b. Begin to fuse key knowledge functions/ processes/technologies, building toward EAIS. This evolutionary process is at work today. Colleges and universities are fusing portal, ERP, and learning management systems to create robust, integrated e-learning platforms and experiences. They are beginning to incorporate greater content management solutions into the early-generation course management systems to enhance knowledge management capabilities. This is creating a core of integrated academic and support services that provides a glimmer of the future EAIS that will fuse all academic and administrative systems and services. Solutions providers serving corporations, government agencies, and associations are fusing e-learning, learning management, knowledge management, and performance support to evolve the leading edge of enterprise application solutions. These efforts need support and acceleration. In particular, the strategic importance of knowledge and content management needs to be elevated to enterprise-level planning activities and become a topic of interest for organizational leaders.

c. Develop Web services capabilities and reshape the EAIS vision to incorporate Web services. Enterprises typically develop Web applications as an adjunct to their current systems. Through the process of node enablement, Web/application servers are used to connect traditional applications, one at a time, to the outside service grid, turning them into nodes on the Internet. Enterprises should re-evaluate their service models and begin to incorporate the Web services vision into their plans for the EAIS of the future. A working group in the IT division should be formed to focus on the issue of Web services and identify the first pilots, working with functional managers. The pilot projects should be discussed broadly.

d. Launch mobile work and learning pilots and pervasive knowledge environments. Every enterprise needs active pilot projects in wireless computing and pervasive technology/knowledge environments. These pilots need to focus on both the technical issues of providing robust, secure service and the more complex issue of how these capabilities change the work and learning experience.

A variety of Web sites and nascent communities of practice on mobile learning, some supported by corporate sponsors, are developing. The results of mobile work and learning pilots need to be assembled, assessed, synthesized, and made available to shape the evolution of these developments.

Exemplary Resources: Portalization, Web Services, and Mobile Work and Learning

Portalization

• Uportal. http://mis105.mis.udel.edu/ ja-sig/uportal/

Mobile Computing Pilots, Mobile Work and Learning Pilots, and Related Resources

• Mobile Computing for Teaching and Learning at Wake Forest. www.cren.net/ know/techtalk/ events/mobile2.html
• Mobilearn Project. www.mobilearn.org

	8.
	Knowledge Economy

Initiate change in the enterprise knowledge ecology: a) process reinvention and innovation; b) change the knowledge culture; c) elevate the understanding of knowledge flows, communities of practice, and knowledge as social interaction; and d) make the enhancement of individual and enterprise e-knowledge capabilities an organizational priority for human resources development.

Getting your enterprise to understand the “social side of knowledge” is an essential developmental step in becoming reflective about your knowledge ecology.