Knowledge Management and Information Technology
Module leader: Norman Crump
The module seeks to present some of the ideas and practices contained within the label Knowledge Management. Over the course of ten weeks you will have the opportunity to listen to a number of speakers discussing knowledge management from a variety of different perspectives. This will include both academic and industrial and business discourses, views from the private and the public sector, and from a 'local' (North West UK) to a more international/global focus.
Over the initial weeks you will be introduced to the language, grammar and some of the central concepts concerning knowledge that help construct the field of knowledge management. This will be carried out by presenting the work of some leading thinkers and researchers in the area over the past two decades or so.
Through the lectures and presentations the intention is to show that this phenomenon called knowledge management is so much more than simply an array of technological tools that allows ‘clever’ people to do ‘clever’ things to data in an ever quicker fashion. The field of knowledge management, as will be argued in this module, is wide and complex and – often to the surprise of some – usually defined and confined by the social and organisational aspects, rather than the technical.
Completing this module will enable you to appreciate the history and development of knowledge management and its place within the wider canon of management knowledge. It will help you to understand some of the key themes that have arisen in the academic and practitioner-focused aspects of the field of knowledge management. It will also allow you to understand various approaches to conceptualising knowledge and its management, and will develop your appeciation of the role of technology (particularly ICT) in the developments in knowledge management and knowledge work.
Assessment
Unseen examination
