KM

Using questions in knowledge work

storytelling — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:32:03 -0600

KM professionals and facilitators need to understand and appreciate the role and power of questions in knowledge work. Further, we need to be able to apply questions in order to create and discover knowledge. There are some compelling reasons for this including:

Questions are strong attractors in the chaos of ideas, they gather, focus, attract and energize the conversation.
Only? questions have the power to beak our current midsets, they set in motion the deep relection needed to alter our beliefs.
It is the place and the space 'between not knowing and our desire to know' where we are most attentive, self-aware and alive. Questions hold the key to this special area.
Compelling and quality questions drive knowledge creation and expansion in a fundamental way. Knowledge emerges around good questions.
Questions energize and glue our conversation, draw people into the circle to participate and gather diverse opinions.
Questions keep the conversation moving forward, awaken dormant discourse and may be used to guide the subject back on course.

(from Verna Allee)

Questions of clarification

After some material exists in a conversation or dialogue, a questioner may seek to understand the others "frame of reference." Further (according to Hayakawa), the questioner "seeks to avoid. All implications of skepticism or challenge or hostility." The questioner often restates in his or her words what they think they heard and ask the original speaker to confirm that account. There are other more specific question of clarification that may lead from an agreement that the two now have a shared frame of reference.

Purpose questions

Why do we do this? Why did you say that? The motivation or cause is sought.

Prompting questions

"Prompt the interviewee and keep the conversation on track with such questions as, `What do you do first?' `Then what?' and so on, until you come to, "What do you do last?'

Attitude questions

How do you feel about what happened? What way do you see the world? Does that look good to you? What are your preferences in this matter?

Commitment questions

Who's with me on this? Can I count on you? The questions of accountability and responsibility are here. Will you be accountable? Will you share responsibility?

Affirming questions

Was that as good for you as it was for me? Wasn't that fun? Isn't this very good?

Questions of uniqueness or Example questions

Can you give me an illustration of that? Some more concrete way of describing it? Instances, cases, and models are sought here. Hayakawa cites Irving Lee for this category in which you might find questions such as, "Exactly what kind of synthetic plastic did you use in making that product?" Hayakawa says that such questions "are designed to prevent the functional deafness which we induce in ourselves by reacting to speakers and speeches in terms of the generalizations that we apply to them." They ask for the "particular characteristics"

Disagreeing Questions or Questions of Protest

The listener or reader sees the situation another way and asks a question to discern whether the other is aware of another viewpoint. They are often phrased with a negative, "Are there not other ways of looking at this problem?" "Have you dismissed the framework suggested by the previous speaker?" the person seeks clarification but also wishes to announce at the least their disagreement and in some cases the gist of their p.o.v.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are meant not to be answered, but to provoke thought. They are as the Latin author Quintillian categorized them:

interrogatio - the question which requires no answer because it expresses a truth which cannot be denied
rogatio - the question to which we immediately supply our own answer
quaestitio - "a string of questions uttered in rapid succession for emotional emphasis"
percontatio - "an enquiry addressed to another in a tone of amazement in which it is hard for the other person to figure out how to reply"

Hypothetical

"The use of `would' in a question makes it hypothetical, a possibility for the audience to consider. Here are some examples of hypothetical questions: "What would you do if we had an earthquake right now?" and "How would you handle it if you discovered one of your employees abusing drugs?" Such questions lead the trainer into explaining how the forthcoming training session will provide answers."

Polling

"Polling questions often begin, `How many of you...?' Some examples: `How many of you give good instructions?' and `How many of you have performed CPR?' "

Review questions

These are questions that challenge others to tell what their intake was after some session, class, conversation, or instruction. For example, what do you/we now mean by a CoP?

Summarizing questions

Is there anything that we didn't get to? What did you like best? What is your opinion of this subject now?

Questions, the route to inquiry?

Think of some sets of questions that explore: 1) What you would like to know? 2) Something you would like to say? 3) Can you be of assistance? 4) Going on a journey of discovery? 5) Imagine the possibilities?

KM for Conflict & Change Management

A New Framework for Examining Knowledge Management Adoption for Participatory Networks

storytelling — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:32:29 -0600

A New Framework for Examining Knowledge Management Adoption for Participatory Networks: Crossing All Four Levels of the Digital Divide

Author: Todd Marshall (Syracuse University)

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to further discussion of the adoption of Participatory Networks as knowledge management systems. The method is conceptual and practical as opposed to empirical. Participatory Networks are selected as an example of a knowledge management system for two reasons: the venue for this paper is KMAfrica, “a continental Participatory Network,” and Participatory Networks are the primary topic of the author’s doctoral research. The author’s definition of a Participatory Network is beyond the scope of this paper, but a brief definition and description are given. The perspective is that a concrete definition of a Participatory Network will provide a context for the examples and provide a baseline for defining Participatory Network as a type of knowledge management system. This will be accomplished by first discussing and defining Participatory Networks. Next, it will trace the development of the Technology Adoption Model (TAM). A description follows this framework, which the author believes moves beyond TAM by incorporating discussions related to adoption in the context of the digital divide, including benefits and potential advantages of this framework. Finally, some practical observations based on the author’s personal experience deploying Participatory Networks are shared.

Participatory Network as a Knowledge Management System

What is a “Participatory Network?” The term “Participatory Network” has been used in many contexts with or without a technological component. Contexts include: democratic movements (Lord & Beetham, 2001; Rakpong, 2004; Shade, 1999), policy (Von Bernstorff, 2003), changing methods of production (Bauwens, 2005; Fonseca, 2004; Uricchio, 2004), libraries (Lankes, Silverstein, Nicholson, & Marshall, 2007), collaborative research networks (Daly, Jogerst, & Schmuch, 2007; Sæther, 2007), and education (Laverack & Dap, 2003; Miles, 1999). A full conceptual exposition of Participatory Networks is beyond the scope of this paper. However, because the literature lacks a clear definition, the author proposes the following definition: “A Participatory Network is an interconnected set of cognizing agents where every member has the potential to converse with other members in a technologically intermediated environment resulting in an entailment mesh to address problems in a given context.” This definition is based on Conversation Theory as developed by Gordon Pask (Pask, 1973, 1975a, 1975b, 1976a, 1976b). At its heart, Conversation Theory is an epistemology about how knowledge is constructed through cyclical and iterative conversations (Pask, 1976a). Conversation and conversing in this context are not simply metaphors and, as Luppicini points out, should not be confused with interaction or communication (Luppicini, 2008). Conversation theory provides two basic frameworks, “a structure for the architecture of conversations” and “a schema for modeling the evolution of conversations” (Pangaro, 2008, p. 36). The definition in simpler terms contains the following elements, 1) a bounded set of individuals (members), 2) a social network, 3) potential to converse (in Pask’s sense of conversation), 4) technical intermediation, 5) an artifact preserving the conversation (entailment mesh as per conversation theory), 6) problems, and 7) a context. Examples of group collaboration and sharing of knowledge could include wikis, social media sites, asynchronous learning networks, group support systems, groupware, and many others.

Information Systems and Adoption and Usage

Knowledge Management Systems are created to be accepted, adopted, and used. However, not all systems are equally adopted or used. Information Systems as a discipline has invested a great deal of effort in attempting to explain the factors that lead to usage and success. Unfortunately, there is no commonly accepted definition of “successful” adoption or usage. A primary weakness in this approach has been a lack of clarity in conceptualizing usage and adoption which has obfuscated research (Johansson & Mollstedt, 2003; Karahanna, Straub, & Chervany, 1999). In this paper, “usage” will be used in the generic sense, a system that is being used, not just initial usage or “adoption,” but to the full spectrum from pre-adoption through post-adoption (Karahanna et al., 1999).

One popular stream of thought in Information Systems concerning adoption is identified by its most popular manifestation, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). It began with the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1973) and developed into the Theory of Reasoned Behavior (TRB) (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989). While these are not identical, they all center on the ideas that “perceived ease of use” and “perceived usefulness” affect “behavioral intention” resulting in usage. As Wixom and Todd (2005) point out, the focus is on the user’s beliefs and attitudes toward an act leading ultimately to the behavior itself. Despite the longevity of the underlying presuppositions, it is not without its critics and identified weaknesses (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). While empirical tests of TAM have demonstrated significant results, it has been seen as incomplete and faced constant revisions leading to TAM2 (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000) and eventually TAM3 (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008). At each turn more external factors were identified. TAM2 added “social influence processes (subjective norm, voluntariness, and image) and cognitive instrumental processes (job relevance, output quality, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use)” (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000, p. 187). TAM3 added more factors (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008).

One of the more recent variants is the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003). It added three factors affecting “behavioral intention” (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence) and one factor affecting “use behavior” (facilitating conditions). Then, there are the factors which affect the influence of all the factors above (facilitating conditions, gender, age, experience, and voluntariness of use (Venkatesh et al., 2003). While this moves in the right direction, it seems almost like an “everything affects everything” model without much logical or chronological sense. Despite statistical correlation findings, one may ask “How is this really useful?” People follow their intentions and many things affect their intentions. The growing complexity of “everything before intention” seems to indicate a fundamental weakness of this basic approach of the intention based model of usage or “To the man who has a hammer, the whole world becomes a nail.” In this case, “To theories based on TRA, everything affects intention.” It would seem prudent to take a step back and look at those factors which affect intention. UTAUT purports to account for “as much as 70% of the variance in user intention,” however “future research should focus on identifying constructs that can add to the predication of intention and behavior over and above what is already known and understood” (Venkatesh et al., 2003). While this is progress, the solution may require going beyond intention all together. There are occasional insights such as those who would adapt this to look at participation using the same construct (Yoo, Suh, & Lee, 2002), but some might see this as simply replacing the labels on the boxes: “perceived usefulness” with “managing strategy,” “perceived ease of use” with “IS quality,” “intention” with “sense of community,” “attitude” with “visit,” and “usage behavior” with “participation.” Participation is certainly a broader concept than behavioral usage, and community aspects are vital, but the old frame does not have the flexibility that is necessary. Finally, one variant that incorporates social influence (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004). This model steps outside of a work/job environment by incorporating self-discovery, social enhancement, and entertainment value and begins to broaden the scope of usage to account for voluntary systems.

While these models are a step in the right direction and attempt to provide a richer picture of factors affecting acceptance, there has been a significant bias in their application. The first problem is the bias toward usage in work contexts. The chart (Table 1) adapted from Zhang reveals this bias (Zhang et al., 2002).

Table 1: Frequency of Contexts (Zhang et al., 2002)

Context

Organization/

Work place

Market

Place

Home

Social

Cultural,

National, Geographic

Other

% of Papers

81.9%

8.9%

0.6%

2.1%

1.5%

2.7%

Further bias is toward the individual user (93.8%) as opposed to the group (7.7%) (Zhang & Li, 2005). Areas needing further attention are “Cognitive Beliefs and Behavior, Emotion and Affect, and Trust” (Zhang & Li, 2005).

Second, issues such as mandatory versus voluntary usage are not addressed. Someone could perceive a system as not useful, but use it because subjective norms require usage. In fact, Venkatesh and Davis found this very disconnect in their study. “Subjective norm” had a negative correlation (-0.047, p<.001) with “perceived usefulness” but a positive correlation (0.44, p<.001) with “intention to use” (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000, p. 197).

Third, issues of access, ability, and policy which might hinder participation are not addressed by this stream. An increasing number of Participatory Networks are voluntary and outside the traditional employer/employee context. Usage may require upgrading one’s own hardware, self-training, and use may be a strictly personal choice. TAM does not address barriers to usage.

This author’s opinion is that the over emphasis on “intention” has been a limiting factor toward a better understanding of usage. Others have pointed out the value of the socio-organizational context (Avgerou, 2001). However, when attempting to factor in broader issues such as national culture, they seem to be forced into a TAM framework (Srite & Karahanna, 2006). This has continued to the development of TAM3, expanding TAM from the original 3 factors to 16 where it appears that everything affects everything (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008).

Access and the Digital Divide

In addition to the Information Systems perspective, another stream of academic research emerges from the “digital divide” discussions (Warschauer, 2002). Earlier discussion focused attention on access to broadband as well as socioeconomic and political issues. Over time, this began to include skills most commonly known as information, digital, or technical literacy. Technology and competency are the first and second level digital divides.

The original concept indicated that the primary barrier to adoption was access. Initial digital divide discussions were about whether schools had sufficient access to ICT. It was couched in terms of “haves” and “have nots.” This led to the push for increased access to the internet in public schools, universities, and libraries (Hargitai, 2002; Warschauer, 2002). The assumption was that if people had access, they would take advantage of the opportunity and adopt these new technologies. However, it has been demonstrated that access does not guarantee usage (Crump and McIlroy, 2003). Bridging the access gap still did not create adoption and integration (Crump, 2003). Possession of ICT did not guarantee adoption of ICT.

Following the “bridging” of the first level digital divide, attention shifted to information literacy skills and the educational component of adoption. Access alone was deemed insufficient (Hargittai, 2002; Waschauer, 2002). This conclusion has led to an emphasis on technical competencies and educational initiatives (Dewan and Riggins, 2005). Because of progress in bridging the first level divide over the past decade, ICT access is commonplace in schools, public libraries, and many home settings. Most of the academic work at this time is investigating competencies and education so that students will know how to take full advantage of this technology.

This is basically where the conversation stands at this point. Most studies have been weak on theory and demonstrated little explanatory power (Becker, 1999). I propose that is due to issues related to policy, culture, values, and beliefs which need to be addressed. These factors have not gone unnoticed, but neither have they been integrated into a broader framework, model, or theory (Becker, 2007; Warschauer, 2002; Mardis et al., 2008). Some have pointed out the importance of the political or environmental context (Marcovitz, 2006), but this is not yet widely accepted or identified as a third level (Korupp and Szydlik, 2005). Personal values, a fourth level, have been identified as significant to adoption (Garthwait, 2005; Warschauer, 2002). Other than an earlier paper using the conceptualization in this paper (Mardis et al., 2008), the concept of a fourth level digital divide has not yet emerged. The Behavioral Adoption Framework seeks to integrate first and second level digital divide issues with what it calls third and fourth level divides. The third level consists of cultural values including the school, government, and societal factors that affect adoption. The fourth level is the individual teacher or student’s choice to adopt based on individual, personal values.

Proposed Framework

The theories and models discussed earlier have advanced the study of usage and adoption. However, it is time to reframe the conversation and look at a new framework which accounts for a greater number of factors, but has the flexibility necessary for an increasingly complex contextual environment. In terms of the digital divide issues, this framework would represent a four level digital divide: technology, competency, cultural values, and personal values. In terms of classical Information Systems discussion, this moves past TAM approaches for explaining the dynamics of usage. The proposed framework does not assume that potential users have access or that they have the necessary knowledge, skills, or competencies necessary for adoption. In terms of the digital divide, the factors correspond to the four levels of the digital divide. It may seem obvious that access to technology is required, but it is also obvious that intention to use must precede use, as in TAM. The framework which is proposed here is represented by four factors, each of which is representative of two types of factors. This is the Behavioral Adoption Framework (BAF) which is a revision of an earlier model by the author (Marshall, 2007, 2008) and has been applied to digital library usage in schools (Mardis, Hoffman, & Marshall, 2008). Figure 3 depicts this framework in terms of relationships.

Figure 3

This framework may also be represented as a four quadrant matrix that classifies the factors (Figure 4).
Behavioral Adoption Framework as a Matrix

External

Factors

Internal

Factors

Technical Factors

Level 1

Technology

Level 2

Competency

Philosophical Factors

Level 3

Socio-Cultural

Values

Level 4

Personal

Values

It may seem obvious that access to technology is required, but it is absent from the TAM models. However, usage in terms of digital divide has focused on the lack of technology or access. In terms of the digital divide, the quadrants represent the four levels of the digital divide: access, education/training, culture/policy, and personal desire. Some authors, such as Korupp and Szydlik (2005) have tentatively identified this third level. However, the concept of a fourth level digital divide is a new idea.

Level 1 – Technology. This is the objective technological artifact and its environment. It is the connectivity, the hardware, software, and the physical setting of usage. This is where the typical issues related to the level one digital divide reside. The issues which affect usage include access to the necessary technology, including internet access, and suitability of hardware and software for the participatory environment. It is technical support and the reliability of systems. As an example, a person may desire to participate in a virtual community such as Second Life, however if they do not have broadband and a sufficiently fast computer, their technological environment prevents their usage. However, if they do have broadband and their computer has insufficient memory and continually crashes during participation, then this will affect their usage. Technology consists of the artifacts and resources necessary for adopting, including the ability to purchase that technology.

Level 2 – Competency. Even if a user has broadband and a sufficiently fast computer, they still must have the knowledge and skills necessary to operate that technology. The focus here is on factors which require the user to interact with the technology. This will vary from user to user even in a single technical environment. For example, in a single department of one company, there will be varying levels of aptitude, knowledge, and experience with a given system. Everyone may have the same technology and same connectivity, but some people are more competent than others. Since this ability varies from person to person, these factors are technical but also very personal. They may vary based on physical ability or disability, education, training, or any other HCI factor. Does the user have the competency to use the technology?

As seen in Figure 3, competency affects usability and motivation. This is based on the concept that competence and the ability to freely engage in an activity are directly related to intrinsic motivation and the self-determination model of motivation (Deci, 1975; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Deci and Ryan, 2000; Vallerand et al., 1997). Individuals who feel competent to perform a certain action (adopt technology) will derive greater pleasure, a full sense of enjoyment, and a feeling of autonomy when they perceive themselves to be competent. This increases motivation. High perceptions of competence are also indicative of higher actual competence (Deci, 1975), thereby increasing ability. As such, the factor of competency incorporates both actual competency and perceived competency.

Level 3 – Socio-Cultural Values. This is the atmosphere surrounding the user. It involves factors related to policy, values, beliefs, culture, willingness, and social influences. One can think of it as the culture in which the user must function. It could be the culture of a school, a business, a home or any other context which affects the user. The context tells the user what behavior is legal or illegal, required or voluntary, encouraged or discouraged, and so on. Whether it is a forum, e-mail, or virtual reality, there are also social norms, policies, and peer pressures which affect usage. The user may or may not choose to follow his or her cultural values but they are a significant factor which does affect the user and his or her motivation.

Level 4 – Personal Values. This is the user’s attitude toward the behavior. Here is intention, desire, pleasure, enjoyment, fulfillment, anxiety and all the other factors which distinguish one user from another and the user from their environment. In short, this is “what’s going on” in the user’s head when she forms opinions and ultimately decides whether she will or will not use a given technology. Classical Information System theories of usage and participation have focused on this quadrant because this is the location of the factors, including intention, which are seen to lead to the final decision regarding behavior.

Some may view this quadrant as the most significant because they perceive ultimate decisions to adopt as happening here. However, there are situations when other factors outweigh personal values. For example, full intention to use and high motivation are always limited by the technology, the context, and competency. Factors in quadrant number four may lead the individual to change their technology, learn new skills, or change their environment. However, such a dynamic is not directly leading to adoption but to changing oneself or one’s environment. So, this issue is not directly addressed by this framework.
Finally, personal values should not be confused with personal characteristics such as demographics. Studies continually compare usage to age, income, race, education, geography, and similar factors (Lenhart, 2002). This framework does not ignore those factors, but instead understands them to influence each of the four quadrants. Race and education will certainly affect one’s cultural and personal values and the technology at one’s disposal. However, such factors do not cause usage. Demographics alone are not deterministic of usage. Rather, they shape an individual’s values and abilities. From the standpoint of this framework such factors are secondary.

The purpose of these quadrants is not to identify every possible factor, but to propose a taxonomy which could be both explanatory and predictive. In this sense, it can serve as a taxonomy of factors, aid in discovery, and serve as a basis for further discussions. Specifics in quadrant each can and will change based on the context, but the basic issues should remain the same. The framework also has philosophical symmetry, addressing issues which are technical and social as well as issues which are internal and external. This may provide face validity, but the framework still must be tested to be proven accurate. The following is a proposed formula for BAF if one were to be able to create a quantifiable scale for each factor.

Technology * Competency = Ability
Cultural Values * Personal Values * Competency = Motivation
Motivation * Values = Usage

This is similar to Vroom’s Expectancy Theory: Expectancy * Instrumentality * Valence = Motivation (Vroom, 1964). Effects of weak or null values demonstrate that all factors must be necessary for usage. If one of the four factors is weak, usage will be significantly affected.

Finally, there are several assumptions which are implied in this framework. First, genuine adoption requires both ability and motivation. Second, all four factors must cooperate at some level for usage to occur. Technical factors are required for the ability to use and social factors in combination with competency are required for motivation. Third, the contents of each factor can change from context to context. This provides flexibility for broad application regardless of the technology or the environment.

Advantages of the Behavioral Adoption Framework

There are at least six benefits to this framework: 1) it moves beyond the construct of user intention (TAM), 2) it provides a robust schema for digital divide discussions, 3) it can encompass factors leading to usage as well as non-usage, 4) it is scalable for simple and complex usage, 5) it addresses both the ability and motivation, 6) it acknowledges the role of cultural influences while still allowing for personal choice.

First, TAM has put “blinders” on research into usage and has created the “illusion of cumulative tradition” when, in fact, the same construct has simply been tested repeatedly with slight variations (Benbasat & Barki, 2007). While this conclusion may seem to make the point of this question and discussion of TAM moot, this is also a case in point that Information Systems needs to return to its roots, work on theoretical conceptions about people, systems, and context, and not be distracted by contextually specific solutions to complex problems. In this situation, Benbasat and Barki suggest moving beyond the current state of affairs: re-examine the original theory, re-conceptualize usage to broader contexts, look at acceptance/adoption/usage as a linear concept, investigate sources of belief, and consider other models which are not based solely on belief (Benbasat & Barki, 2007). BAF moves in this direction.

BAF, as a framework, acknowledges that all four digital divides must be addressed for each user in each usage context. For example, a child may desire to engage in a social network site at home and in free time at school. In this case three factors remain the same. However, the third level (socio-cultural values) may be dramatically different. At school the site is forbidden but at home the site is encouraged. In this case, intention may be the same but values of the school and fear of “getting caught” are the primary factors affecting usage.

Not all usage is “intentional.” In fact, a user may have no intention but use only as a result of the social pressure of the environment. Or, there may be intention but no competency. This is often seen when a person desires to do something such as engage in a collaborative workspace, and even though levels 1, 3, and 4 are “crossed” the person’s skills eventually discourage further participation. BAF acknowledges that even good intentions can fail.

Regardless of the activity, the individual or group of individuals must choose. As an individual must cross all four divides to adoption and usage, so must a group cross the divides. Members of Participatory Networks who are unable to cross all four will not really be members of the Participatory Network. For example, a group support software application can’t be completely successful unless the whole group of users crosses all the divides together. Each individual must all cross and the group as a whole must cross together. In this way, this framework can stimulate discussion not just about why a single individual uses or not, but also why group usage is or is not successful.

Ability and motivation are never completely static. Levels of skill and competency can certainly be reached through practice, but sometimes they can slip. Motivation is even more variable. The initial interaction and excitement of a participatory environment may wane over time as the excitement wears off or the conversation turns dull. BAF does not treat either of these as inherently unchanging constants.

Finally, BAF acknowledges that everyone is affected by culture but still retains volitional power. For example, the author knows an engineer at a large IT company who has adopted and uses the latest home video technologies. However, he ignores the insistence of his colleagues, friends, and families and refuses to join or participate in social networking activities. While it is true that he lives in an individualistic American culture, BAT can explain his activity by recognizing the difference between level 3 and level 4. In contrast a more collective culture may see that the collective pressure of the group is stronger than the desire of the individual and the individual submits to the “will of the group.” The difference between the individualistic engineer who says “no” and the collectivist who says “yes” stems from the differences in the personal values of the two individuals, not just the existence or lack of external pressure. One values the group above self. The other values self above the group.

Practical Implications for Adoption

Through 10 years of attempting to build and deploy Participatory Networks, the author feels that he is finally beginning to ask the right questions rather than having the right answers. The development of BAF and research into the definition of Participatory Networks have not provided answers in and of themselves, but have already been useful in pointing out areas for investigation that had been overlooked. The following discussion provides some of the author’s personal opinions based on first hand situations trying to cross each of the four divides.

The technical divide is the often the easiest divide to cross. While it may seem, and actually is, insurmountable in some contexts, access should be viewed as only the first step in a long journey. It is the beginning, not the end. You might be able to set up a system in a day that someone cannot learn how to use in a year, at least not learn on their own. It’s much easier to install a learning management system than get IT staff, faculty, students, and administration to use it or even read the help section. It is somewhat like giving birth. It’s a painful and messy process that may take years to achieve, but it is just the beginning.

Build into the user’s competencies. Real education requires more than a manual, it requires mentoring. While it can be very difficult to design or adapt a technology to a user, that frustration is less than the frustration of the user giving up because they don’t have the skills and thus loose motivation. If it’s doubtful that the users will be able to acquire the necessary competencies, a great opportunity arises to look for more “low tech” solutions. The author recently tried to convince a school that a high quality “free” video conferencing solution was a poor choice for student interaction because even a major New York University had difficulty dealing with such a complex system. The better and cheaper solution would have been notebooks with free video conferencing software and built in webcams.

Capture the culture. The meaning of “capture” here is to understand culture and control it. IT adoption in any form is as much a cultural process as a technical process. It doesn’t take long to realize that simply giving people access to technology and training them means that they will use it. In one school, the administration was excited to receive wireless hardware and was happy to have it installed. However, after the donor saw it working and departed, it was immediately removed and put back in the box because of concerns over security. The students and teachers were not very happy. In this case, the culture of those with the power was neither understood nor influenced. If it had been understood initially, then the possibility for influence could have been examined. In this case the power of the greatest cultural influence, in that context the rector, made all user intention pointless.

Don’t forget the “wetware.” Many would even say it is more about the “wetware” (software between the ears) than about the hardware or the software. No matter how good the technology, the individual user must ultimately make the choice themselves. They must login, answer their messages, or move the mouse. It is very rare to get 100% usage of any technology, especially one with a strong component like a Participatory Network. Sometimes putting 20% of one’s energy into forcing the final 3% to participate just isn’t worth it. One must also remember that every culture has people who are socially challenged or people who prefer to watch instead of participate. Sharing knowledge or not sharing can also be a power issue as opposed to a technical issue. Maybe the personal participation in the network is more about the individual’s personal gain or loss than what is best for the group.

Conclusion

As the diversity surrounding adoption and usage of Participatory Networks expands, newer and richer frameworks are needed. With the increasing ubiquity of Participatory Networks outside traditional contexts comes the need for approaches which address the complexity of the user and his or her context. Evaluating usage and adoption of smart phone users logging into Participatory Networks in an African village is obviously more complicated that looking at PC users in a controlled office environment. BAF is an attempt to provide a frame work that can be time sensitive to the user and their context. While it has the weakness of not being tested, the author hopes that this will stimulate further conversation and move the conversation about digital divides beyond issues of technology and competency.

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KM, Emerging Technologies and Innovative Schemes

The challenges and opportunities for implementing KM in public agencies in South Africa

storytelling — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:36:36 -0600

By: Dr Nhamo W. Samasuwo, Learning and Innovation Subunit, Development Programme Services Unit (DPSU) Independent Development Trust (IDT), South Africa

Introduction

Although Knowledge Management (KM) as a discipline had been in existence for over decade now, its impact on the public sector seems to have remained minimal at best, or at worst, ineffectual. The apparent minimal impact which KM seems to have made on the public sector is in deep contrast to the public sector’s well documented role in producing groundbreaking knowledge in the fields of humanities, sciences and development alike. Research on the subject also suggests that older management theories have previously and successfully migrated from the private to the public sector with value enhancing impact.1 The apparent difficulties faced in institutionalizing knowledge management in the public sector in general has tempted some scholars to explain away the situation in terms of the incompatibility arising from knowledge management’s bottom-line “business-driven origins” or “citizenship in corporate environments.”2 Thus, despite its strong private sector pedigree, knowledge management still has special validity in the public sector where multi-governance imperatives for a people-centred, responsive, innovative and flexible government mean that old and costly mistakes cannot be repeated in perpetuity, and often without serious negative social consequences on the governed. As in other developed countries, the governments in Africa not only have a responsibility to ensure the continued economic viability of their respective countries, but they also have to spearhead and drive an innovative, learning and effective public sector which is able to deliver services efficiently and eradicates chronic poverty.3

This paper tries to critically examine the key challenges and opportunities for implementing and integrating knowledge management in key development agencies which fall under the Department of Public Works (DPW) in South Africa. While there is abundant literature on the potential of knowledge management to deliver value in the public sector in South Africa and beyond, little or no scholarly effort seems to have been spared for a critical analysis of the state of implementation and integration of knowledge management in the country’s key “change agents” or development agencies in general. This is despite the fact that knowledge management has long been recognised as key imperative in development best practice and a driving force for pubic sector reform and innovation in most developed countries. Suffice to say that development agencies in South Africa have a special role to play in closing the debilitating economic disparities and bridging the divide between what commentators and policy makers alike have referred to as the “first” and “second” economies. As if to make matters worse, all existing platforms for collaboration and knowledge sharing that have emerged in the public sector seem perpetually condemned to remain as mere talk-shops offering no practical solutions on how to knowledge management can have a real transformative and developmental impact on the country’s public sector in general.

The knowledge economy imperatives and the Public Sector

Just like elsewhere, public service managers and administration in South Africa have to contend with intractable and multiple challenges of the 21st century. These challenges range from creating sustainable decent jobs, keeping new human security threats such as diseases at bay and creating new knowledge for the creation of resilient, sustainable and cohesive communities. They also have to ensure that the education system meets the needs of a contemporary knowledge economy and repair decaying social infrastructure. In South Africa, where decades of apartheid social engineering created the twin evils of racial social marginalisation and hard infrastructure disparities, the public sector managers face the daunting task of developing new infrastructure programmes that go beyond delivering widgets. In other words, they have to deliver development outcomes based on new knowledge that supports innovative anti-poverty interventions.

In the current global environment, every public sector has to promote the country’s global competitiveness in economic and knowledge terms. In fact, in South Africa, just as elsewhere, the public sector can no longer escape the reality that “knowledge and innovation [have become] the life blood of development.”4 The public sector has to think globally and act locally because of increasing competition in the area of service and policy making by other new global players or non-state actors. For example, one observable new trend is that non-state actors such as civil society, non governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector have started to directly challenge and compete with government for resources to deliver services to citizens. This has forced the public sector in general to actively take part in a new “global war for top talent.”5 The public sector can no longer afford to be the proverbial retirement home where the country’s best minds go to die. On the contrary, the civil service has to continually reform and transform itself through the creation, acquisition, dissemination and deployment of new knowledge.6 Such a paradigm shift will only take place if systems are put in place if knowledge management is mainstreamed and is used as a catalyst to create a culture of learning and innovation.

KM initiatives in the Department of Public Works

The implementation of knowledge management in South Africa’s public service has been largely spearheaded by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). The DPSA, through its Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI), has helped develop a platform for knowledge sharing and dissemination across the public service. Since efforts on implementing knowledge management in the public service started around 2003, there has been a stampede by various government departments “to do KM” as way of engineering the renewal and transformation of the civil service in general. The stampede has since given rise to a range of uncoordinated knowledge management interventions and the setting up of units with the sole responsibility of the broader institutional mandate to promote a knowledge-based culture or approach to service delivery. The underpinning objective was to make sure that the public sector avoided the wasting of valuable resources either by re-inventing the wheel, duplicating functions or repeating the same mistakes. Put simply, the expectation was/is that knowledge management should help create a smart working and knowledge-driven public service capable of running a developmental state.7

Given its pivotal role in service delivery, the Department of Public Works (DPW), often in collaboration with the DPSA, has sought to embed knowledge management and knowledge sharing as a new way of implementing government mandates across its family of major public entities such as the Independent Development Trust (IDT), Council for the Built Environment (CBE) and Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB)8. While the DPW has tried to take a more holistic and strategic approach to knowledge management in pubic entities through the Research Directorate located in the Strategic Management Unit, the public entities referred to above seem to have individually chosen to embark on separate initiatives to turn themselves into learning organisations. Despite this, efforts are still underway to develop an institutional-wide programme that is aimed at integrating knowledge management activities between the DPW and its public entities.

The envisaged plan is aimed at leveraging the existing pool of information and knowledge to promote cross-functional learning across the DPW as a whole. Thus, the Knowledge Management and Research Directorate embarked on a process to:

Conduct a situational analysis / information and knowledge assessment audit of information and knowledge management practice across Department.
Develop an Information and Knowledge Management Strategy aligned to the goals of the DPW.
Position and institutionalise knowledge management.
Develop a better coordinated implementation, and
Facilitate collaborative linkages between units within the DPW and the public entities

Key milestones in the context of the KM Life cycle

Although the introduction of knowledge management across the DPW’s various units and family of public entities appears to taken place in the absence of a broad framework strategy, certain milestones in terms implementation have been covered with varying results. The progress made so far by DPW and its public agencies is captured in the KM life cycle in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: KM Life Cycle and Milestones in the DPW and Principal Public Agencies9

Key:

Birth: This stage represents the stage at which KM is conceived.
Premature birth: This represents a false start to KM.
Over birth: At this state the institution knows the importance of KM, but levels of enthusiasm are not matched by institutional systems and internal culture.
Toddler: At this stage, the new or fledgling KM initiative struggles to thrive and constantly battling nourishment and sufficient budgetary support.
Adolescence: This stage represents the trial and error state characterised by pilot projects, platforms for sharing and processes for documenting knowledge.
Adult: This is the embedding stage where an institution starts reaching out to explore collaboration with actors in networks.
Mature: At this stage, the institution has reached a viable knowledge culture is thriving and KM becomes the way of doing business, albeit under active support by champions.
Death/re-birth: This is the stage at which the institution has become a learning organisation and KM sufficiently internalised rendering existence of a separate KM unit redundant. Even more crucially, this is the stage at which in human terms, old knowledge becomes completely obsolete and new knowledge becomes extremely necessary for society’s continued sustenance, existence and survival.

Knowledge management milestones: analysis

The progress made in terms of knowledge management implementation and integration was extensively discussed during a workshop between DPW and its public entities hosted on the 22nd of October 2008 by the Learning and Innovation subunit at the IDT. During the workshop, knowledge managers from different public entities made presentations on the state and progress made on knowledge management in their respective organisations. All participants were encouraged to measure their progress against the stages in the knowledge management life cycle and to make comments on the internal challenges they faced as well as propose the way forward. The following results came out from the workshop.

DPW

It emerged during the workshop that the DPW, as the principal department of the public entities, has made significant progress in terms of implementation across its various internal units. In terms of progress, the DPW had reached the level of integration and implementation somewhere between the adolescent and adult stages as indicated in Figure 1 above. It was noted that the department showed greater awareness of the strategic value of knowledge management. Furthermore, various initiatives such as workshops, Ideas Festival and a library Week had been started to get the process moving. It was pointed out during the workshop that DPW was also initiating a public entity-wide Community of Practice (CoP) and developing a strategy framework to guide the implementation plan process.

While it was noted that the various units in DPW had young and energetic staff, the following factors were noted as the main challenges affecting the implementation and integration of knowledge management across the various units. The following factors were noted as key impediments:

marginalisation of knowledge management champions.
Failure of management support to filter down.
Frustration with outdated and poorly maintained IT systems with limited bandwidth.
Lack of a conducive environment for creative thinking and innovation.
Lack of simple policy and procedural guides to perform tasks.
Frustration arising from multiple lines of reporting.
Constantly changing reporting formats that impact negatively on the documentation of knowledge
Rigid business processes.

IDT

Compared to all other public agencies that fall under the DPW, the IDT seemed to have made more progress over a relatively short period of time. The adoption of knowledge management in the IDT forms part of the agency’s long-term vision to become the leading knowledge-based development agency of choice in South Africa. During the workshop, it emerged that the IDT stands at the adolescence stage. Besides having a dedicated function with a budget, IDT already has a strategy framework and road map to drive the implementation of its knowledge management initiatives. A more recent reflection of progress made on such initiatives was successful hosting of the first Development Week in the history of the IDT. Other initiatives underway include the implementation of a research and evaluation programme that is aimed at generating new knowledge based on the organisation’s development experience. The IDT has established various platforms for sharing knowledge such as development dialogues that draw on the knowledge and feedback from internal and external stakeholders such as communities that benefit from its programmes.

However, despite these achievements, the IDT is still battling with the devolution of knowledge management practice and integration across its dispersed staff located in various regions across South Africa. The IDT has regional staff based in offices located in KwaZulu Natal (KZN), Western Cape (WC), Gauteng, North West (NW), Eastern Cape (EC), Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State and Northern Cape (NC). One of the main challenges the IDT faces is lack of capacity to capture and document knowledge. An internal and organisation-wide knowledge management needs analysis carried out in 200810 summarised the state of knowledge management in the IDT by making the following recommendations:

Develop an incentive system to support the knowledge management initiatives;
Establish knowledge sharing platforms;
Make knowledge management part of performance management system;
Create a new culture conducive to knowledge management
Build capacity of staff to carry out research as knowledge management cannot be implemented effectively on a low skills base;
Promote staff exposure and networking;
Build user friendly and interactive intranet with portals for sharing knowledge;
Develop simple de-briefing and handover procedures for staff leaving the organisation;
Provide support for knowledge management initiatives in the regions;
Conduct proper research to document existing knowledge and also to capture and create new knowledge;
Pilot innovative development models based on development experience;
Creating a new culture in which mistakes and failures are regarded as part of the learning process;
Eradicate silos and “functional segregation” to allow for greater synergies and integration of thinking

CIDB

In contrast to the IDT, participants to the workshop noted that in the CIDB, knowledge management is still at the toddler stage. In fact, it was revealed that the organisation was still in the process of coming to terms with knowledge management as an idea. In common with many other organizations, it also emerged that knowledge management in the CIDB was regarded as synonymous with information technology and that all initiatives were driven by library or information specialists

CBE

The CBE’s position was marginally different from that of the CIDB. It was revealed during the workshop that the CBE was still at the toddler stage of the knowledge management life cycle. Part of the problem was that the organisation lacked a common or shared understanding of what knowledge management is. The commonest assumption was that knowledge management was the same as communications. Also, while the knowledge management as a function in the CBE is located in operations, it has been left to be spearheaded by a single champion. To make matters worse, because of the association of knowledge management with communications, it emerged that the latter often took precedence over knowledge management and related activities or practices. There was a general consensus that the CBE still needed to develop a strategy, focus on records management and revive its virtual Knowledge Centre.

Way forward

In light of the challenges faced DPW and its public entities, participants at the workshop agreed that a KM Steering Committee (composed of DPW and its Public Entities) should be established to foster the cross fertilisation of knowledge and identify ideas that can fuel knowledge sharing and innovation in the public service. Amongst other things, it was proposed that the KM Steering Committee would:

Assist in the development of strategy framework and implementation plan. with clear deliverables to address knowledge management issues,
Develop key performance indicators or benchmarks for knowledge management as part of the performance management system;
Oversee the development of an integrated IT platform backed by social software to promote online collaboration and knowledge sharing;
Assist in identifying KM champions to act as flag bearers for KM in the across DPW units, regional offices and public entities alike;
Spearhead the development of a single Integrated KM policy, information and knowledge sharing guidelines;
Ensure that major knowledge events such library and development weeks are coordinated;
Develop mechanisms or guidelines for collaboration and knowledge exchange through partnerships with research institutions, universities, private sector and civil society; and
Explore the establishment of a shared knowledge gateway (i.e. shared data bases and subscriptions on electronic information).

Conclusion

It is clear that the challenges facing some of the country’s “change agents” or principal government departments such as the DPW are consistent with the findings of studies and discussions on knowledge management in the public sector in general. It is clear that there is variegated of differentiated picture of capacities and strengths among the different organisations. Indeed, this is symptomatic of the variegated nature of delivery capacities across the South Africa state as a whole. For example, studies on the state in South Africa have long pointed out that the existence of differentiated capacities and pockets of excellence across the public sector stood as the single most important obstacle to the realization of strong developmental state. This has led to calls by local development specialists for a reconfiguration of the state to boost service delivery capacity through coordination. However, what is missing in this new debate on reconfiguring the state is the potential presented by an effective public sector knowledge management strategy in building cohesion, shared learning and innovation across the whole sector.

There is no doubt that the highly compartmentalised structure of public sector institutions in South Africa also accounts for most of the problems faced by DPW and its public entities in implementing and institutionalising knowledge management. Furthermore, the lack of consensus and often varied understanding of what knowledge management is and its association with library and information technology both stand as key disablers.11 In particular, the thinking that knowledge management is the same as information technology has led to the development of unnecessary, expensive and often incompatible information technology systems or tools that only a few find useful. Even worse, this lack of understanding of knowledge management as a concept has led to the dusting-off and re-labeling of largely defunct information centres or libraries. Not surprisingly, institutions with established libraries regard themselves as knowledge management champions in the public sector. This misunderstanding of knowledge management as a concept also explains why people see it as extra work which they simply don’t have time for. This is despite the fact that most public service workers are actually knowledge workers themselves. An even bigger challenge to KM in the public agencies is a crisis of expectations. Rather expect KM to yield results in the near to long term, management sometimes expect instant pay-offs or results, almost as if KM was akin to instant coffee.

Beyond the isolated and emerging pockets of a thriving knowledge management culture in some departments and public agencies, a lot of other numerous obstacles still remain. Among those commonly cited at a recent DPSA workshop include lack of resources and internal research capacity to document knowledge, lack of viable learning platforms, weak management support for KM initiatives, a culture of intolerance to criticism, silos and the ‘not invented here” syndrome.12 The point about the lack of internal capacity to carry out research and document knowledge is a profound one because no viable knowledge management culture can be built on a low skills base. Part of the problem is the pervasive culture of consultancies in government departments. Little or no research is done internally as most of this research work is given or outsourced to consultants. Besides being costly, this over-reliance on external consultants ensures that departments don’t develop internal capacity to research, analyse and distil data or even document information and share knowledge by themselves.

The consequences of not cultivating the development of a knowledge-driven workforce or civil service mean that the problem of underdevelopment and chronic intergenerational poverty will continue to confront the majority of poor South Africans for yet another generation. Even with its vast mineral resources and untapped intellectual potential South Africa risks facing a similarly ironic fate alongside many other poor African countries: that of living like a pauper with the responsibilities of a rich man. It is therefore, pivotal that platforms such as the KM Africa Conference help address these knowledge management implementation challenges in the public sector. This includes looking at how the education systems should produce a new generation of interdisciplinary knowledge workers capable of integrating knowledge from different disciplines. While specialists remain relevant, the need to produce integrationist knowledge workers has become paramount. Thus, placing too much emphasis or resources on the teaching of science subjects only at the expense of humanities may not be the ultimate answer. Furthermore, it may also mean that KM practitioners may have to examine the potential for using adult education techniques in order to embed KM thinking and KM-based learning in their respective organisations.

What is clear is that while there exists some pockets of progress, there is no doubt that a new knowledge management culture or discipline remains largely in its infancy in the public agencies referred to above. In turn, the failure to implement knowledge management in government departments such as DPW and its key agencies will have far reaching consequences. Thus, platforms such as the KM Africa Conference have a responsibility to build capacity for implementation and to help link governments with external pockets of knowledge and learning on the continent. Ultimately, the conference will have served its purpose if it also helped devise new ways of tapping into the continent’s already existing rich but often maligned intellectual base. Africa’s intellectuals must be fully mobilised and utilised in order to develop fourth generation knowledge needed for the continued sustenance and survival of the continent not only in the current global knowledge economy, but also in an increasingly inequitable world where the rate of consumption has reached unsustainable levels.

Footnotes

For more details on this point, see, R. MacAdam and R. Reed, “A comparison of public and private sector perceptions and use of knowledge management,” Journal of European Industrial Training, 24 (6), (2000): 317-329.

F. J. Carrilo, “A global knowledge agenda based on capital systems.” [Online]
Available: http://www.csc.mty.itesm.mx/materials_de_diffusion/archives_pdf/global_k...

M. E. la Grange, “The relevance of knowledge management in the public sector: the measure of knowledge management in government”, (Master of Philosophy and Knowledge Management thesis, University of Stellenbosch, April 2006), 32.
Robert Hawkins, “Knowledge for development and public service”, Issues, Vol 6, No.2 (World Bank Institute, 2007)
W. Horsely, “Europe in fight for top talent”, [BBC News Online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7843285.stm , (22 January 2009).
Towards Establishing a Knowledge Management Community of Practice in the Public Service, (Concept Document, Department of Public Service and Administration, DPSA Community of Practice Steering Committee, October 2008).
Towards a Knowledge Management Framework for the Public Service, (Chief Directorate; Department of Public Service and Administration’s Research, Learning and Knowledge Management –no date)
While the IDT is a development agency responsible for implementing government social infrastructure, the CBE is tasked with the transformation and development of professionals in the built environment. On the other hand, the CIDB is a statutory body responsible for sustainable growth, reform and improvement of the construction sector.
This model was developed during a KM strategy workshop between DPW and public entities. The workshop was facilitated by Kubeshni Govender from Black Earth Consulting.
Report on the IDT KM Needs Analysis Assessment (Final Draft), Development Programme Services (DPSU, IDT, 8 September 2008).
Nhamo w. Samasuwo, “Brief notes of the DPSA/GTZ Knowledge Management Workshop”, held at the Emperor’s Palace, Boksburg, South Africa, (2 March 2009).
X. Cong and K. Pandya, “Issues of Knowledge management in the public sector”, [Online]. Available on: www.ejkm.com (Academic Conferences Limited, 2003),

KM & Governance

KM, Emerging Technologies and Innovative Schemes

KMAadmin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:23:29 -0600

Emerging Technologies and innovative schemes includes frontier technologies such as Biotechnologies, Nanotechnologies, ICT, etc… together with innovative opportunities such as Techno-Entreprise Incubators, Technopoles, Science and Technology Parks, creative cities, etc… Based on Track 5 of KMAfrica2009.

Knowledge Management and Intranet Technology - Udo Richard Averweg & Stella Anne Jory

storytelling — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:36:48 -0600

Udo Richard Averweg - Information Services, eThekwini Municipality and University of KwaZulu-Natal

Stella Anne Jory - Afrika Leadership Development Institute

Abstract

Intranets are very much suited to use as a strategic tool in knowledge management (KM) due to their ability to support distribution, connectivity and publishing. The Intranet should be seen as integral to an organisation’s KM system and should be tailored to suit and enhance an organisation’s knowledge-sharing activities. The question arises: To what extent does an organisation’s existing Intranet facilitate knowledge-sharing? This question is explored by selection of a large organisation – the eThekwini Municipality, Durban South Africa – as the field of application. Derived from a mixed methodology approach, the results of a recent survey are presented.

Introduction

The validity of knowledge and the power of harnessing it, is widely embraced by empowered nations, vibrant industries and winning organisations. Currently and for the next decade at least, knowledge should be viewed as the most important and valuable resource. Industries and organisations of various sizes and forms, will find value in the realisation that in order to remain sustainable and to successfully supply to the increasing demands of the market, explicit management of intellectual processes, resources, capabilities and particularly knowledge, is crucial. A wide range of industries internationally today, recognise that corporate society rests on the verge of a new horizon in which intellectual capital (IC) is rapidly becoming the new currency in the work domain.

Upon reflection of this theme and within the related domain of Knowledge Management (KM), Michael Zack (1999: 125) describes “the primary focus of these efforts has been on developing new applications of information technology to support digital capture, storage, retrieval and distribution of an organisation’s explicitly documented knowledge”. When aligned, organisational strategy and technical competency provide a sound framework to support KM within an organisation. However, the question arises as to whether or not an organisation is making the best investment in its resources or whether (or not) it is managing knowledge in the right way.

To use this thought-provoking question as a point of departure, it is worthwhile to consider Tiwana and Ramesh (2001) who promote that the Intranet is well-suited to being used as a strategic tool within the domain of KM due to its ability to support distribution, connectivity and publishing. Furthermore, the Intranet should be seen as integral to an organisation’s KM system and should therefore be designed and tailored to enhance an organisation’s knowledge-sharing activities. From the above analogy, the question whether an organisation’s existing Intranet facilitates knowledge-sharing and KM processes arises. The exploration of this question sets a platform for an opportunity for research within a field of application that seems particularly appealing: a metropolitan municipality – eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa. The appropriate context and appeal arose out of the fact that the first author is situated within the organisation’s Information Services department. Furthermore, given eThekwini Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP), this study was considered pertinent and relevant. In surveying the parameters of the question, the overriding premise was established as follows: If knowledge is used effectively, it may well provide meaningful utility to the organisation.

Background

Given that this research falls within the domain of KM and the field of application is eThekwini Municipality, the authors deem it necessary at this point to briefly explore the following concepts and realities: Knowledge, Knowledge Management, Information Technology (IT), Intranet Technology and eThekwini Municipality.

Knowledge

Significance of Knowledge in Corporate Society

Peter Drucker (1999: 81) suggests “there is still no history of work, but then also, despite the all the philosophies about knowledge, there is no history of knowledge either. Both should become important areas of study within the next decades, or at least within the next century”. Considering the theories of cognition (epistemology) around the history of science and work, it may be Drucker’s intention to create awareness about the idea that we have not looked carefully and closely enough at the world’s perception of knowledge and work. But whatever specifically he means, his analogy draws together the notions of work and knowledge and the aspiration that these should become “important areas of study”. Furthermore, as an introductory thought, Drucker sets a platform, which forms the theme of ‘Knowledge and Work’ or perhaps more appropriately ‘Work and Knowledge’.

Managing knowledge appropriately is at the centre of many discussions around competitiveness and sustainability. Much of the current theory and practices promote that knowledge (and the management of it) may prove useful if the scope and utility of knowledge is aligned with an organisation’s strategy. It also proposes that this should be set on a broader scale than merely IT. In other words, it is argued that the management of knowledge should go beyond a narrow technical focus and encompass other less tangible themes within an organisation. In relation to this, Zack (1996: 125) clarifies the intangible “as the knowledge existing within people’s heads, augmented or shared via interaction and social relationships”. For the purpose of this paper, the analogy draws on the ability to draw together the technology, the notion of shared interaction and the creation of an opportunity for knowledge transfer.

Concept of knowledge

From a review of the management of knowledge literature, there are many definitions of the concept of knowledge. If organisations are to effectively utilise knowledge and to formulate KM strategies, defining of knowledge for its unique purpose is necessary. Categorisation of the concept of knowledge is now presented:

Belief Description
“Justified true belief” (Goldman, 1991; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995: 58);
“Knowledge is understanding based on belief” (James, 1907); and
“Knowledge can be thought of as a body of understandings, generalizations, and abstractions that we carry with us on a permanent or semi-permanent basis and apply to interpret and manage the world around us …we will consider knowledge to be the collection of mental units of all kinds that provides us with understandings and insights” (Wiig, 1998).

Pragmatic Description
“The most essential definition of knowledge is that it is composed of and grounded solely in potential acts and in those signs that refer to them” (Cavaleri and Reed, 2000: 114);
“Knowledge is social acts” (Stacey, 1996); and
“Knowledge is the capacity for effective action” (Argyris, 1993: 2-3).

Communal Description
“Knowledge is experience or information that can be communicated or shared” (Allee, 1997: 27).

Contextual Description
“Information in context” (Aune, 1970);
“Knowledge, while made up of data and information, can be thought of as much greater understanding of a situation, relationships, causal phenomena, and the theories and rules (both explicit and implicit) that underlie a given domain or problem” (Bennet and Bennet, 2000: 19); and
“Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organisations it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organisational routines, practices and norms” (Davenport and Prusak, 1997: 5).

The pragmatic, communal and contextual categories of defining knowledge may be drawn on for the purpose of this research.

Knowledge Management

Precisely what is KM? Kwalek (2004: 23) suggests that “the literature on knowledge management is disjointed and disconnected”. Pfeffer and Sutton (2000: 22) indicate that KM “tends to treat knowledge as a tangible thing, as a stock or quantity, and therefore separates knowledge as some thing from the use of that thing”. Clearly there are different views on what KM is. From a review of the literature, some definitions of KM are given in Table 1.

Some definitions of Knowledge Management

Ezingeard et al. (2000) - KM directs acquiring, storing, adding value to and deploying the intellectual capital of the organisation’s professionals
Liebowitz (2000) - KM deals with creating, securing, capturing, co-ordinating, combining, retrieving and distributing knowledge
Abell (2001) - KM is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to the creation, capture, organisation, access and use of an enterprise’s IC on customers, markets, products, services and internal processes
Mack et al. (2001) - KM refers to the methods and tools for capturing, storing, organising and making accessible knowledge and expertise within and across communities
Gray (2006) - KM is the organisational process for acquiring, organising and communicating both tacit and explicit knowledge (so that people may use it to be more effective)

For the purposes of this paper, Gray’s definition (Gray, 2006: 118) will be adopted.

Honeycutt (2000: xvii) indicates that KM is a discipline that treats IC as a managed asset. KM is not a centralised database that contains all the information known by an organisation’s workers. It is the idea of gaining business insights from a variety of sources - including databases, websites, employees and business partners – and cultivating that information wherever it resides. Business insight emanates from capturing information and giving it greater meaning via its relationship to other information in the organisation. It should be stated that KM is not about making plug?and?play workers dispensable because all they know is recorded for the next person who fills their shoes – it is about delivering information to knowledge workers, business processes and technology to make organisations and people successful. Intranets, the “in house” version of the World Wide Web (“the Web”) browser based on Internet technology, create a common corporate communications and information sharing system (Brelade and Harman, 2003).

Information Technology

Given that advances in IT have made it easier to acquire, store or disseminate knowledge than ever before, many organisations are employing IT to facilitate sharing and integration of knowledge (Kankanhalli et al., 2003: 69). There is clearly a need for KM practices in the workplace to enable managers to promote the sharing of knowledge and allow the organisation to acquire and retain IC. For example, eThekwini Municipality is “committed to using Information Technology to make a real difference … municipal decisions have to be based on sound research and information management in order to ensure [service] delivery” (eThekwini Municipality, 2006: 28). KM initiatives in organisations are increasingly becoming important as organisations are making significant IT investments in deploying KM systems (Hahn and Subramani, 2000: 302).

Intranet Technology

Public and private organisations are beginning to view knowledge as their most valuable and strategic resource. It is increasingly recognised that organisations need to develop better techniques to manage their knowledge assets (Offsey, 1997). Intranets are often depicted as part of the effective solution for knowledge-sharing across departments, functions or geographical locations in organisations to facilitate information sharing and collaboration across departments, functions and different information systems (IS) within the organisation (Bernard, 1996).

An Intranet (or internal Web) is a network architecture designed to serve the internal information needs of an organisation using Web (Internet) concepts and tools - see Cortese (1996) and Averweg (2007: 46). Turban et al. (2005: 50-51) indicate that an Intranet is a private network that uses Internet software and TCP/IP protocols. Defined technically, Intranets are the application of Internet technology (and specifically the Web service) for a prescribed community of users (Scheepers and Rose, 2001).

An Intranet is a network designed to serve the internal informational needs of an organisation (eg. a municipality) using Internet concepts and tools (Turban et al., 2004: 130). The cost effectiveness of utilising Internet technology has opened the door for organisations to use this same technology to share information within the organisation (Botha, 2004). Technology thus plays an important role in organisations. The basic role of technology in KM can be briefly summarised in functional terms, into the areas of

Facilitating communication;
Enabling collaboration
Collecting information;
Storing information;
Analysing information;
Disseminating information; and
Updating information (Brelade and Harman, 2003).

Intranets create a common communications and information sharing system. Brelade and Harman (2003) suggest Intranets can be used on a “push” basis – where information is presented to employees and on a “pull” basis whereby employees seek out and retrieve information for themselves:

“Push” technology is used when it is important that certain material is presented to employees at their workstation. It ensures that no other function takes place until all the information is correctly accessed; and “Pull” technology allows employees to decide when to pull down information from the Intranet that they wish to view. The “views of the end users are more important than in most other studies” (Skok and Kalmanovitch, 2005: 736).

To provide a seamless experience between viewing pages on the Web and viewing information on an Intranet, access is usually via a standard Internet browser. The commonly used Internet browser in eThekwini Municipality is Microsoft Internet Explorer.

eThekwini Municipality

eThekwini Municipality comprises six clusters/service units (Office of the City Manager, Treasury, Governance, Sustainable Development and City Enterprises, Corporate and Human Resources & Health, Safety and Social Services) and employs approximately 20,000 employees. The Information Services department is located in the Office of the City Manager. eThekwini Municipality has some 6,000 networked desktops (personal computers, thin clients and laptops) and electronic communication (ie. e?Mail) is via Novell’s GroupWise (Client version 6.5). A total of 6,654 GroupWise accounts exist in eThekwini Municipality. There are approximately 1,500 Internet accounts utilising either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator web browsers.

Research Methodology

All research is varied. Hence disparate approaches are taken and shown in dissimilar research. For this research, a mixed methods research approach will be adopted:

Knowledge claim – pragmatism;
Strategy of inquiry - transformative procedures; and
Methods of data collection and analysis - secondary data and analysis will be used. This data for eThekwini Municipality’s Intranet has recently been collected by an independent research company, Ask Africa. The rationale for using this secondary data is that (1) it is considered relevant to the study; and (2) there are savings of time and money by using this available data rather than collecting original data.

From the eThekwini Municipality Intranet report compiled by Ask Africa, the reported findings will inform this study. The data used in this research will be sourced from eThekwini Municipality Intranet research report (dated July 2006) compiled by Ask Africa.

Survey and Results

Extracted from the eThekwini Municipality Intranet report (Ask Africa, 2006), the reported results are now presented and explored. These findings serve as a base point to further identify shortfalls and possible opportunities for a more effective contribution to KM within eThekwini Municipality.

The ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to benefits the Intranet holds, is reflected in Table 2.

Table 2. Ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to benefits the Intranet holds

(Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Intranet report compiled by Ask Africa, 2006: 26)

Statement
Percentage (%) of Respondents (N=19)
Agree/ Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree
Useful platform to share and access inter-department information 87.0% 9.0% 4.0%
The Intranet is an effective way for organisational interaction 81.0% 14.0% 5.0%
Quickest focal point to disseminate and get organisational communication 77.0% 14.0% 9.0%
Enhances departmental communication 72.0% 5.0% 24.0%
Helps the organisation improve its service to customers 65.0% 15.0% 20.0%
Helps with productivity 63.0% 14.0% 23.0%
Using the Intranet is necessary for employees to perform my (sic) daily work functions 50.0% 5.0% 45.0%

From Table 2, the greatest perceived benefit that the Intranet holds for employees using it is as a platform to share and access inter?department (ie. clusters/service units) information. The second highest reported benefit was as “an effective way for organisational interaction”. van der Walt et al. (2004: 4) suggested the importance evaluating an organisation’s Intranet to ascertain its contribution to potential knowledge?sharing in an organization. The third highest reported benefit was as the quickest “focal point to disseminate and get organisational communication” The lowest reported benefit was for employees to use the Intranet for their daily work functions.

The ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to the design of the Intranet is reflected in Table 3.

Table 3. Ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to design of Intranet
(Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Intranet report compiled by Ask Africa, 2006: 34)

Statement
Percentage (%) of Respondents (N=21)
Agree/ Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree
I am happy with the text and font used on the site 86.0% 5.0% 10.0%
I am happy with the colours used on the site 81.0% 10.0% 10.0%
I am happy with the layout and organisation of the site 67.0% 19.0% 14.0%
I am happy with the images and pictures used on the site 62.0% 19.0% 19.0%
Overall I am happy with the design of the Intranet website 57.0% 33.0% 10.0%

From Table 3, it appears that most respondents surveyed were generally satisfied by the text, font and colours used but there was some disagreement on the images, pictures and overall design of the Intranet website. For respondents surveyed, this suggests that images and pictures used on the website require improvement for eThekwini Municipality employees to obtain user satisfaction (Ask Africa, 2006: 35).

The ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to the usability of the Intranet is reflected in Table 4.

Table 4. Ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to the usability of the Intranet
(Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Intranet report compiled by Ask Africa, 2006: 39)

Statement
Percentage (%) of Respondents (N=20)
Agree/ Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree

The drop down menus are easy to use 70.0% 20.0% 10.0%
Overall I am happy with the functionality/usability of the site 67.0% 10.0% 24.0%
I am happy with the site labeling 62.0% 19.0% 19.0%
I am happy with the speed of the site 62.0% 14.0% 24.0%
I am able to navigate quickly and easily 50.0% 20.0% 30.0%
The site is self-explanatory – it indicates where I need to go to find the information I am looking for 43.0% 29.0% 29.0%

From Table 4, it appears that navigation improvements are required. Furthermore while respondents surveyed agreed that they are able to navigate the Intranet website quickly and easily, they felt that there was no clear direction is provided. This suggests the navigation needs to be improved for Beginner users so that they have a better indication of where to go to find the information they are seeking (Ask Africa, 2006: 41).

The ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to the content of the Intranet is reflected in Table 5.

Table 5. Ascending rank order of Agree/Strongly Agree responses to the content of the Intranet
(Adapted from eThekwini Municipality Intranet report compiled by Ask Africa, 2006: 44)

Statement
Percentage (%) of Respondents (N=18)
Agree/ Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree
The information and content on the website is relevant 63.0% 11.0% 26.0%
The information on the website is reliable 61.0% 17.0% 22.0%
Overall I am happy with the quality of content on the website 57.0% 14.0% 29.0%
I am happy with the quality of the search process 57.0%14.0%33.0%
The content on the site is regularly updated 53.0% 11.0% 38.0%
There is a high likelihood of finding information I am looking for even though I do not know where to find it 52.0% 10.0% 38.0%

From Table 5, it appears that respondents surveyed felt that the information on the Intranet is relevant and reliable. However, improvements in the updating of information and the quality of information seeking are required. This suggests that while the information on the Intranet website is generally seen to be reliable, the regular updating of content and finding information that an employee is looking for, needs to be improved (Ask Africa, 2006: 45). An important use of most Intranets is to find documents that lead to employees who have knowledge because there is no other way that the organisation helps identify expertise and experience among its employees. Wells et al. (2000) indicate that less than 5.0% of employee knowledge is actually captured and accessible across the organisation. Intranet satisfaction is directly influenced by having the right content, features and design factors (Kaplan, 2001: 1).

Discussion of Results

From the survey results there appears to be areas for improvement in the Intranet design, usability and content areas. A post-study discussion describing why this may be the case, suggests that

The Intranet be more widely accessible to employees;
The Intranet encompasses a wider range of language options;
User functionality may need improvement;
Drop-down speeds should be increased;
Intranet training programs may need to be implemented;
Information should not be pocketed in silos of the organisation; and
Recency of information needs to be addressed.

The above challenges arising from the existing Intranet and usage thereof provide an opportunity for synthesis with the existing literature (as outlined in Section 2). It is argued that this may lay a foundation for improving the utilisation of the Intranet and towards the transferring of knowledge within a given KM strategy. Table 6 reflects this challenge and action.

Table 6. Translating Challenges and Gaps into action

Improvement requirement

Functional role of technology
Knowledge translation -
Defining knowledge
Proposed activity solution
Increased access
Dissemination
Pragmatic: The capacity for effective action
Increase user access – more employees to have access
Wider range of language options
Facilitating communication
Communal: Knowledge is experience or information that can be communicated or shared
Translation options for shared narrations
Improved user functionality
Dissemination of information
Pragmatic: Potential acts
Training for beginners and technological improvements. Simplicity emphasis
Training to improve usability
Enabling collaboration
Contextual: Fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information and incorporating new experiences
Training
Increased usage expectation
Minimisation of fragmentation
Facilitating communication
Contextual: Greater understanding of a situation, relationships and causal phenomena – whole organisation
Better linkage between organisational silos
Recency of information
Updating information
Contextual: Information in context
Strategy for continual update

In using Gray’s (Gray, 2006) KM definition and its correlation with the extracted definitions of knowledge which promote effective action (pragmatic classification), shared experience and information (communal classification) and information in context (contextual classification), there is argument for the fact that better utilisation, a more effective design of the existing Intranet may contribute significantly to the knowledge-sharing activity in the organisation.

An Intranet may be classified as a KM application since it is capable of distributing knowledge. An Intranet is seen as a tool for the more efficient sharing and creation of knowledge within organisations using both “push” and “pull” technologies. However, in the case of eThekwini Municipality’s Intranet, it appears that far greater use is being made of the “pull” technology (as opposed to “push” technology). Furthermore the reported results tend to suggest there appears to be limited knowledge?sharing and/or KM in eThekwini Municipality.

Some Concluding Remarks

Given eThekwini Municipality’s IDP and its overall intent to respond to social and economic needs of citizenry, the value of knowledge to organisational effectiveness is crucial at this point. IT, with the enabling role of Intranet technology, should be seen as significantly important to enhance the management of knowledge within eThekwini Municipality. By doing so, it will serve to ensure that knowledge is used effectively by providing meaningful utility to the organisation and towards its KM strategy.

References

Abell, A. and Oxbrow, N., 2001. Competing with Knowledge: The Information Professional in the Knowledge Management Age. Library Association Publishing, London, United Kingdom.
Allee, V., 1997. The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organisational Intelligence. Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann
Argyris, C., 1993. Knowledge for Action. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA.
Ask Africa, 2006. eThekwini Municipality Intranet Research report. Unpublished report, 1-72, July.
Averweg, U., 2007. Impact of Organisational Intranets on Profitability in Organisations. S. Lubbe (ed), Managing Information Communication Technology
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Bennet, A. and Bennet, D., 2000. Characterizing the Next Generation Knowledge Organization, Knowledge and Innovation. Journal of the KMCI, 1(1), 8-42.
Bernard, R., 1996. The corporate intranet. Wiley and Sons, Chichester.
Botha, J. (ed), 2004. managing e-commerce. Juta & Co, Lansdowne, South Africa.
Brelade, S. and Harman, C., 2003. Knowledge Management – The Systems Dimension. Thorogood, London, United Kingdom.
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Cortese, A., 1996. Here comes the intranet. Business Week 3464, 76-84, 26 February.
eThekwini Municipality, 2006. Innovations – Good Practice from the eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa. Corporate Policy Unit (CPU), eThekwini Municipality, Durban.
Davenport, T. and Prusak, L., 1997. Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, USA.
Drucker, P., 1999. Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge, California Management Review, 41(3), 79– 94.
Ezingeard, J. N., Irani, Z. and Race, P., 1999. Assessing the value and cost implications of manufacturing information and data systems: an empirical study.
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Kankanhalli, A., Tanudidjaja, F., Sutanto, J. and Tan, B. C. Y., 2003. The Role of IT in Successful Knowledge Management Initiatives. Communications of the ACM, 46(9), 69-73, September.
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van der Walt, C., van Brakel, P. A. and Kok, J. A., 2004. Knowledge sharing via enterprise intranets – asking the right questions. South African Journal of Information Management, 6(2), 1-12.
Wells, D., Sheina, M. and Harris-Jones, C., 2000. Enterprise portals: New strategies for information delivery, 13(8), Ovum, London, England.
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KM, Emerging Technologies and Innovative Schemes

What is the smartest question you can ask?

storytelling — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:42:37 -0600

There is an important concept in KM that suggests that all knowledge is created by asking questions; the question is therefore a basic tool of KM. The the question here is, what is the smartest question that you can ask? Here are some possible answers to the question:

What is a question?
What is the smartest question I can ask?
What does "is" mean?

Fireside Chat

KM & Social Challenges related to youth & unemployment - the effect of nepotism in Kenya

KMAadmin — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:39:15 -0600

“Knowledge management must of necessity account for available knowledge and its uses before it can focus on acquisition of new knowledge”

By: DAVIES KIPLANGAT KELMEN, UNEMPLOYED KENYAN YOUTH,
P. O. BOX 42857, 00100,NAIROBI- KENYA. daviskelmen@yahoo.com
TELEPHONE: +254 (0)721947901, +254 (0)712694354

Introduction

Either by design or by accident, Kenya is not a talent nor qualification based employer. Kenya here is used to generalize all sectors of the economy including the government, academic, private sector, religious institutions, non-governmental organizations etc. Indeed in Kenya, some disciplines like the military, police, and academic institutions can be serialized in terms of families. In other words opportunities are neither for the most qualified nor the most able. The general statement made above could easily be dismissed as being too general. However, such an argument would deny genuine searchers a chance to explore the veracity of the statement; not so much with a view of understanding the criminal element posed but rather with a view of understanding the cost implications to the economy.

The issue of corruption cannot be overstated for many a thesis and treatises have been written by scholars. Yet in reading into most articles one gets the impression that corruption is bribery, embezzlement, extortion, fraud, and all that others perform. In Kenya to look at nepotism amounts to shining the torch on one’s own self: And like the baboon, none of the institutions is bold enough to say to another, “your buttocks are red”.

Cutting to the chase, the above situations has resulted in the phenomenon which we now call “round pegs in square holes”. After recruiting the wrong persons, organizations spend a lot of time and money training the person to do the job despite his not having a passion for it. Meanwhile, the otherwise skilled, honest and motivated person remains unemployed. If this were few and isolated cases it would not warrant a dissertation. Knowledge management must of necessity account for available knowledge and its uses before it can focus on acquisition of new knowledge. The major challenge to knowledge management in Kenya today is not so much acquisition and distribution but rather but proper allocation of person in possession of the knowledge. And avoiding the question often asked, is such person politically or socially correct.

The youth being the majority of job seekers bears the brunt of the discrimination that is the result of this form of corruption. Moreover, through taxation they pay the cost of training the corruptly recruited personnel in the government. Based on the recommendations of the African Union (AU) convention of preventing and combating corruption, which was adopted by African heads of state in Maputo, Mozambique in July 2003, Civil Society is identified as having a key role to play in influencing public performance. How efficient can they be where they too are perceived as being party to the same corruption?

KM & Social Challenges

Technology and KM

storytelling — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:01:20 -0600

increasingly I'm starting to see software titles for corporates that represent themselves as 'Knowledge Management Systems Software' or words combing these magic words in some order. The idea is a clear and a seductive one; you can somehow take what is in the heads of your people and make it magically available to future generations via some computer-based information technology. With all the features and marketing hype around such software, it is important to remember some fundamentals:

The technologies and standards used to store electronic information have not been around for a very long time at all and there is no guarantee that you will be able to meaningfully access knowledge stored in a piece of software in years to come. This is because hardware and software standards change constantly. I found this out when I was trying to retrieve my old lecture notes from Wits that I had stored on a 360KB floppy - although I had a technology to read the disk, it was totally blank after 15 years of storage.

Somehow we are making enormous assumptions about our society and infrastructure if we assume to be able to access systems - sometimes on the other side of the planet - instantly. What happens if suddenly you can't access your laptop? If the internet is down? What happens if you you don't have hardware or electricity? What do we have to fall back on?

Steve Banhegyi
steve@storytelling.co.za

Fireside Chat

Open Access in African Publishing Industry: Opportunities and Challenges

KMAadmin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:52:28 -0600

Authors: By Mr. J. J. Musakali and Dr. D. C. Rotich, Moi University, Kenya

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the development and access to knowledge through Open Access, propelled by emerging technologies in the publishing industry in Africa. The paper further discusses opportunities that present themselves through Open Access and the benefits to scholars worldwide. Challenges that face this practice are discussed and solutions suggested.

The paper argues that scholars require access to relevant scholarly literature to further the development of knowledge. This literature, which is rapidly increasing, is interdisciplinary, global, expensive, digital, and hidden behind technical walls to comply with license restrictions. Scholars with up-to-date technologies still have difficulty accessing the specialized literature that they need, while those in technologically poor institutions barely have any access at all. The current scholarly communication system needs urgent reforms to cope with the rapidly changing technological environment. Open Access, being the permanent online access to the full text of research articles for anyone, web-wide, is free, immediate, and handles multiple users.
This way, society as a whole benefits from an expanded and accelerated research cycle in which research can advance more effectively because researchers have immediate access to all the findings they need. Many research findings go unnoticed but with Open Access, they will be more visible and their usage and impact will increase, as the researchers too will find, access and use findings of others. Publishers likewise also benefit from the wider dissemination, greater visibility and higher journal citation of their articles.

Among the recommendations, the paper suggests that researchers, their institutions and their funders need to be informed and trained on the benefits of providing Open Access, together with establishing Institutional Open Access Repositories. Through this management of knowledge, scholars worldwide will access and benefit from each other’s findings.

Introduction

In today’s heavily wired world, access to information is a pre-condition for becoming a knowledge society. The right of access to information has become the dominant right in the information and knowledge era. Because of this, many people can now be allowed access to the ideas of others and also this presents an opportunity to participate in the global information-based socio-economic and political activities.

Most African countries spend a lot on research, yet only few individuals access the results. As a result, restricting access to knowledge restricts the development of science and has severe effects on the general well-being of people. Libraries in the developed world struggle to purchase access to all the scientific publications they need while subscriptions are prohibitively expensive for institutions in the developing world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Developing countries (DCs) are now posed with the challenge of either becoming an integral part of the knowledge-based global culture or face the very real danger of finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Open Access (OA) is about equitable access to information by anyone. This new emergence is based on the collaboration and involvement philosophy and principles that governed the initial developers of the Internet Protocol (IP). OA means that publications are made totally freely available on the Web, without any access restrictions.

Like other widely used terms, defining Open Access has attracted many attempts which somehow agree on how OA is executed. Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) put it this way: "There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited."

Bethesda (2003) and Berlin (2003) statements on the other hand agree that for a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in advance to let users "copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship...."

The Open Access Movement’s Trends

In the 17th century, Journals were an effective way of sharing research with other researchers. Authors did not have to pay to be published nor were they paid for their works. Administration of publications was usually unpaid and publishers were usually academic societies and university presses. Libraries were seen as good places to make the journals available to others besides the subscribers.

After World War II, Robert Maxwell of Pergamon Press started buying academic journals and small university presses. He took over what he termed as the ‘burden’ of publishing and administration, ‘so that academics could concentrate on research’. He then charged them for publishing their articles ‘to pay for the administrative costs’. He went ahead and took over author copyright. The result was that prices shot up, especially for libraries but authors and reviewers remained unpaid. Maxwell and other commercial publishers made huge profit margins and their empires grew at the expense of library budgets which became strained. By then, expensive journals became the place to publish. Research councils funded research more highly in this kind of journals, because the readership was wide. In the meantime, universities lost control of their own research and content became gradually less important than delivery. This situation was painfully accepted by academics because of their need to publish their research as promotions and other academic yardsticks were pegged on publications. Above all, it was because there seemed to be no alternative.

In the meantime, the internet was developing and non-journal scholarly communication was already making an impact using the medium to express their ideas. In the early nineties the World Wide Web (WWW) was born, opening up new opportunities and enabling publishing in a new way, and a potentially unlimited audience. Electronic journal publishers saw this as an opportunity to exploit and moved with speed to take advantage of this.

Open Access as a phenomenon emerged in the mid-1990s in the area of electronic journals. This was enabled by the rapid development of the Internet as a means of communication. The open access movement was based on a realisation that the traditional subscription-based publications unnecessarily restrict access to research results, in a field which essentially is a public good. Most of the early open access journals were founded by single academics or groups of academics at a time when traditional subscription-based journals were still published on paper only. Thus, open access journals not only offered free availability of the articles, they also pioneered the use of the electronic medium. Many scholars started to use this new medium to express their ideas. By the year 2000, access to digital scholarly and research material, published and peer-reviewed journal articles was in most cases immediate, free and unrestricted online. Libraries began cancelling print journals in favour of electronic journals and some cancelled for-profit journals in favour of open access journals. OA movement gathered momentum.

Open Access and Open Content Publishing

Open Content is related to OA but open content is usually defined to include the general permission to modify a given work. Open Content is about distributing learning materials for free, but ensuring that the copyright remained with the authors and that the article would be used responsibly (Wiley, 1999). The content accessed in such a manner can be used in infinity of ways restricted only by the imagination of the user.

OA Publication is defined by the Bethesda Meeting on OA Publishing (11 April 2003) as one that meets the following two conditions:

The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organisation that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.

OA publishing therefore aims to provide free online access to all publications in which case a reader will not be asked to pay for subscription fees and therefore increase the mass audience an article can reach and thus promote further creation of knowledge.

Opportunities with Open Access Publishing

Africa still lags behind in the area of electronic information although there have been some pioneering initiatives like African Journals Online, African Digital Library, Database of African Theses and Dissertations, Africa’s Open Knowledge Network, and African Online Digital Library, among the few. Presently, there have been dramatic changes in scholarly publishing field as almost all major journals are now available in an electronic format, often offered to universities as package deals, usually bundling huge numbers of titles from a single publisher. Many big scientific publishers are experimenting with single open access journals or a hybrid form called open choice, which gives authors the possibility of having their papers made openly available in exchange for payment of a basic fee.

Harnard et al (2004) notes that there are many advocates of open access who believe that scholars should continue to publish their articles in traditional subscription-based journals but should at the same time upload open access copies of the papers to subject-based or institutional e-print repositories. This alternative mode of open access is often referred to as the green route as opposed to the gold route of the journals themselves being open access.

There are two primary vehicles for delivering OA to research articles, OA journals or OA archives or repositories. The chief difference between them is that OA journals conduct peer review and OA archives do not. In a number of African academic institutions of higher learning, starting and maintaining journals is becoming the order of the day. Once launched, these journals can provide ready material for OA. There are other OA vehicles such as personal web sites, e-books, discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and person-to person file-sharing networks. There will undoubtedly be many more in the future. Some African scholars have in the recent past started posting their academic papers and sharing knowledge with others on personal websites, blogs and specific networks. OA journals are economically sustainable because the true costs of peer review, manuscript preparation, and OA dissemination are considerably lower than the prices we currently pay for subscription-based journals. OA archives are economically sustainable because they are so inexpensive. Depositing new articles takes only a few minutes, and is done by individual authors, not archive managers. OA archives only require some server space, usually at a university. These archives benefit the institutions that host them by enhancing the visibility and impact of the articles, the authors, and the institution.
Nwangwu and Ahmed (2009) emphasise the importance of OA in eliminating all the factors that inhibit the flow of knowledge from the South to the North, and vice versa. If embraced, they note, the movement would probably expose the true level of scientific activities going on in Africa and other developing regions, as well as giving them access to those sources that have been hitherto restrictive to them. In addition, OA will strengthen the science communities of Africa, strengthen their national science systems, and very crucially expose those virile local knowledge sources, systems and methods that are yet to find their ways into the international market of ideas, often because they are believed not to meet international standards. The availability of an author’s publication in the public domain not only gives the author satisfaction but is an avenue for the author to interact with others, to be cited and even be invited worldwide for conferences and similar activities. The little success that has been there in OA has enabled some scholars to globe-trot and thus expand their knowledge base.

Proponents of OA argue that price barriers constitute the bulk of the problem for which OA is the solution. Removing price barriers alone will give most OA users most of what they want and need. In addition to removing access barriers, OA should be immediate, rather than delayed, and should apply to full-text, not just to abstracts or summaries.

Suber (2004) states that when copyright holders consent to OA, they Usually consent in advance to the unrestricted reading, downloading, copying, sharing, storing, printing, searching, linking, and crawling of the full-text of the work. Most authors choose to retain the right to block the distribution of mangled or misattributed copies. Some choose to block commercial re-use of the work. Essentially, these conditions block plagiarism, misrepresentation, and sometimes commercial re-use, and authorize all the uses required by legitimate scholarship, including those required by the technologies that facilitate online scholarly research.

OA will in time improve the global scientific findings by exposing alternative strategies and techniques which already exist but are not part of the mainstream science systems, but which also yield the same or even better results with research executed with standard methods. As noted earlier as in the introduction of the internet, OA upholds the dictum that knowledge should be a Common Heritage of man, a right that should be made available to persons.

In the recent past, there has been an increase in online groups and forums that not only socialise but engage in some meaningful information sharing. These have emanated from alumni, professionals in similar fields and even researchers. In most cases, subscription to such groups is free and administration is by a moderator. The knowledge shared via these groups has no geographical distance as any member of the group from any part of the world can access and post content. E-conferences and networking have also played a major role in shrinking distance in terms of information. Hamel (2005) argues that online or e-knowledge is the best thing ever to happen to African nations. Indeed, internet provides a bonanza of knowledge. It is the new revolutionary instrument for accessing knowledge. Knowledge portals and online knowledge searching and knowledge sharing have grown fast and have considerably broken the isolation of most DCs. Nwagwu and Ahmed (2009) point out that scientists in SSA countries can now freely access hundreds of scientific and professional journals, papers, documents, encyclopaedias, reports, presentations, lectures, etc. This represents a considerable progress in comparison with the situation prevailing only a few years ago. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for instance, is an opportunity where African scholars can deposit their e-journals. This is a projected initiated by Land University Libraries, Sweden. There are many other OA archives and databases available online. An organisation called Bionline provides access to research journals produced in Africa through the DOAJ.

OA has presented many opportunities to all the stakeholders. Suber (2004) dwells on some of the opportunities to different groups;

Authors: OA gives them a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based journal, no matter how prestigious or popular, and probably increases the visibility and impact of their work.
Readers: OA gives them barrier-free access to the literature they need for their research, not constrained by the budgets of the libraries where they may have access privileges. It increases their convenience, reach, and retrieval power.
Teachers and students: OA puts rich and poor on an equal footing for these key resources and eliminates the need for permissions to reproduce and distribute content.
Libraries: OA solves the pricing crisis for scholarly journals. It also solves the permission crisis. OA also serves library interests in other, indirect ways. Librarians want to help users find the information they need, regardless of the budget-enforced limits on the library's own collection. University librarians want to help faculty increase their audience and impact and thereby help the university raise its research profile.
Universities: OA increases the visibility of their faculty and institution, reduces their expenses for journals, and advances their mission to share knowledge.
Journals and publishers: OA makes their articles more visible, discoverable, retrievable, and useful. If a journal is OA, then it can use this superior visibility to attract submissions and advertising, not to mention readers and citations.
Funding agencies: OA increases the return on their investment in research, making the results of the funded research more widely available, more discoverable, more retrievable, and more useful. OA serves public funding agencies in a second way as well, by providing public access to the results of publicly-funded research.
Governments: As funders of research, governments benefit from OA in all the ways that funding agencies do (see previous entry). OA also promotes democracy by sharing government information as rapidly and widely as possible.
Citizens: OA gives them access to peer-reviewed research (most of which is unavailable in public libraries) and gives them access to the research for which they have already paid through their taxes. It also helps them indirectly by helping the researchers, physicians, manufacturers, technologists, and others who make use of cutting-edge research for their benefit.

A growing number of studies have confirmed that an OA article is more likely to be used and cited than one behind subscription barriers. There is enough evidence that OA documents are most likely to be cited than non OA documents. This gives OA authors an advantage over other authors who are sceptical about OA. Scholars are paid by research funders and/or their universities to do research; the published article is the report of the work they have done, rather than an item for commercial gain. The more the article is used, cited, applied and built upon, the better for research as well as for the researcher's career.
Open access goes beyond the academic circle and spreads its wings to other areas. An OA article can be read by anyone, including professionals, researchers in different fields, media practitioners, politicians, civil servants, etc. Open Access articles can often be found with a web search, using any general search engine or those specialized for the scholarly/scientific literature.
Many librarians have openly supported Open Access. These librarians believe that open access promises to remove both the price barriers and the permission barriers that undermine library efforts to provide access to the journal literature. Many library associations have either signed major open access declarations, or created their own. At most universities, the library houses the institutional repository, which provides free access to scholarly work of the university's faculty. Some open access advocates believe that institutional repositories will play a very important role in responding to open access mandates from funders.

Most African countries cannot afford books. Most of these books are available internationally and quite expensive by African standards. This is where OA comes in. Researchers, students and scholars in general in most cases get material via OA. This way, they are able to get latest, updated materials without necessarily paying anything except may be internet browsing charges if they are not met by their respective institutions.

Challenges to Open Access Publishing

Most African countries have no political or academic willpower to encourage growth in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). This is reflected in budget allocations, government bureaucracy, training and restrictions among others. There is sufficient basis to suggest that part of the reasons for the low profile of scientists in Africa is the poor access to scientific publications from the developed countries, exacerbated by the institution of copyright (Tagler, 1996). African countries scientists require access to scientific publications, which scientists all over the world are always willing to make available at no cost, in order to benefit from and also contribute to the world stock of knowledge. What Africa needs is an initiative or
arrangement that will guarantee access of scientists to scientific publications irrespective of where the sources are developed (Nwangwu and Ahmed 2009). Moller (2004) points out that despite many opportunities that present themselves, many countries in Africa are yet to utilise the privilege offered by these resources to internationalise their research sources. Many African countries and institutions have not encouraged faculty and students to contribute to or access OA materials. Some universities like the University of Western Cape has launched an Open Content project to have students and staff participate in OA. Previously, all other efforts have come from the west. African scholars have continually relied on e-papers from developed countries.

Language is a major barrier in most African countries. Different African countries have different official languages. Most online literature and OA materials for that matter, are in English. Kenya as a country for instance, has 42 tribes with different dialects. It is difficult to avail material in many of these languages. Kiswahili is a major language in East Africa but limited in online presence in terms of publications. Developers of the language are still grappling with other issues like online spelling checkers, e-encyclopaedias and dictionaries etc. It will therefore be a long shot before there is a repository of documents in Kiswahili to even consider OA.

Resistance to change has been seen as another challenge. There are many librarians, researchers, readers and authors who have resisted the change to the e-world. Some of them have no valid reason to back their resistance. Other librarians especially, believe that if they embrace the electronic version completely, their jobs are at a risk. True? False? You tell me. There are researchers and authors out there, especially in Africa who have kept their findings until they are overtaken by time! The findings simply become obsolete because of the fear that others will know about their findings. No wonder an old saying agrees with this that the richest place on earth is the graveyard, where you find many unexploited ideas buried with their owners.

Technologically, many African countries lack the infrastructure to handle OA materials. Telecommunication challenges like bandwidth allocation, weak communication and social infrastructure has not only blocked information flows but ultimately stifled social and economic development. Internet connection is key to OA. Despite having a very rapid rate of internet penetration, Africa still lags behind in internet connectivity (Keats and Beebe, 2003) with barely 1% of internauts being in Africa and the Middle East. This point is very crucial because much of the efforts to free scientific publications from the publisher in the electronic revolution are the internet facilities. Scientists who are not connected to the internet are excluded automatically from publishing in, and benefiting from, a growing number of journals, because many new journals are created online while many old ones now often have online counterparts.

Much has been said about the information rich and information poor. Many developing countries have complained of a deliberate move to isolate them in access to some information. This in turn has created a digital divide in which we have two distant worlds-the information rich and the information poor. Without a proper ICT structure, no country can advance in any sort of development. By digital divide, we refer to inequalities in access to the internet, extent of use, knowledge of search strategies, quality of technical connections and social support, ability to evaluate the quality of information, and diversity of uses (DiMaggio et al., 2001). The digital-divide underpins much of the ongoing discourse on whether ICT can be harnessed for mitigating poverty in DCs with several voices arguing that those who live on less than $1 a day have no need for ICTs. The proponents of ICTs on the other hand however consider ICTs as tools that can be used to provide the poor with economic opportunities and improvement in human well-being (see World Bank, 2001;UNCTAD, 2003). Furthermore, the new ICT products and applications are frequently designed in ignorance of DCs’ realities particularly SSA and fail to address the needs of the most disadvantaged sections of the community (Mansell and When, 1998).

A survey for Africa Tertiary Institutions Connectivity Survey (ATICS) carried out by the African Virtual University in 2005 showed the average African university has bandwidth capacity equivalent to a broadband residential connection available in Europe, pays 50 times more for their bandwidth than their educational counterparts in the rest of the world, and fails to monitor, let alone manage, the existing bandwidth (ATICS, 2005). As a result, what little bandwidth that is available becomes even less useful for research and education purposes. Arunachallam (2002), points out that the gulf in the levels of science and technology between the developed and the DCs will tend to widen further with the rapid expansion of the internet in the West and the speedy transition to electronic publishing, and this can lead to increased brain drain and dependence on foreign aid of a different kind (knowledge imperialism).

Although OA is basically free access to information, there needs to be some funding to take care of subscriptions, designing of tools, management, and availing technology. Most African economies are constrained or have other priorities and would invest in OA only if their budgets have surplus.

Suber, (2004) summarises the major four challenges to the success of OA.

Filtering and censorship barriers. Many schools, employers, and governments want to limit what you can see.
Language barriers. Most online literature is in English, or just one language, and machine translation is very weak.
Handicap access barriers. Most web sites are not yet as accessible to handicapped users as they should be.
Connectivity barriers. The digital divide keeps billions of people, including millions of serious scholars, offline.

What can be done? Recommendations

Putting in place information and ICT policies
Instilling interest in scholars to participate
Heavily invest in education and especially in ICT education
Expand internet network, bandwidth.
Constructing websites for all existing journals.
There is need for African community of stakeholder groups – librarians, authors, researchers etc., to come together to champion the course of OA. This can easily be done through internet.
Embrace change, not resist it.
Non-profit foundations like UN bodies seem to be committed to disseminating of information and information-related activities. Stakeholders should take advantage of this and collaborate with such groups.

Conclusion

OA has many opportunities that Africans can exploit. It is a way of bridging the Digital Divide, enabling development and innovation and making sure that researchers working in Africa get visibility in the world, and can be aware of what other researchers in Africa are doing. By putting research results in the public domain, discussion is made possible and further innovation enabled. This is also a way of rewarding Africa after too many years of research resources exploitation.

References

African Tertiary Institutions Connectivity Survey (ATICS) (2005) ‘African Virtual University (AVU)’, Nairobi, http://www.atics.info/index.html
Arunachallam, S. (2002) ‘Reaching the unreached: what role can ICTs play in rural development?’,Paper Presented at the Asian Regional Conference of UN ICT Task Force – Media Lab Asia, New Delhi, 25 April
Björk, B-C. and Turk, Z. (2006). "The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon): an open access journal using an un-paid, volunteer-based organization." Information Research, 11(3) paper 255. (Case studies in open access publishing. Number one.) [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/11-3/paper255.html
Cetto, M.A. (2001) ‘The contribution of electronic communication to science – has it lived up to its promise?’, Proceedings of the Second ICSU – UNESCO International Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science, UNESCO House, Paris, 20–23 February.
DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W.R. and Robinson, J.P. (2001) ‘Social implications of the internet’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 27, pp.307–336.
Hamel, J.L. (2005) ‘Knowledge for sustainable development in Africa towards new policy initiatives’, World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.217–229.
Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., Gingras, Y, Oppenheim, C., Stamerjohanns, H. & Hilf, E. (2004). The access/impact problem and the green and gold roads to open access. Serials Review, 30(4), 310-314. Retrieved 3 March, 2006 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.serrev.2004.09.013
Moller, A. (2004) ‘The rise of open access journals: their viability and their prospects for the African scholarly community’, Paper Presented during the International Conference on Electronic Publishing and Dissemination Organized by Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) held from 1–2 September 2003, www.codesria.sn
Nwagwu, E. & Ahmed, A. (2009). Building Open Access in Africa, 82 Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 45, Nos. 1/2, 2009
Raney, K. (1998). Into a glass darkly. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 4(2). Retrieved 3 March, 2006 from http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-02/raney.html
Suber, P. (2004). A very brief introduction to open access. Retrieved from http:// www.earlham.edu/peters/fos/brief.htm (Accessed March 30, 2006)
Tagler, J. (2005) The Real Digital Divide, London, UK, 12–18 March, Vol. 374, No. 8417, p.9.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2003) E-Commerce and Development Report, UN, New York and Geneva.
Walsham, G. (2000) ‘IT/S in DCs’, in M. Zeleny (Ed.) The Handbook of Information Technology in Business, International Encyclopedia of Business Management, London, UK: ThomsonLearning, ISBN: 1-86152-308-4, pp.105–109.
Weerawarana, S. and Weeratunga, J. (2004) ‘Open source in DCs’, The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), ISBN: 91-586-8613-4, http://www.sida.se/ publications.
Wiley, J. (1999) ‘Open publication license’, http:/Open content.org/openpub (retrieved 13 June 2005)

Useful Links

Budapest Open Access Initiative and its FAQ, February 14, 2002
Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, June 20, 2003
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, October 22, 2003

Fireside Chat

KM, Problem solving regimes and appropriate technologies in Africa - the polycentric food security strategy - Dr. Shittu Akinola

KMAadmin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:28:56 -0600

Dr. Shittu Raimi AKINOLA (Development Planner & Environmentalist)
Department of Architecture, Covenant University, 10 Idiroko Road, Canaan Land, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.
e-mail:srakinola@yahoo.com;
Mobile: 234-803-407-5110

ABSTRACT
Despite the existence of abundant food security potentials in Africa and several Africentred initiatives birthed by African leaders, over the years, to address food insecurity challenges, food security is still a mirage. While the dominant contribution to food security in developed societies came from increased yields as a result of scientific/technical innovation, farmers in sub-Saharan Africa still rely on their age-old traditional systems of farming, thus making the region to generally lag behind other regions. While innovative ideas on food security are generated by African agricultural scientists and agricultural engineers, there have not been sufficient incentives on the part of African governments to harness these potentials for the benefit of peasant farmers. Rather, African governments and industrialists/private sector patronized imported agricultural technology and development paradigm which are usually at variance with African realities. Consequently, the stakeholders in food security - African university, African government, African industry/private sector and peasant farmers - operate on parallel lines as against collegial interactions within food security arena. Peasant farmers have not been able to benefit from agricultural innovations with the consequence of a wide gulf between reality and societal ideal manifested in food shortage and poverty.
The issue of appropriateness of technology for food security (pre- and post-harvest activities) is very crucial and imperative for all stakeholders in agricultural sector. It is increasingly being appreciated that appropriateness of technology does not only have to do with the technical efficiency and effectiveness of the technology but also with its impact on the social balance in the society, the environment, skill requirement, etc. The contention of this paper is that, in this era of problem-solving knowledge regime, the onus rests on African scholars to think in a new way and add value to their disciplines to solve specific problems in food security in Africa. This, however, requires that Knowledge Management (KM) tools and techniques need be taken into consideration with its potentials fully employed in Africa for food security in the continent.
Using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, this paper will discuss the missing links between and among key stakeholders in food security in Africa. It will also attempt at evolving adaptive strategy, using inward-looking institutional mechanisms, to connect the key food security players in a polycentric manner. Further, the paper designs African Food Security Model (AFSM) aims at synergizing the efforts of the key stakeholders in food security. In addition, appropriate institutional mechanism is designed to craft effective linkage, partnership and collaboration between African government, university, industry/private sector, local communities and peasant farmers in their present day realities through polycentricity in order to ensure sustainable food security in Africa.

KM, Emerging Technologies and Innovative Schemes