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Tapping into social networking: Collaborating enhances both knowledge management and e-learning
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Kathryn Kane United States Green Building Council, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Received 18 July 2009 Revised 26 July 2009 Accepted 12 August 2009
Janine Robinson-Combre Fulton County Government, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and
Zane L. Berge University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA Abstract Purpose – While most practitioners and researchers agree that social networking is a tool for the masses to stay in touch, this paper aims to explore an untapped use for this medium in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach – This paper gives the authors’ viewpoint and relies on their experience and a review of literature. Findings – There is a synergy between knowledge management and e-learning through these social networking tools. Practical implications – By incorporating knowledge management with social networking, organizations could have a new vehicle for e-learning, allowing formal and informal information to flow along the “super highway”. Originality/value – This paper shows that both knowledge management and e-learning bring value to an organization and through the use of social networking, knowledge will no longer be confined to a certain group of individuals, but would allow an organization to learn from its most valuable asset – its employees. Keywords Knowledge management, E-learning, Social networks, Workplace training, Information society Paper type Viewpoint
VINE: The journal of information and knowledge management systems Vol. 40 No. 1, 2010 pp. 62-70 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0305-5728 DOI 10.1108/03055721011024928
Using Web 2.0 social networking tools, knowledge management (KM) and e-learning can be incorporated for more effective training and knowledge sharing within an organization. Knowledge management benefits an organization by tapping into the intellectual capital of its employees. While e-learning allows knowledge distribution without boundaries in an engaging manner, social networking is growing in popularity and is widely used for personal reasons, but also has educational and training applications in the workplace. This paper will explore how knowledge management and e-learning within an organization are tied together through social networking, thereby causing a strong impact on how people communicate, learn and share knowledge. It will discuss how knowledge management, e-learning, and social networking meet the needs of adult learners. Further, it will show why an organization should tap into social networking tools and activities while incorporating them into their knowledge management system to enhance their e-learning and other training activities.
The paper also introduces popular Web 2.0 social networking applications, and shows how they are used to collect and share knowledge which can be later incorporated into knowledge management and e-learning. The goal should be to “shift focus of Knowledge Management initiatives from knowledge sharing to support actual learning from others and actual applying experiences of those people” (Efimova and Swaak, 2003, p. 573). Social networking tools can be a way knowledge is collected and e-learning can be a vehicle to share it in a way that supports application of knowledge. Definitions Within the past decade, e-learning has exploded in the educational arena. The Sloan-C Consortium’s 2008 report on the state of online learning in the US stated a 12.9 percent increase in online students (3.9 million in Fall 2007) which exceeds the 1.2 percent growth of the overall higher education student population (Allen and Seaman, 2008). Many people utilize online education because of its convenience, as students are able to log into their classes via the Internet from their homes, libraries, workstations, or anywhere they may have a computer or internet connection. E-learning offers opportunities for adults with different learning styles to participate in different activities that accommodate those learning styles. It is convenient for the students and facilitators to access from different locations and time zones, and fosters research and writing skills, as written communication is the primary mode of communication. Aside from educational institutions, businesses and corporations began to investigate the use of e-learning tools to facilitate their daily operations. The change in platforms from Web 1.0, or the original “world wide web”, to Web 2.0, the more technologically savvy version of the internet, made this possible. Rather than static pages that simply reveal information (Web 1.0), Web 2.0 allows users to interact with the information (Krynin, 1997), and includes technology such as blogs, podcasting, social networking and wikis. Knowledge management Knowledge management is a broad term, but means managing the human knowledge within an organization by collecting, synthesizing, and disseminating knowledge in an efficient and useful manner. Knowledge management involves getting people to think of the knowledge they have, capturing that knowledge in a designated place, and disseminating knowledge to the right people at the right time. Collecting knowledge is now much easier than in the past, given the growth of technology and the web. The challenge becomes categorizing it so it makes sense to a larger group. The next step in the challenge is sharing knowledge with others in a way that is searchable and can match the right knowledge with the right people. An organization must connect the people who need the knowledge with those that have it. Knowledge management gets the knowledge that is in an employee’s head, and social networking tools are a way to collect that knowledge. E-learning could then take this information from one person’s head and turn it into knowledge others can use. Social networking In their article on the history and scholarship of social networking, Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social networking sites as:
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. . . web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (paragraph 4).
Social networking is a user-friendly, user-generated environment. It is a medium that fosters collaboration and cooperation, both of which are required in a true learning environment, be it a classroom, boardroom or an online discussion board. These skills can be enhanced in a learning environment that uses social networking. Reynard (2008) supports social networking and project-based learning when students bring in various resources and participants into the learning process. This type of learning is referred to as social learning. Social learning is defined as “any learning that occurs within a group, organization, or cultural cluster, and includes: the procedures by which knowledge and practice are transmitted across posting cycles, across different work situations and across time” (Warne et al., 2001). Social networking tools can be used to help promote social learning in an organization. Social networking tools Many people using the Internet are familiar with Web 2.0 online interactive social networking applications. These tools include blogs, wikis, and networking sites, and allow anyone to create and share information in an open forum. An article in Personnel Today magazine cites a Forrester Research report that spending on Web 2.0 tools will grow 43 percent yearly over the next five years to $4.6 billion by 2013 (Weekes, 2008). This explosive growth supports the theory that organizations should find ways to use these tools for knowledge management. By incorporating these tools into an organization’s knowledge management and e-learning practices, peer-to-peer collaboration and knowledge sharing will be fostered. What adult learners need The andragogical model posed by Malcolm Knowles says that adult learners are self-directed, bring their own experiences to learning, their readiness to learn is when there is a need to know, and their orientation to learn is life-centered (Knowles et al., 2005). The self-concept of the adult learner is a sense of being responsible for his or her own learning. Knowledge management and social networking support this by allowing adult learners to have a say in what they share and what they seek out. They are active in their own learning by participating in collaborative sites that allow them to share information they deem important and worthy of their attention. Adult learners bring their own experiences to the learning environment and provide a rich, valuable resource for learning. Social networking taps into these individuals’ experiences and knowledge management allows them to be shared and serve as a resource for others, often in an e-learning environment. Adult learners are ready to learn when there is a “need to know” in order to cope with a particular situation, or perform a certain task. e-learning provides valuable access and opportunity for this “just in time” training. With the use of knowledge management repositories and social networking sites, learners are able to tap into this information any time they have access to a computer, to solve just in time problems without waiting for formal training modules. For adult learners, the orientation to learn is life-centered. They learn best when the context of the knowledge presented is in real-world situations. Social networking sites
share real life knowledge and experiences, which can be incorporated into e-learning to create real-world case studies and examples to support concepts being taught. Tying knowledge management and e-learning Information becomes knowledge when it is put into context for an individual (Denning, 2000). The challenge an organization faces is taking the vast amounts of information (“information overload”) and turning it into useful knowledge. Knowledge management collects, sorts, and shares information in a way that it transforms it into knowledge. Shared information can become knowledge via e-learning. E-learning takes the knowledge and makes it practical and relevant by applying it to an employee’s actual situation. As communities of practice are established through knowledge management activities, they help identify the learning needs and resources of a specific group, provide subject matter content and evaluate training (Efimova and Swaak, 2003). This data can be used for the needs assessment process for e-learning course design. As knowledge is collected and tracked, data reveals common questions, issues, and gaps in knowledge, which can support the need for more structured formal learning. Since knowledge management helps to manage content, e-learning professionals can focus on the design of courses that distributes the knowledge throughout the organization (Brandon Hall, 2001). When new training is needed, instructional designers can refer to the information gathered through knowledge management and the subject matter experts to create learning modules. It also allows revision and reuse of the learning objects gathered through the knowledge management process, thus reducing work duplication, and course development time. The 2009 Horizon Report tracks that learning and knowledge, and observes that it is crossing geographical borders because of the increase in outsourcing and globalization and the ability of learners and teachers to connect through online collaborative workspaces and social networking (Johnson et al., 2009). For knowledge management and e-learning, this means that although employees are physically separated, they can still work and learn together. Valuable knowledge is not lost because of distance. Work teams are no longer bound to the same physical area. Team members in Asia and Canada can collaborate on projects in real time. The idea of collective intelligence is leading grassroots movements to share knowledge. Jcwinne (2007) quotes Tadeusz Szuba, who defines collective intelligence as “a specific property of a social structure, initialized when individuals organize, acquiring the ability to solve more complex problems than individuals can” (section “What is collective intelligence”, paragraph 1). Adult learners are self-directed and want to be active in their own learning. Through knowledge management and e-learning, the creator of the knowledge is not static, but ever changing. It is not necessarily the subject matter expert, or degreed teachers; the knowledge and experiences is shared with colleagues, turning anyone with the right skill set and knowledge into the “teacher”. Collecting knowledge is one thing, sharing it in a meaningful manner is another. “Knowledge must spread quickly and efficiently through the organization. Ideas carry maximum impact when they are shared broadly rather than held in a few heads” (Garvin, 1998, p. 66). E-learning is a way to disseminate the knowledge. E-learning takes the collected knowledge and structures it to focus on a topic or issue relevant to the business goals. This helps move the knowledge to the right people at the right time
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in a project. An online community tied to an e-learning course provides an optimal place for learners to share information and benefits of the new knowledge, pushing the right knowledge to the right people. Tying knowledge management with e-learning personalizes an online course, allowing the creation of course modules using tested knowledge from real people. Creating e-learning courses and modules require time and resources, and generally require that there is a pre-determined need for the knowledge or skill set. What about the employee faced with a situation not covered by an existing e-learning module? Using collective intelligence and collaborative learning through mediums such as social networking allows the flow of information, and proves it applicable in real world situations. Once validity is proven, it may be developed into an e-learning module. Studies of knowledge management and e-learning show they have the same basic goals – to facilitate organizational learning (Sammour et al., 2008) and enhance human knowledge and its use in an organization (Brandon Hall, 2001). They have common features and characteristics such as flexibility, collaboration, and adaptability for the user. They both prove that they are beneficial for integrating in training. The information a company is collecting through Knowledge Management practices is the same information they may need for future training and to support their business goals and objectives. Using social networking to integrate knowledge management and e-learning The movement to tie social networking tools to the workplace is growing. The trend in telecommuting and virtual offices has separated employees and reduced opportunities for informal face-to-face knowledge sharing. This challenge means that companies must find ways for employees to share knowledge and link the tools to existing learning programs. Social networking tools can bring workers together to share, and capture the knowledge transfers. Benefits “[N]early every learning industry analyst and leader agrees that integrating social learning into formal learning strategies represents a major change in the way organizations have typically trained and developed talent” (Wilkins, 2009, p. 1). Wilkins emphasizes that social learning cannot, and will not replace formal e-learning. There still needs to be structured learning to deliver content, measure performance, and track compliance. However, social media can be used to collect knowledge and information to incorporate into formal e-learning. Social networking could be an excellent tool for employee orientations and on-boarding programs. Most organizations typically offer a standard orientation that focuses on all employees, leaving new employees of large organizations at odds when it comes to division specific information. Division management could create wiki or blog threads on their specific division that is specifically geared to assisting new employees and their on boarding, and the new employees would have critical components and designs that can influence the career success in the workplace. The goal would be to provide continued support for new employees that can be customized to meet the developmental needs of specific groups within that organization. Social networking is happening in many organizations across the globe. “Employees already build learning into their days in unstructured, informal
exchanges with colleagues” (Kapp, 2006, p. 1). Social networking might include collaboration on a project, promoting growth in an employee’s knowledge base. Kapp (2006) also points out that e-learning and other formal training efforts are in competition with the knowledge shared by employees. Knowledge management monitors and incorporates shared knowledge throughout an organization to ensure that training is properly shared and valued with the right people. Social networking allows users to find experts for just-in-time assistance at the touch of a button. Impromptu support groups based on certain issues or technology problems and concerns can also form and assist members with instantaneous problem solving (Stone, 2009). “Properly stimulated, knowledge and intellect grow exponentially when shared” (Quinn et al., 1998, p. 193). When two people share ideas, each one benefits, and when they each share it with two more, the benefits grow exponentially. Social networking allows knowledge management and e-learning to pass knowledge along at this exponential rate. Barriers Certainly there are barriers to knowledge sharing, with one of those being the lack of a relationship between the source and the recipient (O’Dell and Grayson, 1998). Social networking technology allows people to connect on topics, subjects, and issues they have in common. Even employees separated by location can connect and build virtual relationships so knowledge sharing can occur. A challenge of e-learning is the application of the new knowledge. For learning to be effective, it should be blended with high quality social interactions (Brandon Hall, 2001). An organization can use social tools to collect knowledge that supports formal learning. Using blogs in an e-learning course allows users to share best practices and experiences, build case studies for future e-learning courses, or to share information outside the formal learning process. Providing structured social networking for learners after an e-learning course, or online module that supports face-to-face training allows an organization to capture the valuable information shared by the course participants during post-course dialogue. It benefits the organization to develop a process to capture and disseminate the informal learning that occurs through online social networking. If it is not captured, the organization looses out, as it cannot ensure that the shared knowledge is accurate and appropriate for the business, and employees will not recognize the value of the knowledge they have. Tools and applications to collect and share knowledge “Nearly every social networking tool that has gained popularity in the past 12-18 months has been appropriated for educational use in some form” (Johnson et al., 2009, p. 19). Companies should consider including the following in their training and development: . Blogs (“web logs”) are web sites maintained by one individual/user with regular postings of ideas, opinions, or news. Anyone with access to the site can view the entry and comments. Technorati.com reports tracking 1.2 million bloggers in December 2008 (Technorati, 2008) with 900,000 blog posts in 24-hour period. Blogs are a valuable tool for tying knowledge management and e-learning. Kapp (2006) supports blogs as a tool for transferring knowledge since they let other employees “see” what is inside one person’s head. An organization can set up
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employee blogs by department, topic, project, or issue. Blog content can be mined so the information can be shared with others and reused as e-learning content. Wikis are similar to blogs, but allow multiple users to contribute to the content on the web site. It is a collaborative knowledge-sharing tool, and the content can be easily and quickly updated, making it applicable to “just in time” learning. Wikis allow the learner to be active in knowledge sharing, while allowing “just in time” ways to apply and share knowledge with multiple people working on a collective project or e-learning course activity. Twitter is a social networking micro-blogging site that allows learners to “follow” others brief messages. For knowledge management and e-learning, Twitter allows a person to ask a question of co-workers. By following the communication thread, other users are able to see answers and solutions. An organization can collect all the “tweets” (messages) in a database to sort, categorize, and share. An employee can use Twitter to follow a mentor, connect to experts, test new ideas, and maintain discussions after an e-learning course. Facebook, MySpace, and Ning are examples of social networking sites that connect people with common interests or relationships. Users can create and search profiles, build networks, and share information. For an organization, they offer the ability to create profiles of employees to identify subject matter experts, experiences, and working relationships. Instructional designers can locate subject matter experts for course development; those seeking mentors can search profiles; and employees can look up other staff with similar experiences to brainstorm problems and solutions. Instant messaging (IM) is a real-time communication that connects two or more people online or by mobile phone, for text-based communication. Valuable knowledge is shared as people share experiences, work through problems, or discuss current projects. Since IM is text based, it is easily captured and shared, for repurposing in e-learning content. An IM conversation about a problem could be captured and then re-used in a company blog sharing a final solution, and the process used to arrive at the solution can be captured and incorporated into a formal e-learning module.
Conclusion Organizations are incorporating Web 2.0 Social Networking tools into their Knowledge Management practices and e-learning activities. Others can learn from their examples. T. Rowe Price Group investment management firm uses a wiki-based collaborative knowledge management tool. The knowledge it captures from staff can be shared quickly through the organization. They use wiki sites, blogs, and other social networking tools to allow people to collaborate and create value for the company. Sun Microsystem’s new collaborative learning environment includes wiki-driven capabilities in conjunction with their learning management system (LMS). It allows staff to create and upload content to publish to other employees. They know that learning happens informally among staff they provide the tools so people can share in a learning mode. Ohio State University’s knowledge management system OSU:pro supports their e-Learning programs since faculty can identify others to collaborate with and share best practices and lessons learned. In addition the raw data collected by scholars can be
incorporated into information and knowledge. If the university has an inventory of its knowledge assets, it should be able to create e-learning and other programs faster. DirecTV’s new desktop learning strategy uses their newly revamped Knowledge Management system and created a dynamic on-demand online learning and performance support tool with estimated savings up to $900,000 annually. Shell Exploration & Production’s e-learning is integrated with and complemented by components of its knowledge management such as a web-based expertise dictionary, knowledge sharing forums, and centers of excellence. (Brandon Hall, 2001) Future technology will continue to help knowledge management to support e-learning and help an organization collect, sort, and share the internal knowledge it has. The 2009 Horizon Report flags semantic-aware applications as a current new technology with education specific applications in four to five years out (Johnson et al., 2009). This technology makes it simpler to identify the context in which data is contained, which leads to new ways to locate and combine content. One social networking site, Twine.com, is already using this technology. As a user builds a profile, shares information and collects content, Twine makes connections and recommendations specific to the user. The more a user adds, the more Twine “learns” about the user and pushes the right information to him or her. For knowledge management and e-learning, sites like Twine allow employees and organizations to better collect, sort, and manage the knowledge shared among users and to collect content that can be used for e-learning courses. Using Web 2.0 social networking tools, knowledge management and e-learning can become very effective training and knowledge sharing vehicles for an organization. Integrating knowledge management and e-learning is a change that transforms the way an organization and its employees view “learning”. Knowledge management gets at the knowledge that is in an employee’s head, and social networking tools are a way to collect it. eLearning then takes this information in one person’s head and turns it into knowledge other can use. References Allen, E. and Seaman, J. (2008), “Staying the course: online education in the United States, 2008”, The Sloan Consortium, November, available at: www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/ staying_the_course.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Boyd, D.M. and Ellison, N.B. (2007), “Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 13 No. 1, available at: http://jcmc. indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html (accessed June 5, 2009). Brandon Hall (2001), “Learning management and knowledge management: is the Holy Grail of integration close at hand?”, Brandon-Hall.com, available at: www.providersedge.com/ docs/km_articles/Learning_Management_and_KM_Integration.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Denning, S. (2000), “Understand knowledge and knowledge management”, available at: www. stevedenning.com/knowledge_management.htm (accessed June 5, 2009). Efimova, L. and Swaak, J. (2003), “Converging knowledge management, training and e-Learning: scenarios to make it work”, Journal of Universal Computer Science, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 571-8, available at: www.jucs.org/jucs_9_6/converging_knowledge_management_training/ Efimova_L.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Garvin, D. (1998), “Building a better learning organization”, Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, pp. 47-80.
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Jcwinne (2007), “Collective intelligence”, available at: http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p¼188 (accessed June 5, 2009). Johnson, L., Levine, A. and Smith, R. (2009), The 2009 Horizon Report, The New Media Consortium, Austin, TX, available at: www.nmc.org/pdf/2009-Horizon-Report.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Kapp, K. (2006), “Embracing informal learning: understanding the tools of informal learning and their impact on organizations”, Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University, available at: www.karlkapp.com/materials/informal%20learning.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Knowles, M.S., Holton, E.F. III and Swanson, R.A. (2005), The Adult Learner, 6th ed., Elsevier, Burlington, MA. Krynin, J. (1997), “What is Web 2.0? Getting beyond the hype of Web 2.0”, available at: http:// webdesign.about.com/od/web20/a/aa021306.htm (accessed June 5, 2009). O’Dell, C. and Grayson, C. Jr (1998), If Only We Knew what We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice, Free Press, New York, NY. Quinn, J., Anderson, P. and Finklestein, S. (1998), “Managing professional intellect – making the most of the best”, Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, pp. 181-205. Reynard, R. (2008), “Social networking: learning theory in action”, THE Journal, May 21, available at: www.thejournal.com/articles/22646 (accessed June 5, 2009). Sammour, G., Schreurs, J., Zoubi, A. and Vanhoof, K. (2008), “Knowledge management and e-learning in professional development”, International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, Vol. 4 No. 5, pp. 465-77, available at: http://doclib.uhasselt.be/dspace/bitstream/1942/8993/ 1/WSKS-08-90-Sammour.pdf (accessed June 5, 2009). Stone, T. (2009), “Blending Web 2.0 technologies with traditional formal learning: a guide for CLOs and training managers”, available at: www.elementk.com/documentView. asp?docid¼159 (accessed June 5, 2009). Technorati (2008), “State of the blogosphere/2008”, Technorati, available at: http://technorati. com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/ (accessed June 5, 2009). Warne, L., Ali, R., Pascoe, C. and Agostion, K. (2001), “A holistic approach to knowledge management and social learning: lessons learnt from military headquarters”, December, available at: http://dl.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/220 (accessed June 5, 2009). Weekes, S. (2008), “Social networking: e-learning on the social”, PersonnelToday.com, November 18, available at: www.personneltoday.com/articles/2008/11/18/48393/social-networking-elearning-on-the-social.html (accessed June 5, 2009). Wilkins, D. (2009), “Learning 2.0 and workplace communities”, Learning Circuits, ASTD, available at: www.astd.org/LC/2009/0209_wilkins.htm (accessed June 5, 2009). Corresponding author Zane L. Berge can be contacted at:
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