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Global Access to Knowledge: Findings from Academic Organisations in sub-Saharan Africa

Adekunle Okunoye, Helena Karsten, Global Access to Knowledge: Findings from Academic Organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. Information Technology and People 16(3), 2003.

Abstract:

A major area of global knowledge management is in the practice of academic research. We studied how the Internet was used to support knowledge management (KM) in six noncorporate research organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. For knowledge acquisition, abstract and article databases and field-specific web sites were considered the most important services. For knowledge transfer, email and especially email attachments were considered crucial in overcoming the slowness of other means of communication. For knowledge application, communication with collaborators and publishers helped bring African research communities
more visibility. Despite limited availability and infrastructure problems, some researchers had made headway in using the Internet to improve acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but not knowledge storage. Researchers in other areas of the globe may benefit from a fuller understanding of the issues and challenges facing their sub-Saharan colleagues as an important step towards improving collaboration and knowledge sharing.

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BibTeX entry:

@ARTICLE{jOkKa03a,
  title = {Global Access to Knowledge: Findings from Academic  Organisations in sub-Saharan Africa},
  author = {Okunoye, Adekunle and Karsten, Helena},
  journal = {Information Technology and People},
  volume = {16},
  number = {3},
  year = {2003},
  keywords = {Internet, sub-Saharan Africa, research institutes, development},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): Data Mining and Knowledge Management Laboratory

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