Knowledge Leadership: Creating Value in Organizations

Abstract
One of the most important concerns of contemporary organizations is the effective use of current knowledge within an organization. The knowledge which is produced in organization or enters it through different channels should make a kind of value or so called "value creation". There have been many efforts in this regard from content management to the implementation of web-based technologies all lead to value creation, but the essence of most of them and the essential requirement for the realization of making value is competent management. Knowledge leadership is an appreciable and undeniable requirement for organizations and without a capable manager who is enough capable in directing knowledge creating efforts and activities; we may not receive real and sensible results. This article has discussed the requirements and kinds of knowledge manager with a scientific-promotional perspective while describing knowledge management and its value creative role in organizations.

Keywords:
Knowledge Leadership, Knowledge Leader, Value Creation, Organization

1. Introduction
If knowledge management was a remarkable issue for discussion in think tanks for some time ago, now knowledge leadership is a notable story and has attracted thinkers who work on management and information services fields. Of course, these issues are not separated from each other and in many aspects overlap each other. Knowledge leadership indicates significant challenges which have been dealt with by managers in recent years. Today it is completely probable that no other factor may have great impact and initiate fundamental changes more than value creation. The convincing evidence for this claim is the increasing interest of organizations in finding new ways to achieve more values and benefits for their organizations.
Nowadays knowledge has become the key economic resource of organizations while material assets, human and natural resources are regarded as secondary resources. This new approach is completely visible in knowledge-based organizations.
Besides, communication media developments have made valuable knowledge accessible not only to a handful number of senior managers within an organization, but also to many executives in numerous companies. In the past time, highly ranked managers of organizations concentrated their attention on long term scope and main decisions, while today impressive knowledge is being produced and distributed more and more by a knowledge system which is comprised of knowledge workers in every company. So, a new generation of knowledge-based organizations is emerging which may be called value creator organizations [1].

2. What are value creator organizations?
A value creator organization provides unparallel knowledge leadership for its clients to deal with unpredicted challenges. We mean maintaining a competitive situation among competitor organizations for producing and achieving commercial knowledge by "unparallel knowledge leadership". This is the cause of superiority for an organization in producing goods or making services especially in critical and challenging times.
Enhancing clients' comprehension of enterprise and economical conditions in post-industry era needs human-dependant knowledge work and integrated service operations require all of the efforts of a value creator organization. This leads to clients' loyalty with the organization in long time. Constant flaw of challenges makes the organization's authorities busy with study and research to find new ways for dealing with clients' changing needs. In this way, value creator organizations empower their knowledge potential unintentionally and this makes their reliability more than before in their client's eye-view.
Improving performance, productivity and increasing production capacity and workers' satisfaction all are other objectives pursued by a value creator organization. Therefore value creator organizations more than everyone can be attractive for industrial and productive companies, because these organizations pay attention exactly to those priorities which are important for industrial bodies. The considerable point is that value creator organizations can offer the required frameworks for industrial companies in the form of software packages. So, formal knowledge changes into practical knowledge for these companies. This is that the question usually asked by knowledge economists as: "can knowledge be sold as a good?" has a positive response through a practical methodology.
The real meaning of value creator organizations reveals when these kinds of organizations take the responsibility of instruction in industrial companies and teach active human resources in these companies based on flexible marketing strategies. Value creator organizations usually pursue three main objectives in the aspect of instruction: A) Offering new commercial perspectives to learners so that their business intelligence may increase; B) Deepening organizational thought and business management and C) Encouraging collogues and teammates to share their knowledge with each other [1].

3. Who is a knowledge manager?
Doubtlessly knowledge managers are new form of organization managers. These managers are not included exactly within traditional organization charts. These managers often are found in internal nodes of organizations and just on common borders between units and subunits of organizations. Command and control positions are not usually without these kinds of managers.
Offering a definition for knowledge manager requires an acceptance and a realistic comprehension of this title. It also requires that an intellectual remind the responsibilities of a knowledge manager based on the development of functions and knowledge management solutions when he or she hears this term. The question which arises here is that "do we really need knowledge leadership?" or "what kind of knowledge leadership do we need?" Through knowing knowledge leaders types, we may be able to present an accurate definition for each kind of managers based on their roles and according to our organization need.
In a multi-aspect study conducted by Delphi Group, it was revealed that knowledge leader may cover a vast domain of organization posts and embrace similar functions and attributes [1]. The most remarkable attribute is a mixed experience of business and information technology, something that needs an experience of at least ten years in each field. Organizational thinking and interest in a level of enterprise that development is one of its inevitable consequences, is another necessary requirement. These leaders should consider current relations in organization hierarchical levels and meanwhile strengthen informal networks for building and maintaining informal and hidden organizations. Through these channels knowledge leaders may be able to introduce new methods and systems for the encouragement of researchers to compete with knowledge providers.
Why do organizations need knowledge leaders? The need is completely obvious because they should overcome natural barriers over knowledge sharing in big enterprise environments. This is in fact the essence of knowledge management. Organizations in every size and expertise believe that experience sharing and not only the application of technology is in the heart of knowledge management abilities for realizing commercial objectives and meeting clients and users' needs. This is usually done in open cultures through empowering communication channels. Knowledge leadership is needed to accelerate the establishment of required environment for knowledge sharing.
To prove this claim, it should be noted that knowledge leaders who were emerged more distinguishing than others showed special characteristics such as: knowledge gathering skills, organizing, classification and organizational relationship building. Meanwhile, they were equipped with other advanced skills such as information technology for succeeding in their business [2]. Although it is impossible for organizations today to make their knowledge influential without using information and communication technologies, it is always expected for managers to be capable of essential management skills and bring web-based communications along with face to face negotiations.

4. Types of knowledge leaders
Many organizations have taken the step of appointing a highly visible figure, the chief knowledge officer (CKO), to leverage the collective mind of an enterprise. This approach is the subject of many knowledge leadership discussions. Although there are a number of organizations with a CKO in place, this phenomenon is only one of several approaches in practice today to instill knowledge leadership. Many organizations have embraced knowledge leaders, but they have such titles as knowledge analyst, knowledge manager and knowledge steward. These individuals function very differently than the CKO and often express strong opinions against a central point of knowledge ownership.
The knowledge analyst is responsible for collecting, organizing and disseminating knowledge, usually on demand. Knowledge analysts provide knowledge leadership by becoming walking repositories of best practices - a library of how knowledge is shared and should be shared across the organization. The liability, of course, is that knowledge analysts can easily take all of the best practices with them if they leave the organization. There is also a risk that these individuals become so valuable to the immediate constituency that they are not able to move laterally to other parts of the organization where their skills are equally needed
The knowledge manager is responsible for coordinating the efforts of engineers, architects and analysts. The knowledge manager is most often required in large organizations where the large number of discrete knowledge-sharing processes risk fragmentation and isolation. The knowledge manager provides coordination across processes within a business unit. The risk in having knowledge managers is that fiefdoms (albeit large ones) may form around the success of each manager's domain. Regardless of this pitfall, the knowledge manager may successfully fill the niche of knowledge leader in an organization that realizes the lack of coordination in each of its business units is a primary deterrent to the sharing of knowledge among employees.
However, this single business unit approach can present its own problems in the form of fragmentation of knowledge. In these cases, the organization often relies on a central, command- and-control knowledge leader to provide continuity across multiple, discontinuous groups of knowledge workers.
The chief knowledge officer is responsible for enterprise-wide coordination of all knowledge leadership. The CKO typically reports to or is chartered by the CEO. Although it would seem reasonable that the CKO be part of IT (perhaps reporting to the CIO), this is not often the case. The CKO is not tasked with ownership of the technology infrastructure but rather the methods, practices and content comprising knowledge management solutions. At present, this role is almost always a solo performer with little, if any, staff and no immediate line-of-business responsibility. The CKO role requires advanced knowledge of the collective repositories, skills and expertise that can, if properly matched to the needs of the organization, increase responsiveness to customers (internal and external) and suppliers, which ultimately provides competitive distinction.
Putting a CKO in place is a potential point of sub-optimization. You may end up with someone whose vision of knowledge management dilutes the effectiveness of managing knowledge in each of the particular business units, projects or teams. Instead, these groups need to find the best way to manage knowledge within their area. By its nature, knowledge management is driven by lines of business (LOBs) and people at the extremities of the organization. Therefore, the best you can hope to do is coordinating the knowledge management process, but not truly control it. Because of this, a single knowledge leader, across all lines of business, is tough for LOB managers to support.
The knowledge steward is responsible for providing minimal, but ongoing, support to knowledge users in the form of expertise in the tools, practices and methods of knowledge management. The steward is in the most precarious and most opportunistic of positions. Usually, he or she is an individual who has fallen into the role of helping others to better understand and leverage the power of new technologies and practices in managing knowledge. The term "steward" best resonated in the interviews with the study participants; it conveys responsibility and a willingness to guide others, yet it is also non-intrusive and the near antithesis of ownership [2].

5. Conclusion: What is Your Organization's Need?
Knowledge leaders are educators of best practices and stewards of the frameworks that facilitate knowledge creation and sharing. But they are not owners. Knowledge leadership builds the bridges. Organizational leadership builds the culture. It is the knowledge workers themselves who build the reasons to use knowledge management.
CKO, knowledge manager, architect or steward - how does an organization identify the optimal style of knowledge leadership for its needs? Your vice president of customer care or manager of systems and applications may be your unsung knowledge leader. It may be there is no one. Look at the state of your organization's knowledge sharing, the level of sponsorship for knowledge leadership and the receptivity of its culture today. Then act accordingly. For instance, it would be a mistake to put a CKO into an organization that has little executive interest in knowledge management and where LOB managers exhibit a fundamental mistrust of one other. A CKO cannot make up for pathology of poor communication and mistrust.
There is little doubt that knowledge leadership is an essential ingredient of competition in the next millennium. Begin now to nurture these roles in your organization. Chances are, whatever their titles, you already have knowledge leaders at work that, with a bit of sponsorship, would be ready, able and very willing to step into the role.

References:
1. Knowledge Leadership: Leveraging Knowledge That Creates Value. Last time visited at: http://www.pepitone.com/content/know.asp
2. Stacie Capshaw and Thomas M. Koulopoulos, "Knowledge Leadership", DM Review Magazine, Last time visited at: http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=20

Portals Implementation In Online Marketing

Abstract
We're living in an amazing era in which rapid progress of science and technology leaves no room for old methods of doing things including marketing. In the past, small and medium businesses depended heavily on intimate interaction with local customers and outside contractors, while the emergence of new electronic media changed the story drastically so that new ways of communication for marketing were introduced to companies and businessmen. Doubtlessly no other media has had a key role in this field more than the Internet. Online marketing systems provided more rapid and effective opportunities for marketing and this made a new and broad range of technical choices for commercial institutes. One of these technological options is "Portal". Portals, more exactly defined as Enterprise Portals (EPs) have unique and reliable capabilities for marketing. This article aims at discussing EPs implementation process in online marketing.

Keywords
Portal, Enterprise Portal, Online Marketing

1. The Beginning
Many companies have fairly simple and admittedly not very realistic plan: deploy an EP with project management, time tracking, file management, customer database and collaboration tools in less than a month, and for less than $6,000, including licenses, labor and customization.
The original plan to use off-the-shelf commercial software development tools is not usually feasible. They have small budget and their 30-day target delivery date is firmly anchored by client requirements.
They evaluate a number of hungry and aggressive application service providers and, although it may be possible to get a good price and all the features they need, they are afraid that the deadline and customization fees require will tip the budget beyond what they could afford.
It would have cost much less to use an application like Intranets.com, which offers the same basic feature-set for much less than heir $6,000 budget. Frankly, they look really hard at a number of ASP vendors. The biggest hurdle is simple "not invented here" syndrome. They want to build something and own it. And they want the flexibility to change it, if necessary.
They want the project portal to be an interactive, easy-to-use, simple-to-manage information vehicle for vendors, employees and customers. They want a simple but feature-rich portal. Other application project design goals can be:
Cheap software components.
Simple installation, configuration and training.
Standardized components and not dependent on a specific browser.
All administration, management, content creation and workflow control must be browser-based.
No dependencies on a single vendor.
Ability to host the application on our ISP's servers.
No dependencies on an application service provider.

In such cases, the best solution is to use open source software. The resulting portal and methodology used in this way to select appropriate tools usually saves tens of thousands of dollars, may be more. Within 30 days, the project can go from a blank sheet of paper to a fully deployed project management intranet.

2. How Can This Be Done?
The first task is to identify a development organization with the right. A well-known company may be selected for its work with the LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) as well as its experience with online community applications such as Geeklog, PostNuke and PHPNuke (all are dynamic interactive environments for portals and promoting user interaction). Plus, the company should step up to really understand your business and marketing goals. And, finally, they should tell you that they can meet your budget and your timeframe.
The second task is to work with your ISP, XNET, to make sure its co-location infrastructure could support the project. At the company's recommendation, you may first assemble a low-end, field-expedient server using graveyard parts. The first server can be built on a 400MHz Pentium PC with 128MB RAM and a 6GB hard disk. You may drop the server into company's co-location environment for testing.
Many institutes choose Linux as their server base. You then should look at other software platforms that could run on a graveyard server. By the end of the third day, you may have assembled an open source development tool suite that meets all your requirements. A prototype of the project management intranet is completely operational in five days and a final intranet is launched in 30 days. The remaining 25 days can be spent with various customizations, training and familiarizing yourself with the application. Having an experienced partner working with you significantly reduces your implementation time and learning curve.
The portal and its underlying design features have already produced important strategic results, providing everyone with a single Web focal point from which they can find client documents, key contacts and enter time against projects.

3. What You Will Gain from It?
Specific advantages realized by the portal are:
Reduced Development Cost: The tools are free. This keeps cost low. You don't need to worry about how many licenses you'll need next week. In hindsight, using any solution other than an ASP would have been time-consuming. The time required to shop for the right vendor, define your requirements to multiple vendors and go through a vendor selection process would have been too costly.
Reduced Per-Seat Fees: Of the commercial licensed (non-ASP) portal and database applications reviewed, most had per-seat fees, which are sometimes based on the total number of employees rather than the actual number using the application. The per-seat fees for one application reviewed by experts is $10/month per seat, another is $52 per seat. Since all of your customers and most of your vendors would be using the portal, you have no way to estimate accurately the number of seats you'd need to purchase and no way to predict your per-seat costs each year. The solution which is designed does not have per-seat fees. This also allows you to justify the hourly fees charged by your portal builder company. Since there are no licensing costs, you can spend some extra money on developers who understand your goals.
Reduced Computer Hardware Cost: Your open-source development tools are resource-efficient. You are able to perform most of the development using low-end 400MHz Pentium II desktop PCs acting as small servers. Moreover, non-server operating systems such as Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Professional can be used as server test beds because the open-source server tools (MySQL and PHP) do not require a true server operating system to function.
Accelerated Timeframe: Since you don't need to buy products, it made it easier to quickly get the tools you need. We believe you will get started on the project faster because of this.
Cost Savings: These were realized in five major ways. One, the development tool costs are reduced to zero. Two, per seat fees are reduced to zero. Three, computer hardware costs are reduced to zero because you have graveyard parts on hand. Four, your ISP has always been aggressive, so your co-location costs are very reasonable. Five, the elimination of the procurement period fast-tracks the entire project.

4. ROI: The Reality
On the other hand, it is also important to talk about the downside of the implementation. First and most important is user documentation. Some open source projects are not well documented and structuring workflow often requires some trial and error to see what works. Second, you're comfortable with the security on the application, but some of the internal code may involve more gum and bailing wire than other shrink-wrapped products.
It is impossible to calculate your return on investment without making up a bunch of assumptions and numbers (the future always looks so promising when you use Excel).
It is our opinion that open source tools make sense for some of future projects. This is because open source tools reduce development costs and usually eliminate recurring costs as well as reduce product development cycles.
A meaningful ROI calculation should not minimize the soft benefits and cost savings.

5. Top 5 Criteria
For companies to get the biggest return out of expertise marketing systems, they should first determine the processes to which the technology should be applied. The META Group has identified five criteria companies should consider when deciding whether, and where, to implement one of these solutions.
1. Complexity Processes that hinge on subjective judgments within complex rules are cross-functional, possess high-risk decision points, or contain multiple routing scenarios with co-dependencies and complicated exception handling flows--or where uniformity between process and work practice is critical--are good candidates.
2. Information density Processes requiring mastery of information sources that drive complex programs, such as clinical trials, or intricate practices, like compliance regulations, can reveal where expertise automation adds value. Analysts should examine not only how solutions might better discover, categorize, and organize content sources more effectively, but also transition linkages that facilitate requester-to-expert interaction.
3. Competency depth/breadth Processes where performance is affected by know-how (competency, skill proficiency, certification, and real-world experience) may reveal gaps that can be alleviated by systems that extend worker knowledge. Regulations often require covered entities to certify that employees comprehend appropriate laws, process controls, and data-handling requirements. Expertise automation, though not an alternative for proper training, can improve organizational performance by supplementing those efforts through a structured dialogue between expert and line worker.
4. Geographic Dispersion Distribution of resources due to globalization, remote workers, or joint development efforts with partners and suppliers can result in productivity barriers that impede process performance, such as time zones and different work shifts. This fragmentation causes collaboration to become out of sync. Expertise automation systems can provide a more structured response management platform that brokers requests in a way that ensures issue closure.
5. Time-to-action Constraints identifying the "right" expert in an organization does not always mean interacting with the "best" expert. Processes driven by time-to-action parameters can result in weighing options against multiple dimensions. When determining the most appropriate response, expertise automation systems can provide users with decision support capabilities that enable trade-offs to be made.

6. Conclusion
A growing interest by management in improving organizational productivity and process performance has made marketing workflow the next frontier for portal frameworks. The value of workflow--putting controls and structure around work tasks and interactions--in a portal environment is that it provides a means of codifying the best practices for key business processes.
Portals enable an integration framework that can help guide users to contextual information, display relevant screens, expose workflow status and work-queue items, and point them to the people they need to coordinate with to handle exceptions or route work to once the item is complete. However, portal professionals define expertise automation as the life-cycle management of discovering, profiling, brokering, and connecting users and teams who need to exchange know-how about a particular business topic or be aware of each other's activities. What we usually mean as the essence of online marketing.

Resources:
1. Bradley, Ben. "Time for a portal", Darwin Magazine, March 20004, available at:
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/030104/portal.html
2. Gotta, Mike. "Viewpoint: Expert Portals", Portals Magazine, April 01, 2004, available at: http://www.portalsmag.com/articles/default.asp?articleid=5680

Aligning Campus Portals with Learners' Needs

A Preliminary Study on the Implementation of Campus Portals in Iranian Higher Education Communities

Abstract
Effectively developing and deploying campus portals can dramatically increase productivity and profitability of research and education. The cutting edge of this initiative lies in aligning portals with students' current needs. Our study aims at identifying these needs and provides a preliminary theoretical framework for portal developers to benchmark their objectives according to educational requirements. The study is mostly done based on local observations and experience of its conductors within higher education communities in Iran. The result of this primary study paves the way of implementing campus portals in the Iranian higher education communities which will be paced by the authors of the article in the near future.

Keywords
Portal- Campus Portals - Higher Education- E-learning, Information Technology

1. Introduction
E-Learning usually refers to "learning that is delivered or enabled via electronic technology" (Sun Microsystems, 2002). It encompasses learning delivered via a range of technologies such as the internet, television, videotape, intelligent tutoring systems, and computer-based training.
E-Learning is a subset of the larger worlds of both “information technology” and “education and training”. It can be valuable when used as a part of a well-planned and properly supported education and training environment, but e-learning is not a magic bullet that replaces or renders obsolete existing pedagogical theories and approaches.
Many learning and technology professionals believe that e-learning will have “arrived” when we stop referring to it by a separate name and begin considering it as an integral part of a complete learning environment.
Recent advances in the availability and speed of Internet access and in the power and availability of personal computing platforms have dramatically increased the opportunities for the use of collaborative environments and other distributed learning technologies. As a result, a wide range of new products are being developed and many new companies have entered the learning technology market.
New categories of products continue to emerge, some providing new capabilities and others combining existing functionality into new product configurations. It can be a challenge to determine how these systems relate to each other and how they fit into a complete e-learning environment. The emergence of e-learning does not mean that existing software applications are obsolete. Systems such as Student Administration, Human Resources, and Library Management provide critical components of e-learning environments. The challenge is to integrate these systems effectively with e-learning application services.
This has been done today in what is being called as "Campus Portal". Campus portals merge a wide range of educational applications into an integrated web-based system. These portals are designed and developed at many modern colleges and universities within recent years and are becoming more popular as useful tools in offering academic services. They are being used by both the current and distant students. Some colleges even offer their portals to their staff as official media for internal communication. These capabilities have proved portals as effective systems of e-learning.
The remaining question is: "How can we align portals with students' current needs?" Sometimes, adding new contents or services to a portal may answer this question; but, changing needs of students makes the job harder and requires enough flexibility of portals both in nature and usage.
We have made an effort in this study to identify those needs of Iranian students which may be satisfied through implementing portals and to provide a theoretical framework for portal developers to allign their objectives according to educational requirements.

2. E-learning Needs in Iran
In 1992, Peter Drucker predicted that in the next 50 years, “schools and universities will change more drastically than they have since they assumed their present form 300 years ago when they organized themselves around the printed book” (Drucker, 1992, p. 97), but what about developing countries? Can be it true again for such states?
The history of e-learning in Iran at present time did not exceed than 5 years, yet from a realistic point of view we might say that e-based learning in Iran has had a 3 year experience and even younger.
A successful campus portal should be designed and implemented so that real needs of learners might be satisfied. These needs can be summarized as following according to recent studies (Dilmaghani, Noori and et al 2003):
Ø Realistic comprehension concerning the process of learning [1]
Ø Proper implementation of computer hardware and software [1]
Ø Strong IT education [1]
Ø New IT infrastructure [2, 3]
Ø Enough experienced IT professionals [1]
Ø Realistic point of view or strategic program for higher education [3]
Ø Sufficient budget and equipment [3]
Ø Real learning stimulus [1]
Ø Preparedness for an active information society and new technology [4]
Ø Stable political, social and economic situations [3]
Ø Compatible educational resources for e-leaning [3]
Ø Information literacy [3]
We may categorize basic needs for e-learning in Iran in four main classes including: Social & Cultural, Economic, Technological and finally, Academic. All of these categories have their own characteristics which should be addressed in a realistic manner.

3. What are Portals?
At the most basic level, portals gather a variety of useful information resources into a single, “one-stop” Web page, helping the user to avoid being overwhelmed by “info glut” or feeling lost on the Web. But since no two people have the same interests, portals allow users to customize their information sources by selecting and viewing only the information they find personally useful. Some portals also let you personalize your portal by including private information (such as your stock portfolio or checking-account balance).
Put simply, an institution’s portal is designed to make an individual’s Web experience more efficient and thereby make the institution as a whole more productive and responsive. But portals have an economic and social impact that extends far beyond any basic functional definition. Eighty nine percent of the estimated fifty eight million people using the Web in the United States use some type of portal.
It is estimated that over 20 percent of the Internet’s retail e-commerce is portal-based. And though portals have historically been developed from search-engine-based sites (e.g., Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, Alta Vista) or ISP-based sites (e.g., AOL, Earthlink, Prodigy), their value goes far beyond a Web page containing a directory of URLs. One author described a portal as a place to start your day and get a little news. It is an epicenter of the Web experience, a “home base,” a place to return to when you get lost, a place to keep your information, a place from which to communicate with others, and a trusty guide to all things ‘Web.’ [7]

4. The Potential Value of a Portal for Higher Education
Portals are also used to support learning communities, which are groups of people with interest in a particular topic or subject area. The portal provides a way to identify people with similar interests and provides collaboration tools and content sharing to members of these communities.
Portals bring together the e-learning tools, content and delivery environment and organize them into logical groupings based on the role of the individual accessing the portal. Each organization using a portal will define and organize detailed roles based on their needs, but some common overall roles are content developer, instructor, advisor, administrator, and learner.
In the higher education space, schools implement these portals as an integral part of the school community and learning environment. Portal technology and services are available from a range of vendors including specialized vendors like Campus Pipeline, course management system vendors like Blackboard, and Student Administration products such as PeopleSoft.
Many students are adults in the real world—they are employees and parents—and certainly elements of a community portal will be critical to building lifelong loyalty and retention. Portals should serve as an important publishing medium for the campus, sending some information to everyone but customizing other information to meet the needs of different segments of the community and allowing individuals to personalize their own portals. Using polling technologies, portals can serve as a valuable tool for real-time institutional research and strategic planning.
Portals look both inward and outward and can provide a powerful medium for campuses to communicate with off-campus constituencies: prospective students; parents; students who work or commute; alumni; business and government partners.
Existing budgets may already support these information management and communication functions, although organizational responsibilities may be diffuse. If a campus is prepared to reorganize around a knowledge management strategy, it is possible to achieve large returns on investment by redefining information resources as a service.
The return on investment should be measured both in terms of cost savings and in qualitative terms, measured by extending and revitalizing the sense of participating in a campus community.
So should a campus develop a portal? Increased efficiency alone suggests yes, but there are other benefits that make a personalized campus portal not only desirable but imperative. We believe that the value of a portal to a campus is that it can be used to engage constituent groups, empower them with access to information resources and communication tools, and ultimately retain them by providing a more encompassing sense of membership in an academic community.
In the academic space, particularly in higher education, publishers are making content available in most subject areas. They are repurposing their existing content for web delivery as “course packs” or “cartridges” that run on widely used course management systems such as WebCT and Blackboard. [7]

5. Conclusion
It is obvious that deploying advanced higher education institutes and colleges equipped with modern e-learning facilities is one of today's urgent needs in developing countries like Iran. But the sustainability of such learning systems depends on making sound and realistic pedagogical strategies. New learning technologies need to be targeted so that they may develop applied learning skills in the students. Today the success of an educational program is highly tied to those web-based applications it may provide for its clients.
There has been a great deal of studies on the methods of developing e-learning in Iran and many challenges or problems have been determined upon the results of such studies. As the writers of this article have proposed, developing e-learning portals could be considered as a solution for the hazed situation of online higher education in Iran. E-learning portals are developed based on students' real needs in an online environment. Using advanced countries' experience in the field of implementing e-learning portals may bring fruitful results for the Iranian higher education community such as: content management, developing IT-based skills, university-industry cooperation, educational competition, self-confidence, creativity and many other useful outcomes. The remaining point is the policy of Iranian higher education authorities toward the implementation of new learning technologies including e-learning portals.

References
[1]. Noori, M. (2003). "Traditional Education or Learning with Computer", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[2]. Giveki, F. (2003). "Learning New Methods in Distance Higher Education", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[3]. Dilmaghani, M. (2003). "National Providence and Virtual Education Development Capabilities in Higher Education", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[4]. Momeni, N. (2003). "First Successful Experience of Distance Learning in Iran", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[5]. Drucker, P. (1992). Managing for the future: The 1990s and beyond. New York: Penguin.
[6]. Sun Microsystems white paper—“e-Learning Application Infrastructure”, January 2002
[7]. Looney, M. "Portals in Higher Education", Educause Review July/August 2000

You Are What You Link

Abstract
The main concerning over campus portals is quality of data and information they provide for their users who are mainly students. Usually content is so much important at universities and colleges that is regarded as the king, but which factor is the most crucial one for the effectiveness of portfolios? The increasing role of campus portals in directing students to their desired destinations has proved them as effective tools of world wide education and research. This makes a challenge for academic portal developers to utilize their portfolios with qualified data and information. It seems that the enrichment of information is the most effective factor in keeping students entrusted in their campus portals.
The writers of this article have suggested a guideline based on four elements through which higher education institutes may link qualified knowledge to their content-based portals.

Keywords
Campus Portal – Portfolio – Higher Education

1. Portals Enterprise
"Portal" is a term, generally synonymous with "gateway", for a World Wide Web site that is or proposes to be a major starting site for users when they get connected to the Web or that users tend to visit as an anchor site. There are general portals and specialized or niche portals. This is what we usually find about portal definition on the Internet[1].
The mission of a portal is to present each user with a tailored view of the information surrounding their interests. The most successful portals are able to be customized, personalized and are an ever-changing mix of news, resources and applications that become the desktop destination for everyone with a common interest.[2]
For some institutions, the term “portal” brings to mind a gateway to an institution’s online resources and services. Sophisticated portals and integration technology enable much more than just a unified gateway. Portals have the potential to become the ultimate point of organizational integration, where the higher education community can access electronic services and resources in support of quality teaching and learning.
Many universities have been doing a pretty good job of delivering basic web-based services in recent years. They now offer students complete degree programs online. This has been begun in many developing countries, including Iran. Yet, the students can not benefit from all of knowledge offered them through portfolios. Currently, universities' web-based services have more to do than meet isolated functional needs—they must be woven together to serve the university’s overall goal of providing reliable knowledge and convenience in support of teaching and learning.
Upon a preliminary study on campus portals and learners' needs[3], we concluded that some of factors are important in acquiring reliable academic data in order to certify students' continuous use of portfolios. These factors include selection, focus, meta-knowledge and personalization.
This article describes each one of mentioned above factors in their appropriate order.

2. Selection
While some vortals[4] may take the "everything there is on the internet about ..." approach, most will provide some form of quality control and pre-selction of information and resources. While this is a benefit for most users, it is also the reason why some (typically experienced) netizens[5] have reacted negatively to the upsurge of vortals. They prefer to take total responsibility for what they find and look at.[6]
In a similar way, we see that students at universities or colleges prefer to select their desired information from a huge pile of data put on campus web sites. This can be used as a clue for academic portal developers to pay enough attention to students' interests and needs. So selection has a dual meaning here, one from students' points of view and another from portfolios providers' perspective. In fact, it's the duty of academic authorities to determine and assess information required for students in different levels.
An important aspect of campus portals is that they are typically tailored to specific roles, such as a student or a faculty member. This orientation implies that the user interface designers themselves have to adopt a new role. They will be less concerned with the proper usage of interface elements but more and more with tailoring the contents and functionality of a portfolio to a specific user group, so to speak, to a role. Important elements of this role are site visits, brainstorming sessions, and prototypes that are evaluated by the prospective users. Only in this combination, usable and student-centric portals can come to life. But user interface designers are not the only players in this field. Information architects care for the structure and content of academic web sites and do a very similar job. On the other hand, teachers and professors also work in close cooperation with interface designers - often visual and interaction design is hard to tell apart. So, ideally every user interface designer should have a firm knowledge of academic information and graphic design in addition to his or her usability knowledge. In small teams, these three roles may indeed be combined by one person, irrespective of his or her original background. In larger teams, however, these roles will be filled cooperatively by people from different backgrounds.[7]

3. Focus
Portals typically concentrate on one subject - an interest, a business sector, or an individual company (external or internal). So users can be more confident of the relevance of anything within the portal - and are likely to find new things of interest that they would not have found otherwise.
Portals are - like any software - built for users. However, portals are more than just a piece of software to be used at an electronic workplace - they are the workplace for the users. Since every user has his or her focus of job or study, he or she likes to find a related and reasonable workplace on portal. So the focus of a portal toward a specific issue or subject can be regarded as the first step in making such web-based environment.
In most universities and colleges, students use a single interface with different contents. It seems necessary for every faculty or department to have its own concentration of materials. This makes such portfolios more interesting and useful to the students. When they receive a special attention from their academic authorities toward their needs or interests, they will spend more time for using web-based services provided on the campus. This is completely different from using a general portal with common interface.

4. Meta-knowledge
Meta-knowledge may be loosely defined as "knowledge about knowledge". Meta-knowledge includes information about the knowledge the system possesses, about the efficiency of certain methods used by the system, the probabilities of the success of past plans, etc. The meta-knowledge is generally used to guide future planning or execution phases of a system.[8]
One of key points in developing campus portals is the knowledge we have about it. In other words, it is the knowledge we have about provided knowledge on our portal. It may be interesting to know that many of academic authorities do not know what they have on their portals! They even have a partial usage of capabilities embedded in portfolios by portal designers and developers.
Meta-knowledge is that a system knows what is knows, i.e. that the rules of the system be able to explicitly differentiate between knowledge that the system does have and knowledge that it doesn't. What do we really know about our portals systems? And what does a portal designer know about those information and data which are going to be put on portal?
If we have a vivid understanding of our portal i.e. "meta-knowledge", we may offer a useful consultation to our portal designer through a RFP[9] while he or she is developing our portfolio. Meta-knowledge applies at both individual and organizational level.
For an individual it is fairly straightforward. There are three levels of meta-knowledge, best represented by a diagram shaped like a fried egg.

Figure1. A pictorial expression of meta-knowledge

The yolk is knowledge that we know we know e.g. I know I possess the knowledge that my name is Julian, I know I know how to ride a bike. The white of the egg is knowing what we don't know. Another example can be this that I don't know what Tokyo is like in springtime, but I know that it would be possible for me to acquire this knowledge.[10]
It is obvious that an effective campus portal would be the one that knows what it has and what it has not. This comes back directly to portal authorities and all of those who have sponsored the acquisition of information in an academic portal.

5. Personalization
To avoid students being tempted away by a portal that better fits their needs, many campus portals allow their users to change aspects of the portal to suit them. This might include which components are displayed, the layout of the portal, inclusion of personal information, and so on.
This is taken to extreme by the personal portals - which can be as flexible as a web page design program with a range of plug-in modules for the user to select from. The more a portal has personalization and customization options, the more its users fid it enough valuable to spend their times for using it.
Personalization grants a capacity of flexibility with learners' needs in different areas. A rigid portal can never receive the satisfaction of its users. This is that it is worthy enough to put aside an ample time for discussing portal personalization capabilities with our designers and developers.

6. Conclusion
The quality of information offered at higher education environments has been always over question or doubt and may methods have been invented to elevate the level of information services at universities and colleges. Most of higher education institutes claim that they have been offering qualified information and data to their users through web-based media, while more students show little interest in keeping in touch with their campus portals. In most of cases, portfolios become a useless stuff after students' graduation. This may be and indication of loosing our clients, while we can keep our students related and dependent to our information resources even after they shout the last hooray. It seems that the time has begun for a review on the follow of information in portfolios. We tried to recommend a four element guideline in which selection, focus, meta-knowledge and personalization play important roles. So long live portal and specially campus portal.

References:
[1] Found at: www.whatis.com
[2] Found at: www.slais.ubc.ca
[3] Hejazi, A. Dilmaghani, M. "Aligning Campus Portals with Learner's Needs", IEEE Computer Society, Journal of Learning Technology, Volume 7 Issue 1, January 2005.
[4] Vertical Portals
[5] Cybernetic Citizens
[6] Found at: www.practicalportals.com
[7] Found at: http://www.sapdesignguild.org/editions/edition3/print_portal_usab.asp
[8] Found at: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/cogarch0/common/prop/metaknow.html
[9] Request For Proposal
[10]Found a t: http://www.seradigm.com/resources/metaknowledge.pdf

New Wine, Old Bottles

Abstract

The successful implementation of an e-learning system in a higher education environment requires proper infrastructure and facilities. Most of the time the word "infrastructure" referes to hardware or equipment, but here it embraces all of necessary elements for an e-learning system including related professions and techniques. The Iranian higher education community needs a comprehensive plan for e-learning courses and this requires the identification of current burdens as the first step. Without having a clear view of preventing factors we may never become succeeded in deploying a successful e-learning program. It may seem as putting new wine into old bottles! Our study aims at identifying these barriers and provides a preliminary theoretical framework for e-learning systems developers to align their idealistic objectives with current situation of higher education in Iran in a realistic manner. The study is done based upon local observations and experience of its conductors within Iranian higher education communities. The result of this study may be used for establishing e-learning systems in Iran.

Keywords
E-learning Systems- E-learning Barriers- Higher Education –Information Technology

1. Introduction
E-Learning usually refers to "learning that is delivered or enabled via electronic technology" (Sun Microsystems, 2002). It encompasses learning delivered via a range of technologies such as the internet, television, videotape, intelligent tutoring systems, and computer-based training.
E-Learning is a subset of the larger worlds of both “information technology” and “education and training”. It can be valuable when used as a part of a well-planned and properly supported education and training environment, but e-learning is not a magic bullet that replaces or renders obsolete existing pedagogical theories and approaches.
Many learning and technology professionals believe that e-learning will have “arrived” when we stop referring to it by a separate name and begin considering it as an integral part of a complete learning environment.
Recent advances in the availability and speed of Internet access and in the power and availability of personal computing platforms have dramatically increased the opportunities for the use of collaborative environments and other distributed learning technologies. As a result, a wide range of new products are being developed and many new companies have entered the learning technology market.
New categories of products continue to emerge, some providing new capabilities and others combining existing functionality into new product configurations. It can be a challenge to determine how these systems relate to each other and how they fit into a complete e-learning environment. The emergence of e-learning does not mean that existing software applications are obsolete. Systems such as Student Administration, Human Resources, and Library Management provide critical components of e-learning environments. The challenge is to implement these systems in unprepared learning environments.
This should be done through observing current problems and burdens. The remaining question is: "How can we implement e-learning systems in Iran?" Sometimes, adding new contents or services to a learning system may answer this question; but, current barriers make the job harder and require enough flexibility of e-learning systems both in nature and usage.
We have made an effort in this study to identify those burdens which may prevent sound working of e-learning systems and to provide a theoretical framework for e-learning systems developers alligning their objectives with real situation of higher education in Iran.

2. Barriers of E-learning in Iran
In 1992, Peter Drucker predicted that in the next 50 years, “schools and universities will change more drastically than they have since they assumed their present form 300 years ago when they organized themselves around the printed book” (Drucker, 1992, p. 97), but what about developing countries? Can be it true again for such states?
The history of e-learning in Iran at present time did not exceed than 5 years, yet from a realistic point of view we might say that e-based learning in Iran has had a 3 year experience and even younger.
The process of changing traditional education into a modern one in the Iranian society involves many critical problems which can be summarized as following according to recent studies (Dilmaghani, Noori and et al 2003):
- Lack of realistic comprehension concerning the process of learning [1]
- Ambiguous understanding about students' educational needs in different levels [1]
- Defective implementation of computer hardware and software [1]
- Weak IT education [1]
- Faint IT infrastructure [2, 3]
- Few experienced IT professionals [1]
- No realistic point of view or strategic program for higher education [3]
- Budget and equipment shortages [3]
- Fragile learning stimulus [1]
- No preparedness for an active information society and fear of new technology [4]
- Influential atmosphere of political, social and economic situations [3]
- Incompatible educational resources for e-leaning [3]
- Lack of information literacy [3]
We may categorize the barriers which prevent progress of e-learning in Iran in four main classes including: Social & Cultural, Economic, Technological and finally, Academic. All of these categories have their own burdens and obstacles slowing the flow of e-learning promotion.

2-1. Social & Cultural
Considering traditional education in Iran reveals many problems embracing social and cultural dimensions. Increased traffic congestion, air pollution, and parking problems, coupled with many people’s desires to remain at home for their education are just some of general problems in big cities such as Tehran. In higher education communities these problems are more complex. One of the most important problems is traditional evaluation method currently used in the Iranian universities and colleges. In this method most of the qualification that a student may pass is limited to final exams usually conducted in written form. Unfortunately this is even seen in postgraduate levels. So the creativity of students never becomes activated for research or innovation. All the things they know are unique to what they have read in their textbooks or what they have written in their thesis.
On the other hand most of educational courses in Iran are endured to acquire an academic certificate useful for employment or other social opportunities. Since e-learning courses certificates do not have formal value for official positions, many neglect this kind of education for their academic progress. In fact, e-learning in Iran seems as a luxury method of learning. All together e-learning may not be proven as a successful way of education. Although many institutes are working to introduce the advantages of e-learning to public, there is no considerable interest in such educational methods in Iran.
Besides, IT-related courses currently formed in colleges or universities should be programed enough flexible to respond to changes in society, so that, in addition with college graduates, our society would be able to produce many advanced IT technical experts and researchers in accordance with social needs.
According to recent studies (Dilmaghani, Noori and et al 2003), the Iranian student's current needs in e-learning can be typified in 5 main types: Access to networked knowledge, managing produced data, online education evaluation, acquiring net skills, finding web-based employment opportunities.

2-2. Economic
With the rising cost of higher education and institutions’ increasing dependence on students' tuitions to cover costs, students are relying more on government aid to meet their financial obligations. In fact, the government represents the largest single source of student aid in this country. Private institutions do not usually sponsor students as they are not sure of their return on investment in such areas.
On the other hand, universities and colleges educational board members usually suffer from economic problems. The economic situation in Iran has made every one to acquire more money for covering daily costs. So educational qualitative values are set aside automatically and money has become the first priority. Universities do not think of the quality of education they offer, rather they are concerned with the amount of money the can receive from their students as tuition. This is completely apparent in what are called Islamic Azad University and Scientific-Applied Colleges. Sometimes virtual or e-learning courses are more expensive than traditional courses! This may be converse in other parts of the world.

2-3. Technological
One of the main obstacles in Iran for e-learning is the lack of technical infrastructure. Since the main medium of e-learning is the Internet, having a proper connection is a crucial factor and this is seldom found in the Iranian higher education environments. Repeatedly disconnections or slowness of data transfer through current computer equipments are usual problems.
Some companies have began to install ADSL in Iran and it seems that the speed of the Internet connection may improve within next months, but until then e-learning centers have to offer their programs in the same slow form.
Remote access to learning opportunities across the country is the most urgent need felt in Iran at present time. As e-learning implementations will grow in size and complexity, the demands on underlying technology become more rigorous. The technology infrastructure must have the capacity to support the users and network load, it must be scalable to support growth, it must be stable to ensure a high level of availability for learners, it must provide an open environment to support interoperability between components, and it must provide security to protect distributed users and content.

2-4. Academic
In recent years, faculty and institutional administrators have debated whether the scholarly works of faculty belong to the faculty member or the institution. This issue has become more relevant as faculty members and institutions view distance learning as a potential entrepreneurial venture and as a venue to distribute intellectual work. In the context of course materials and lectures created by faculty, the ownership of intellectual property should be governed by copyright law, which generally protects the author of a work from the unauthorized duplication, distribution, or alteration of “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” including the Internet. The lack of compliance with copyright law in Iran has extended this problem vastly as there is no control over the right of produced works by faculty members.
Another problem lies in the poor knowledge of using computer and attending web-based programs. Setting a useful e-learning program requires available technical professionals for both the teacher and students. Many e-learning courses are left without reaching desired result just because of technical problems usually happening for students and teachers who do not know how to resolve them. An experienced IT professional plays a critical role in offering satisfactory e-learning services.

3. Conclusion
Deploying advanced higher education institutes and colleges equipped with modern e-learning facilities is one of today's urgent needs in developing countries like Iran. But the sustainability of such learning systems depends on making sound and realistic pedagogical strategies. New learning technologies need to be targeted so that they may develop applied learning skills in the students. Today the success of an educational program is highly tied to those web-based applications it may provide for its clients.
As the writers of this article have proposed, developing e-learning systems could be considered as a solution for the hazed situation of online higher education in Iran. E-learning courses should be developed based on students' real needs in an online environment. Using advanced countries' experience in the field of implementing e-learning systems may bring fruitful results for the Iranian higher education community such as: content management, developing IT-based skills, university-industry cooperation, educational competition, self-confidence, creativity and many other useful outcomes. The remaining point is the policy of Iranian higher education authorities toward the implementation of new learning technologies.

References
[1]. Noori, M. (2003). "Traditional Education or Learning with Computer", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[2]. Giveki, F. (2003). "Learning New Methods in Distance Higher Education", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[3]. Dilmaghani, M. (2003). "National Providence and Virtual Education Development Capabilities in Higher Education", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[4]. Momeni, N. (2003). "First Successful Experience of Distance Learning in Iran", Virtual University Conference at Kashan Payam-e Noor College: Conference Proceedings. Kashan: Payam-e Noor.
[5]. Drucker, P. (1992). Managing for the future: The 1990s and beyond. New York: Penguin.
[6]. Sun Microsystems white paper—“e-Learning Application Infrastructure”, January 2002

The Empowering Role of Enterprise Information Portals in Knowledge Management

Abstract
The increasing role of enterprise information portals (EIPs) in different applications of information, including knowledge management (KM), makes it a necessity to elaborate the issue in a more serious and scientific way. The contribution and role that these kinds of portals have in empowering KM provide a theoretical framework through which to offer a conceptual basis for present and future KM trends. So the main purpose of this article is to organize theoretical concepts discussed on EIPs in a summarized manner and provide a conceptual context for thinking and working on them. It should be noted that the perspective regarded here is more theoretical than technical. Meanwhile, technical issues are discussed as much as they are relevant to the objective of this article.

Introduction

Today, more than ever, business is a key shaper of the emerging global society. The exchange of knowledge, materials, energy, and people; the blending of cultures; and the dissipation of geo-political boundaries are to a great extent the result of transnational business operations. The relevance of knowledge and the need for approaches to manage it became apparent first and foremost in the business world [1]. Accessing, evaluating, managing, organizing, filtering, and distributing information in a manner that is useful to end users KM involves blending a company's internal and external information and turning it into actionable knowledge via a technology platform [2].

The Internet and its various applications have made many tasks easier than what they were in the past, including KM. For many companies and their staff nothing is important more than managing the information or knowledge they possess. The World Wide Web (WWW) has come to help these people and meet their information needs in an easy way. Usually every company has its own website on the Internet offering online information services to its members and clients. The more useful such web-based services would be, the more added values will be shifted towards users and more profits will be brought for the company in long term. So what kind of solution would be the best for such a purpose?

There have been many examined methods or solutions, but the increasing usage of EIPs has proved them as the most appropriate way of offering web-based services on a given subject to a defined class of users. EIPs' applied characteristics have reflected their empowering role in KM. So they may be regarded as useful means of knowledge management meeting most of KM objectives.

KM Process Position
Let's start our discussion with determining the KM process position according to a managerial perspective then study EIPs related functions. There are three categories of business processes [3]:
Operational Business Processes
Knowledge Processes
Knowledge Management Processes
Operational processes are those that use knowledge but, apart from knowledge about specific events and conditions, do not produce or integrate it.
There are two knowledge processes: knowledge production, the process an agent executes that produces new generalizing knowledge, and knowledge integration, the process that presents the new knowledge to agents comprising the producing agent.
There are nine knowledge management processes, which are listed later. For now, note that their purposes are to enhance knowledge processing, to perform KM-level knowledge processing and to integrate the knowledge management function itself.

Knowledge Processes
Knowledge production is a process made up of four task clusters (or sub-processes) [3]:
Information Acquisition
Individual and Group Learning
Knowledge Claim Formulation
Knowledge Claim Evaluation
Knowledge integration is made up of four more task clusters [3], all of which may use interpersonal, electronic or both types of methods in execution:
Knowledge and Information Broadcasting
Searching/Retrieving
Knowledge Sharing (peer-to-peer presentation of previously produced knowledge)
Teaching (hierarchical presentation of previously produced knowledge)
Among the eight sub-processes above, it is important to remember that individual and group learning is itself knowledge processing. Individual and group learning produces knowledge claims for consideration at higher levels of analysis of knowledge processing. But at the individual and group levels themselves, learning is knowledge production, and depending on the group level, all four task clusters are involved at that level too. Let's call it the "nesting" of knowledge processing in the enterprise [3].

Knowledge Outcomes
Knowledge processes, of course, produce outcomes. From a managerial point of view, knowledge is an encoded, tested, evaluated and still surviving structure of information that helps the adaptive system (agent) that developed it to adapt.
Two types of knowledge are important in organizations [3]:
Tested, evaluated and surviving beliefs or belief predispositions (in minds) about the world, and
Tested, evaluated and surviving, sharable (objective), linguistic formulations (knowledge claims) about the world.
There are also other outcomes of knowledge processes, the most important of which are knowledge claims about (1) and (2) . . . the track record of knowledge claim evaluation.
The various outcomes of knowledge processes may be viewed as part of an abstraction called the Distributed Organizational Knowledge Base (DOKB). The DOKB has electronic storage components, but it is more than that because it contains all of the outcomes of knowledge processing in documents and non-electronic media. And because it includes beliefs and belief predispositions as well, it also includes all of the mental knowledge in the enterprise [3].

How Things Work
Operational business processes are performed by agents who use previous knowledge in the DOKB, both mental knowledge and knowledge in organizational repositories to make decisions. Sometimes the DOKB and an agent's perceived situation doesn't provide the answers it needs. A problem has arisen--an epistemic gap between what an agent knows and what it needs to know to participate in the business process. Such a problem initiates knowledge processing, specifically a new knowledge production process. Once the problem is perceived, there is a need to formulate tentative solutions. Those can come from new individual and group learning addressing the problem, or from external sources through information acquisition, or from entirely creative knowledge claim formulation, or, of course, from all three.
Where the tentative solutions come from and in what sequence are of no importance to the self-organizing knowledge processing pattern of knowledge production. The only important thing about sequence here is that knowledge is not produced until the tentative solutions, the previously formulated knowledge claims, have been tested and evaluated in the knowledge claim evaluation sub-process. And that sub-process, Knowledge Claim Evaluation (KCE), is the way in which agents select among tentative solutions, competitive alternatives, by comparing them against each other in the context of perspectives, criteria or newly created ideas for selecting among them to arrive at the solution to the problem motivating knowledge production [3].

Knowledge Claim Evaluation
KCE is at the very center of knowledge processing and knowledge management. Think about it. Without KCE, what is the difference between information and knowledge? How do we know that we are integrating (broadcasting, searching/retrieving, sharing, or teaching) knowledge rather than just information? And finally, how do we know that we are doing knowledge management and not just information management?
Once knowledge and other tested and evaluated information are produced by KCE, the process of knowledge integration of the solution begins. There is no particular sequence to the integration sub-processes listed earlier. One or all of them may be used to present what has been produced to the enterprise's agents or to store what has been produced in the various repositories in the enterprise system.
Those agents receiving knowledge or information don't receive it passively. For them, it represents an input that may create a knowledge gap and initiate a new round of knowledge production at the level of the agent receiving it. Integration of the knowledge, therefore, doesn't signal its acceptance. It only signals that the instance of knowledge processing initiated by the first problem is over and that new problems have been initiated for some by the solution. For others, the knowledge integrated is knowledge to be used - either to continue with executing the business process that initiated the problem or at a later time when the situation calls for it [3].

Knowledge Life Cycle
Either way, the original problem that motivated knowledge processing is gone. It was born in the operational business process, solved in the knowledge production process, and its solution was spread throughout the organization during knowledge integration and in that way, it ceased to be a problem--i.e., it died. That pattern is a life cycle, a birth-and-death cycle for problems arising from business processes.
The life cycle gives rise to knowledge, both mental and cultural (linguistic), and so we call it the Knowledge Life Cycle (KLC). Every organization produces its knowledge through the myriad KLCs that respond to its problems: KLCs at the organizational level and KLCs at every level of social interaction and individual functioning in the organization. It is through the KLCs that knowledge is produced, and the organization acquires the solutions it needs to adapt to its environment.
Organizations differ in the profile of their KLCs. They acquire information in different ways. They formulate solutions in different ways. They integrate them in different ways. And above all, they evaluate tentative solutions in different ways. Organizations also differ in the patterning of their knowledge outcomes. They have different procedures for doing things, different software capabilities, different sales forecasting models, and different performance monitoring schemes [3].

KM Processes
Knowledge Management is the set of processes that seek to change the organization's present pattern of knowledge processing to enhance both it and its knowledge outcomes. That implies that KM doesn't directly manage knowledge outcomes, but only impacts processes, which, in turn, impact outcomes. For example, if one changes the rules affecting knowledge production, the quality of knowledge claims may improve, or if a KM intervention supplies a new search technology based on semantic analysis of knowledge bases that may result in improvement in the quality of models. There are at least nine knowledge management processes [3]:
Symbolic Representation
External Relationship Building with Others Practicing KM
Leadership
KM-level Knowledge Production
KM-level Knowledge Integration
Crisis Handling
Change in Knowledge Processing Rules
Negotiation for Resources with Representatives of Other Organizational Processes
Resource Allocation for Knowledge Processes and for Other KM Processes
KM-level knowledge production and integration reflects the idea that KM may also be about responding to epistemic gaps arising from knowledge management operational processes themselves. The change in the knowledge processing rules process, for example, may develop epistemic problems. In that case, KLCs at the level of KM processing will be initiated and will produce and integrate new knowledge about how to change knowledge processing rules to enhance information acquisition, knowledge claim evaluation or one of the other sub-processes of the KLC [3].

IT Applications and KM
When is an IT application a knowledge processing or management application, as distinct from an information processing or management application? I think part of the answer lies in the framework presented earlier. With the framework as background, the short answer to the above question is that an IT application supports knowledge processing to the extent that its use cases support the eight sub-processes of knowledge production and integration discussed earlier. Further, it supports KM to the extent that it supports the nine knowledge management processes.
Some may think that an IT application supports KM if it performs content management, or if it supports collaboration, or if it performs data mining. But the connection between those and other types of applications and knowledge processing and KM is at best indirect, and at worst very tenuous, because each such application may or not provide support for the knowledge or KM processes. In each case of an IT application, therefore, the connection from the application in question to knowledge processing and KM use cases must be demonstrated. The connection is simply not self-evident because the application in question is a content management or a collaborative application [3].

Portals, Knowledge Processing and Knowledge Management
The point we've made in connection with IT applications, in general, applies with equal force to enterprise information portals. Whether any particular portal product or solution supports knowledge processing and KM is not a question whose answer should be assumed. The answer instead should flow from careful analysis of the extent to which a product or solution supports the eight knowledge processes and/or the nine KM processes . . . and whether, in so doing, it aids knowledge management in enhancing the KLCs within an organization, and with them the organization's adaptive capability.
When a portal product provides appreciable support for KLC and KM processes, and especially when it supports the critical KCE process, it is proper to call that portal an enterprise knowledge portal (EKP). But until then, we should resist using that term and recognize that however desirable the halo effect of the name, the application involved is one that has not yet crossed the line from mere information processing and management to knowledge processing and KM [3].

The Advent of Portals for Knowledge Management
How will portals support access to structured and unstructured data? Corporate users need to access relevant business data and information, whether structured or unstructured, alphanumeric or text. The problem is that structured and unstructured data have been managed separately with little or no thought to common access. Providing users access to multiple applications under the cover of an information portal also does not solve the problem. The key is providing the infrastructure to support unified access. Advances in content management, along with extensions to SQL-based queries, signal a new era of unified access to heterogeneous data. This will be the third wave of information portals in support of knowledge management [4]. Knowledge management extends traditional business intelligence in the following ways:
Integrated Access to Structured and Unstructured Data
People: Tracking and Analyzing How People Use Information
Process: Delivering information to those who need it when they need it, building intelligence into a business process
Portals are positioned to become the means for supporting the information access and delivery required for knowledge management.
Corporate portals have taken the idea of consumer portals like Yahoo and Excite and adapted them for corporate intranets. Those portals partition the "real estate" of the user's screen, running multiple applications side by side. The burden is placed on the user to sort any semantic inconsistencies between the meaning of information displayed in one part of the screen (via one application) and that on another part of the screen (via another application). From the perspective of data access:
Unstructured data: Portals enable users to search through corporate documents, primarily via full-text searching. The documents are formatted as HTML pages for display to the user.
Structured data: Business intelligence query/reporting tools provide the capability to build reports from structured data sources. The reports are formatted as static HTML pages and viewed through a browser-based portal.
Corporate portals begin to embed more advanced features, deepening the level of access and providing better information sharing. Examples are Viador's bundling of Infoseek's search engine with its reporting capabilities, or Hummingbird's bundling its Andyne business intelligence technology with its PC DOCS technology.
Where we are headed is toward a convergence of unstructured and structured data access. One sign of the future convergence is the relationship between Brio and Autonomy, which promises to bring Autonomy's search and classification engine (for unstructured data) to expand the scope of Biro's business intelligence software. The results should be reflected in future versions of the Brio portal [4].
Another sign is IBM's ongoing Project Garlic, aimed at providing a federated search engine that could integrate (based on unified metadata) the results of structured and unstructured queries or searches. The results of that effort should emerge in various stages within IBM's DB2 database Data Joiner and portal infrastructure software [4].
If content management engines can classify the concepts within a document, data items can be stored outside the documents as accessible fields--most likely tagged in XML. The data attributes or fields can then be joined with existing customer records to form an expanded logical, heterogeneous record--ready to be accessed via enhanced information portals.
Unified data access means that this query can be handled. Moreover, unified data access should enable the aggregation and measurement of trends over time, which is the regular province of multidimensional analysis and data mining. Those attributes are candidate dimensions for examining trends in customer behavior, supplier performance, employee turnover and the like. For example: what are the best predictors of customer churn-changes in buying patterns, changes in e-mail topics or some combination?
Additional data can be gleaned by the portal to track how people are using information, another area not exploited by business intelligence today. That will enable identification of experts for better collaboration, as well as smart information push to those who need the information when they need it-a fundamental goal of knowledge management. Hence, in addition to expanded access to information, future portals will need to incorporate better support for people and process.
The separate worlds of structured and unstructured data access are coming together. There is a prospect for gaining more intelligence about customers, suppliers and employees than could be gained by access to only one type of data. That also implies a shakeout in the vendor ecosystems that have grown up around each type of data. The result will be portals that provide wider, deeper and more collaborative business intelligence.

EIPs facilitate exchange among communities of interest
Although the principles of KM are broadly accepted, how to implement a KM project is a key sticking point. An integrated database or knowledge repository is often the first step along the KM path. Because KM should be part of everything an organization does and part of everyone's job, the easiest way to implement a KM initiative is through networking.
KM can be understood as a four-part, closed-loop process that returns a net gain of EIPs:
Capturing knowledge: Ideas are synthesized in a memo, sales figures are reported in an e-mail and a list of corporate expenditures is placed in a relational database.
Analyzing and cataloging knowledge: Raw data becomes information when it is placed in a meaningful context. Categorization is essential to the success of a KM solution because it provides a framework for other users to locate information. FAQs, "best-practices" documents and a corporate directory of experts are examples of codified knowledge.
Sharing knowledge: EIPs can encourage collaboration. Workers amend and update resources as they use them. That modification leads back to the first step of enterprise learning. Users loop their learning and new information back to a database. In that way, portals are built on knowledge bases that are relevant, focused and available to everyone in the company.
Creating knowledge: Most fundamentally, KM and information architecture are about enhancing capacities for knowledge creation.
Databases do more than provide a single point of entry for information and a single log-on. They hook people together and promote interactive problem solving. Integrated databases are important because they make the best insights of each employee available to all. That means that each worker has access to the collective wisdom of the organization. Project archives, for instance, are an excellent way to encourage virtual teamwork and dialogue. They are clearinghouses where communities of interest have access to current and past project information. A project archive functions as an electronic work space that both stores information and provides a focal point for collaboration [5].

EIP Software Functions & Properties
EIPs integrate access to data, information and applications, and present it to the business user in a useful format. The portals are used by the business user, but include IT administration tools, and have some level of the following functionality native to them:
Role-based or Rule-based Administration
Collaboration
Content Management and Search
Access to structured data such as user query and reporting
Offering some level of those capabilities is a must for EIP vendors, and sometimes they partner to achieve such functionality, especially search technologies.
EIP software sits on top of existing applications, integration layers and information sources. It can then be further customized to create new Web-based applications that use information and application services available inside and outside the enterprise. An example of that would include self-service applications built using an EIP framework [6].
The broader portal software ecosystem is comprised of many other technology offerings that complement EIP software. Companies can add supporting functionality as needed or integrate access to existing applications and information sources.
Relatively few companies have metrics in place to measure the financial impact an EIP-based solution can yield. The same statement holds for e-mail, yet few companies would operate without it. When financial metrics are not abundant, general business goals that impact financial performance can be used to justify the purchase of EIP software:
Retain Expertise of Key Personnel
Increase Customer Satisfaction
Improve Productivity
Decrease IT Administration Costs
Decrease Product Development Cycles
Support E-business Initiatives
Companies can expect a variety of benefits from adopting EIP software and should detail their expectations when assessing their need for it and selecting appropriate vendors.
Once an overview of EIP software is understood, it is useful to understand the major categories of functionality that may be sought to achieve predefined goals. Companies considering purchasing EIP software should first consider their strategic goals, assess the availability of supporting capability currently in house, and create an RFP (Request For Proposal) detailing requirements to meet those goals. During this economic downturn, conducting an ROI (Range Operating Instruction) study prior to adoption of any software is increasingly important. The ROI models can become complex considering the amount of touch points that an EIP has within an enterprise.
As EIP software changes in scope and new entrants enter the market, new knowledge management capabilities will be incorporated into it. Features such as content visualization, contextual collaboration and expert location will aid employees in finding an answer to their business problem. Delivery of content in the context of a business process will greatly decrease decision time. Additionally, business processes will be analyzed, modeled and quickly deployed to allow for continuous improvement without extensive application re-engineering. EIP software can provide firms with a software platform to better manage knowledge and knowledge workers, but user needs must be analyzed first.
Some of EIP software properties may be numbered as:
Application Integration
Structured Data Management
Content and Document Management
Collaboration
Administration
Architecture/Platform
Security
Services
Support

An Applied Sample: ServiceWare Knowledge Portal
Formerly "InfoImage Portal 5.0," this product was recently acquired by ServiceWare [7]. It is claimed to be the most scalable and flexible portal platform available, allowing organizations to rapidly deploy intranet, extranet and Internet portal solutions. Knowledge Portal 5.0 includes a rich set of features for development, deployment, administration and end-user adoption of the portal.
According to a leading technology analyst firm The Delphi Group, there are several key features required for a successful portal platform: integration, categorization, search, publication and distribution, process, collaboration, personalization and presentation. Knowledge Portal delivers these functions through five technology differentiators. Based on their criteria, The Delphi Group deemed the product "a true platform."

Figure1. A General View of Knowledge Portal 5.0 Platform

The ServiceWare Knowledge Portal platform enables companies or departments to provide a single unified workspace for access to applications and information. The portal can be deployed to employees, customers and business partners and can allow each group to have its own view of the information and applications important to them.
Conclusion
The modern nature of e-commerce has made an environment of rapid growing change in different forms of business interactions people have today. And the turning point of this reality is laid in "knowledge" and those methods people may use as their own way of "knowledge management". Portals in general and Enterprise Information Portals specifically have been appeared in the scope of KM as useful tools designed mainly to save energy, time and money of their users. Many of KM objectives that were met in the past through traditional ways are now being satisfied easily by EIPs. The main issue is that how these portals should be designed and how they should be used to bring the most profit for their users in KM. Nowadays many well-known companies are established to design and offer different kinds of EIPs with various capabilities. It's natural that selecting the best one among these companies and their products is a hard task, but evaluating them through trial periods of usage may reveal may realities helping make the final choice. The major principles or criteria that should be kept in mind while selecting portal software include: Retaining expertise of key personnel, increasing customer satisfaction, improving productivity, decreasing IT administration costs, decreasing product development cycles and supporting e-business initiatives.
Anyway, the growing usage of EIPs has proved them as capable tools of KM and defined their empowering role in this regard. It should be also remembered that EIPs do not provide all the things but they are able to satisfy a reasonable range of users' KM expectancies. Main capabilities of EIPs in empowering KM include: Integrated access to structured and unstructured data, tracking and analyzing how people use information, and delivering information to those who need it when they need it building intelligence into a business process.

References
1. TFPL. (1999). Skills for Knowledge Management: A Briefing Paper. London: TFPL.
2. Susan DiMattia & Norman Oder (1997, September 15). Knowledge Management: Hope, Hype, or Harbinger? Library Journal, 28, 33-35.
3. Joseph M. Firestone, PhD. (2002). Portal progress and knowledge management: the framework. KMWorld, 11(10).
4. Henry Morris (2004). Three waves of information portals for knowledge management. KMWorld, 13(1).
5. Katherine C. Adams (1998). Information architecture Translates KM theory into practice. KMWorld, 7(1).
6. Brian McDonough (2001). The Information Enterprise Portal. KMWorld, 10(11).
7. ServiceWare Knowledge Portal. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2004 from http://www.serviceware.com/solutions/knowledgeportal.asp