longevity being determined by their environment" (Collis 2003). "Meme Pool: The full diversity of memes accessible to a culture or individual. Learning languages and traveling are methods of expanding one's meme pool" (Grant 1990). 4 "Memeplexes are groups of memes mutually supporting each other and replicating together” (Bjarneskans 1999).
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
Although the proposed system is geared towards personal knowledge management support throughout one’s career (as exemplified in Figure 2), the first point-of-engagement with a user should ideally be the Higher Education environment, because:
The process of researching and writing academic project papers, theses, and dissertations to meet academic qualification requirements can substantially benefit from the application and be a potent trigger for further on-going practice. The groundwork of the subsequent professional career is laid with the theoretical knowledge and practical experiences acquired at university; consequently, the respective contents should add to the initial stock of the personal knowledge base. Since entries to the knowledge base can also be provided by external parties, it also gives lecturers, authors, publishers, sponsors, and academic institutions the opportunity to conveniently contribute to the intellectual stock and stimulation of their scholar and alumni population. The networked academic world paired with the web oriented context of a memebased PKM technology provides a perfect environment for launching an innovative enabler for the distribution, preservation, development and application of knowledge. Scholars who are already familiar with bringing together friends and colleagues on their social network sites, would very likely welcome the opportunity of accumulating and reconfiguring memes and the benefits it serves in regard to their academic and professional development and collaborations.
However, if encouraging PKM capacities in students will have to be an important function of teaching, then a common ground has to be established between theoretical underpinnings and practical considerations of KM and any PKM System to be utilized. This need has been addressed by visualizing and discussing complementing concepts and notions and by integrating and referencing prior publications/work-in-progress, including the types of knowledge as well as the applicability of established models. The papers look at the PKMS features and their impact on knowledge workers and also how they relate to the needs of ICT for development (Schmitt, 2014a, 2014e).
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
Figure 2: PKMS Conversation Clusters Exemplifying Beneficiaries and Benefits Source: Schmitt 2013e
Enabling Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration While corporate communication, project, and knowledge management tools allow us instant access to resource plans, progress reports, and team members' contributions for works-in-progress, the release of the yields into the personal custodies of those contributing tends to be not part and parcel of organizational KM systems. In an increasingly mobile world, PKM systems ought to be more 'care & share' oriented and need to incorporate options for pooling and feeding back records and relations for the benefit of all its stakeholders. The aim has to be to collaboratively interlink and collectively harvest prior accumulated personal knowledge subsets and also to offer novices the opportunity to simply leapfrog into other knowledge domains with which they have previously not been confronted (Schmitt 2012). In ‘Strategic Management in the Knowledge Economy’, the authors stress the paramount role of education in all public and private organizations. “Learning must occur real-time in both structured and informal ways. Detailed curriculums have given way to action research by teams as the best way to advance the knowledge base”. They urge addressing learning for creativity and innovation, which are often the spur to enhanced development and progress and voices concern over the lack of institutionalized mechanisms to capture and nurture evolving ideas which tend to be ‘lost’ in the [bureaucratic] system rather than accelerate product and process development (Leibold, Probst & Gibbert 2007, 17, 19). Hamel goes as far as “to say good-bye to the ‘knowledge economy’ and wave hello to the ‘creative economy’. What matters today is how fast a company can create new insights and build new knowledge, of the sort that enhances customer value … Today, no leader can afford to be indifferent to the challenge of engaging employees in the work of creating the future. Engagement may have been irrelevant in the industrial economy and optional in the knowledge economy, but it’s pretty much the whole game now” (Hamel 2012, 138-139).
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
Thus, individual capacity and repertoire for innovation, sharing and collaboration need to be strengthened. But, regrettably, existing KM tools are foremost enterprise-oriented and projectcentered and do take account of personalized knowledge bases/repositories over an individual‘s educational and professional career. Also, these systems have been predominantly classified as first KM generation since they are capturing, storing, protecting, measuring, and reusing existing knowledge rather than creating new knowledge and innovation. The anticipated scope of the next KM generation is expected to start with the “reuse or new use of existing knowledge, adding an invention, and then creating a new product or service that exploits this invention.” This process requires creativity and the awareness that old knowledge becomes obsolete. For reaping the appropriate rewards, it is essential to systematically exploit the knowledge captured and created (Pasher & Ronen 2011, 166-167). The distinction made is by no means trivial, particularly, since the lack of an established KM definition as well as the lack of an agreed scope of KM is blamed for the failure of too many Knowledge Management Initiatives (Frost 2011). Although Hill’s witty account (Hill 2006) suggests that educators are the least likely beings to change their ways, the consistent message from the cited observers and prophets of individual (Gratton, Gendron), organizational (Leibold, Hamel), evolutionary (Dawkins, Distin), and technological (Pasher, Ronen) development is urging for just the opposite. Universities are clearly not only expected to educate their clientele with past and current knowledge but also to prepare them effectively for the coming decades, for their careers and for the progress graduates and scholars ought to be able to bestow on organizations and society.
Contributing to Knowledge Societies and Human Development We have to position ourselves for career progress in the propagated Knowledge Economies and their increasingly complex multi-disciplinary problem spaces. To succeed, more thoughtful, determined and energetic approaches are called for with one's intellectual capital compelled to reside in a continuous mode of maintenance, mentally but, if possible, in recorded formats. (Schmitt 2012). The world is being dramatically reshaped by scientific and technological innovations, regional and global interdependence, cross-cultural encounters and changes in economic, political and social dynamics. To react, attentive universities are in the process of adjusting their strategies and policies to provide guidance in the context of this changing environment in which their graduates will live, work and contribute to the advocated knowledge societies. Soft skill development and literacy in information and communication technology play an important role in this endeavor 5 and e-learning and collaboration platforms are employed as promoters of the related competencies. As a valuable resource for social transformation and people empowerment, the level of knowledge available and accessible also directly relates to a sustainable development agenda, but numerous constraints have impeded the potential and possibility for many developing countries to becoming significant creators and owners of knowledge. Johri and Pal point out that current ICT for Development efforts “are [unfortunately] primarily framed in the theory and practice of development and empowerment”, signifying “a disproportionate emphasis […] on fulfilling basic needs of users in low-resource environments without adequate attention to user-motivated concerns which would enrich their lives rather than 5
The graduate attributes identified, for example, by the University of Botswana in their Learning and Teaching Policy and their Graduate Employability Strategy are „a key set of learning outcomes and skills that all graduates will need and which must be incorporated in all programs” (University of Botswana 2010). They cover: self-directed, life-long learning orientation; critical and creative thinking; problem-solving; effective written and verbal communication; entrepreneurship and employability; organization and teamwork; research skills and information literacy; social responsibility and leadership; interpersonal skills; cross-cultural fluency; accountability and ethical standards.
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
merely provide access and satisfy basic needs” (Johri & Pal, 2012). To overcome this gap, they propose targeting four primary design characteristics (shown in brackets below) which are fully applicable to the system concept introduced in this paper: the PKMS “offers an effective low-cost application (accessibility easiness), enables the authorship and contribution of own ideas based on one’s background (expressive creativity), alone or in collaborative environments with other users/owners (relational interactivity), and with the opportunity to add productively to the world’s extelligence6 (ecological reciprocity) (Schmitt 2014a, 2014c). Hence, making use of the personal knowledge management system functionalities described to complement the available technologies (internet networks and speed/costs in some development countries are often sufficient/affordable enough to run basic cloud applications which provide inexpensive means of safe storage, collaboration, and communication bandwidth) can make a considerable difference for individuals striving to become autonomous in the development of their expertise and in the choice of how that expertise will be used or exchanged with people, communities, or organizations close to them. An effective PKMS supports the notion that “knowledge and skills of a knowledge worker are portable and mobile. Unlike manual workers, they have numerous options on where, how, and for whom they will put their knowledge to work. As Drucker so often noted, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, and many people have not yet come to grips with its implications for the present or the future” [Rosenstein 2009]. In this context, the system-in-progress introduced not only resembles an overdue PKM support tool for individuals in the Knowledge Society. Novel PKM systems represent decentralized and autonomous individual devices to participate in creative conversations clusters which - as pointed out - enable the emergence of the distributed processes of collective extelligence and intelligence, which in turn feed them. This concept also opens the door for other novel practices felt to be overdue (Schmitt, 2014b). In ‘Reinventing Discovery’, Nielsen reminds us that - since the 17th century - the academicpaper-based citation system has been the basis for the reputation economy in science. It “allows scientists to build on the earlier work without having to repeat that work. The citation both credits the original discoverer, and provides a link in a chain of evidence”. To take advantage of today’s online realities, Nielsen urges removing barriers that prevent potential contributors from engaging in a wider sharing and faster diffusion of their ideas, sources, data, work-in-progress, preprints, and/or code for the benefit of more rapid iterative improvement: “If scientists are to take seriously contributions outside the old paper-based forms, then we should extend the citation system. […] All that's needed for open science to succeed is for the sharing of scientific knowledge in new media to carry the same kind of cachet that papers do today. At that point the reputational reward of sharing knowledge in new ways will exceed the benefits of keeping that knowledge hidden” (Nielsen 2011, 59, 104, 197, 204). As pointed out, the PKMS concept and conversations are based on iterative improvement, sharing, and diffusion of contents based on the traceability and employment of originators’ and uptakers’ memes, memeplexes, feedbacks and feed-forwards. In consequence, a networked PKM System can easily comply with any revised norms for citation and/or new tools for measurement in support of an expanded model for the science's reputation economy.
Meeting the Needs of Accreditation and Qualification Frameworks The question posed in section 1 paving the way for the subsequent chapters started with: “But, what if an institute of higher learning would not only succeed in accomplishing the generic learning outcomes set by its qualification authority…?” The last four sections praised the impact of a PKMS in regard to the whole knowledge production process (acquisition, preservation, development, The term ‘Extelligence’ refers to the world’s externally stored information; it represents the cumulative archive of human cultural experience and know-how accessible and augmentable by any individual who knows how (Stewart & Cohen, 1999). 6
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
sharing and collaboration) of the academic value chain portrayed in figure 1 as well as the benefits for all Higher Education stakeholders, including the knowledge societies envisioned. This section rephrases the question: “What role are Personal Knowledge Management Systems able to play to contribute directly to the generic learning outcomes set by qualification authorities?” In response, the functionalities of the PKM system will be aligned to the structure of the recently revised 10-level National Qualification Framework (NQF) of the South African Qualification Authority. The philosophical underpinning is based on applied competence which is described comprehensively in a progressing manner across ten categories for each of the ten levels; table 1 summarizes the ten categories for the Higher Education levels 5 to 7 (Bachelor equivalent) and 8 to 10 (Honors, Master, PhD). In order to visualize the relationships, Boisot’s mapping of the Agent and the World, and Stewart’s and Cohen’s concept of Extelligence6 provide a constructive point of departure. [At the operative level (figure 3)], intelligent agents convert data into information and thence into knowledge through a two-step filtering process that is guided by the possession of prior knowledge. In the first step, noise is filtered out from incoming signals by the agent's sensory apparatus and the latter gets registered as data by different senses. In the second, non-information bearing data gets filtered out by the agent's conceptual apparatus, so that only information bearing data is left to impact its action system and thus get metabolized into knowledge. As indicated in the diagram, the perceptual and conceptual filters are activated by the agent's prior knowledge and experience. Agents have finite brains and intelligence. They often encounter more data and information than they can process or store. [To deal with the resulting mental overload], they have recourse to external processing and storage devices - e.g. artefacts of various kinds [the Extelligence] - to overcome the problem (Boisot 2004, 5). Extelligence represents the cumulative archive of human cultural experience and know-how accessible and augmentable by any individual who knows how. Extelligence forms the external counterpart to the intelligence of the human brain/mind and deals in information whereas intelligence deals in understanding; together they are driving each other in a complicit process of accelerating interactive co-evolution (Stewart and Cohen 1999, 243-245, 288-289). Parts of the agents’ Extelligenceis private and not shared publicly although it might be stored and maintained on devices of external parties.
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
Figure 3: Agent's Intelligence/Extelligence and Applied Competencies (SAQA NQF) The ellipses in the chart represent the 10 Applied Competence Categories of SAQA’s Qualification Frameworks. The two factual knowledge categories ‘Scope of Knowledge’ and ‘Methods and Procedures’ are stored in the PKM’s knowledge Base. By retrieving the factual knowledge stored, they feed the four conceptual knowledge categories ‘Knowledge Literacy’, ‘Problem Solving’, ‘Accessing, Processing and Managing Information‘, and ‘Producing and Communicating Information’ which are executed as part of the agent’s intelligence. As a result, existing knowledge might change and new factual knowledge might be generated and the PKM’s knowledge base needs to be updated. However, during the process further information is created, for example plans and reports (progress, outcomes, or evaluation) and is added to the knowledge base.
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
Table 1a: Summary of SAQA’s NQF Categories Level 5 to Level 10, Part 1
Source: (SAQA 2012) Table 1b: Summary of SAQA’s NQF Categories Level 5 to Level 10, part 2
Source: SAQA 2012
Original published: The Journal of the World Universities Forum, 2014, Vol. 6(4) pp. 87-103. ISSN 1835-2030.
The same applies to the three meta-cognitive knowledge categories ‘Accountability’, ‘Ethics and Professional Practice’, and ‘Management of Learning’. However, due to their reflective nature, additional meta-information has to be processed and stored for later retrieval. For the procedural knowledge category ‘Context and Systems’ the same is valid, but it also includes the knowledge about the operation and functionalities of the PKM system. Additionally, its system view covers a range of information concerning social networks and relationships as well as external or individually created classification systems which adds structure to the PKMS’s knowledge bases. Figure 3 demonstrates how close Gratton’s advice concerning the three sources of capitals alluded to in section 1 fits with the NQF’s categories of applied competences and the extelligence to be captured by the PKMS’s knowledge bases.
The Road Ahead In order to characterise the relationship between knowledge and the PKMS the following metaphor from the nature-human environment can be applied. If Personal Knowledge Management Systems become part and parcel of the educational life and experience, prior knowledge will provide the potentially limitless soil, learning and research the life-spending water, own new memes the fertilizer, re-combinations and mutations the farm work, collaborators’ and supervisors’ memes the helping hands, publications and presentations the crop, and the shared harvest is represented by knowledge dissemination leading to adaptations, co-operations, and innovations. The digital PKM quartermaster will guard the fruits and show the way for mastering the interdependent and iterative cycles. Having internalized and benefitted from the technologies, the graduate can adopt the approach and technology in a wider context during his/her professional life. The position part of this paper has made the case that strengthening the knowledge formation and diffusion process on a personal level is vital for today’s knowledge economies and societies. The applied research part of the paper has shown the close proximity of the PKMS concept suggested with models and approaches from KM and other disciplines which have attracted widespread academic and professional attention (Schmitt, 2014e). But it not only resolved that today’s abundance of information and changing career patterns require decentralized autonomous PKMS capacities in order to strengthen individual sovereignty by employing grass roots, bottoms-up, lightweight, affordable, personal applications rather than today’s top-down, heavyweight, prohibitive institutional approaches and centralized developments, it also reports on a concept and system-in-progress aiming at providing a feasible solution. It is planned to transform the prototype to a commercially viable PKM software application within two years. In parallel, a system training seminar will be set up as well as a curriculum and study guide for the wider multi-disciplinary Personal Knowledge Management contexts and methodologies. Further papers in progress or planned will feature system design aspects as well as a case study. The latter will integrate the papers published with all their memes and references to demonstrate the knowledge management and authoring capabilities of the system.
SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
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SCHMITT AND BUTCHART: MAKING PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PART AND PARCEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND SERVICES PORTFOLIOS
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Prof. Ulrich Schmitt: Professor, Stellenbosch University Business School, Stellenbosch, South Africa Barbara A. H. Butchart: Director, Educational and Student Recruitment Services, C. Sharp Associates, Gaborone, Botswana
