2. KNOWLEDGE AUDIT FOR THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION
Knowledge Audit as indicated in the last paragraph of the introduction has been considered as tool to be used to investigate the Independent Institute of Education status, regarding the knowledge availability and needs, its workflow and usage in the process, by employees. (Liebowitz et al. 2009) defines KA as the process that clarifies, interaction, gaps, flows and how they impact on business objectives.
It is viewed from the perspectives of what information in available in the organization and where it can be found, knowledge of the expert in the organization, maintaining and sustaining knowledge assets in the organization and how they could work to achieve the organization objectives. The basic aim of the KA is to give a deliberate approximate view of the extent and state of affairs of specific sections of corporate knowledge. The first step was to set up questions to identify what knowledge exists? or available in the organization and differentiate between the tacit and explicit knowledge. The questions will focus more on vision and mission, programs, policies, resources and assets. The information gathered will be appropriate to determine the suitable strategy for implementing Knowledge Management within the institution
https://slideplayer.com/slide/9750341/ (video on Knowledge Audit)
Aim of the Knowledge Audit:
- To clearly identify what knowledge is needed to support overall organization goals and individual and teams activities
- Explains how knowledge moves around in and is used by, the organization
- Determine the vision and mission of the Institution (IIE)
- Describe the tutoring program activities, coordinators and partners
Knowledge Audit begins
Knowledge audit is usually the starting point to design KM Strategy. The first part was the decision towards selecting the department for conducting KA. One challenges in conducting the proper discussion was the issue of social distancing where the conversation was online only. The use of online conferencing tool created the barrier of human touch. The decision to decide on the target audience KA was another challenge as well.
Audit Team
There are various approaches towards KA implementation, such as:
outsourcing the KA activity to a company or designate a team within the company. However in this case the audit team consisted of the one person only which is the author of the project. The challenge was the unavailability of the top management due to unforeseen circumstances.
The other challenge experienced is the time frame the audit was to be carried out, which was only two weeks whereas under normal circumstances it takes three months in approximation.
Audit Methods
Knowledge audits generally consists of the identification of knowledge needs through the use of questionnaires, interviews and focus groups (Perez-Soltero 2007, p.11)5. For this audit the survey questions was adopted to examine the patterns of knowledge flow, how people processes information which eventually governs how well the organization uses and shares its knowledge. The survey questions was thus designed using Microsoft 365 application forms. The questions comprises of open and closed ended questions.
The questions were formulated based on the objectives described in survey as follows:
- Describing the tutoring program currently functioning in the institution, information available via the tutoring office
- Describing the person responsible for managing the tutoring program (skills, qualifications)
- Human Resources: How many tutors are employed ( experience and qualifications)
- Identification of how information is shared with tutors and amongst themselves (website and intranet)
- How information is processed during consultation- obtained via survey
Audit Performed
The audit was conduct by first contacting the tutoring program office, the Director of Teaching and Learning as well as Campus director for permission and elaboration on the benefits of KA
exercise.
Knowledge Assets
Responses from the survey and findings analyzed. These were captured in Microsoft Teams application which allows you to analyze the results and make conclusion. The document was converted to PDF and renamed as Knowledge Audit 2021 (Tutoring Program). The file was kept on SharePoint. The Top Management was than made aware of the availability.
Findings & Analysis
The Director of the campus indicated that there was an institution vision and mission, but this information is available via website and in strategic documents. The documents are share in strategic meetings and does not filter down to staff. Information reside mostly with staff and tutors, website and print material, some in brochures and not constantly updated. The author also noticed that technology was not available to capture the consultation session available to support students with academic learning. This is further extended by the idea that tutors are trained but there is no follow up on evaluating and monitoring the impact towards support provided.
Survey Questions (these were used to respond to the purpose and objectives of Knowledge Audit)
Reference
Perez-Soltero, A., Barcelo-Valenzuela, M., Sanchez-Schmitz, G., Martin-Rubio, F., Palma-Mendez, J. T., & Vanti, A. A. (2007). A model and methodology to knowledge auditing considering core processes. ICFAI Journal of Knowledge Management, 5(1), 7-23.