Information and communication technologies for knowledge management processes in the public sector in Kenya : a case study of the State Department of Infrastructure

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are considered facilitators of knowledge management processes in organizations. This study investigated ICTs for knowledge management processes at the State Department of Infrastructure in Kenya. The study’s objectives were to: establish the level of knowledge management awareness, find out knowledge management processes, identify types of ICTs used for knowledge management processes, and identify challenges experienced by State Department of Infrastructure in the use of ICTs for knowledge management processes. The study findings were determined after applying a qualitative research approach and a case study research design. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 21 participants who were heads of sections at the State Department of Infrastructure in Kenya. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, analyzed and interpreted thematically according to the objectives of the study. Findings of the study revealed that most participants were aware of the meanings of the concepts of knowledge and knowledge management, types of knowledge and importance of knowledge management in the department. Knowledge management processes in the State Department of Infrastructure entail knowledge creation, codification, retention, sharing and storage. ICTs mostly used for knowledge management processes in the department include: emails, mobile phones, desktop computers, computer servers, and flash disks. The department is faced with the challenges of lack of knowledge management strategies, policies and adequate staff awareness on the use of ICTs for knowledge management processes. In conclusion, the State Department of Infrastructure has a functional ICT infrastructure. However, the department is not using ICTs provided by this study’s Web 2.0 driven SECI model for knowledge management processes such as blogs, wikis, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The study therefore proposes that the State Department of Infrastructure should increase its use of Web 2.0 technologies, collaborative content systems and e-learning technologies. The department should also digitize its records; automate its library services; set up intranet, and adopt a centralized knowledge-based system. Further, Public Service Commission of Kenya should formulate a knowledge management strategy and policy to guide on the use of ICTs for knowledge management processes. This strategy and policy can then be cascaded to public sector organizations such as the State Department of Infrastructure.Information ScienceM.A. (Information Science

The codification of local knowledges through digital cartographic artefacts: A Case study of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, affectionately known as HOT, worked on mapping the city of Dar es Salaam between 2014 and 2020. The efforts of HOT were designed to not only build a map of the city that would ‘put people on the map’, but to also use these maps to aid in development and humanitarian interventions through one of Africa’s fastest growing cities, all while using participatory mapping practices. This thesis examines the extent to which HOT has been able to achieve the creation of a new map of Dar es Salaam, the influence this map had on development projects, and the degree to which the map was built using participatory methods. The research undertook a deep analysis of map completion and accuracy and used interviews to explore the interplay between technology and micro/macro politics around the mapping of Dar es Salaam. Findings suggest that HOT is still underdeveloped as an organization and lacks the maturity to create true participatory models of working. That many of their practices were exclusionary to the local population and that weak management structures and procedures allowed colonial and ‘outsider’ saviour complexes to grow within the organisation. The work concludes by noting that HOT has begun to change many of its practices since 2020 where this research ends

Knowledge Management and Law Enforcement: An Examination of Knowledge Management Strategies of the Police Information System (POLNET) in the Turkish National Police

This research study explores knowledge management (KM) in law enforcement, focusing on the POLNET system established by the Turkish National Police as a knowledge-sharing tool. This study employs a qualitative case study for exploratory and descriptive purposes. The qualitative data set came from semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews, as well as self-administered e-mail questionnaires. The sample was composed of police administrators who created POLNET, working under the Department of Information Technologies and the Department of Communication. A content analysis method is used to analyze the data. This study finds that law enforcement organizations' KM strategies have several differences from Handzic and Zhou's integrated KM model. Especially, organizational culture and structure of law enforcement agencies differently affect knowledge creation, conversion, retrieval, and sharing processes. Accordingly, this study offers a new model which is dynamic and suggests that outcomes always affect drivers

Contributions to accounting, auditing and internal control : essays in honour of professor Teija Laitinen

Huomautus kielistä: Tekstiä suomeksi ja englanniksiKirjoittajat: Bürkland Sirle, Gullkvist Benita, Kallio Minna, Back Barbro, Kihn Lili, Näsi Salme, Koskela Merja, Pilke Nina, Laaksonen Pirjo, Jyrinki Henna, Morton Anja, Myllymäki Emma-Riikka, Jokipii Annukka, Niskanen Mervi, Virtanen Ailafi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

A methodology to compare dimensionality reduction algorithms in terms of loss of quality

Dimensionality Reduction (DR) is attracting more attention these days as a result of the increasing need to handle huge amounts of data effectively. DR methods allow the number of initial features to be reduced considerably until a set of them is found that allows the original properties of the data to be kept. However, their use entails an inherent loss of quality that is likely to affect the understanding of the data, in terms of data analysis. This loss of quality could be determinant when selecting a DR method, because of the nature of each method. In this paper, we propose a methodology that allows different DR methods to be analyzed and compared as regards the loss of quality produced by them. This methodology makes use of the concept of preservation of geometry (quality assessment criteria) to assess the loss of quality. Experiments have been carried out by using the most well-known DR algorithms and quality assessment criteria, based on the literature. These experiments have been applied on 12 real-world datasets. Results obtained so far show that it is possible to establish a method to select the most appropriate DR method, in terms of minimum loss of quality. Experiments have also highlighted some interesting relationships between the quality assessment criteria. Finally, the methodology allows the appropriate choice of dimensionality for reducing data to be established, whilst giving rise to a minimum loss of quality

The use of mobile phones for human rights protection: the experiences of Zimbabwean Human Rights Non-Governmental Organisations

New technologies are emerging as a key part of the struggles for social change. In Africa, social change activists are increasingly relying on mobile phones to organise and mobilise protests for social change and to protect citizens from violence. Zimbabwe has experienced a long history of human rights violations stretching from the times of Rhodesia to post-coalition years. The violations have been in various forms, including the use of physical force and the constriction of political, media and electoral spaces. Human Rights NGOs, as part of civil society, have challenged the state over the violations in various ways, including through traditional and new media channels. Using case studies, namely the Zimbabwe Peace Project, (ZPP), Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA, Zimbabwe) and the Election Resource Centre (ERC), the research investigates the potential of the mobile phone as a tool for contesting the constriction of media freedom, information access, freedom of expression and citizens’ right to human dignity, to life, political choice and free movement and association. The research is based on findings from interviews conducted between 2014 and 2016 with Zimbabwean human rights activists as well as from document analysis. The study established that the phone is a key tool through which NGOs and community activists (or volunteers) are offering protection to citizens by documenting, reporting and disseminating evidence of violence. It is also playing a significant role in legal interventions for victims of violence. Further, the device is empowering citizens to educate themselves about voting and mobilising for elections. Mobile technology is also facilitating the production of community media which is giving marginalised communities voices and opportunities to contribute towards, or participate in local and national dialogue and development. Equally important, it is opening pathways through which NGOs and human rights defenders are able to challenge state institutions that undermine the rule of law and justice. Finally, the study also established that in the face of legal, surveillance, interception and censorship strategies by the state, NGOs are mobilising networks, collaborative campaigns and circumvention and mobile-phone-mediated education and information tools to counter these strategies and tactics. The research is thus significant in terms of struggles from below in the context of new technologies for human rights and democratisation

Software knowledge management using wikis : a needs and features analysis

Estágio realizado na StrongstepDocumento confidencial. Não pode ser disponibilizado para consultaTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

FinBook: literary content as digital commodity

This short essay explains the significance of the FinBook intervention, and invites the reader to participate. We have associated each chapter within this book with a financial robot (FinBot), and created a market whereby book content will be traded with financial securities. As human labour increasingly consists of unstable and uncertain work practices and as algorithms replace people on the virtual trading floors of the worlds markets, we see members of society taking advantage of FinBots to invest and make extra funds. Bots of all kinds are making financial decisions for us, searching online on our behalf to help us invest, to consume products and services. Our contribution to this compilation is to turn the collection of chapters in this book into a dynamic investment portfolio, and thereby play out what might happen to the process of buying and consuming literature in the not-so-distant future. By attaching identities (through QR codes) to each chapter, we create a market in which the chapter can ‘perform’. Our FinBots will trade based on features extracted from the authors’ words in this book: the political, ethical and cultural values embedded in the work, and the extent to which the FinBots share authors’ concerns; and the performance of chapters amongst those human and non-human actors that make up the market, and readership. In short, the FinBook model turns our work and the work of our co-authors into an investment portfolio, mediated by the market and the attention of readers. By creating a digital economy specifically around the content of online texts, our chapter and the FinBook platform aims to challenge the reader to consider how their personal values align them with individual articles, and how these become contested as they perform different value judgements about the financial performance of each chapter and the book as a whole. At the same time, by introducing ‘autonomous’ trading bots, we also explore the different ‘network’ affordances that differ between paper based books that’s scarcity is developed through analogue form, and digital forms of books whose uniqueness is reached through encryption. We thereby speak to wider questions about the conditions of an aggressive market in which algorithms subject cultural and intellectual items – books – to economic parameters, and the increasing ubiquity of data bots as actors in our social, political, economic and cultural lives. We understand that our marketization of literature may be an uncomfortable juxtaposition against the conventionally-imagined way a book is created, enjoyed and shared: it is intended to be