The document discusses and classifies various knowledge management tools. It describes tools for knowledge generation, codification, and transfer. Some tools enhance knowledge creation, while others enable knowledge sharing and application. Tools include blogs, wikis, content management systems, data mining, and intelligent filtering. Proper tool selection depends on the organization's business strategy and knowledge management needs.

1. Knowledge
Management Tools
Kimiz Dalkir

2.  Many dimensions are involved in describing knowledge
management tools .
 Ruggles (1997) provides a classification of KM technologies as
tools that :
 Enhance and enable knowledge generation, codification, and
transfer.
 Generate knowledge
 Code knowledge to make knowledge available for others.
 Transfer knowledge to decrease problems with time and
space when communicating in an organization.
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3.  Rollet (2003) classifies KM technologies according to the
following scheme:
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Communication
Collaboration
Content creation
Content management
Adaptation
E-learning
Personal tools
Artificial intelligence
Networking

4.  Rollet’s (2003) categories can also be grouped according to
the particular phase of the KM cycle in which they are used .
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5.  The initial knowledge capture and creation phase does not
make extensive use of technologies. A wide range of diverse
KM technologies may be used to support knowledge sharing
and dissemination as well as knowledge acquisition and
application.
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6. 5
Knowledge
capture and
creation tools
• Content creation tools
• Data mining and knowledge discovery
• Blogs
• Content management tools
Knowledge sharing
and dissemination
tools
• Groupware and collaboration tools
• Wikis
• Networking technologies
Knowledge
acquisition and
application tools
• Intelligent filtering tools
• Adaptive technologies

8.  Many tools and techniques are borrowed from other
disciplines, and others are specific to KM. All of them need to
be mixed and matched in the appropriate manner in order to
address all the needs of the KM discipline, and the choice of
tools to be included in the KM toolkit must be consistent with
the organization’s overall business strategy .
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9. Content Creation Tools
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
Blogs
Content Management Tools
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10. Content creation tools
Robertson (2003) predicts that content management systems
(CMS) will become a “commodity” in the future. Many content
management system projects fail owing to a lack of good
implementation standards and a lack of an understanding of
usability issues. These failures provide a valuable source of
learning.
Authoring tools, the most commonly used content creation tools,
range from the general (e.g., word processing) to the more
specialized (e.g., web page design software). Annotation
technologies enable short comments to be attached to specific
sections of a text document, often by a number of different
authors (e.g., by making used of the track changes feature in
Word).

11.  The data mining and knowledge discovery processes
automatically extract predictive information from large
databases based on statistical analysis.
 Typical applications of data mining and knowledge discovery
systems include market segmentation, customer profiling,
fraud detection, evaluation of retail promotions, credit risk
analysis, and market basket analysis .
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12.  Data mining tools that are currently in use include:
Statistical analysis tools (e.g., SAS).
Data mining suites (e.g., EnterpriseMiner).
Consulting/outsourcing tools such as EDS, IBM, and Epsilon.
Data visualization software that coherently presents a large
amount of information in a small space.
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13.  It is also possible to apply this technique and use these tools
to mine content other than data namely, text mining and
thematic analysis and web mining to look at what content,
how often, for how long (e.g., number of hits), which is very
helpful in content management.
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14.  A Blog is a very simple 'journal style' website that contains a
list of entries. The entries are typically short articles or
stories, often relating to current events.
 At present, the majority of blogs are published exclusively in
text. The next generation of blogs, however, will implement
audio and video elements, bringing a sophisticated
multimedia blend to the medium .
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15.  Content management refers to the management of valuable
content throughout the useful lifespan of the content.
Content lifespan will typically begin with content creation,
handle multiple changes and updates, merging,
summarization, and other repackaging, and will typically
end with archiving.
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16.  XML is increasingly being used to tag knowledge content,
and taxonomies serve to better organize and classify
content for easier future retrieval and use.
 XML (extensible Markup Language) gives you the ability to
structure and add relevance to chunks of information and in
theory to exchange data more easily between applications
(e.g., with your suppliers, customers, and partners) .
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18. Groupware and Collaboration Tools
Wikis
Networking Technologies
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19.  Although Rollet made a distinction between communication technologies
(such as telephone and e-mail) and collaboration technologies (such as
workflow management), it is very difficult to draw a line between the two.
Communication and collaboration are invariably intertwined, and it is
quite difficult to establish where one ends and the other begins.
 Both types of tools have been grouped under the category of groupware
or collaboration tools. Although all organizational members will make use
of communication and collaboration, including project teams and work
units, communities of practice will be particularly active in making use of
many, if not all, of the communication and collaboration technologies
described in this section.
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20.  Groupware represents a class of software that helps groups of colleagues
(workgroups) attached to a communication network (e.g., Local Area
Networks [LANs]) to organize their activities. Typically, groupware
supports the following operations:
 Scheduling meetings and allocating resources
 E-mail
 Password protection for documents
 Telephone utilities
 Electronic newsletters
 File distribution
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21. The most commonly used communication technologies include the
telephone, fax, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, chat rooms, instant
messaging, phone text messaging (SMS), Internet telephone (voice over
IP or VOIP), e-mail, and discussion forums.
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22.  Groupware technologies are typically categorized along two primary
dimensions (see Table 8-2):
 Whether users of the groupware are working together at the same time
or different times
 Whether users are working together in the same place or in different
places
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23.  Coleman (1997) developed a taxonomy of groupware that lists 12 different
categories:
1. Electronic mail and messaging
2. Group calendaring and scheduling
3. Electronic meeting systems
4. Desktop video, real-time synchronous conferencing
5. Non-real-time asynchronous conferencing
6. Group document handling
7. Workflow
8. Workgroup utilities and development tools
9. Groupware services
10. Groupware and KM frameworks
11. Groupware applications
12. Collaborative Internet-based applications and products
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24.  Wikis are web-based software that supports concepts such as open
editing, which allows multiple users to create and edit content on a
website . A wiki site grows and changes at the will of the participants.
People can add and edit pages at will, using a Word-like screen, without
knowing any programming or HTML commands .
 An example of a wiki is Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written, literally, by
thousands of people around the world. Wikis exist for thousands of topics,
and if one does not exist for your favorite subject, you can start one on it
and add it to the list.
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25.  Networking technologies consist of intranets (intraorganizational
network), extranets (interorganizational network), knowledge repositories,
knowledge portals, and web-based shared workspaces.
 Liebowitz and Beckman (1998) define knowledge repositories as an online
computer-based storehouse of expertise, knowledge, experiences, and
documentation about a particular domain of expertise. In creating a
knowledge repository, knowledge is collected, summarized, and integrated
across sources.
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26.  Davenport and Prusak (1998) describe three types of knowledge
repositories:
 External knowledge repositories (such as competitive intelligence).
 Structured internal knowledge repositories (such as research reports and
product-oriented market material).
 Informal internal knowledge repositories (such as “lessons learned”).
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 Intelligent Filtering Tools
 Adaptive Technologies

28.  Intelligent Agents can generally be defined as software programs that
assist their user and act on his or her behalf: a computer program that
helps you in newsgathering, acts autonomously and on its own initiative,
has intelligence and can learn, improving its performance in executing its
tasks.
These agents are autonomous computer programs, where their environment
dynamically affects their behavior and strategy for problem solving .
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29.  The following features define a true Intelligent Agent (Khoo, Tor, and Lee,
1998):
1. Autonomy: the ability to do most of their tasks without any direct
assistance from an outside source, which includes human and other agents,
while controlling their own actions and states.
2. Social Ability: the ability to interact with, when they deem appropriate,
other software agents and humans.
3. Responsiveness: the ability to respond in a timely fashion to perceived
changes in the environment, including changes in the physical world, other
agents, or the Internet.
4. Personalizability: the ability to adapt to its user’s needs, by learning from
how the user reacts to the agent’s performance.
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30. 5. Proactivity: the ability of an agent to take initiatives by itself, autonomously
(out of a specific instruction by its user) and spontaneously, often on a
periodical basis, which makes the agent a very helpful and time-saving tool.
6. Adaptivity: the capacity to change and improve according to the
experiences accumulated.
7. Cooperation: the interactivity between agent and user, which is
fundamentally different from the one-way working of ordinary software.
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 Adaptive technologies are used to better target content to a specific
knowledge worker or to a specific group of knowledge workers who
share common work needs .

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 Adaptive technologies are used to better target content to a specific
knowledge worker or to a specific group of knowledge workers who
share common work needs .
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF KM
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Tools and techniques are a means and not an end in themselves. First, the
business objectives must be clearly identified, and then a consensus must be
reached on priority application areas to be addressed.