O4.2.4

=Institutional repositories provided for digital information.=

Evidence
A knowledge- or learning-management system focused on communities of practice is best-suited to an e-learning culture: ‘Knowledge or learning management is the needed “middleware” that links repositories and the educational process’ (Garrison and Anderson, 2003, p. 109). Garrison and Anderson discuss the evolving field of knowledge management as a way of overcoming the difficulties of navigating and managing the increasingly ‘chaotic sea of data, information, and knowledge’ (p. 109). They argue that knowledge management, comprising three core activities: content management, course management, and pedagogical management, ‘can provide the interoperability for all components to synergistically work together for the enhancement of e-learning’ (p. 109). To date, there has been strong development in content and course management areas but considerably less in the pedagogical management area. Because knowledge repositories are mostly unrecognised in pedagogical communities of practice, valuable information is underutilized: ‘Moreover, such communities can contextualize and provide meaning to tacit intuitive knowledge through the sharing of experiences that cannot be objectively codified’ (p. 111).