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The present-day economic, social and technological context is bringing about changes to which universities must also adapt. Higher education is now accessible to a great number of people and this partly explains the growing competitiveness between universities. Again, the present speed of knowledge transfer has generated an increasing demand from professionals and businesses for continuing education. Knowledge Management is an appropriate discipline for enabling a smooth integration of these new needs into higher education, both in management of the university as an institution and in its research and teaching functions.

Knowledge Management (KM) is a discipline which has become increasingly appreciated with the expansion of new technologies. In any organisation, knowledge management means creating harmonious working conditions among the members of a community in order to improve productivity and achieve the desired results (see the key article on KM 'What is Knowledge Management?' by Yogesh Molhatra, professor of the School of Management at Syracuse University in the United States). Information and communication technologies (ICT) have helped to expand the possibilities of KM.

In the case of universities, given the needs that have arisen from the present economic, social and technological context, the application of KM must aim at both internal reorganisation of resources and improving teaching and research. This assists in the development of a competitive university that is adapted to the new demands of society (see the article 'Gestionar conocimiento en la universidad' (Knowledge Management in the University) by the UOC (Open University of Catalonia) lecturer Agustí Canals in the review Know-Org of Infonomia.com; and the article 'Applying Corporate Knowledge Management Practices in Higher Education' of PriceWaterhouseCoopers consultants, in Educause.com).

KM and reorganisation

Before discussing the university sector, it is a very good idea to look at two paradigmatic examples of knowledge management in organisations. The first is Hewlett-Packard (for more information, see articles at Texas University and Noodle Links ) and the second is IBM (for further information see the article). These two examples of successful outcomes in organisations of the size of HP and IBM are recommended reading.

More particularly, the application of KM in the university sector with a view to reorganising internal processes may be found at the Bina Nusantara University in Indonesia. At this university, Indonesia's leading centre in technological teaching, a technological infrastructure of networks, hardware and software has been introduced in order to speed up administrative procedures and provide the up-to-date information needed for decision-making at all levels of the organisation. The system is based on a set of repositories of information - of 'knowledge'- to which all the staff has access. This is complemented by a number of inter-organisational communication tools so that staff members may exchange information about experiences and practical cases, leading to an improvement and increased speed in management processes.

One more specific case of knowledge management in the organisation is that of Poliedre, which was developed by UPC (Technical University of Catalonia). This is a corporate intranet for the exchange of information, knowledge and experiences between the different collectives of the university staff. Virtual communities are also included along with on-line courses and the possibility of accessing examinations and biographical material.

In the case of the University of South Florida in the United States, the initial aim of the KM system was to reduce the time it took to resolve technological problems in the different campus centres. One single point of on-line access offered a series of model responses to the typical technical problems that arose. This considerably reduced the number of e-mails and phone calls received by the USF Technological Department. On the basis of these results, the model was then adopted by the USF Finance Department. At present, the KM system has expanded with proposals and the interchange of solutions among the university staff and the relevant office-holders in the abovementioned departments.

In the medium term, there are two interesting proposals for application of KM models in the reorganisation of university processes. One has been proposed for the University of Cauca in Colombia (for further details see the article). The other proposal is from the Basque University/Euskal HerrikoUnibertsitatea, in Spain, and this is now underway (for further information, see the article)

Teaching and Research

With respect to KM in research and teaching work, the paradigmatic example is that of TUFTS University of Medicine in Massachusetts in the United States. All TUFTS students and teachers can use the Health Sciences Data Base (HSDB). This base incorporates, in digital form, all the internal documents necessary for engaging in study and research in the health sciences - books, teachers' and researchers' documents, student papers, examinations for previous courses and many more items.

One of the advantages of the TUFTS system is that it permits transversal consultation of the data. For example, a medical student who is studying 'Mad Cow Disease' can have immediate access to information on the virus from the Department of Veterinary Science. It is even possible to exchange information in message repositories with other students and teachers who have worked on the matter, in the faculties both of Medicine and Veterinary Science (for more information see the article).

At a more general level, it is also worth reading the article jointly written by the co-founder of GoCampus, Michael Looney, and Peter Lyman, lecturer at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, on the application of the concept of the Internet portal at the university. From the standpoint of higher education in the United States, Looney and Lyman state that university systems can benefit from the experience of portals that are used for commercial purposes - and we repeat, 'benefit from the experiences'- in order to meet the aims of teaching research and university management in this way, but without business being the priority aim, according to Looney and Lyman. The article also discusses the example of the University of Washington portal, MyWashingtonUniversity.

Finally, it should be noted that, Article 15 of UNESCO's 'World Declaration for Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century: Vision and Action' of 9 October 1998, stresses that knowledge should be permitted to cross borders. In this regard, one should take into account the efforts being made in the BIBA Institute at the University of Bremen as part of the CORMA Project which enables standardisation of knowledge management systems in European territory. Furthermore, the European Union is applying a plan of action, within the eEurope Programme, with the aim of achieving a network that will permit exchange of data between students and researchers. These two latter models may serve to extrapolate the model to a trans-European level, thereby partially fulfilling the goals of the aforementioned UNESCO Declaration.

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Roc Fages (rfages@eic.ictnet.es)