The role and effectiveness of e-learning: key issues in an industrial context

This paper identifies the current role and effectiveness of e-learning and its key issues in an industrial context. The first objective is to identify the role of e-learning, particularly in staff training and executive education, where e-learning (online, computer-based or videoconferencing learning) has made significant impacts and contributions to several organisations such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Cisco and Cap Gemini Earnst Young. With e-learning, staff training and executive education provides more benefits and better efficiency than traditional means. The second objective of this research is to understand the effectiveness of e-learning. This can be classified into two key issues: (1) methods of e-learning implementations; and (2) factors influencing effective and ineffective e-learning implementations. One learning point from (1) is that centralized e-learning implementations may prevail for big organizations. How-ever, more organizations adopt decentralized e-learning implementations due to various reasons, which will be discussed in this paper. From the research results, a proposed way is to retain the decentralized way. The second learning point is about interactive learning (IL), the combination of both e-learning and face-to-face learning. IL has been making contributions to several organizations, including the increase in motivation, learning interests and also efficiency. The popular issues about IL are (a) how to minimize the disadvantages of IL and (b) the degree of interactivity for maximizing learning efficiency. One learning point from (2) is to analyze the factors influencing effective and ineffective implementations, which reflect the different focuses between industrialists and academics. In terms of effective e-learning implementations, factors identified by both groups can map to particular cases in industry. In contrast, factors causing ineffective implementations rely more on primary source data. In order to find out these factors and analyze the rationale behind, case studies and interviews were used as research methodology that matched the objective of the research

A Learning Path of Process Capital Development – A Case Study of an IC Distributor

Process capital is the capability a firm develops to generate lasting value with investments in process management. Business processes management today is an environment full of business and technology changes. Identifying the required resources and selecting a suitable strategy to reduce the resource gap has become a critical part of process management. In this study we test the application of three theories of management towards process change at an IC distributor. The three theories underline the formation of business capabilities in managing process investments. The three theories, system-determined, people-determined and interaction theories, were gradually adapted by the firm and enabled the evolving of a dynamic capability in reacting to the changing environment. The objective of this case study is to contribute to the development of theory on process capital. The case evidence reveals that through the process of organizational learning by both business users and process designers a firm can build dynamic capability in managing changeable business processes and it can evolve with people, technology and organizational interactions, managed in concert. This capability of managing processes, in the competitive environment, is the process capital that generates value and sustains competitive advantage

Information Systems and Health Care VII - When Success Results in Failure: The Challenge of Extending the IT Infrastructure to Support Organ Procurement and Transplantation

Xpedite was a computer-based information system developed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to enhance organ procurement and placement from cadavers. Using state-of-the-art development approaches and technology at the time of its development, Xpedite was built around Lotus Notes, facsimile machines, and alphanumeric pagers. It was developed to integrate and streamline the collection, transfer, and exchange of data on available organs more fully. The concept was to shorten the time from organ availability (i.e., donor death) to transplant, thus reducing organ wastage. Xpedite met design and operational performance goals (i.e., a reduction in placement times and data errors), yet its operation was terminated after barely twenty-four months of operation. Adoption of the new technology throughout the transplant community was limited due to inexperience with integrated information technology systems and the resistance to change that accompanied Xpedite\u27s launch. The individual and organizational resistance was a surprise to UNOS. The technical and organizational lessons learned from this experience helped UNOS with developing subsequent information technology infrastructure components. The complexity of the technology support environment and low levels of user adoption for Xpedite ultimately led to an evolution beyond this tool, resulting in an Internet-based environment that would be more robust, easier to maintain, and better able to support user needs

Issues in Knowledge Management - A Singapore Perspective

The field of Knowledge Management (KM) is an important evolving area of interdisciplinary research and practice with global shifts toward a knowledge-based economy. Within organisations, knowledge resources are fast becoming critical intellectual assets with strategic roles in organisational survival and competitiveness. KM is the formalisation of and access to experience, knowledge, and expertise that create new capabilities, enable superior performance, encourage innovation, and enhance customer value (Beckman 1997). The key objectives of KM can be summarised as: firstly to make the enterprise act as intelligently as possible to secure its viability and overall success, and secondly, to otherwise realise the best value of its knowledge assets (Wiig 1997a). In essence, KM involves the creation of the environment and opportunities to enhance the potential for co-ordination and synergism between networks and pools of knowledge. KM can be examined at different levels and explored along a wide range of perspectives. This reveals the diversity and complexity of KM in research and practice (Wiig et al. 1997; Wiig 1997b; Garvin 1998; Nonaka 1998; Shariq 1998)

Knowledge management : why do we need it for corporates

This article gives a brief introduction about Knowledge Management (KM), its need, definition, components, KM assets, challenges and processes of KM initiative at any organisation. It also provides a narration on how the KM initiative has been adopted at ICICI OneSource, to support the achievement of its Business Process Outsourcing objectives. Both knowledge sharing as well as reuse need to be encouraged and recognized at the individual employee level as well as the company level. This is best done by measuring and rewarding knowledgeperformance. Sustained strategic commitment and a corporate culture that is conducive to knowledge-performance are vital for success in Knowledge Management. The paper concludes with suggestions for the implication for policy and future practices

Improving Data Quality Through Effective Use of Data Semantics

Data quality issues have taken on increasing importance in recent years. In our research, we have discovered that many “data quality” problems are actually “data misinterpretation” problems – that is, problems with data semantics. In this paper, we first illustrate some examples of these problems and then introduce a particular semantic problem that we call “corporate householding.” We stress the importance of “context” to get the appropriate answer for each task. Then we propose an approach to handle these tasks using extensions to the COntext INterchange (COIN) technology for knowledge storage and knowledge processing.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA