This book gathers current research on knowledge management (KM) in governments, organisations and institutions and presents a compilation that could be useful to academics, professionals, politicians and policy makers. It investigates the impact of knowledge and information technologies in fields as diverse as education, culture, science and business in order to provide a framework for effectively navigating the nuances of an information-pervasive world.
There are several papers that deal with education and learning worldwide, beginning with a sustainable development programme in Norwegian schools. The Spanish are concerned with ethics in accounting education, and they also explore the importance of mindfulness techniques in the education system by comparing results from three public schools on academic self-concept, interest and achievement.
Portugal looks at the way students approach creativity and the questions they ask, whilst Canadians examine the potential and the reality of digital curriculum policies to show evidence of current affordability and barriers, and Serbia investigates the use of video games as a tool for communicating with students. Results show that games take learning outside the classroom, thus making it more interesting.
E-learning techniques are explored in various ways: Leal and Queiros discuss the co-ordination of a network of e-learning systems that support the resolution of exercises, whilst Deed and Edwards outline a conceptual framework for linking a model of developing expertise with the “affordances of outsideness” – a metaphor for engaging with distant peers using Web 2.0 tools. A case study of pre-service teacher education is used to demonstrate the framework's possibilities and limitations.
The virtual world is becoming the accepted norm for developing student learning. Saleeb and Dafoulas investigate different architectural features to study students’ satisfaction of 3-D Virtual Learning Environments, and Bottino et al. examine pedagogical planning as a means to foster the introduction of ICTs.
On the environment, there are papers on cultural pluralism as a knowledge society problem, the impact of climate change on the modern enterprise, green computing and its impact on the energy front in India and on-demand buses as human transport systems to replace traditional route-oriented buses.
The rest of the papers address people, business, communication and security issues, such as the governing of knowledge and wisdom by means of ICT, using the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology Framework (COBIT) to analyse personnel performance assessment for business, analysing the usage rate of 2.0 tools and techniques among Spanish enterprises and discussing the Semi-opened Infrastructure Model (SopIM) to deploy artificial intelligence and knowledge-based systems within a large industrial company.
This volume reflects the advancement of IT and the growth that is taking place in all sectors of society. As a reference tool it is a valuable source for not only consulting the papers, but also for tapping into the excellent bibliographies provided.
