The Department of Human Resource Management

University of Chittagong

Report on

“Knowledge Management Tools and

Knowledge Portals”

SUBMITTED TO
Anupam Kumar Das
Associate Professor
Department of Management
University of Chittagong.

SUBMITTED BY
Md. Borhan Uddin
ID: 17305100
Session: 2020-2021
Department of Human Resource Management

Submission on – 24-11-2022
 Knowledge Management Tools and Knowledge Portals
Table of Contents

1.1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................1

1.2 PORTALS: THE BASICS..................................................................................................................1

1.2.1 WHAT ARE PORTALS?.....................................................................................................................1

1.2.2 EVOLUTION OF PORTALS.................................................................................................................2
1.2.3 KEY CHARACTERISTICS...................................................................................................................2

1.3 THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE........................................................................................................3

1.3.1 PORTALS AND THE BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION...........................................................................3

1.3.2 MARKET POTENTIAL.......................................................................................................................3

1.4 KNOWLEDGE PORTAL TECHNOLOGIES.................................................................................4

1.4.1 KEY FUNCTIONALITY......................................................................................................................4

1.4.2 COLLABORATION.............................................................................................................................5
1.4.3 CONTENT MANAGEMENT................................................................................................................5
1.4.5 INTELLIGENT AGENTS.....................................................................................................................6

1.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT............................................................6

1.5.1 WHO IS BUILDING ENTERPRISE PORTALS?.....................................................................................6

1.5.2 WHO SPONSORS ENTERPRISE PORTALS?.........................................................................................7
1.5.3 IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES................................................................................................................7
1.5.4 BANDWIDTH....................................................................................................................................7
1.5.6 PORTAL PRODUCT SELECTION.........................................................................................................8

1.6 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................8

REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................9

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1.1 Introduction

This report is concerned with identifying the appropriate tools for establishing the infrastructure,
services, and applications required by the enterprise to effectively manage the flow of information and
the various activities associated with the acquisition, production, and dissemination of knowledge. The
purpose is to give an in-depth examination of technological trends and difficulties connected to
knowledge management system adoption.

One of the newest and most effective instruments for achieving these objectives is the portal. Any KM
solution must use a tool to record knowledge wherever it exists (in written materials, the thoughts of
subject matter experts, databases, or as historical data). A user interface that makes knowledge
accessible to a broader group of knowledge workers is another crucial tool.Portals may be crucial in
streamlining managerial complexity, boosting operational productivity, and enhancing a company's
business operations by offering an integrated framework for connecting people, processes, and
knowledge. Portals use extranets, intranets, and the Internet as distribution routes. These distribution
channels provide businesses the chance to seize advantages that might be hidden away in their
information and knowledge-based systems.

1.2 Portals: The Basics

1.2.1 What Are Portals?
A portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online
forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. The extent to which content is displayed in a
"uniform way" may depend on the intended user and the intended purpose, as well as the diversity of the
content. Portals assure secure and reliable interface to participants in a business process and collaborate
with users through the integration of external Web-based applications or internal back-office systems.

According to Awad and Ghaziri (2003) , “Portals are considered to be virtual workplaces that Promote
knowledge sharing among different categories of end users such as customers, partners, and employees,
Provide access to structured data stored in data warehouses, database systems, and transactional systems,
Organize unstructured data such as electronic documents, paper documents, lessons learned, stories, and
the like.”

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From a business perspective, portals provide the company’s employees with task-relevant information.
They can also quickly supply partners and customers with knowledge. The goal of such a portal is the
transparent enterprise, reducing the complexity for reaching needed information.

1.2.2 Evolution of Portals

Portals evaluated through three phases – Search Engines, Navigation Sites, Information Portals. Search
Engines employed simple search technology to find information on the Web. The next phase
transformed the portals to “navigation sites” to describe the functions available at sites like MSN ‍and
Yahoo!.

To facilitate access to large accumulations of information, portals evolved to include advanced search
capabilities and taxonomies. Because emphasis was on information, they were called information
portals. Information portals provide the next step in the portal technology evolution. In November 1998,
Christopher Shilakes and Julie Tylman of Merrill Lynch’s Enterprise Software team introduced the
concept of “enterprise portal.” The concept was described as “applications that enable companies to
unlock internally and externally stored information and provide users a single gateway to personalized
information needed to make informed business decisions.

The effectiveness of information portals can be enhanced by building applications that combine the
search, analysis, and dissemination of information. This goal is achieved through knowledge portals. In
the knowledge portal, the focus is not on the content of information but on the way knowledge workers
will use it. The knowledge portal is a key component in the knowledge management architecture. It is
the central piece, allowing producers and users of knowledge to interact. A major trend in knowledge
management systems is the move to online knowledge portals.

1.2.3 Key Characteristics

Knowledge portals provide information about all business activities and also supply metadata for
decision making. Enterprise knowledge portals (EKP), therefore, distinguish knowledge from
information. The essential characteristics of enterprise knowledge portals are:

i. Are goal-directed toward knowledge production, knowledge acquisition, knowledge

transmission, and knowledge management
ii. Are focused on enterprise business processes such as sales, marketing, and risk management
iii. Provide, produce, and manage information about the validity of the information they supply

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 iv. Include all EIPs functionalities

1.3 The Business Challenge

Businesses facing challenges to optimize the performance of operational processes in order to reduce
costs and enhance quality. Customer-centric systems allow companies to understand the customer,
predict customer behavior, and offer the right product at the right time. Companies also need to offer
their product at least possible price without compromising quality.

1.3.1 Portals and the Business Transformation

Two fundamental aspects of the current computing environment that may arise problem are – First, the
explosion in the quantity of key business information already captured in electronic documents has left
many organizations literally losing their grip on information as they transform into new systems and
process upgrades. Second, the speed by which the quantity and kinds of content is growing means that
what is required to meet these challenges is a rigorous internal discipline to expose and integrate the
sources of enterprise knowledge.

To sustain competitiveness, organizations carefully craft processes to efficiently manufacture products

and care for their customers —all in an effort to effectively exploit valuable resources. However, Ernst
&Young estimates that up to 80 percent of a company’s intellectual resources—the knowledge residing
within it—is not systematically applied to business processes.

Organizations are looking for solutions to support their new e-business models. As a result, the demand
for tools to more effectively negotiate, plan, decide, and collaborate has dramatically increased.
However, most organizations are meeting collaboration requirements on a piecemeal basis, fulfilling
requests as they emerge from business units or partners without an overall blueprint. The result is a
hodgepodge of overlapping and redundant technologies (Meta Group 2000).

1.3.2 Market Potential

Knowledge portals have emerged as a key tool for supporting the knowledge workplace. According to
David Folger, a senior program director at WCS, “Portals are big business. More than 85 percent of
organizations plan to invest in portals during the next 5 years. Portals can provide easier unified access
to business information, and better communications among customers and employees.

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1.4 Knowledge Portal Technologies
This section covers the functionalities to be included in a portal solution and the technologies needed to
build portals.

1.4.1 Key Functionality

The main goal of a portal is to provide a single point of access to all information sources. Therefore,
portals must be the ultimate tools for universal integration of all enterprise applications. Given the
complexity of this challenge, portals must include the following functionalities:

a) Gathering. Documents created by knowledge workers are stored in a variety of locations (such as
files on individual desktops, Web sites on the network, and databases on servers). In order to be
accessible, data and documents need to be captured in a common repository.
b) Categorization. This facility profiles the information in the repository arid organizes it in
meaningful ways for navigating and searching. Portals should support categorization at all levels,
including the employee, partner, and customer levels. It should also support categorizations in
various dimensions, including the process, product, and service dimensions.
c) Distribution. This facility acquires knowledge, either through an active mechanism (search
interface) or a passive mechanism (push). This facility supports the distribution of structured and
unstructured information in the form of electronic or paper documents.
d) Collaboration. Collaboration is achieved through messaging, workflow, discussion databases,
and so forth. This facility expands the role of portals from a passive information provider to an
interface for all types of organizational interactions.
e) Publish. This facility publishes information to a broader audience, including individuals outside
the organization.
f) Personalization. Personalization is a key component of the portal architecture because it allows
individuals to enhance their productivity. It is becoming a necessity for successful portals. This is
due to the proliferation of information available through the portal. To take advantage of this
facility, knowledge workers must be able to manage and prioritize the delivery of information on
task-function or interest bases.

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 g) Search/navigate. This component provides tools for identifying and accessing specific
information. The knowledge worker can either browse or submit a query.

1.4.2 Collaboration
Collaboration in the knowledge management context is the ability for two or more people to work
together in a coordinated manner over time and space using electronic devices. One has to distinguish
between two types of collaborations: asynchronous and synchronous collaboration.

i. Asynchronous collaboration is human-to-human interactions via computer subsystems having no

time or space constraints. Queries, responses, or access occur anytime and anyplace.
ii. Synchronous collaboration is computer-based, human-to-human interaction that occurs
immediately (within 5 seconds). It can use audio, video, or data technologies.

Another important distinction to make is that of “push” versus “pull” technologies. Push technology
places information in a place where it is difficult to avoid seeing it. E-mail is a classic example of a push
technology. Pull technologies require you to take specific actions to retrieve information. The World
Wide Web is a good example of a pull technology. An electronic mailing list that uses the push
technology of e-mail is extremely powerful as a collaborative tool because it requires little learning or
behavior change on the part of the user. In spite of its relative simplicity when compared to sophisticated
Web-based collaborative forums, electronic mailing lists are the most popular collaborative tool.

1.4.3 Content Management

Content management requires directory and indexing capabilities to automatically manage the ever-
growing warehouse of enterprise data. This component addresses the problem of searching for
knowledge in all information sources in the enterprise. This knowledge includes structured and
unstructured internal information objects such as office documents, collaborative data, MIS and ERP
systems, and experts, as well as information from outside sources. This component handles how
knowledge assets get into the knowledge management information base. To handle this new complexity
of the knowledge management information base and to help the knowledge workers to stay focused on
solving business problems (without disappearing in technology), a sophisticated knowledge
management taxonomy needs to be built based on metadata (data that describes other data).

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Another important issue handled by content management is the way documents are analyzed, stored, and
categorized. Once the documents have been gathered, they must be analyzed so that their content is
available for retrieval and use by the system or end users. As documents enter the portal system, they are
stored for later retrieval and display. However, it is not useful to simply put the documents away in their
raw form. Systems typically analyze the document content and store the results of that analysis so that
subsequent use of the documents by the system and users will be more effective and efficient.

1.4.5 Intelligent Agents

Intelligent agents are tools that can be applied in numerous ways in the context of EKPs. As a tool,
intelligent agents are still in their infancy. Most applications are experimental and have not yet reached
the efficient commercial stage. Customers set certain priorities while purchasing products and services.
Intelligent agents can master individual customers’ or customer groups’ demand priorities by learning
from experience with them, and they can quantitatively and qualitatively analyze those priorities. Agents
are software entities that are able to execute a wide range Knowledge Oracle InterMedia for Indexing
Lotus Notes: Communication, Document Management, Work Flow Lotus Notes PeopleSoft SAP
(systems, applications, and products in data processing) EDMS (electronic document management
system) Oracle 8 Database of functional tasks in an autonomous, proactive, social, and adaptive manner.
The term intelligent in this context means only that we are dealing with entities that are able to adjust
their behavior to the environment.

There is a vast range of services customers require that intelligent agents can address. Some of these
services may include the following:

a. Customized customer assistance with online services: news filtering, messaging, scheduling,
making arrangements for gatherings, ordering, and so on
b. Customer profiling, including inferring information about customer behavior based on business
experiences with the particular customer
c. Integrating profiles of customers into a group of marketing activities
d. Predicting customer requirements
e. Negotiating prices and payment schedules
f. Executing financial transactions on the customer’s behalf

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1.5 Implications for Knowledge Management
1.5.1 Who Is Building Enterprise Portals?
META Group conducted a survey of 350 organizations (respondent organizations had at least 500
employees) to find how widely enterprise portals are being deployed, how the portals are being
utilized, and what services and vendors organizations use for portal deployment. More than 80
percent of the respondents knew the term portal, and one in three currently either have a portal
installed or have one under development. Large organizations (more than 10,000 employees) have a
significantly higher portal installation rate.

1.5.2 Who Sponsors Enterprise Portals?

New portal sponsorship is shifting away from IT —which drops from 63.3 percent of sponsorship of
existing portals to 46.6 percent for planned portals —and toward the marketing/sales group (20.6
percent versus 6.7 percent), which is a strong indicator of the influence of e-commerce on portal
development. The line of business has increased from 2.5 percent of share to 9.2 percent, while the
corporate staff sponsorship has remained the same.

1.5.3 Implementation Issues

Although technology issues can be categorized in many different ways, the codification versus
collaboration paradigm also provides a particularly useful structure for understanding current trends
in information technology. For globally distributed organizations (that is, most international
development organizations) that rely on the Internet as a medium for the sharing of knowledge, the
issue of bandwidth is fundamental. At this point in the evolution of the Internet, bandwidth is a chief
constraining factor for many applications. The determination of an organization’s overall KM
strategy will provide guidance for the implementation of appropriate technology.

1.5.4 Bandwidth
Current trends point toward a steady decrease in the cost of Internet access. The rapid and pervasive
spread of Internet communication coupled with the evolution of faster and cheaper technology is
resulting in improved access to the Internet at lower costs.

This trend has been slowest at manifesting itself in Africa. However, even their Internet access is
spreading rapidly and is becoming much less expensive, especially in capital cities. Given the
importance of collaboration and the creation of communities of practice as a method for knowledge

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 sharing, it is worth investigating the costs of a significant increase in bandwidth for regional offices
that could support the following:

1. Desktop videoconferencing
2. Internet telephony
3. Improved access to information systems based at headquarters
4. Other collaborative tools
5. Access to more sophisticated information resources

1.5.6 Portal Product Selection

Creating an enterprise portal vendor shortlist can save time and effort typically devoted to large-
scale market scans. Once a portal vendor shortlist has been created, each vendor should be evaluated
through the use of scenarios that test key business functionality, based on architectural fit, vendor
viability, and product features.

1.6 Conclusion
A portal is a secure, Web-based interface that provides a single point of integration and access to
information, applications, and services for all. By creating apps that incorporate information search,
analysis, and distribution, information portal efficacy may be improved. Knowledge portals are used
to accomplish this purpose. The knowledge portal places more emphasis on how information will be
used by knowledge workers than on the material's actual content. A crucial part of the information
management system is the knowledge portal. It is the key component that enables interaction
between knowledge providers and users. The transition to online knowledge portals is a significant
trend in knowledge management systems.

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REFERENCES

Awad, Elias M. and Ghaziri, Hassan (2003), KnowledgeManagement, Upper Saddle River,

NJ.:Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Meta Group, “Business Collaboration,” www.metagroup.com/cgi-bin/inetcgi/commerce/productDetails.

jsp?oid_29277, Date accessed August 2002.