A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN A LARGE

UNIVERSITY IN SRI LANKA

S. T. W. S. Yapa
Department of Decision Sciences,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
University
 Is ‘an institution of higher education having
authority to award bachelors' and higher
degrees, usually having research facilities’.
 Universities are the places where the

knowledge is created and disseminated.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
 The education system is about the production
and dissemination of knowledge, and what
happens within it is itself knowledge based

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge
 popular— common sense
knowledge acquired thorough
experience
 erudite—education or

research-based knowledge.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge
 starts as data—raw facts and numbers—for
example, the stock market data.
 Information is data put into context—in the

same example, the change of share prices.

 Only when information is combined with

experience and judgment does it become

knowledge.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Management
 The practice of harnessing and exploiting
intellectual capital in order to gain
competitive advantage and customer
commitment through efficiency, innovation
and effective decision making.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Management
 KM is the process of capturing and making
use of a firm’s collective expertise anywhere
in business
◦ -on paper, in documents, in databases (called
explicit knowledge),
◦ or in people’s heads (called tacit knowledge)

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Explicit and Tacit Knowledge

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Integral parts of KM definitions
 Using accessible knowledge from outside sources
 Embedding and storing knowledge in business
process, products and services
 Representing knowledge in databases and
documents
 Promoting knowledge growth through the
organization’s culture and incentives
 Transferring and sharing knowledge throughout
the organization
 Assessing the value of knowledge assets and
impact on regular basis

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
University environment is suitable for application
of knowledge management principles and methods

 Universities usually posses modern

information infrastructure
 Knowledge sharing with others is natural for

lecturers,
 Desire of students is to acquire knowledge

from accessible sources as fast as possible.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Areas of application of KM
 Research
 Curriculum development
 Academic services (teaching-learning process)
 Alumni services
 Formulation and development of strategic plan
 Administrative services (student and alumni)
 Access to potential customers and other
stakeholders
 Library services
 Development programmes

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
KM leads to
 Better decision making capabilities
 Reduced “product” development cycle time

(for example, curriculum development and

research)
 Improved academic and administrative

services
 Reduced costs.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Types of knowledge in higher
education
 Academic knowledge
 Organizational knowledge

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
KM processes and their definitions in the higher
education settings.

 Knowledge creation
 Knowledge capture
 Knowledge organization
 Knowledge storage
 Knowledge dissemination
 Knowledge application

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
The Research
 A qualitative research.
 Use exploratory approach
 Case Study
 tools selected for this research

◦ Secondary data analysis

◦ Observations
◦ Experience survey
◦ Interviews with the academic staff and the
administrative staff
◦ The author’s experience and observations

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
The university
 Second largest university in terms of undergraduate
admissions in Sri Lanka
 Has five faculties
 More than 5,000 internal undergraduates, more than
10,000 external undergraduates
 More than 250 academic staff members
 Bi-lingual university
 Degree programmes are offered in Sinhala medium, in
English medium and in bi-lingual
 Almost all the written communications to the staff and
student are done in native language
 The meetings are conducted in the native language except
in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. 

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Infrastructure for KM - IT facilities

 A few computer centres

 All the department offices have been provided with
desktop computers with internet facilities
 A fair number of lecture rooms are provided with internet
facilities these facilities are hardly used for teaching
purposes.
 Some of the buildings are covered by wired/ Wi-Fi
computer networks.
 Some of the lecturers are provided with laptops/desktops.
 No intranet for the University
 Lecturers and students use their computers as standalone
computers.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Infrastructure for KM - Library
 Central library to serve all the faculties.
 Approximately 200,000 books in the library
 The library has subscribed to 108 journals in

2009.
 Library offers few electronic journals as well

for the staff and the students.

 Access to the electronic journals is permitted

only through the computers located inside

the University premises.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
ANALYSIS

 The university has not identified KM as a

separate important function and there is no
plan to have a specific KM system in place in
the near future as well.
 Different unrelated KM activities are found

more or less throughout the university in

different levels.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Creation

 Mainly in the form of postgraduate research.

 It is mandatory for a junior lecturer to obtain

at least a masters degree with a research

component to get the promotion
 provide the staff members with research

grants


Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Capture

 Mainly depends on the internal academic staff

 The academic staff are mainly recruited at the most junior
level. The only qualification they have is the first degree.
The main strategy of knowledge capture at USJ is the
capacity building of the staff.
 The university capture knowledge through the collection
of books and journals in its library.
 A good way to capture the latest knowledge is to
attend/participate academic seminars and conferences.
Even though a few lecturers of USJ attend these
conferences on ad-hoc basis it is a very small percentage.
No funding are provided by the university for attending
overseas conferences or seminars.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Organization

 No activity regarding knowledge organization

can be identified in the University.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Storage

 Stored mainly in the form of teaching materials

such as course manuals and presentation slides.
 Some of the lecture materials are available on the
on-line Learn Management System (LMS) as well.
 No formal system to store the knowledge. Storage
of materials on on-line format depends on the
enthusiasm and IT knowledge of the lecturer or
the relevant head of the department.
 It is not a formal
 opportunity to access the knowledge off the
campus as well.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Dissemination

 The main form of dissemination of knowledge in

the university is the undergraduate teaching.
 Conduct symposiums, conferences and seminars to

disseminate the knowledge.

 The university and a few departments officially

publish peer reviewed journals in different subject

areas.
 Some of the research articles published by

lecturers of USJ in various conferences and journals

have been included into the university web site.
 Publication of books.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Knowledge Application
 Hardly any activity regarding knowledge
application can be identified in the university
except few patents that have been taken by
very few lecturers.

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
Three main reasons for for low level
of KM
 Lack of enthusiasm from the lecturers in
engaging KM activities.
 Lack of funds available for the library
 lack of policies and procedures in KM

activities

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences
 Thank You

Dr. Saman Yapa - Head,

Department of Decision Sciences