The Hindu Business Line : Go that extra mile for KM

THE building blocks of information society are data, information and knowledge, writes D. Kamalavijayan in Information & Knowledge Management, from Macmillan India Ltd (www.macmillanindia.com) .

He defines data as an observed fact, based on some survey or study or some conscious effort relating to certain activity. "Data can be numerical, descriptive, graphic and symbolic."

If that's easy-to-grasp information about data, please know that information can mean different things to different people.

"For a stockbroker, the fluctuating prices of shares are information. A librarian treats recorded knowledge as information. In telecommunication, the signals transmitted or received are essentially information."

Yet, two things are essential in information, according to the author: It has to be perceived; and it has to be transmitted.

Then, what is knowledge? It is a synthesis of information contents received over time, explains Kamalavijayan.

Know that knowledge is an organised set of statements of facts or ideas presenting a logical result or judgment. And also that knowledge may or may not be transmitted; "it is primarily meant for decision-making." The omniscient may not be omni-talking or omni-mailing!

The author discusses how `seven properties' of information economics make it different from other branches of economics.

For instance, it is not a depletable resource, but a synergetic one, with value growing in the process of its use. While such perennial-ness isn't something that a miner can comprehend, let's move on to a different question: Can you measure information?

To answer this, the book draws insight from Claude Shannon's idea that a message is a string of symbols, and that information is the probability of these symbols being transmitted without distortion.

"The greater the information in a message, the lower is its randomness, or noisiness, and hence the smaller is its entropy," says Kamalavijayan, citing www.slider.com, which pegs redundancy of English at 50 per cent, meaning "half the elements used in writing or speaking are freely chosen, and the rest is required by the structure of the language."

Redundancy is information in excess, and knowledge is `an extremely efficient information compression'.

Don't be contented with whatever you've learnt thus far, because there's `content' which the author describes as having two major attributes, viz. subject category and direction.

`Content management' aims at effectively collecting, managing and making information available in targeted publication.

A not-to-be-missed section of the book is on case studies. One case is about how knowledge management (KM) is practised in Infosys, as "an institution-wide revolution". Another is on Dr Reddy's strategy of `articulating knowledge'.

The author, however, cautions that KM defies a crisp definition. Nor is there consensus on what KM is, so Kamalavijayan explains first what KM is not.

A book on KM that's worth going an extra mile for.

Nine components of e-learning

IN a new publication titled Improving E-Learning Policies and Programs, the Asian Development Bank (www.adb.org) has put together the proceedings of a workshop held in August 2004 on the status of e-learning and ICT in 19 Asian developing countries.

What's e-learning? It is the delivery of a learning, training, or education program by electronic means, defines the book.

In this are covered Web-based learning, computer-based education, virtual classrooms, and digital collaboration.

"It includes the delivery of content via Internet, intranet, audio and video tape satellite broadcast, mobile phone, interactive TV, and CD-ROM," explains the book.

There are nine critical components of an e-learning strategy, says Peter Moore of Microsoft in his presentation on `conducive environments for e-learning'.

He lists training, technical support, standards, innovative software, digital content, research, telecommunication and power, policy and development, and access as what are essential for successful implementation of e-learning.

John Venator of the Computing Technology Industry Association speaks of five indices for measuring training and comparing standards.

These are on satisfaction, learning effectiveness, job impact, business impact, and ROI indices. Ravi Kant, Special Secretary, Department of IT, Government of West Bengal, narrates a 2002 experiment that his State launched with IBM's help.

"Teachers were recruited and trained by IBM. The Government provided the infrastructure: 10 PCs and associated peripherals for each school." A monthly fee of Rs 35 was collected from each student; people below the poverty line were exempted from fee.

He reports that the program has covered about one million students. While that's impressive, he also mentions a dismal fact that the number of computers in schools had to be reduced from 10 to 4 "due to lack of finance".

Kazuyuki Shinkai, Project Chief of Advanced Learning Infrastructure Consortium, Japan, informs that a survey in his country found that many people do not understand e-learning.

"People are confused as how to integrate technology into their everyday lives. Some answered that it is a waste of time and money creating materials for e-learning when not many people really understand the effectiveness of the system."

Alarmingly, 75 per cent of teachers lack the skills needed to assist and teach e-learning.

"Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies," said Leon Trotsky.

That, perhaps, applies to e-learning too, because there may soon be no option except to learn the `e' way notwithstanding your prejudice against IT. A well compiled book.

Tailpiece

From a chat over the broadband:

"Hi, can we meet face to face?"

"What for?"

"For a high bandwidth interaction!"

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

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