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• Module overview
• 1. Introduction to knowledge management
  • 1.1 Knowledge management in organisations: Theory and practice
  • 1.2 Information and knowledge
    • 1.2.1 Distinguishing information, data, knowledge and wisdom
    • 1.2.2 Knowledge defined and managed

• 2. Type and structure of knowledge

  • 2.1 Type and structure of knowledge
    • 2.1.1 The structure of purposeful knowledge in an organisation
    • 2.1.2 Explicit and tacit knowledge
  • 2.2 Acquiring knowledge
    • 2.2.1 Sources of knowledge

• 3. Knowledge and learning

  • 3.1 The ability to learn as knowledge
  • 3.2 Types of knowledge and culture, meaning, and learning
  • 3.3. Knowledge management and balanced learning strategies

• 4. A knowledge management cycle

  • 4.1 A Knowledge Management Framework
    • 4.1.1 Stages in KM Cycle
  • 4.2 Dimensions to KM Strategy
    • 4.2.1 Leadership dimension to KM
    • 4.2.2 Governance and policy dimension
    • 4.2.3 Architecture dimension
    • 4.2.4 Absorption dimension
    • 4.2.5 Measurement dimension
  • 4.3 Knowledge as a basis for organising

• 5. Conduct a knowledge audit

  • 5.1 Knowledge audit
    • 5.1.1 Conducting a knowledge audit
    • 5.1.2 The Audit Process

• 6. Organisational Knowledge Capital

  • 6.1 Building an organisational Knowledge Capital framework
    • 6.1.1 IC and KC
    • 6.1.2 The value of knowledge
  • 6.2 Structural capital
  • 6.3 Social capital
  • 6.4 Human Capital defined
    • 6.4.1 Capital resources for organisations
    • 6.4.2 The individual as a capital resource
    • 6.4.3 Ingredients to HCM

• 7. Valuing forms of knowledge

  • 7.1 Valuing forms of knowledge assets
    • 7.1.1 Valuing Intellectual assets
    • 7.1.2 Valuing knowledge as an intangible asset

• 8. Information management systems

  • 8.1 Information management systems
    • 8.1.1 A basic information management framework
    • 8.1.2 Building systems to meet individual and organisational needs
    • 8.1.3 Information guardians versus stakeholders
  • 8.2 Structure and information transfer
    • 8.2.1 Information relevance and timeliness
    • 8.2.2 Information characteristics versus decision types
    • 8.2.3 Storage and retrieval

• 9. Information capture and intelligence gathering

  • 9.1 Information capture and intelligence gathering
    • 9.1.1 Developing a 'wish list'
    • 9.1.2 Finding answers
    • 9.1.3 Integrating intelligence within a knowledge management framework
  • 9.2 Forecasting methods
    • 9.2.1 Issues to consider when forecasting

• 10. IT and E-commerce

  • 10.1 An overview of e-commerce
  • 10.2 The Internet, computer networks and e-commerce
    • 10.2.1 Internet speed, innovation and change
  • 10.3 E-commerce advantages and disadvantages
    • 10.3.1 E-commerce advantages
    • 10.3.2 E-commerce disadvantages and constraints
  • 10.4 The Internet and business
    • 10.4.1 Drivers of e-commerce and Internet growth
  • 10.5 E-commerce and e-business

• 11. IT and supply chain management

  • 11.1 Electronic supply chain management (eSCM)
  • 11.2 E-logistics
    • 11.2.1 Are e-logistics and e-commerce the same thing?
    • 11.2.2 E-logistics blurs older logistic business categories
  • 11.3 E-procurement
  • 11.4 E-fulfilment

10.4.1 Drivers of e-commerce and Internet growth

Reading 2

View links on the Internet’s history and growth at the Internet Society: http://www.isoc.org/Internet/history/ and read the Brief History of the Internet at http://www.isoc.org/Internet/history/brief.shtml

You should also refer to and examine a timeline of the development of the Internet, see Hobbes' Internet Timeline at http://www.zakon.org/robert/Internet/timeline/

Activity 3

Consider the information presented with the readings listed under Reading 2 Now respond to the following.

1. Reflect on the fact that the Internet and e-commerce use of this medium has only really been available to the public since 1991/92.
2. Would you consider the Internet a new technology or a well developed technology?
3. What is the distinction between the Internet and the World Wide Web?
4. In what ways is the Internet still evolving?

A lot of computer networking activity developed from Robert Metcalfe’s invention of the Ethernet protocol for computer networks. He also identified that the value or power of a network increases in proportion to the square of the number of nodes on a network. This is known as Metcalfe’s Law, and it suggests that, for example, the more people who own a phone, fax or are connected to a computer network, the more useful it is for people to have a phone, fax or be connected to a computer network.

This is reflected in the following comments from Marc Andreesen, one of the founders of the web :

A network in general behaves in such a way that [as] more nodes … are added to it, the whole thing gets more valuable for everyone on it because all of a sudden there's all this new stuff that wasn't there before. You saw it with the phone system. The more phones that are on the network, the more valuable it is to everyone because then you can call these people. Federal Express, in order to grow their business, would add a node in Topeka and business in New York would spike. You see it on the Internet all the time. Every new node, every new server, every new user expands the possibilities for everyone else who's already there.

(Cited at http://www-ec.njit.edu/~robertso/infosci/metcalf.html)

Note this:

Find out more about Marc Andreesen and other Internet pioneers at http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/index.html

This effect has been driving the growth of the Internet for several decades. Its growth appeared to particularly accelerate with the emergence of the World Wide Web (aka WWW or the Web. Briefly, the Web is a use of the Internet much as a word processor is a use of a computer and operating system. This will be covered in more detail in the next chapter). The Web was developed and released by Tim Berners-Lee of CERN, which is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. CERN explain the origins and significance of the web as follows:

In late 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web …The Web, as it is affectionately called, was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information sharing between scientists working in different universities and institutes all over the world.

The basic idea of WWW was to merge the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system.

Hypertext is text with links to further information, on the model of references in a scientific paper or cross-references in a dictionary. With electronic documents, these cross-references can be followed by a mouse-click, and with the World-Wide Web, they can be anywhere in the world. There is no need to know where the information is stored, and no need to know any detail on how it is formatted or organized.

‘Wandering from one document (webpage) to another’ is called browsing. Some people do this just for fun, following links just to see what's there. This is usually called ‘surfing the Web’.

Of course, behind this apparent simplicity there is a set of ingenious design concepts, protocols and conventions.

Nowadays, the WWW has expanded from its original scientific environment and has millions of academic and commercial users. CERN, 2004

Apart from the effects described by Metcalfe’s Law, technology has become cheaper and more powerful over time, allowing more data to be created, processed, stored and communicated via networks.

• Other drivers of e-commerce growth and innovation have included:
• the size of market available through the Internet;
• the convenience and effectiveness of browsing and buying via the Internet; and
• the migration of business information systems from being focused within individual businesses to being focused between businesses, allowing, for example, supply chain efficiencies.

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