Knowledge Management

CAMRIS has been providing technical services to improve knowledge management capacity within organizations that have set as their goal: fostering an environment conducive to more effective knowledge synthesis, transfer, and use. Our Knowledge Management services help our clients to organize and manage strategic and operational knowledge that is built from reliable information which is in turn built on verifiable data. This solid evidence based approach gives managers and decisions makers the best possible basis for using their program resources for maximum impact. Our current work emphasizes knowledge management in the health and economic development sectors. Relevance of KM The practice of utilizing, sharing, and using intellectual capital (data, information, knowledge) to gain competitive advantage refers to
knowledge management. In short, the process by which data is transformed into knowledge. Effective knowledge management can also improve efficiency and innovation, and enable faster and more effective decision-making. It is said that the KM discipline is its "third stage" in which the awareness of the importance of the content and especially of the importance of the retrievability, and therefore of the arrangement, description and structure of the content.      The perspective of knowledge management can be focused on: a) The processes of organizational learning, b) The knowledge creation process, and c) Management based description. Furthermore, some of the KM models focus on a personalization strategy, whereas other focus on the codification of knowledge. The evaluation of existing knowledge includes the definition of knowledge objectives. Based on those objectives, decisions have to be drawn which information is important, missing or no longer of relevance, this is the basis of an information audit. CAMRIS has carried out Information Audits as systematic reviews, classification, rating and organization of available information to establish availability, reliability and gaps.
Knowledge management systems are used by our clients to: Utilize results frameworks to achieve international health and economic agendas in order to define common goals and improve communication with regard to development project planning, implementation, and reporting; Support international health and economic agendas that improve multilateral coordination at the national and international levels and therefore require complex methodological alignments in addressing global development challenges; Involve all stakeholders in knowledge-intensive projects, to include the design of health and economic policy and reform agendas; modernization and customization of public health and economic development strategies; development of technical assistance planning and evaluative frameworks; and design of methodological tools for governmental, non-governmental and multilateral organizations and partnerships.		"Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating value for the intangible assets of an enterprise." p. 37 Konstantinos Ergazakis, Konstantinos Karnezis, et al. (2002). Knowledge Management in Enterprises: A Research Agenda. Practical aspects of Knowledge Management - 4th International Conference, PAKM 2002, Vienna, Austria, Springer. By 2002, a Price Waterhouse survey carried out with 150 top executives in 96 leading companies (83% US, 14% Europe, 3% Asia/Pacific) showed that 82% of surveyed companies said that they were involved in KM activities. "One of the limiting requirements for the information handling processes is no longer the storage capacity in databases but the time required for information search and analysis. The discrimination of relevant and irrelevant information is one of the crucial points in information storage and retrieval" p. 16
Within these areas, we work to: Develop on- and off-line tools (open-source and other) for information search, systematization, and dissemination; Facilitate knowledge synthesis by identifying existing tools and techniques and adapting them to the international health agenda while developing innovative Web-based knowledge management tools; Populate knowledge management systems to address client needs; Develop user-focused decision support interfaces. KM Tools/Products The four main KM tools and associated products we use are: 1) Knowledge Maps, 2) Data Mining, 3) Digital Libraries and 4) Information Audits. All of these are geared towards improving the decision-making process within organizations. Knowledge Maps Visual representation such as a Knowledge Map and structuring of knowledge makes access to "information about knowledge" much easier to analyze. Compared to hierarchically structure information a two dimensional knowledge gives much better overview over the existing or selected information.For an example of a Knowledge Map produced by CAMRIS please click here. Data Mining Data mining is a capability within the business intelligence system (BIS) of an organization's information system architecture. The purpose of the BIS is to support decision-making through the analysis of data consolidated together from sources, which are either outside the organization or from internal transaction processing systems (TPS).For an example of a Data Mining Plan produced by CAMRIS please click here Digital Libraries A Digital Library provides an open-source searchable tool with which users can access information sources gathered in the Information Audit. The Digital Library is full-text searchable across formats, be they datasets, .pdf files, images, word or text files, spreadsheets, video clips, wav files or other formats.For an example of a Digital Library produced by CAMRIS please click here. Information Audits CAMRIS has carried out Information Audits as systematic reviews, classification, rating and organization of available information to establish availability, reliability and gaps. For an example of a completed Information Audit please click here