WO2001039058A1

WO2001039058A1 - Knowledge management system

Info

Publication number: WO2001039058A1
Application number: PCT/KR2000/000278
Authority: WO
Inventors: Joonsoo Youn
Original assignee: Joonsoo Youn
Priority date: 1999-11-23
Filing date: 2000-03-29
Publication date: 2001-05-31
Also published as: AU3463100A

Abstract

A knowledge management system through internet is disclosed. The knowledge management system has a certificate server equipped with a search engine and data of the system; a point server for storing points at each account of all personnels; a knowledge repository for storing the knowledge recognized as common value through a question and an answer between knowledge man and ordinary employee; list of knowledge men recognized as having separate information and knowledge other than the knowledge stored at the knowledge repository; list of data relating to the knowledge stored at the knowledge repository; and a reply watcher for managing mail relating to a question and an answer between knowledge man and ordinary employee. Thus, the knowledge management system is managed in a game type that all personnels participate and exchange information and expense. Also, the corresponding reward to all actions of creation and circulation of the knowledge is provided instantly.

Description

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates, in general, to knowledge management systems and, more particularly, to a knowledge management system wherein the personnel of a company are capable of participating in games for giving and taking knowledge and money among them, so that the entire mental faculty of the company can be enhanced and the personnel can share the resultant benefits with one another.

BACKGROUND ART

In modern management, the knowledge capital is of significance in a company or an organization. Currently, interests in knowledge management are generally increasing, and the integration of Internet-based systems for the knowledge management is accelerated accordingly. The concept of the "knowledge management" has been introduced as a new paradigm of management to lead the twenty-first century, so a combination of knowledge management currently in process, and Internet-related technologies, leading the integration of the systems, is an inevitable process.

Yet, there have been attempts for merely combining the knowledge management with the Internet. A substantial and practical combination thereof has not been tried. In addition, due to the lack of exact and lucid understanding on the knowledge management, the users have misunderstood with regard to the knowledge management, i. e., considering it as simply installing a knowledge management system.

A large number of large-scale projects based on such misunderstanding have obtained no practical fruits. Accordingly, there has been a need for a solution capable of actively utilizing the Internet and exactly and completely reflecting the idea and fundamental principles of the knowledge management.

In a real sense, the knowledge management system is requested to cover all the categories including organizations, culture, systems, etc., not to simply provide information.

The knowledge management is not simply an information providing system but a new technique of management in terms of the management of a company, in order to enhance competitive power, improve financial situations and furthermore maximize profits of the company. Human resources and environmental elements surrounding them, such as cultures, systems, organizations, etc., are the linchpins of the knowledge management. The information technology merely plays a role as an assistant to facilitate the utilization of such linchpins.

However, because the above solution has not been developed, the knowledge management is currently carried out in abstract terms. For this reason, although the knowledge management system is actually applied, participation of knowledgeable workers is so poor because there are substantially few benefits thereto. Under the circumstances, there is a pressing need of a method capable of advantageously utilizing the knowledge management system.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above-described problems and meeting the need in modern management, and an object of the present invention is to provide an Internet-based knowledge management system which is operable in such a manner that the personnel of a company play games for exchanging knowledge and money with one another, so that they can be allured to participate in the games, and wherein corresponding rewards for all activities for producing and circulating the knowledge are instantly provided and incentives for preferential treatment are given to knowledge men providing information and/or knowledge.

In a feature of the present invention, a knowledge management system is operated with the rules of allowing ordinary employees with the same amount of points in their accounts to spend the points as much as possible or all by issuing questions to a knowledge repository and/or any of knowledge men for a given period of time, allowing the knowledge men to respond to the questions issued thereto, as many as possible or all, without special reasons, by which the points deducted from the questioners' accounts are added to the answerers' accounts, allowing the questions and answers between the ordinary employees and the knowledge men to be transferred via E-mail and allowing the points to be accumulated in the accounts of the respective questioners and respective answerers who have participated in the utilization of knowledge in the knowledge repository and allowing an operator of the knowledge management system to manage the entire operation of the knowledge management system by monitoring the whole process mentioned above and intervening between the questioners and the answerers if necessary.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing a fundamental architecture of a knowledge management system in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an initialization algorithm, among fundamental algorithms of the knowledge management system in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a view showing an exemplary main picture created by the fundamental architecture of Fig. 1 and the initialization algorithm of Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a view showing an exemplary picture for application for a Community of Practice (CoP) group using the knowledge management system in accordance with the present invention; and Fig. 5 is a view showing an exemplary menu picture for an operator of the knowledge management system in accordance with the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Hereinbelow, a knowledge management system in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring to Fig. 1, there is shown in block form a fundamental architecture of the knowledge management system according to the present invention. As shown in Fig. 1, the knowledge management system comprises a certificate server 1 for loading a search engine and data of the system therein, a point server 2 for storing the same amount of points for the personnel of a company in their respective accounts, a knowledge repository 6 for storing knowledge recognized as having universal or practical values through questions and answers between ordinary employees and knowledge men, a list 8 of knowledge men selected by an objective judgment recognizing them as having other information and knowledge in addition to the knowledge stored in the knowledge repository 6, a list 7 of data relating to the knowledge stored in the knowledge repository 6, and a reply watcher 30 for managing E-mails exchanged for questions and answers between the ordinary employees and the knowledge men.

To use software for the Internet-based knowledge management system as mentioned above, each user's computer must comprise a Web-mail system which is linkable to a universal mail browser to interact with a groupware and other systems.

Upon sending and receipt of an E-mail by the Web-mail system, a reward is accumulated in the concerned user's account according to a rewarding system and, at the same time, the reply watcher 30 is utilized to manage the E-mail.

After evaluation on the E-mail, it is processed by the Web-mail system and stored in a database.

The point server 2, which employs a digit generator, performs an integrated operation of a point pool and a virtual salary. The pointer server 2 is further adapted to interwork with basic systems 3 of a company such as a wage system, personnel system, etc.

The amount of knowledge used by the knowledge men and the ordinary employees is reflected in the wage system and the personnel system.

Now, a detailed description will be given of the operation of the knowledge management system with the above-mentioned construction according to the present invention with reference to Figs. 1 through 5.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an initialization algorithm, among fundamental algorithms of the knowledge management system in accordance with the present invention. First, an ordinary employee conducts a log-on operation in the following manner. Namely, if the ordinary employee accesses the server 1 using his computer at step S10, then the server 1 sends a log-on picture to the ordinary employee at step S20. Upon receiving the log-on picture from the server 1, the ordinary employee enters his identification (ID) number and password in the received picture.

Subsequently, the server 1 authenticates the ID number and password entered by the ordinary employee to determine whether they were previously registered. Upon determining at step S40 that the ID number and password entered by the ordinary employee were previously registered, the server 1 sends a picture associated with the ordinary employee as shown in Fig. 3 to that employee.

The ordinary employee acquires desired information from a list of data stored in the knowledge repository 6. Where the desired information is not found in the knowledge repository 6, the ordinary employee selects a knowledge man to which he wants to issue a question or questions directly, from the list 8 of knowledge men 21, 22, 23... N, and issues the question(s) to the selected knowledge man.

The ordinary employee asks a question or questions to the selected knowledge man via E-mail, as designated by the reference numeral 9 in Fig. 1, reads an answer or answers received via E-mail from the knowledge man, as designated by the reference numeral 10 in Fig. 1, and selects and evaluates the grade of knowledge supplied from the knowledge man, as designated by the reference numeral 11 in Fig. 1.

If the knowledge after the evaluation is objectively recognized as being correct information, it is included as new data in the knowledge repository 6, as designated by the reference numeral 12 in Fig. 1.

Therefore, the ordinary employee acquires desired information and, at the same time, he may obtain good results in relation to the personnel system and wage system by spending points given by the company. If the employee has not spent all the given points, he has to pay a penalty equal to the remainder, unspent.

On the other hand, when a knowledge employee logs in to the server 1 using his computer, the server 1 sends an associated picture to the knowledge employee. As illustrated in Fig. 5, the knowledge employee reads an E-mail addressed thereto. Thereafter, the knowledge employee immediately answers to a questioner of the E-mail. Or, in case the answer is delayed, the knowledge employee informs the questioner of any reason for the delay and of the term limit for answering the question, via E-mail.

Similarly, points of the knowledge employee are accumulated in his account on the basis of evaluation on the contents of the answer, any reason for the delay, etc.

Because the evaluation on knowledge is conducted via E-mail between ordinary employees and knowledge men in the above manner, the exchange of the knowledge is generally made among the personnel of the company.

To facilitate the overall operation of the system, the operator monitors the E-mails exchanged between the ordinary employees and the knowledge men to determine whether answers from the knowledge men are appropriate and whether the evaluation on the answers is made in a proper manner. Thus, owing to the operation or utilization of the overall system, the ordinary employees make efforts to obtain knowledge in a bid to achieve incentives and the knowledge men responsively make efforts to inform the knowledge to the ordinary workers, in a bid to receive rewards corresponding thereto such as incentives and performance ratings. With these efforts, the exchange of the knowledge can be made actively among the personnel of the company.

Further, by allowing them to form a club or a group, the system according to the present invention smoothly joins those who want to receive the knowledge and those who want to provide the knowledge by their respective areas of interest, thereby maximizing the effect of obtaining the knowledge. An exemplary picture for application for a Community of Practice (CoP) group is shown in Fig. 4.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

As apparent from the above description, the present invention provides a knowledge management system. According to the system, knowledge employees are provided with rewards for the provision of knowledge, such as incentives, and ordinary employees are provided with benefits proportionately to the spent amounts of their points, which correspond to the same amount of money given by their company. Thus, the system is effective in inviting the personnel of the company to exchange knowledge among them, thereby being very useful in the Internet-based knowledge management business.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A knowledge management system, comprising: a certificate server for loading a search engine and data of the system therein; a point server for storing the same amount of points for the personnel of a company in their respective accounts; a knowledge repository for storing knowledge recognized as having universal or practical values through questions and answers between ordinary employees and knowledge men; a list of knowledge men selected by an objective judgment recognizing them as having other information and knowledge in addition to said knowledge stored in said knowledge repository; a list of data relating to said knowledge stored in said knowledge repository; and a reply watcher for managing E-mails exchanged for questions and answers between the ordinary employees and the knowledge men.

2. A method of operating a knowledge management system, comprising the steps of: a) allowing a client to gain access to a server; b) allowing said server to send a log-in picture to said client; c) allowing said server to authenticate a user's identification number and password from said client; and d) allowing said server to determine whether the user is any one of an operator, knowledge man and ordinary employee if it is determined at said step c) that said user's identification number and password were previously registered and to send a picture associated with the operator to said client if the user is the operator, a picture associated with the knowledge man to said client if the user is the knowledge man and a picture associated with the knowledge man to said client if the user is the ordinary employee, respectively.