RES701
Assignment2
Critical review of an Academic Paper
API Reference: Chua, A. (2004). Knowledge management system architecture: a bridge between KM consultants and technologists. International Journal of Information Management, 24(1), 87-98.
Link to the webpage: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401203001233
Summery
This academic paper is mainly focused on developing a model which clearly explain the knowledge management system to help identify which type of technology should be selected which could provide maximum support to the fundamental knowledge management processes.
There are mainly two type of the group which are associated with knowledge management. One side of the group is represented as consultants who are more concerned about KM (knowledge management) and doesn’t know more about technologies. The other side of the group are technologists, who are focused on the functions and features of the technologies rather than the KM process. Thus, the people who are more associated with the KM process, doesn’t know that which technology should be used and the technologists are not much concerned or aware about the KM process. So, the author of this paper is interested in discovering a model which could diminish the understanding difference gap between the two group.
Review of the paper:
A: What is the title and what does the title tell you about the paper?
Answer: The title for this academic paper is “Knowledge management system architecture: a bridge between KM consultants and technologists”.
The title conveys the meaning that this paper is all about knowledge management system architecture. The structure of the title is so meaningful that easily conveys that the architecture which will be discussed throughout the paper will bridge the gap between these two different groups named KM consultants and technologists. Which means, they do have different
B: Who is the paper written by and do they seem credible to you?
Answer: This paper was written by Alton Chua. The author seems credible to me as he is a well-known lecturer in polytechnic and teaches the subjects like programming for business applications and knowledge management system to final year students. He holds bachelor’s degree in computer science and arts.
C: Does it have a helpful abstract? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer: The abstract of this academic paper is quite helpful as it conveys the topic which is mainly focused for this academic paper.
It also represents the work done by author like he attempts to create a model which will bridge the gap between the two groups. The last and most important thing which is mentioned in the abstract is that the outcome of the efforts of the author. By exploring the model, the author bridges the gap between the two group.
D: What did the author do in their research, what research approach and what method did they use?
Answer: Author has done exclusive research about the content which is related to implementing technology for the KM. From various sources which are mentioned in the paper, the author identified that the successful KM implementation does not depend only on technology.
The first obstacle to the implementation the author mentioned is the human behaviour, which is believed as the greatest difficulty to implement the KM.
The second most difficulty they face is the ‘Culture’. It is conceived as the most difficult obstacle to knowledge transfer.
The third most difficulty the author identified is that the time they were implementing, there were many technological limitations for the implementation of KM.
Author has used the “Secondary” research method to find out about this all findings.
E: Do you think the method(s) they used was appropriate to the question they were asking? Explain why or why not.
Answer: I think this secondary research method was appropriate method to answer the all questions which they were asking. Because they are using other online papers for the better understanding of this particular area. For the better understanding, this paper provides the KMS architecture. The main objective of this paper is to decrease the gap between consultants and technologists. but most of the KMS architectures are not able to meet the objective of this paper. For example, seven layer KMS architecture, KM reference model, KM spectum and Ovum KM tools architectural model are very hard to understand by the consultants.
This paper provides the KMS architecture which provides the three different services like infrastructure services, knowledge services and presentation services.
Infrastructure services: In this technology plateform and features are required to implement KM. Storage and communication are two services which are provided by technology.
In storage, knowledge repository which is known for its content and structure. Structure mainly explain about knowledge unit like how it is formated and linked to others.There are two types of repository, data warehouse and knowledege server. Repositories are mainly designed to gather the graphics information like audio, video multimedia document etc.
In communication, three services are there in communication like communication between users like file sharing and e-mailing, communication among users like syncronous meetings and workflow management where users allow to manage process of workflow using online execution.
Knowledge services: These services supported by technology solutions to achieve the goals of KM. Main three KM goals are knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse.
Knowledge creation through experimentation, discovery, improving exsisting knowlegde to make new knowledge. So, knowledge is mainly created through exploitation, exploration or codification. Technologies that supports knowledge creation process are knowledge creation through exploitation,exploration and codification.
Knowledge sharing is the flow of knowlege from one part of organization to the other part. There are two technologies which supports knowledge sharing that are social network analysis tools and collaborative tools.
Knowledge reuse have main four stages that are capturing knowledge, packaging knowledge, distributing knowledge and using knowledge. technologies which suppports the knowlegde reuse are content management and concept mapping. Emerging technologies are helpful to increase the knowledge of user needs.
Presentation services: Technologies which support presentation services mainly concern to improve the interface between user and information resources. Two main features of presentation services are personalisation and visualisation.
Personalization involves gathering all information about user, resources and content. It is implemented by three components user’s profile, content and business context. Main features of personalization technologies are explicit user configuration, implicit user configuration and collaborative filtering.
F. What results does the paper report?
Answer:
H. Do you believe the results/findings or the paper? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer: I believe in this academic paper because of the following reasons:
This paper contains 75 citations.
It also provides the name of the author and all required details about him like what is his occupation, qualification.
It provides the publication date, pages of the paper.
This paper is well structured like provides all important details. For example: abstract, introduction, body, conclusions, references, recommended articles, citations etc.
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