1.

Definition of knowledge portal 

is an Internet-based computer program that constitutes a single point of access to organizational kno

wledge, integrating knowledge repositories, expert directories, collaboration tools, and other knowle

dge-intensive applications

Different types of content contained in knowledge portals

Project documents, lessons learned Solutions

Technology and industries -examples News, reports, suppliers, potentials

Customers – examples Company information, contacts, projects, competitors

Employs - examples Skills, contact information, education, experiences, know-how

2. User interface and navigation

The user interface should be standardized and easy to use. While the knowledge base and functions l

ayers pose new challenges to the developers of a portal, the design of the user interface does not diffe

r greatly from the design of any common website. 

3. State-of-the-art approaches

Currently, many companies are developing early stages of Knowledge Portals. The following are exa

mples for state-of-the-art Knowledge Portals.

Project management at Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse is one of the two largest Swiss banks. It hosts several internal websites which are used for v

arious purposes. The Business Unit Information Technology/Operations has developed a project manage

ment solution that provides advanced features for process support. The platform is being used by approxi

mately 600 employees of the Department for Application Development and Solutions.
Contents

The Knowledge Base consists of project documentations (status reports and other relevant documents), so

lutions (procedural models, result templates, and project structures), and employee profiles. Each project

has its own project work space, where current and past documents may be filed.

Functions

Every project work space features a default project structure that simplifies the initial project setup. Mil

estones, required results, and project steps are automatically included in every new project. While every

project member may subscribe to any contents to keep up-to-date, the project manager has additional po

werful features to support his or her job. A milestone planning component enables the tracking of resou

rces as well as the release of subsequent project stages.

In addition to the above-mentioned functions, several other features like search, user manager, push, an

d hotlist are implemented to support the user.

Client Knowledge Network at Andersen Consulting

Andersen Consulting has developed a platform to support the interaction between project team member

s--both inside Andersen Consulting and with their respective clients.

Contents

The Client Knowledge Network features information on employee availability, project documents, and

solutions (best practices, methods, instructions, etc.) as well as links to external sources containing mar

ket information and news.

Functions

While all four functional categories are well developed, the main focus of the Client Knowledge Network is

on the teamwork component. Video and audio conferencing may be used where infrastructure and bandwidt

h permit. Otherwise, discussion groups, e-mail, and chat rooms are provided. A very useful Continuous Loca
tion Awareness is a very useful, where the location of every (currently online) consultant may be determined.

It is even possible to send him or her a personal instant message via the platform. In addition to the mention

ed functions, several process support and document management features are available. Personalization is re

alized by providing a personal inbox, customizing, scheduling, individual folders, and user managers.

Concept of knowledge management

Knowledge is built from data, which is first processed into information (i.e., relevant associations and patter

ns). Information becomes knowledge when it enters the system and when it is validated (collectively or indi

vidually) as a relevant and useful piece of knowledge to implement in the system.

There are three types of knowledge within any organization, individual, group, and enterprise, and that know

ledge can be generally classified along the lines of being explicit, embedded, and tacit. Explicit knowledge i

s knowledge represented in documents, books, e-mail, and databases. Embedded knowledge is organizationa

l knowledge found in business processes, products, and services. Tacit knowledge is undocumented knowled

ge that is captured during business processes by knowledge workers.

4. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management is one of the organizational information technology initiatives for business today.

The challenges associated with implementing knowledge management systems extend far beyond the capabi

lities of most information technology. The overall challenge faced by many organizations today is identifyin

g where strategic knowledge (intellectual capital) resides, and how to leverage and manage it across the ente

rprise, group and/or individual.

Knowledge management refers to the process for creating, codifying, and disseminating knowledge for a

wide range of knowledge intensive tasks. These tasks can be decision support, computer-assisted learning, re

search (e.g., hypothesis testing) or research support. There are various methodologies that support the syste

matic introduction of Knowledge management solutions into an organization. The majority of Knowledge m

anagement initiatives today usually revolve around identifying/discovering, classifying, and indexing explici

t knowledge in information systems, such as an enterprise document management system, and/or business co
ntent management system. In many cases KM systems also include access to structured information found in

databases.

Knowledge management systems (KMS) are tools to affect the management of knowledge including docu

ment repositories, expertise databases, discussion lists, and context-specific retrieval systems incorporating c

ollaborative filtering technologies. Most Knowledge management systems are based upon some construction

of information-enabled communications, coordination, and collaboration capabilities. They provide the critic

al link between the information and technology resource inputs and organized performance, and are criticall

y dependent upon active participation and involvement of knowledge workers to transform this input into or

ganizational performance.

In a business environment, knowledge management has many aspects, from low-level day-to-day business p

rocess control to high-level executive decision making.

A knowledge management system should be able to collect relevant knowledge, store knowledge in a sharea

ble enterprise memory, communicate the knowledge with parties, and maintain consistencies. In all these act

ivities, a portal can play an important role within an enterprise, that is, as an information carrier to shift infor

mation around the organization.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PORTAL

An obvious goal of the Web site today is dynamically acquiring content and making it available. A portal is

a group of services provided through the Web to a set of users. Portals originated from the question of how

we could deliver the right information to users. It allows the integration of many functions within a single int

erface. The services provided in a portal also vary widely with the purpose of it. Typically, services are pers

onalization, member registration, e-mail and discussion boards, search engine, organization and indexing of

content, from internal and/or external sources. The items that are typically included in the portals consist of

business intelligence, content and document management, enterprise resource planning systems, data wareho

uses, data-management applications, search and retrieval of information. The ultimate portal provides the Ho

ly Grail for organizational knowledge, true data aggregation and information integration coupled with knowl

edge worker collaboration.

A portal is the next evolutionary step in the use of Web browsers.

There are different forms of portals, ranging from simple to complex. the simplest form of a portal, defined a

s “an information gateway that often includes a search engine plus additional organization and content,” to

more sophisticated forms of portals. Sophisticated examples yahoo, (examples of horizontal portals) or high-

level university campus portals, to use a portal, a user has to register in it and provide a name and password

each time he/she uses it. This allows the system to personalize the services and contents to the specific user.

The portal constitutes a single point of entry and a single logon to the services provided.

Modern business environments are complex and expensive, which has motivated many companies to inv

est in enterprise portals as a mechanism by which they can manage their information in a cohesive and struct

ured fashion. Portals offer many advantages over other software applications. They provide a single point of

access for employees, partners, and customers to various types of (structured and unstructured) information,

making an important contribution to enabling enterprise knowledge management.

Enterprise information portals are bringing together the worlds of business intelligence and knowledge mana

gement into a new, centralized desktop environment; the knowledge portal.

5. Advantages of knowledge portals

1. The knowledge portal plays a key role in empowering the virtual enterprise and employees by provid

ing a personalized single point of access to all relevant information.

2. enabling better, faster decision making.

3. They are beginning to help organizations capture and leverage their intellectual assets by facilitating

assembly of communities of interest, best practice, and expert systems within a single, intuitive, We

b-based user interface.

4. Knowledge portals make an important contribution to enabling enterprise knowledge management b

y providing users with a consolidated, personalized user interface that allows efficient access to vario

us types of (structured and unstructured) information.

Knowledge management functionalities include

1. Search - discovery and navigation to information from a knowledge map.

 2. Taxonomy, relevant indexing, and classification of information sources.

3. Knowledge network, user interface to communities of interest/expert systems.

4. Personalization and presentation of relevant information to the desktop.

5. Dynamic delivery of information to the desktop via intelligent agents.

6. Enterprise application integration.

7. Benefits of Portals

• Sharing information and work methods, this seems to speak directly to the knowledge management notion

of making tacit knowledge explicit.

• Business process support, or workflow, indicating that companies see a huge upside to exchanging electron

ic files rather than moving hard copy from desk to desk in the business process.

• Customer service, mirroring the growing business interest in managing customer relationships.

Intranet portals also provide business intelligence and collaborative tools. They promise to create significant

and sustainable competitive advantages for early adopters.

8. Limitations of Knowledge Portals

Building communities of interest and/or promoting best practices within an organization is more easily said t

hen done. Major barriers to successful implementation are primarily cultural, not information technology dri

ven. Organizational barriers to knowledge portal management system include:

a. Senior management culture and support

b. Identifying the knowledge base

c. Buy in from knowledge workers and employees

d. management and distribution of relevant and accurate content

Different types of content

Types of Content Examples

Projects Project documents, Lessons learned

Solutions Methodology, Procedural frameworks, FAQs, Case studies

Technology/Industry News, Reports, Potentials

Customers Company information, Contacts, Projects, Competitors

Employees Skills, Contact information, Education experience, knowledge profiling

Competitors Service products, Company information, best practices

Suppliers Skills, References, Experiences

Administrative information, (e.g., zoning regulations, planning permission), stan

Domain
dards, technical rules, product databases

Decision support systems Expert systems, case repositories, simulations

Groupware-based applicati
Knowledge databases, best practices
ons

Others Educational material, data mining

Functions of a knowledge portal

Personalisation

• Personal Inbox • Scheduling • Personal favorites

• Customizing • Profile Matches • Save queries

• News push • History

• User Manager • Replication

• Personal directory

• Hotlist

Active process support Teamwork Document Management

• Checklist • Video conferencing • Subscribe to contents

• To-do list • Audio conferencing • Versions control

• Project management • Discussion groups • Access control

• Push • E-mail • Search/navigation

• Workflow • Find experts • Document sharing

• Message boards • Append/modify/delete

• Chat rooms • Content rating

• Meeting planner • Office integration

9. DESIGN OF A KNOWLEDGE PORTAL

There are different methods available for designing a knowledge portal. Typically, it consists of a thre

e-layer architecture

1. Knowledge base
2. Functions

3. User interface and navigation

Knowledge Base

There are different types of content that we can put into the knowledge base. The design of a knowledge bas

e depends on the intended target group and purpose. The different types of content can be found in Table 1.

Besides the content type, it is important to provide separate content work spaces for different users and/or tar

get groups. Every user should have a personal file folder at his/her disposal. Each project team or communit

y of interest should have its own working environment too. This is essential for regular use of a portal.

Functions of a knowledge portal can be grouped into four categories:

1. personalization,

2. process support,

3. teamwork,

4. and document management, as shown in above in table 2

Each portal must include the personalization function. The other functions are added as needed. Howeve

r, search, and discussion should be available throughout all platforms. Active support and teamwork are the

most important features of a knowledge portal. It can be achieved through checklists, to-do lists, and workfl

ows. E-mail and discussion groups are common communications functions. Additional functions, such as co

nferencing and skill management, may be implemented, depending on the focus of use. Typical document m

anagement features include search and version control. Integration into office automation software may be n

eeded if the user is allowed to add and/or modify documents. Personalisation offers many functions that ena

ble users to customize their personal working environment according to their preferences.

10. User Interface

Although standard user interfaces approaches are typically used for the design of knowledge portals, there ar

e limitations. These include:

• Lack of organizational analysis

• There is no knowledge model

• Lack of details to guide users

• No user interface guidelines

To overcome this, there are methods that can be used to design a portal for knowledge management. The m

ost common method is the Common KADS models. It is a collection of structured methods for building kno

wledge-based systems, analogous to methods such as SSADM for information system development. At the h

eart of commands is the construction of a number of models that represent different views on problem-solvin

g behaviour. This method has been proved successfully in a range of different tasks. The first step is to devel

op the organizational, agent, and task models. The organization model is a model that documents the objecti

ves of the system and identifies the opportunities of value to the organization. It provides an analysis of the s

ocio-organisational environment that the KBS will have to function. The key elements of this model are the

business process, structural units, business resources, and the various relationships between them. An agent

model provides an understanding of the system users. It identifies how these users or agents perform their ta

sks. The communication model models the interaction of the system with the user and other system compon

ents. The key elements of this model are transactions. The task model specifies how the functionality of the s

ystem is to be achieved. The key elements of this model are the tasks required for a single business process a

nd the assignment of tasks to various agents. The task model links to the agent model to identify the people,

hardware, or system that performs the task. It uses information specified in the communication model to ope

rate in the domain defined in the organization model. organization model starts the creation of a knowledge

map. The task model charts out where the knowledge is used. The agent model analyses who owns the know

ledge and who uses it.

11. CONCLUSION

Since the key purpose of knowledge management is to disseminate information to the organization, it is a

n excellent match for enterprise portals. The practice of knowledge management needs to support the normal

way of working in the enterprise. Portals can help here because the signing of the processes can be integrate

d with the portal, and into the workflow. For example, if a customer service representative creates a new pie
ce of information for the customer portal, when they upload it, the item is sent to marketing to make sure tha

t the messaging is right. When they approve it, the item is then sent to the legal department to give it the fina

l all clear and the item is then uploaded. This entire workflow can be incorporated into the enterprise portal.

A new phase of enterprise search applications is emerging. Applications will be able to use ontologies to put

information into context, which will reveal previously unknown relationships. Companies will build applicat

ions that will let users sort, filter, compare, and contrast content. These new engines will enable OLAP-like

analysis on otherwise unstructured content.

Today, companies increasingly have to consolidate knowledge at an increasing speed, and to provide immed

iate access to these resources for all employees. Intranets and Internet-based consumer portals such as Yaho

o and Alta Vista are not adequate to meet the need. This is because they contain too much irrelevant informa

tion, and it is difficult for users to find the necessary knowledge. To overcome this limitation, a knowledge

management portal is ideal.