Knowledge Management Technology

I have a [1] paper by Marwick about knowledge management technology. It's interesting now that I have some case studies because I can see where it applies. For example, Marwick writes

"explicit knowledge is represented by some artifact" (p814)

Explicit knowledge gets kept in documents, project documentation, service requests, opening and closing project documents, programme plan on a wall, minutes and agendas. All these contain information that a team shares between its members.

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[1] Thanks to Shailey Minocha who drew my attention to it.
Marwick, A. D. (2001) 'Knowledge management technology', IBM systems journal, 40 (4). 994

Writing up

I'm analysing and writing my first accounts of my first couple of case studies, which isn't an easy task I think because you have to transcribe, code - er how? Code what? How do I choose my codes? And what does it mean when you assign a code to a piece of text?

So I've got these codes from the Naphiet and Ghoshal framework and highlighted them over my eleven transcripts, but somehow I have to write up my findings so that they logically cohere with my codes. I read what I've written - 6000 words (wow!) but I've missed that step - it's in my head and not in my writing. So I've got to spend a couple of days pulling those codes out, deconstructing what my interviewees said into the various dimensions of social capital and then reconstructing the analysis into coherent writing. It sometimes seems a bit silly really.

Systematic review method

What?
a systematic review is a method of reviewing a large body of literature to

• reduce information overload
• leave an audit trail
• avoid bias
• inform policy
• support practice (E.g. to fluoridate water supplies)

When to use?

• when there's uncertainty,
• when evidence is required
• when questions are unanswered
• to direct future research

How
See 7 stages in Petticrew (p27)

Analysis or stories ?

It's a bit difficult to write analysis. I get confused by thinking of the stories I've heard, or the story I was told. Analysis is deconstructing those stories. Miles & Huberman's book is so helpful in giving me tools to deconstruct, but then I have to put them together again. :(

Vice Chancellor designate's address

We have a new Vice Chancellor designate, an Australian chap called Mr Martin Bean who's moving over from Seattle with his family. He's been working with Microsoft educational products for ages, and he says, with technology and education for his career and he wants to be Vice Chancellor of our university and he's got the job! Yesterday he addressed the staff of the University, speaking and taking questions. I was there in the audience. I was impressed. I thought he showed energy and sympathy and thoughtfulness, along with an ability to joke and laugh at himself. Inspiring.

They told us in November:

Martin Bean – Announced as New Vice-Chancellor
The University’s new Vice-Chancellor is to be Martin Bean, who is currently General Manager responsible for product management, marketing and business development for the Worldwide Education Products Group at Microsoft.

Martin, who will be the OU’s fifth Vice-Chancellor, will take up his appointment on 1 October 2009, following Professor Gourley’s retirement in September.

Here's a comprehensive blog on the session:
http://dougclow.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/martin-bean-looking-ahead-mission-values-and-opportunity/

Why blog?

I've only just found this blog arguing why academics should blog.

Analysis paralysis

Paralysis is what happens when you come to qualitative analysis. It's the weakest part of what they teach you - how to analyse qualitative data. As I work my way through with

• coloured pens,
  
• tables from Miles & Huberman,
  
• a data accounting sheet and
  
• diagrams to compare case study relationships with what I wrote about Peled's findings,
  

I think it all feels as qualitative an approach to analysis as the data that I'm analysing. And the analysis is only another layer on top of what is already there - it's my view of the interviewees' views.

I think I learned a more about analysis of these sort of soft systems when I was tutoring systems (T301) years ago. Checkland's approach included identifying climate, process, facts, structure and queries, but it was the climate and process that revealed the issues. Even Miles and Huberman have picked up on those two.

So I have a framework that gave me my interview questions from which I've elicited data, and the main thing now is to explain how I've found these themes, or found any findings. I have to make the links back and that's the hardest bit - writing coherent and logical links. Perhaps it's my writing that is paralysed.

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Miles, M. B. and Huberman, A. M. (1994) Qualitative data analysis : an expanded sourcebook, (2nd Edn), Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks. 758
Peled, D. A. (2001) 'Outsourcing and Political Power: Bureaucrats, Consultants, Vendors and Public Information Technology', Public Personnel Management, 30 (4), pp. 495. 475