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THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR DEVELOPINGLEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT

«THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR DEVELOPINGLEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT»

by Elena ŞUŞNEA

Source:Conference proceedings of "eLearning and Software for Education" (eLSE) (Conference proceedings of"eLearning and Software for Education" (eLSE)), issue: 01 / 2013, pages: 345­349, on www.ceeol.com.

The 9th International Scientific Conference eLearning and software for Education

Bucharest, April 25-26, 2013 10.12753/2066-026X-13-055

THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

FOR DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES

IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Elena �U�NEA "Carol I" National Defense University, Panduri Street, no. 68-72, Bucharest, Romania

esusnea@yahoo.com

Abstract: In this paper, we are focusing on the role of knowledge management tools for developing

leadership competences in crisis management from a didactic approach based on use of computers in

learning process. Crisis situation occurs unpredictably and causes individuals and organizational shift

their focus immediately to deal with situation. At individual level, each person must be encouraged and

trained to make creative decision. When these decisions must be making of teams, the flexibility and

cohesive nature of teams are very important to success of the endeavour. Starting from individual and

team perspectives, we are developing a framework of leadership competences that will help us identify

the different types of e-learning activities and the technologies for supporting these. In addition, we are

comparing different types of technologies that can be used in communication, collaboration and content

management for developing leadership competences in crisis management. For this, we describe and

categorize the main communications technologies that can be used to knowledge sharing between teams

and within teams. Also, we show advantage and limitations of synchronous and asynchronous

technologies. For better content creation and management, we analyze tools very useful in capture,

creation, sharing, accessing, dissemination, and application of knowledge. At the end, we describe some

intelligence technologies used in knowledge management and we explain the importance of using

adaptive technologies for better target content to a specific knowledge-worker or to a specific team of

knowledge workers who make decision in crisis situations. The article has as main purpose to explain

the advantages that an on-line learning system will bring to a class of students that learn mainly in a

blended learning system.

Keywords: e-learning, data mining, knowledge management, crisis management

I. LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

As regards the educational field, the knowledge management (KM) represents a set of

practices supporting the teachers “to improve the use and sharing of data and information in the

decision-making”[1]. As regards the development of competencies in crisis management leadership,

along the provided training to the students there is needed to envision that crisis are introducing an

element of uncertainty. This uncertainty determines the trainers/teachers to teach their students to

properly and promptly react to unpredictable situations.

Human is the first knowledge tool [2] (or worker) although the technology is more used to

enable knowledge generation, codification and transfer. Therefore, there are also needed tools to

effectuate the KM as instruments to quantify and measure the outcomes of knowledge implementation,

in its pure form or in a system.

Knowledge creates value to all – individuals, groups, organizations or society in its whole. In

our regard, individual knowledge represents in fact each of us personal knowledge, what and how

much we know to do, to show or to share to others. So, in relation to it, the personal knowledge

management (PKM) is a collection of processes that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search,

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retrieve, and share knowledge in his or her daily activities [3] and the way in which these processes

support work activities. Many potential advanced technologies have failed because the "human

dimension" was not sufficiently listened and involved during the planning and implementation of

process improvement initiatives [4]. The KM executed into a group intends to share mutual knowledge

between the individuals being part of it. If the groups are part of an organization, usually are separated

on activities. The organizational KM involves and refers to all the other two. It must be the result of

individual and group management knowledge, containing an intrinsic core needed for the organization

to react as a meta-system of knowledge.

As long as information means power, knowledge as well brings it. So, the question comes for

each individual coming to work for an organization if he must assume the risks of sharing his/her

precious knowledge to the other members of the newly accessed organization. The same situation

occurs also inversely. But the organization, peculiarly those sharing critical knowledge as the military

structures have some ‘safe modes’ to protect from the personnel who might infringe the confidentiality

or secrecy policies. They take some assurances in written from their newly employees in order to

prevent leaks of sensitive information [5]. Nevertheless, inside the organization, trust is the basis of

sharing between persons or groups. This is also effective at higher levels. NATO when agreed new

countries as members in the alliance pretended some assurance policies from its future allies.

II. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

We agree some specialists idea that the IT based tools, for the most part, fall into one of the

following categories: groupware systems; the intranet and extranet; data warehousing, data mining and

OLAP; Decision Support Systems; content management systems; document management systems;

artificial intelligence tools; simulation tools and Semantic networks [6].

Some experts did a Top 100 learning tools, which are also defined as tools „to create or

deliver learning content/solutions for others or a tool for your own personal or professional learning”

[7]. In this Top, created since 2007, are comprised a series of informatics applications used as KM

solutions. The freeware sharing tools have been very wanted in this period of time. For example, in

October 2012, Twitter - social network of micro blogging [8] - was first place ranked. YouTube, video

hosting and sharing platform, since 2010, is on the second place and Google Docs/Drive on third place

along the used KM tools.

Still, as it regards the KM of educational organizations forming specialist for crisis

management decisional job, the tools must be more specific and more creativity oriented. Thus, there

are mainly used sophisticated capture and creation tools, sharing and dissemination tools, acquisition

and application tools. All of them must be mixed and matched in a suitable manner as to become a

good servant of KM concerning the crisis management as approached educational discipline with

settled goals and outcomes to be achieved in the technological training process.

2.1 Knowledge capture and creation tools

Knowledge capture and/or creation are a central process of KM and represent the first stage of

the KM cycle. It comprises several approaches, techniques and tools used to elicit tacit knowledge, to

trigger the creation of new knowledge and to subsequently organize this content in a systematic

manner. The translation of knowledge into an explicit or easily understandable form, often referred to

as codification, facilitates other KM processes such as the storing and dissemination of knowledge.

The multidisciplinary character of KM is also evident here as knowledge capture techniques are

derived from a number of other areas, such as development of expert systems, sociology, techniques

for content creation, task analysis, etc [9].

Knowledge creation comes from the individual idea promoted by a person or a group of

experts following a brainstorming and then commonly exploited in the organization. The creation can

be just an idea of change or a product, a service or even tool of knowledge. Knowledge creation may

occur through research, innovation projects, experimentation, observations, etc [10]. There are

specialists suggesting that knowledge production starts with knowledge claim formulation, followed

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by individual and group learning, information acquisition, knowledge claim evaluation and finally, the

building of organizational knowledge [10].

Authoring tools are the commonly used content creation tools range from the general (word

processing) to the more specialized (webpage design software) [11]. As regards the educational The

authoring, storage, delivery and reuse of educational content is rapidly becoming a significant problem

in the tertiary education sector where significant content is generated for the plethora of courses

delivered each year. Effectively being able to manage this authoring process (authoring, storage,

delivery and reuse) will offer significant advantages for the tertiary education sector [12]. The

challenges being faced in the content authoring process in tertiary education sector can be summarised

as follows: little or no archiving of content (each lecturer redevelops content); tools used are content

developer specific; content types supported depend on the platform used by each developer; important

standards are not necessarily supported (i.e. WCAG, SCORM, etc…); content is typically recreated

for each delivery mode (i.e. PDF, PowerPoint slides, lecture notes, etc…); content cannot be updated

easily [13].

Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it

into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both [14].

Data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data. It allows users to

analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships

identified . Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of

fields in large relational databases.

There are many content types important for the creation of the educational content but the

most important are: text, audio, video, images and references. This diverse content must be delivered

by different modes as follows: DOC, TXT, PDF, learning management systems, IPod, Smartphone,

lecture slides and handouts etc., but, in order to do that it must be respected some standards. SCORM

(Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) 1 is an example of a collection of standards and

specifications for web-based e-learning. SCORM defines a standard format for educational content,

including static and dynamic content as well as interactive learning content like quizzes and surveys.

Furthermore, SCORM defines a method of tracking and scoring student progress through these

educational materials [15].

2.2 Knowledge sharing and dissemination tools

The major advantage of e-learning is that we may enable a large number of students to make

contact with educational resources [16]. Sharing and dissemination is very important in the KM. Is

good to have good educational content to be shared but is better when is possible to acknowledge it to

more students. Today, in our era of globalization when the high tech and networking comes first, this

is easy to achieve. Internet is a great disseminator. There are different IT means available for the

sharing and dissemination of all kind of informational content.

One is GroupWare which offers support co-ordination of co-operative work by capturing a

repository of (unstructured) pieces of information created by a team during their common work [17].

Collaboration tools help peoples to collaborate with the help of collaborative software, a KM one. No

one can remain isolated in our increasingly integrated and connected world. Neither the students do.

Particularly when they need as much access to information as it is possible. A proficient example is

Google Docs, an excellent application for collaboration, where it is possible to share documents and

spreadsheets and collaborate with team/classmates/tutor in real-time. Being a browser-based

application – the requirements to get up and running is very minimal. Storing each student’s work

online means the stored information is readily available anywhere with an internet connection. Lately,

very used as knowledge sharing tools are wiki connections, as Wikipedia encyclopedia, Wikispaces or

WikiLeaks.

2.3 Knowledge acquisition and application tools

In a ‘socially mobile learning environment’, it is no longer sufficient to use online learning

and teaching technologies simply for the delivery of content to students [18]. Thus, were born the

knowledge acquisition and application tools as adaptive technologies which use conceptual models in

order to solve the problems. The conceptual models allow the user of a computer program to

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understand the meaning of the messages that the program produces and the nature of the data which

the program operates [19].

There exist a series of conceptual models for knowledge acquisition: symbol-level conceptual

models, method-based conceptual level, explicit models of problem solving, implicit models of

problems solving, task-based conceptual model, etc. From all these presented models, the most

suitable for our type of KM it seems to be the task-based conceptual model. Computer based military

simulations have emerged as cost effective and engaging mediums for military personnel to develop

and maintain operational proficiency. They range in sophistication from embedded training systems

incorporated within deployed equipment, to computer games designed with guidance from military

domain experts.

Also the students attending crisis management courses increasingly demand more constructive

online courses that not only provide information but also facilitate studying experiences. We consider,

educational war games grasping military crisis offer a good starting point and a viable strategy to

create such instrument used maybe for manmade (war, armed, conflict, riots, terrorist acts, insurgency

etc.) or natural events triggering a crisis to be solved out by our crisis management structures’ leaders.

These systems allow students to practice tasks in environments that bear a high degree of

fidelity with real world task contexts. Unfortunately, a key element necessary for achieving the

promise of effective ubiquitous training is largely missing in most military training simulations. These

systems typically lack the ability to scrutinize student performance and provide context specific

guidance to learners in real-time. This could contribute to sub-optimal learning outcomes [20].

III. Conclusions

The KM must be aligned to the organizational policy, strategies, culture and structure, and

must provide an environment with well disciplined, value-added and relevant knowledge to generate

and introduce innovation and challenging ideas. Dynamic attribute means the information and

knowledge flow should spread through the organization without barriers; everyone can approach and

contribute to the knowledge assets.

KM is different in regard to the level is applied. So, if is applied on a single person it refers to

his means of acquisition, storage and dissemination of data and information. When the situation comes

about organized groups, it becomes more complex. There is needed a KM taxonomy suitable for all

types of personnel, flows of information and different outcomes. Furthermore, the KM tools for

developing leadership competencies in crisis management get increasing important role owed to its

touchy dimension – the uncertainty needed to be grasped along the education process by the trainers.

Therefore, we think are needed proficient simulating and modelling instruments in order to create not

only the know-how of the future military or civilian decision-makers but to go beyond this state, for

them to have a basis of “know why”.

Main role of KM tools for developing competencies in crisis management consists in the e-

learning platforms with contents suitable and modulated in regard to the field’s needs and

requirements.

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