The Interactive Knowledge Library: Capturing, Sharing and Synthesizing Tacit Knowledge in Engineering

Abstract

The Interactive Knowledge Library is a place to capture, share and synthesize tacit and explicit knowledge. While explicit knowledge (or ‘know what’) is useful, it is tacit knowledge (or ‘know how’) that is the quintessence of knowledge, from which there is the most to be gained by sharing. The Interactive Knowledge Library provides a medium through which knowledge is expressed by enabling data and information to be set into context. A Wiki environment (e.g. www.wikipedia.org) is the best information technology solution currently available in order to enable the Interactive Knowledge Library concept. Capturing and sharing knowledge is achieved within the same tool, without any dedicated knowledge management organization. Contributions can be made, knowledge refined, corrections made and issues discussed anytime from any network location. The contributions can be iteratively improved and added to as users gain more knowledge. This collaborative conversational approach to knowledge management has the potential to enable better than linear knowledge growth. The Interactive Knowledge Library is not intended to replace other knowledge management initiatives but to complement them. The library will provide a major step forward in knowledge management by enabling open exchanges of knowledge to be recorded in an organized framework, allowing any user to easily retrieve this knowledge in the future on an ad-hoc basis, using minimal resources.