What is knowledge management?
"Knowledge management (KM) is the process of identifying, organizing, storing and disseminating information within an organization."
- IBM
It's our institutional information that guides why and how we do our jobs, as well as how we communicate that info to others across the university community. To be specific, this information has many forms, some of which are more obvious than others. Guru sums up the types of knowledge as:
- Explicit: Knowledge that is easy to write down and share
- Implicit: Applied knowledge
- Tacit: Knowledge gained from personal experience
- Declarative: Static knowledge that is specific to a topic
- Procedural: Knowledge that focuses on the 'how'
- A Posteriori: Subjective knowledge gained from individual experience
- A Priori: Knowledge gained independent from evidence
As indicated in the image above, this various knowledge includes everything from what our institutional culture is like (tacit knowledge) to understanding who to go to for advice or expertise (implicit knowledge) to the more specific steps for how we onboard and train an individual (explicit explicit).
The Need for Knowledge Management
The need for knowledge management at The New School was identified in the 2018 CoRe Project and echoed again in the 2021 Needs Assessment Survey. Consider for a moment the last time you found out a process had changed after the fact, or discovered that another department was referencing an old version of your instructions. Even trying to find an answer to a question involves searching multiple websites, file storage systems, email and chat history, and still may involve you asking an individual for help. Some of our KM-related issues include:
- Knowledge Attrition: Individuals leaving the university with integral undocumented knowledge.
- Siloed Information: Much of our university information is only known within our specific school, department, or even team; lack of knowledge sharing.
- Duplication & Accuracy: Similar information is maintained in multiple places; individuals do not know which source is current or correct; lack of versioning; broken links to web pages or Google Docs.
- Lack of Dedicated Owner: It is often difficult to tell who you should contact with questions or comments; ownership of info does not always transfer to new hires (especially ownership of documents).
- Security: Information is often shared via public website, which makes it difficult to manage access.
- Accessibility & Inefficiency: Information stored in too many places and little understanding of where to look; often need to ask for view permissions; inconsistency of formatting; frequent reports of task switching dating back to CoRe Report.
Knowledge Management Strategy
We began in earnest to implement knowledge management at the university in 2021. Our approach to knowledge management consists of knowledge stewardship, the people and processes, in conjunction with a formal knowledge base, or system of record. Our goals are to:
- Create and support a culture of knowledge stewardship that assures university information is accurate and current.
- Use one system instance that is centrally managed to achieve a single source of truth or record.
- Improve the accessibility of information, making it easier to locate and utilize knowledge.
Enter Guru!
Guru is the knowledge management tool used to organize institutional knowledge in customized collections by unit, department, or college so you have the verified information you need anytime, anywhere. We selected this platform or a multitude of reasons, including:
- Native process for verifying content for accuracy and currency at least once per year
- Automatic version history
- Breadcrumbs which help you understand the reach of your content and how it is being used by others
- Privacy controls including SSO and departmental provisioning
Guru can be accessed using the web application, Google Chrome browser extension, or mobile app after registering with your New School SSO credentials.
We will be rolling out Guru across the university in 2023. Contact Abbey Florence if you have any questions or would like early access to the platform!