Mobile knowledge management toolkit

Abstract

The transition towards a knowledge-based society triggers the need and pressure to learn continuously, yet the time available for learning is getting shorter and the knowledge gaps are widening. Knowledge management-enabling tools play a useful role in learning organizations, especially in an era when information overload is plaguing most organizations with an Intranet, enterprise resource planning, or business intelligence system. Mobile and wireless technologies and associated infrastructures improve significantly the access to knowledge at any time from any place through diverse and capable hand-held devices. The rapid development of mobile knowledge supports robust contributions to the development of knowledge communities. Building adaptive learning resources reconfigurable based on the device attributes and users' preferences represent a key research issue of mobile learning within organizations. The contribution of this paper consists in describing the similarities, differences and challenges recorded during the development process of a mobile knowledge management system that provides secure access to learning content for users situated in various mobile settings. In this respect, we shall present the implementation settings of the MOBNET-Learning Project developed by "Carol I" National Defence University in Bucharest in partnership with Advanced Technology Systems, the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of the Romanian Academy and two other private companies. The research domain of the project is advanced information systems for education and it has been financed through the "Partnership" national funding scheme. The MOBNET project aims to identify new opportunities to extend the lifelong learning arena of the educational and training systems through advanced information and communication technologies. This project addresses specific learning needs in terms of content, availability, and flexibility, with a stress on security due to the fact that it is implemented within the "Carol I" National Defence University. The authors propose a framework for an integrated mobile learning system that provides access to various mobile users, within formal or vocational educational systems, to knowledge databases in support of the Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere (AAA) paradigm. This mobile knowledge management system aims to capture and integrate the learner's feedback and to create the framework for an optimised virtual learning environment. The paper also takes into consideration the challenges and the limitations implied by the mobile world in terms of hand-held devices and mobile user interface design.