Improvement of knowledge sharing effectiveness through collaboration in scientific research projects | |
| Author | Attipa Julpisit |
| Call Number | AIT Diss no.IM-18-03 |
| Subject(s) | Information technology Knowledge management Knowledge transfer |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technical Science in Information Management, School of Engineering and Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Knowledge sharing is important and should be encouraged among knowledge-intensive teams, particularly for scientific research projects. These teams require members to share various knowledge types while working together. Although several collaborative systems exist on different platforms, the system features required to improve knowledge sharing between researchers are insufficient. The aim of this research was to promote a new approach of collaboration that encourages knowledge sharing among scientific researchers. Knowledge sharing practices were examined among six scientific research projects. The specific knowledge sharing process and collaborative activities were then identified. An important phase of the knowledge sharing process, knowledge realization, was highlighted in which discussion was a significant activity. The collaborative activities were groupwork and communication which occurred throughout the knowledge sharing process. Groupwork was joint activities to achieve outputs in the form of explicit knowledge. Communication took place when researchers initiated conversations with one another; subsequently, tacit knowledge would be encouraged among the essential members. Further, the collaborative activities were used to analyze and design system features of a collaborative system. A new system feature, reference management, was added. Additional options for file management were included. Subsequently, a collaborative system, the Research Collaboration System (RCS), was developed by integrating different open source software tools, then evaluated by two scientific research projects. Preliminary results show that this system could serve all major research activities of scientific research projects. The study examined the potential of the developed collaborative system to prove that it can enhance knowledge sharing among researchers. The 90-minute laboratory experiment was set up with two research groups, with one group using RCS and the other group using its existing IT tools (email, writing editor, and chat tool). It aimed to evaluate knowledge sharing effectiveness by comparing the results of – knowledge sharing practices, quality of knowledge and satisfaction on knowledge sharing between the two groups. The results of the study indicated that the collaborative system was effective in improving knowledge sharing among researchers in terms of quality of knowledge and satisfaction on knowledge sharing. The participants who used RCS acquire and share comprehensive knowledge efficiently and effectively when required. In contrast, the other group faced some difficulties, particularly in terms of quality of knowledge. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed collaborative system effectively improves knowledge sharing of researchers while they are working |
| Year | 2018 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Information Management (IM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Vatcharaporn Esichaikul; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Igel, Barbara;Janecek, Paul;Hung, Shiu-Wan; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Bangkok University |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2018 |