Web 2.0 in Knowledge Management:

Services or tools provided should have the ability to help people work as a team or a community in order to gain productive results. Web 2.0 full fills this need by helping people get together and share their opinions or ideas. In the modern era, organisations are concentrating on user satisfaction and providing the users with the services they need rather than releasing products without knowing the needs of the customers. Web 2.0 helps the organisations in achieving this goal by providing them with technologies that help in interacting with each other i.e., interaction between individuals inside the organisation and even between the customers and helping in receiving feedback from every individual in order to improve the product.

What's Web 2.0? There is no specific definition, however it can be understood as an upgrade to Web 1.0 where with the use of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting, RSS establishes a social networking environment where individuals can interact and contribute their tacit knowledge which upon becomes explicit knowledge through which everyone can benefit. Web 2.0 technologies help individuals consume more information which is the explicit knowledge that has been shared by different individuals. The term Folksonomy coined by Thomas Vander Wal in 2005 has evolved in this context which is an act of collective tagging of relative content which may be by an individual, an expert, the creator of the content or even by the consumer of the information. (Vander Wal, 2005).







Knowledge management is very important to gain success and fruitful results. When do we consider that an Organisation is successful? When it delivers a product that meets the requirements of the consumer. According to Wikipedia, in the recent world many Organisations are making use of the Wikis to help interact with other members and discuss regarding the product and get feedback in improving the product and gain Knowledge from the discussion or Brainstorming. (W ikipedia, 2006).




Image: Framework for knowledge work analysis according to Efimova (2004).

Many Universities are also utilizing these technologies to help students in academics. This is done by Podcasting and this helps in enhancing the learnig experience. Using Podcasting, videos of lectures are recorded and transmitted so that the students can view them in their portable media. This is very much useful in the transfer of knowledge and even the implementation of Blogs is also very much useful in the institutions.(Paul Anderson, 2007). We in our university are using Blogging to discuss our course content and in getting feedback from other students and even the lecturers regarding the articles we have posted and this is very much useful to rectify any mistakes and take valuable suggestions from them. In this way there is transfer of Knowledge taking place between us through which many of us have gained Knowledge in some or the other way regarding the information we do not know.

RSS feeds are used to get important updates regarding to the topic we have subscribed for. It indeed contributes to the Knowledge Pool. When any update like suggestions or comments are posted to the topic we have subscribed for, we get the updates in real time and by looking at those updates we can respond immediately in real time and share our knowledge with others which is very much useful for an individual himself or even the community also. Even Social networking websites serve in Knowledge transfer by connecting different people with different backgrounds or ethnicity at a place. All these people can interact and discuss on a topic of their interest and share their knowledge with others. (Paul Anderson, 2007). In Orkut, Facebook and similar sites, there are many communities and one can join any number of communities based on their interest and interact with like minded people and share their knowledge.

Conclusion:

Web 2.0 is very much useful in Knowledge management and improves the way in which people can share knowledge. Not only for the educational institutions but also for organisations. When implemented effectively can acheive fruitful results which is beneficial to each and every one. It also gets together people with similar interests no matter where they are from. And thus uniting ideas from different cultures. Web 2.0 is like a boon to the people who want to share knowledge.

References:

• H, Rollett 2009, The web2.0 way of learning with technologies. Int. J. of Learning Technology. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from: psu.edu.

• O'Reilly, T 2005, 'What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software'. Retrived March 31 2009, from: http://oreillynet.com/1pt/a/6228.
• P, Anderson 2007, What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education. Technical report, JISC, Retrieved March 31, 2009, from: Acm digital library.


• Tredinnick, L 2006, Web 2.0 and business: A pointer to the intranets of the future? Business Information Review, 23, 228–234. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from: springerlink

• A, Ankolekar, et al., 2007, The two cultures: Mashing up web 2.0 and the semantic web. In Proceedings of the 16th International World Wide Web Conference, Banff, Alberta, Canada. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from: www.kasm.nii.ac.jp.

• Safran, C et al., 2007, E-Learning practices and Web 2.0. In: International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from: iicm.edu.