Claire R. McInerney

Knowledge management and the dynamic nature of knowledge

Knowledge management (KM) or knowledge sharing in organizations is based on an understanding of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. In implementation, KM is an effort to benefit from the knowledge that resides in an organization by using it to achieve the organizations mission. The transfer of tacit or implicit knowledge to explicit and accessible formats, the goal of many KM projects, is challenging, controversial, and endowed with ongoing management issues. This article argues that effective knowledge management in many disciplinary contexts must be based on understanding the dynamic nature of knowledge itself. The article critiques some current thinking in the KM literature and concludes with a view towards knowledge management programs built around knowledge as a dynamic process.

The Flow of Scientific Knowledge from Lab to the Lay Public: The Case of Genetically Modified Food

This article reports on a study of how scientific knowledge about genetically modified (GM) food flows to the American public, focusing on language and message genres in the scientific literature, newspapers, and popular magazines. A comprehensive search of these literatures from 1992 to 2002 revealed a publishing pattern of scientific communication that contrasted with that found in the lay press. Examination of this difference led researchers to a scientific study on the effect of GM corn pollen on the Monarch butterfly. The case study of the discourse surrounding this event demonstrates how press releases affect what is published in the popular press. The role of this event in generating subtle repercussions in the perceptions of U.S. consumers, similar to the ripple effects found in Kasperson’s social amplification of risk theory, is analyzed and reported.

Trust and Knowledge Sharing in Organizations

This paper explores elements of a favorable environment or climate for knowledge Management (KM) based primarily on collaboration and trust. It focuses on knowledge sharing aspects of knowledge management practices, and it demonstrates why there must be a climate of trust before organizational activity can support knowledge sharing. Trust is explored from the standpoint of ethical practices and the desire to create a learning organization. Evidence from the qualitative data resulting from a study of knowledge management in large organizations in New Jersey is used to support the arguments made in the first part of the paper.

The Use of Knowledge Management in Healthcare: The Implementation of Shared Care Plans in Electronic Medical Record Systems at One Primary Care Practice

A transformation in the way in which primary care is delivered is underway in the US. Across the country primary care practices are grappling with how to change from the traditional physician-directed model to a more patient-centred collaborative style as part of the effort to curb the rise of chronic disease. To date, few tools or techniques exist to help the individual primary care provider make this difficult and complex transformation. One such tool that has arisen is the shared care plan (SCP). As defined in the Taking Action for Learning and Knowledge Management to improve Diabetes Mellitus (TALK/DM) study (a NIDDK funded pilot project to implement SCPs in primary care), the SCP of primary care becomes the product of collaboration between the practice and the patients. The SCP is created by combining knowledge management (KM) techniques and motivational interviewing (MI) health counselling methods to form a new knowledge object. This paper focuses on this aspect of the TALK/DM study and takes a case study approach to explore how one primary care practice is implementing the SCP as knowledge object (both a paper document and an electronic record in the EMR system) in its organisation. This study adds nuance and insight into how knowledge objects such as the SCP can serve as a tool for collaboration in primary care.

Knowledge management and organizational climate. Sponsored by SIG KM

Knowledge management (KM), or the sharing of knowledge in an organization, is frequently described as a process that captures tacit knowledge and makes it explicit. However, the matter of human values in KM has often been ignored or forgotten in the knowledge management literature. The papers presented by this panel emphasize the importance of human values, trust, and emotion in establishing a climate for KM in the workplace. The speakers, from education and industry, present lessons learned from research and knowledge gained from practical experience in the field.

Quantifying quality: Evolution of an instrument to assess website quality

The development of accurate, reliable instruments to judge the quality of intellectual works requires an understanding of genre, audience, communication, information organization, and design. In the case of Websites it can be useful to have an instrument to help determine the quality of a Website for any number of reasons: 1) Websites are now reviewed in order to be linked to an organizations own Website, and an assessment instrument can serve as a reviewing tool. 2) Librarians “collect” and catalog Websites as they do other materials, and they need quality standards. 3) Students and others need learning tools so that they can understand how to judge Websites to aid in assessing online information. 4) Novice web developers can use quality touchstones in order to create usable Websites. The presenters of this session have developed a Website evaluation tool that has evolved from a qualitative instrument to a quantitative one. They will show how the instrument developed and how it is used today.

Social capital 2.0: New ICTs and new social forms

In this panel we investigate the relation between social capital and methods of populist, post-coordinate knowledge management which has popularly been termed “Web 2.0” or “Library 2.0.” We include in this examination the management of persons and groups, as matrixes and agents of knowledge, and we center our examination upon the ways that documentary forms and social organization can give rise to social capital as embodied by producers and their expressions rather than occurring as the result of the managerial “precoordination” of personnel and documents. In the historical and social shifts from a managerial to a user or worker perspective, we may note, as well, a possible change in the notion of “information” from that of the supposed effect of documentary forms to social networks and their expressive productions, that is, a shift from a documentary to a post-documentary notion of “information” and a shift from a “managerial” to a “post-managerial” notion of organizational culture. Such shifts may require us to shift our foci and methods, as well, from an epistemology and a practice that emphasizes “content” and content management to that of social constructivism and viewing “content” as the expressive product of cultural forms, social situations, and personal interactions (and with this, a need for greater ethnographic, philosophical, “critical,” aesthetic, and historical methods of research).

Designing digital information technologies for children. Sponsored by SIG USE, DL

Developing digital information technologies appropriate for children can be challenging, particularly since young people have their own interests, abilities, curiosities, and information needs that can be continually changing. Young people are not “just short adults” but an entirely different user population with their own culture, norms and complexities. With the emergence of children as important consumers of digital information, their role in the design of new technologies has been maximized. The speakers will explore national and international digital libraries that have been designed for children using innovative applications of technologies. In addition, they will discuss challenges and issues in designing digital information for young people.