Study In Tacit Knowledge And Knowledge Management Systems

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I am a doctoral candidate in the Computer Information Systems program at Nova Southeastern University's College of Engineering and Computing.  I am working to complete my dissertation in knowledge management. Tacit knowledge is learned knowledge, e.g. what is in your head.  Explicit knowledge is everything else such as all the data on your hard drive and everything that you read or see on the Internet.  Once your tacit knowledge is placed into a knowledge management system, or forum, etc., it becomes explicit knowledge. Domain experts are willing to share their personal (tacit) knowledge with others to help them learn but are less willing to provide the same knowledge into a Knowledge Management System (KMS). The preponderance of research says that tacit knowledge either cannot be collected or that it is very difficult due to the nature of tacit knowledge.

The goal of my study is to demonstrate that the use of a storytelling-based approach can be successful in the collection of tacit knowledge for use in a KMS. Prior research has utilized stories to overcome issues with tacit knowledge and KMS’; however, prior research acquired tacit knowledge from interviews and videos and was then entered into the KMS by the interviewers. In my storytelling-based approach, domain experts provide their tacit knowledge into a KMS by directly entering their tacit knowledge, as stories.

I have completed my Proposal and developed a build-for-study KMS (http://www.DocHarley.com). I need people to participate in a simple web-based, online exercise and 19-question survey.  The exercise is creating a story using the built-for-study KMS. The scenarios are very general and likely occur in all or most all IT and applications development/support departments.  The exercise is low key, simple, and basically entails creating a story to relate some aspect of something you solved or did. The start-to-finish process requires an approximate 20-minute commitment.

Once a participant inputs a story and answers the survey questions, the survey is considered complete.  Once I have reached the number of participants, I will close the study and a drawing will be held for $500, which has been approved by the IRB.

Go to http://www.DocHarley.com and follow the ‘Participant Instructions’ link of the home page. This provides step-by-step instructions for participating and explains how the drawing will be conducted.

Compensation: $500 drawing at end of participation; must complete survey

Location: http://www.docharley.com