Denna studie är en undersökning av hur kunskap om arbetet hanteras av personalen och organisationen på Umeå universitetsbibliotek. Fokus ligger på hur kunskap bevaras inom organisationen och förs vidare till de som behöver den. Jag sökte svar på följande frågor: Hur tas kunskapen tillvara när någon lämnar arbetsplatsen? Hur kommer kunskap inom organisation fram till de som behöver den? Vad i organisationen finns det som hjälper eller hindrar kunskapsöverföring? Studien visar att bevarandet av kunskap från de som slutar på arbetsplatsen inte tycks vara viktigt för att verksamheten ska fungera praktiskt men att ett visst kunskapsbevarande ändå hela tiden sker naturligt. Lärande inom organisationen sker i mycket hög grad på ett socialt och informellt sätt genom samspel mellan människor. Inga aktiva insatser görs för att ta tillvara på kunskapen hos erfarna medarbetare men det tycks inte heller behövas för att arbetet ska fungera. Den kunskap som är relevant förs över i det dagliga arbetet. Kunskapen inom organisationen når de som behöver den tack vare att medarbetarna själva ställer frågor och söker upp de som vet, samt i viss mån genom allmänt småprat och olika typer av dokumentation. Kunskapsöverföring underlättas av ett öppet klimat där det är lätt att ställa frågor och där människor generöst delar med sig, samt medarbetarnas frihet att själva lägga upp sitt arbete och därmed söka kunskap på vilket sätt de vill, från vem de vill.

Over the last two decades, the field of educational data mining (EDM) has been focusing on predicting the correctness of the next student response to the question (e.g., [2, 6] and the 2010 KDD Cup), in other words, predicting student short-term performance. Student modeling has been widely used for making such inferences. Although performing well on the immediate next problem is an indicator of mastery, it is by far not the only criteria. For example, the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center's theoretic framework focuses on robust learning (e.g., [7, 10]), which includes the ability to transfer knowledge to new contexts, preparation for future learning of related skills, and retention - the ability of students to remember the knowledge they learned over a long time period. Especially for a cumulative subject such as mathematics, robust learning, particularly retention, is more important than short-term indicators of mastery. The Automatic Reassessment and Relearning System (ARRS) is a platform we developed and deployed on September 1st, 2012, which is mainly used by middle-school math teachers and their students. This system can help students better retain knowledge through automatically assigning tests to students, giving students opportunity to relearn the skill when necessary and generating reports to teachers. After we deployed and tested the system for about seven months, we have collected 287,424 data points from 6,292 students. We have created several models that predict students' retention performance using a variety of features, and discovered which were important for predicting correctness on a delayed test. We found that the strongest predictor of retention was a student's initial speed of mastering the content. The most striking finding was that students who struggled to master the content (took over 8 practice attempts) showed very poor retention, only 55% correct, after just one week. Our results will help us advance our understanding of learning and potentially improve ITS.

Organisation knowledge attrition continues to gain attention due to the increasing mobility of organisational employees. Employees leave organisations due to retirement, resignation in search for better employment opportunities, termination of employment contracts, indisposition, unofficially leaving employment, and death. When they leave organisations, they take with them tacit knowledge. Attrition of tacit knowledge leads to loss of intellectual assets and erosion of organisational memory which negatively affect learning and innovation. The knowledge can be subject matter expertise, organisational memory of why certain decisions were made, experience of past research and development projects and the social network in terms of from whom they sought out for answers or collaborated with in executing their tasks. Knowledge attrition is common in many organisations in different sectors. The literature does not show any framework that addresses knowledge attrition right from the time an employee is recruited into an organisation to when he or she leaves it. The purpose of this study was to develop an integrated knowledge retention framework for minimising organisational knowledge attrition. This was achieved by investigating how loss of organisational tacit knowledge can be minimised. The research adopted a single case study design with a concurrent parallel mixed methods research strategy informed by pragmatic philosophical assumptions. It was conducted in Uganda in a large national agricultural research organisation. Data was collected from 36 focus group discussions involving 161 participants, review of organisational documents, 35 interviews, 205 online surveys and a validation workshop by 16 top managers. The main contribution of this research is the novel framework for knowledge retention that comprehensively addresses knowledge attrition from an organisation. The framework comprises two categories of components. The first is the organisational behavioural components comprising knowledge sharing, capturing and documenting knowledge, and knowledge exploitation. This category constitutes the core components of the knowledge retention strategy. The second category is the organisational environmental components. It comprises creating organisational learning environment, having knowledge-oriented governance and leadership, providing necessary capacities and conditions, and providing strategic guidance - planning for knowledge retention. Environmental components have moderating effects on the behavioural components. In addition, it has contributed to the theoretical existing body of knowledge from the framework that was developed. This complements the reviewed literature which uncovered three conceptual categorisations of the knowledge retention strategies based on the timing of capturing knowledge from an individual. The three categories are: Reactive (short-term), Containment (medium-term) and Preventive (long-term) knowledge retention strategies. Although the concept of knowledge retention is not new, this research has contributed to the existing body of literature. Additionally, the study provides a deeper understanding of knowledge retention and opens new research areas. Perhaps this is the first study of its kind in the agricultural sector specifically focussing on agricultural research.

Knowledge workers are no longer limited to only one employer for a lifetime, but they have “boundary-less” careers, they proactively, consciously and independently build their careers by accumulating the relevant knowledge and skills that will propel their employability in the market. This makes it easy for knowledge workers to move from one job to the next and become independent of a single employer. It is difficult for employers to retain knowledge workers given the high levels of mobility and increased competition for their skills, but the retention of their knowledge is critical. Given this, technical succession planning appears to be highly relevant in the new world of work. It is defined by Rothwell (2010), as a form of succession planning that focuses on retaining organisational and professional knowledge to be used by the organisation in the future. It also refers to the transfer of knowledge from more to less experienced workers. This research aimed to explore factors that impact knowledge sharing amongst knowledge workers and knowledge retention. The results showed that; consultants which are the knowledge workers that were considered for this study, engage in knowledge sharing out of autonomous motivation, the multigenerational make up of knowledge organisations does not negatively impact knowledge sharing, knowledge workers do not hoard their knowledge because they fear that they will lose the power that comes with holding that knowledge and the national and brand prestige of knowledge organisations fosters employee commitment, but it is short term commitment. The outcomes of this research highlight factors for consideration by knowledge organisations and experts when developing knowledge sharing and retention strategies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Higher student enrollment rates and evolving student expectations are current challenges for many universities.Today’s students expect teaching pedagogy that integrates technology and offers flexibility. Blended course designs provide both of these things because they include both face-to-face and online learning opportunities.Utilizing web-based learning platforms, now offered by many college textbook publishers, can also enhance a student’s online learning experience and performance. This research focuses on a blended-design general education nutrition course offered at Utah State University(USU). Prior to Fall 2015, “Mastering” (Pearson Publishing)was the web-based learning platform being used in this course.A separate study, completed in 2015, assessed the efficacy of Mastery over two consecutive semester periods and concluded that it was ineffective in increasing students’ final letter grade or improving knowledge retention. As a result, Mastering was replaced by anew web-based learning platform,called “Connect” (McGraw Hill Publishing). One of the purposes of this study was to evaluate Connect.Students who used Connect earned higher final grades and showed increased knowledge retention rates at the end of the semester compared to students who had used the old platform (Mastering). When below-average and above-average pre-test score groups were compared, there was no statistical difference between Mastering andConnect on students' knowledge retention rates on a post-test administered 4 months after course completion. We also found that, like Mastering, the knowledge retention rate for students who used Connect increased the most among the students who scored the lowest on an initial assessment of nutrition-related knowledge. One complaint of blended courses that students often report is a feeling of disconnection or decreased engagement.A second part of this research measured self-reported rates of student satisfaction and engagement to determine the effect, if any, of additional technological tools (Google+, for example) and greater interaction and support from a graduate-level teaching assistant(TA). Compared to the class without the additional tools and TA support, final grade, course satisfaction level,and student attendance rate improved in the classes that did incorporate these things. A student engagement survey was given at the beginning and end of the semester to measure the change in the engagement level during the semester.Interestingly, freshman students earned higher final grades than upper classmen and student engagement rates decreased as the semester progressed. Overall, the Connect platform and the additional tools and TA support had desirable effects, including greater student-reported levels of course satisfaction and improved academic performance. Also, it appears that these additional components helped at-risk students the most–especially freshmen students and students who scored low on the pre-test that measured existing nutrition knowledge at the beginning of the course.

Föreliggande uppsats undersöker hur industriföretag arbetar med att behålla och tillvarata kompetens vid omställningsarbeten. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ fallstudie som forskningsmetod, där dokument och 16 intervjuer utgör studiens empiri. Studien har en fallstudiedesign med flera analysenheter och studerar styrdokument, ledning, linjechef och medarbetare. Resultatet visar att företaget arbetat med en övergripande kompetensförsörjningsprocess som utgångspunkt vid omställningsarbetet. Studien visar även att bristande kompetensöverföringsstrategi och tid för kompetensöverföring har varit det största hindret för att tillvara kompetens. Studiens slutsatser är att industriföretaget använt en mixad kunskapsstrategi vid omställningsarbetet. Företaget har erbjudit strategier, verktyg och arbetssätt vid omställningsarbetet, däremot har förutsättningarna inte varit tillräckliga. Vid omställningen har därför informella tillvägagångssätt uppstått vilket representerat en god förutsättning i arbetet. Avslutningsvis synliggörs en bristande interaktion mellan analysnivåerna och utgör studiens praktiska implikationer. Företag kan bygga anpassade kompetensförsörjningsstrategier genom att förmedla informella tillvägagångssätt till ledningsnivå samt att inhämta kunskap om hur kunskapsöverföring sker i praktiken. / The study examines how manufacturing industries work to maintain and utilize competence during downsizing. This study is based on a qualitative case study using data of documents and 16 interviews and applies a single-case design with multiple units of analysis investigating documents, managers, line-managers and employees. The findings reveal that the company adopted a comprehensive competence process as the main procedure during downsizing. The findings expose a lack of knowledge transfer strategy and time identifies as the biggest obstacle to maintain knowledge. The conclusions represent that enterprises applies a mixed knowledge strategy during downsizing. Strategies, tools and procedures were available during the downsizing, but these conditions were not enough. Informal procedures unfold as a result of these insufficient conditions and facilitates knowledge retention. The study reveals a lack of interaction between the units of analysis, which represents the practical implications. Enterprises can build customized competence strategies by communicating informal procedures to management level as well as acquiring knowledge of how knowledge transfer take place in practice.

A longitudinal study of the effects of instructional technology on learning and knowledge retention was conducted in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. Instructional technology has been promoted as a means of improving knowledge retention among engineering students. The practical, long-term effects of such technology use were assessed at numerous times over a period of twenty-five weeks. Students in various sections of an undergraduate mechanics course used two different software titles, a structural analysis tool and an electronic textbook, in their studies of trusses and truss analysis. Two other sections of the same course used no software in their classes but spent class time solving problems by hand in teams. All sections were taught truss analysis by the same guest lecturer who also facilitated in the intervention. Demographic data, including gender, ethnicity, grade point average, and course load, were gathered from each of the sections and compared to assure group equality. Pretests were completed by students in each of the sections and also compared among treatment groups to assure that all sections had equivalent levels of prior knowledge. All students were tested immediately after the intervention to assess their learning of the material. Students were again tested ten and twenty-five weeks after the intervention to assess their long-term retention of the material. Results indicated that technology use increased students’ problem solving efficiency. The results of the assessments further indicated that all students had high levels of knowledge retention, but that there were no differential levels of learning or retention among the different groups. It was thus concluded that instructional technology can make the educational process more efficient without hindering long-term knowledge retention. It was further concluded that solving problems by hand in teams was just as effective at leading to high levels of performance over time as using instructional technology.

The goal of Intelligent Tutoring systems (ITSs) is to engage the students in sustained reasoning activity and to interact with students based on a deep understanding of student behavior. In order to understand student behavior, ITSs rely on student modeling methods to observes student actions in the tutor and creates a quantitative representation of student knowledge, interests, affective states. Good student models are going to effectively help ITSs customize instructions, engage student's interest and then promote learning. Thus, the work of building ITSs and advancing student modeling should be considered as two interconnected components of one system rather than two separate topics. In this work, we utilized the theoretical support of a well-known learning science theory, the spacing effect, to guide the development of an ITS, called Automatic Reassessment and Relearning System (ARRS). ARRS not only validated the effectiveness of spacing effect, but it also served as a testing field which allowed us to find out new approaches to improve student learning by conducting large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The rich data set we gathered from ARRS has advanced our understanding of robust learning and helped us build student models with advanced data mining methods. At the end, we designed a set of API that supports the development of ARRS in next generation ASSISTments platform and adopted deep learning algorithms to further improve retention performance prediction. We believe our work is a successful example of combining theory and practice to advance science and address real- world problems.

Denna studie syftar till att belysa hur offentliga organisationer arbetar kring kunskapsbevaring och kunskapsöverföring. Vi har undersökt hur fem offentliga organisationer med olika organisationsstrukturer arbetar med att bevara kunskap inom organisationen, samt hur de överför kunskap mellan medarbetare och till nyanställda. Studien har samlat in det empiriska resultatet med semistrukturerade intervjuer. I analysen diskuteras det empiriska resultatet med ämnen som epistemologiska perspektiv inom knowledge management, maktperspektiv, politiska direktiv, arbetsmiljö samt kommunikationens roll. Resultatet av analysen påvisar bland annat att muntlig kommunikation är en viktig framgångsfaktor i en kunskapsprocess.

More than 35% of the U.S. workforce is composed of Baby Boomers who are eligible to retire within the next 5 years. Despite the potential loss of critical expertise, a gap in knowledge retention exists in small consulting businesses. The purpose of this case study was to explore effective strategies for retaining the tacit and explicit knowledge of retiring employees, to avoid operational knowledge drain. Exploration ensued through semistructured interviews at 2 small consulting businesses in the Washington, DC metropolitan area that are adept at innovatively retaining requisite knowledge. The conceptual frameworks of Bass' transformational leadership and Nonaka's knowledge creation led to the identification of strategies to retain tacit and explicit knowledge of retiring Baby Boomers. Seven small business leaders addressed questions on knowledge types, knowledge stimulation and sharing methods, and retention strategies to provide meaningful responses to the knowledge retention phenomenon. Data analysis included the Colaizzi and modified van Kaam methods of mining, categorizing, organizing, and describing participants' statements. Subsequently, the themes that emerged during the analysis identified reward, communication, and motivation as strategies for knowledge-share and transfer. Succession planning, mentoring, documentation, training, and knowledge sharing also emerged as effective methods for knowledge retention. The findings will contribute to social change by illuminating the roles effective leaders practice to influence and foster knowledge management, offering insight to other small businesses having difficulties remaining sustainable as the operational knowledge of Baby Boomers becomes unavailable as they retire.