Susan Avery, Assistant Professor, Research Librarian and
Coordinator of Library Instruction
Randy Brooks, Associate Professor of English
James Brown, Assistant Professor of Physics
Paul Dorsey, Associate Professor of Management Information Systems
Michael O'Conner, Academic Webmaster and
Assistant Professor of English and Learning and Technology
Millikin University
1184 West Main, Decatur, IL 62522
(800) 373?7733
pdorsey@mail.millikin.edu
JABrown@mail.millikin.edu
moconner@mail.millikin.edu
rbrooks@mail.millikin.edu
savery@mail.millikin.edu

Abstract:

Two central issues in the undergraduate curriculum are the disjoined relationship between general education and the majors, and the coherence of a technology integration model. The framework of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) has been developed by the authors as a vehicle for dealing with both of these central problems and developing a sense of personal responsibility. The PKM framework emphasizes learning-to-learn information skills: retrieving information, evaluating information, organizing information, collaborating around information, analyzing information, securing information and presenting information. These information skills underlie an effective strategy for integrating information technology into the curriculum rather than focusing on technology as an end in itself. The PKM framework emphasizes technology as integral to the inquiry and problem solving processes that are fundamental to both general education and academic majors. In their paper the authors develop the Personal Knowledge Management framework as the grounds for a genuine partnership between faculty teaching general education and major courses.

An Introduction to Personal Knowledge Management

The framework of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) has grown from a series of discussions among a group of Millikin University faculty from diverse disciplines and backgrounds seeking to build a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates elements of both critical thinking and information literacy. The initial framework for PKM was developed by Dr. Paul Dorsey and was further defined and conceptualized through a Faculty Seminar at Millikin University in summer 2000 and through a small working group of faculty meeting regularly during the 2000-2001 academic year. This group, which consists of faculty from the humanities, natural sciences, business and library science, has focused on the cross-disciplinary nature of inquiry and problem solving. The work of this group suggests that inquiry and problem solving skills share common threads that span the disciplines despite superficial differences. PKM, which aims to bridge both general education and the disciplines, promises to provide us with both a common language and a common understanding of the intellectual and practical processes necessary for the acquisition of information and its subsequent transformation into knowledge.

Information literacy and critical thinking are two other frameworks in higher education today that seek to provide shared moorings for inquiry. These are more than buzz-phrases making their way through our campuses; they are crucial skills required for successful problem solving in the twenty-first century. The exponential increases in information available dictate that we change our approaches to both the gathering and use of information and the subsequent transformation of that information into knowledge. How does this relate to information literacy and critical thinking, and how does inquiry and problem solving fit into this equation?

In The End of Patience David Shenk notes: "We must not confuse the thrill of acquiring or distributing information quickly with the more daunting task of converting it into knowledge and wisdom. Regardless of how advanced our computers become, we should never use them as a substitute for our own basic cognitive skills of awareness, perception, reasoning and judgment." Technology has given us the ability to both access and retrieve volumes of information that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago. Since 1992 the use of information in print formats has decreased between four and six percent, while at the same time the use of the Internet has grown 2050%. We need a framework that will help us effectively address these issues. We believe that Personal Knowledge Management provides us with that framework.

We believe that the information literacy and critical thinking movements have made positive contributions to the search for common grounds in inquiry. Information literacy, by focusing on the central role of librarians and information resources, has helped to focus on the information skills that will underpin inquiry in the twenty-first century. At the same time, the information literacy movement, while emphasizing skills in retrieving, evaluating and organizing information, has placed less emphasis on collaborating around, securing and presenting information. The critical thinking movement, by focusing on the central inquiry skill of analyzing information, has promoted an ecumenical approach to inquiry. However, that approach has also neglected the collaborative nature of inquiry and the skills in securing and presenting information that are central to PKM. We believe that PKM provides a framework that is both comprehensive and inclusive. It also enables us to link our technology tools with a set of information skills, thus providing an intentionality that moves the focus from the technology more directly to the information.

The term knowledge management was first used by management guru Peter Drucker in the mid-1980s. This concept focused on measuring an organization's intellectual assets and adding value and meaning to its information by asking questions such as: What do we (the organization) need to know? Who knows it? Who needs to know it? How can the people who need this information access it? Knowledge management provides a framework for sharing organizational information.

Subsequently, in the mid-1990s, the term Knowledge Management took on a new meaning through the development of computer applications that provide a means of organizing and accessing the information within an organization. In this paper, we are not focusing on knowledge management in this sense. With our framework of Personal Knowledge Management, we are extending Drucker's vision by focusing on how his "knowledge workers" become more effective learners at the individual level. In our view, technology within PKM is a means-albeit a potentially powerful means--to an end within inquiry, rather than the end itself.

Using PKM requires that we clarify the distinction between data, information and knowledge. We agree with Peter Drucker that information is "data endowed with relevance and purpose." But at what point does information become knowledge? We believe that information must have focus and relatedness to become knowledge; it is especially the significance and value of information that makes it knowledge. We agree with Davenport and Prusak who argue that for information to become knowledge, "humans must do virtually all the work" which entails activities such as comparing, exploring consequences, making connection to other information and knowledge, and conversing with others.

It is with these points in mind that we focus on the information skills underlying effective Personal Knowledge Management, and we explore how they help to provide a framework for integration and partnerships.

Overview of Personal Knowledge Management

Personal Knowledge Management is best viewed as based on a set of problem solving skills that have both a logical or conceptual as well as physical or hands-on component. These are skills that will be required for successful problem solving knowledge work in the twenty-first century. Teaching PKM entails sharing both intelligent practices that guide the use of tools as well as intelligent and efficient use of the tools themselves.

We have identified the following seven PKM skills: (1) retrieving information; (2) evaluating information; (3) organizing information; (4) collaborating around information (5) analyzing information; (6) presenting information; and (7) securing information. Each of the seven is briefly summarized below. The focus is on clarifying the processes involved in the proper exercise of each skill with a brief reference to implications for technology integration at the end of the summary.

(1) Retrieving information. Retrieving information involves gathering information not just from print and electronic sources, but through experimentation and oral inquiry, as well as a broad range of more discipline-specific techniques. Capabilities required range from the low-tech skills of asking questions, listening, and following up to skills in using search tools, reading and note-taking. Concepts of widening and narrowing one's search, Boolean logic, and iterative search practices are an important part of the effective exercise of this PKM skill as are social skills required for more effective oral inquiry. Also, as the literature on information literacy emphasizes, considerable effort should be placed on framing inquiry even before information retrieval commences. The effective use of Internet search engines and electronic databases in the inquiry process requires technology skills as part of the repertoire of PKM skills.

(2) Evaluating information. This skill is closely related to the skill of retrieving information. Strategies of information retrieval should be based on practices that select data and information that pass some evaluative tests. However, evaluation also takes place after retrieval as the quality and relevance of various pieces of information are judged as they relate to the problem at hand. We recognize that difference disciplines tend to emphasize disparate evaluative criteria as they determine quality and relevance. The greater availability of information in the current information-rich environments makes this skill of far greater importance in the electronic age. The intelligent use of some crude electronic tools, such as "relevance raters," can be relevant to the effective evaluation of information.

(3) Organizing information. Organizing information is a central part of the inquiry process focused on making the connections necessary to link pieces of information. Techniques for organizing information help the inquirer to overcome some of the limitations of the human information processing system. In some ways the key challenge in organizing information is for the inquirer to make the information his or her own through the use of ordering and connecting principles that relate new information to old information. Elementary skills of synthesis and analysis are central to this process. Technological skills in organizing information have become ever more important as electronic tools such as directories and folders, databases, web pages, and web portals provide the inquirer with ever more powerful tools to make connections.

(4) Collaborating Around Information. The interdisciplinary literature on effective teams and groups is replete with principles for effective collaborative work. Listening, showing respect for the understanding of others' ideas, developing and following through on shared practices, building win/win relationships, and resolving conflicts are among those underlying principles. Within collaborative inquiry, partners in inquiry need to learn to have their voice heard and to hear other voices. Both cultural and more nuts-and-bolts practical issues need to be attended to. The availability of new electronic tools for collaboration to support both synchronous and asynchronous communication requires a whole new set of procedures for efficient information exchange.

(5) Analyzing Information. The analysis of information is fundamental to the process of converting information into knowledge. At the same time, this is the most discipline-specific information skill since the models, theories and frameworks that are central to analysis are frequently tied to the academic disciplines. Analysis builds on the organization of information, but goes beyond it in its emphasis on the importance of respect for standards in public communities. This skill addresses the challenge of extracting meaning out of data. In some disciplines, electronic tools such as electronic spreadsheets and statistical software provide the means to analyze information, but the human element is central in framing the models that are embodied in that software.

(6) Presenting Information. Key to the presentation of information is audience; this means, as in the case of analyzing information, that understanding disciplinary communities-often an important audience--and their norms and standards are of central importance. An effective presentation assumes not only an understanding of audience, but a clear understanding of the purpose of the presentation as it relates to audience. The history and theory of rhetoric provides an abundant literature for guidance in the exercise of this skill. The emergence of new electronic tools and venues for presentations, through computer-based presentation tools and web sites, makes attention to this information skill even more important.

(7) Securing Information. Securing information is frequently neglected as an information skill. However, the centrality of intellectual property issues and the multiplicity of security issues arising from the explosion of electronically networked environments make security issues more and more salient. Securing information entails developing and implementing practices that help to assure the confidentiality, integrity and actual existence of information. An appreciation of intellectual property issues of copyrights and patents is very important. Such practices as password management, backup, archiving and use of encryption are other important elements for the effective practice of this skill in electronic environments.

These information skills are, in one sense, problem solving, rather than problem definition, skills. However, while these information skills may be used within a given context of problem definition, the processes involved in the use of these skills-especially evaluation, organization and analysis-inevitably contribute to a re-definition and refinement of the problem at hand. Problem solving is a dynamic, adaptive process. Inquiry necessarily invokes feedback and reflection that shape the very nature of the inquiry question. The PKM skills are best used in an iterative, rather than merely sequential, fashion. Inquiry frequently takes unexpected turns.

The Personal in PKM

Why is this model called "Personal" Knowledge Management? At a time when we are becoming more aware of the value of the social mind-a network of collaborative, shared thinking-why is it necessary to be concerned with the personal? Models of cognitive development and creativity continually push us to consider social contexts. And certainly, we emphasize as one of the seven key information skills the ability to "collaborate" around information. So why do we call this "Personal" Knowledge Management? What is personal about knowledge or the management of knowledge?

Let us begin by discussing things we do not subscribe to as "personal" in this model. We do not see "personal" knowledge as private knowledge intended to be learned and kept within the individual. We are not talking about "learning for its own sake." We are not assuming that learners must go through a withdrawal from community or social perspectives as a means of enhancing their "intrapersonal" communication. We do not have to withdraw from society in order to develop our "personal" knowledge or deep thinking capabilities. We are also not encouraging an artificial distinction between avocational and professional knowledge. Nor are we defining "personal" as opposed to "public" knowledge, since our model emphasizes "presenting information" as one of the seven essential PKM skills.

In fact, our concept of Personal Knowledge Management assumes a strategic balancing of the private and the public, the citizen and the professional, the intrapersonal and interpersonal, the deep thinker and the active problem solver-a self-awareness of one's own abilities and expertise within a public sphere of action. We are also assuming that the individual person using PKM skills is central to the collective process of managing knowledge in groups, in organizations and in society. Just as a well-functioning electronic network depends on well-managed individual nodes that are connected to the network, so does community knowledge depend on well-developed individual contributors.

Personal" Knowledge Management assumes that individuals have developed a self-awareness of their limits and abilities-what they know and what they can do. This personal self-awareness is an understanding of how much they know, how to access the things they know, strategies for acquiring new knowledge and strategies for accessing new information as needed. In the vast amount of information available and many means of acquiring new information, individuals have each mapped out their own areas of expertise and their own methods for additional learning.

There is an increased confidence in one's knowledge and in one's knowledge-building capabilities that result from this personal self-understanding. Having worked through the oceans of information and having created roadmaps of those journeys through their writings, filing systems, notes and other means, each person acquires a confidence in their own ability to know or to access or to build knowledge they need. Whether this acquired knowledge is stored in the form of computer files, filing cabinets, book cases, piles or in memory, each person acquires and manages their own knowledge. The information and knowledge is rarely something that can be owned by the individual. But the organization of information and methods of accessing information is almost always personal. This is why you cannot copyright ideas, but you can copyright the publication of ideas in a book that orders them in a specific way.

Of course, the individual never truly develops that sense of confidence and expertise if he or she is not asked to use that knowledge in the service of others. The value of the knowledge and the personal management of that knowledge are evident as it is put to use in a social, public sphere of problem solving. This leads us to the necessary balance of the private and the public. To prepare the individual for self-responsibility-that sense of being able to make commitments to others and to fulfill promised contributions-each person needs effective access to their own knowledge. In this sense, self-responsibility is the ability to use one's expertise and abilities to help others. The ultimate goal of Personal Knowledge Management is not merely to possess knowledge and certain thinking abilities, but to value the use of that knowledge in the service of others and in the enhancement of societal knowledge. The public use of knowledge reaffirms the individual identity of the person who contributes, who has knowledge, who can organize information and who can be a part of a team or a community beyond the self.

PKM, Majors and General Education Requirements

The majors and the general education curriculum are often experienced and viewed by students as at odds with one another. It is the oft repeated phrase "Why do I need to know that? I'm going to be a ...." that is perhaps the most disheartening to faculty. Faculty often recognize the interconnectedness of disciplines and share the more profound observation that the majors each lie upon the foundation of the general education portion of the curriculum. Many students enter college believing that a college education is merely a process by which they will be prepared to practice a profession by learning the latest information relating to the practice of that profession. This view is in contrast to the educational values of many faculty. Even within the field of arts and sciences, there is considerable evidence that students feel that "they have no need or responsibility to integrate their learning across multiple domains of inquiry and practice" (Schneider 30).

As faculty we often find ourselves struggling with the question of how to show our students that it is far more important that they learn to learn and to adapt rather than narrowly focus on achieving excellence in their chosen discipline. Personal Knowledge Management provides a framework for emphasizing both the interconnectedness of the majors and general education as well as for learning to learn and for learning to adapt to change. These are some of the most valuable skills a good college education can offer.

The specific knowledge learned in the major is often fleeting and becomes rapidly obsolete. In the early 1940's supersonic air travel was widely viewed to be and taught as being impossible. Yet students today take space flight for granted. The rate at which the specifics of what one learns in college becomes obsolete is perhaps the most rapid it has ever been. The skills learned by a computer science student as a freshmen will likely have seen great modification by the time that same student is a senior. The greatest constant in all the disciplines is change, and as Darwin pointed out, constant change means constant adaptation or extinction. PKM allows students to develop a deliberate, reflective and adaptable cognitive framework for inquiry and problem solving.

An outline for inquiry and the conversion of data to information and information into knowledge is provided by the seven skills of PKM. These skills are not discipline-specific; in many ways they are shared across all disciplines. The scientist attacking a new problem must first seek what has been done, evaluate the quality and context of the previous work, form a group to study the problem, conduct the needed experimental or theoretical work and finally secure the results until they are presented for publication. The author seeking to write a new novel must read about the time and place the work is set in and must decide what relevant parts of that context will influence the characters and action. The course of the work must then be outlined, and the outline most likely then will be discussed with the author's publisher. The publisher will have feedback. The author must analyze that feedback in context and will perhaps modify the outline before proceeding with the work. While writing, the author should be aware of the security of the work, and finally the work is made into a form presentable for public distribution.

The PKM framework does not require the introduction of a plethora of new learning activities and skills. It simply provides a means of seeing connections in the learning activities we are already engaged in as faculty and students. The scientific method begins with reviews of existing knowledge, formulating an experiment around the unknown, organizing the results of the data collected and presenting the outcomes in the form of findings and future questions to explore. The graphic designer considers the existing designs of an organization, the specific needs of the current situation, gathers needed information and creates a means of organizing that information with a presentation design strategy. Instead of viewing these learning experiences (and many others) in different disciplines as fundamentally at odds with each other, with PKM the students and faculty have a shared vocabulary regarding inquiry processes. Students and faculty as inquirers are provided a means of intellectually bridging these experiences through a broader conception of Personal Knowledge Management. They may gain a better appreciation for what Howard Gardner calls "multiple intelligences" within themselves and among other learners. They should have mastery of their discipline's inquiry methods, but also an appreciation and ability to collaborate with other disciplinary methods.

The glue that binds the majors and general education can be PKM. Two of the primary goals of each are inquiry skills and problem solving skills. The skills of the PKM process outline a method for inquiry that spans the disciplines. These skills also emphasize that the method of problem solving is not inherently discipline-specific. While problem solving techniques seem at first glance to be tightly linked to a specific discipline, the general method often can be summarized as asking, "What do I want to do? What do I need to know to do it? What is already known? How can I create new knowledge to span from what is known to what I need to know? Once I've done what I want to do, how will I let others know?" A business major may want to develop a firm to market mouse traps. This student would ask, "Who buys mousetraps? at what price? and in what volume?" Having done this the student would retrieve, evaluate, organize and analyze the needed information. Next, the student would ask, "How can I get people to buy my mousetraps?" The student would then likely form a presentation of this information and a plan to use it before seeking the collaboration of venture capitalists and engineers, to fund and design the better mousetrap. After developing a better mousetrap they would likely secure their rights through patents, before presenting their new product to the public for purchase. The process would be much the same for a scientist seeking to understand some aspect of the natural world better, or for a politician seeking to address some great societal ill.

Perhaps by emphasizing PKM skills in both the general education and major discipline portions of the curriculum faculty will more often hear "I see how this is important, maybe I can use this in a new way as a ..." and know that a student has learned how to learn.

Using the PKM Framework as a Model for Technology Integration

The seven steps of the Personal Knowledge Management information process provide a valuable framework to introduce and enhance technology integration into an institution's curriculum. One of the clarion calls we hear again and again today in higher education, and even in secondary education, is that we need to introduce students to information literacy skills. The PKM framework provides this introduction paired with critical thinking skills and a clear and structured methodology for integrating technology into education efficiently and constructively. Let's take a moment to examine just a few of the individual PKM skills and consider how they could provide a more seamless integration of technology use across a curriculum.

College librarians were some of the first members of the academic community who had to staff the "front lines" of teaching information retrieval and evaluation skills to students. With the advent of online catalogues, electronic resource databases and the appearance of millions of web sites that students needed to cope with, those in the library had to, and still have to, scramble to keep ahead of the ever-changing and expanding technology curve in information access. These changes have dictated that evaluation of information must be an even larger part of the process. Many librarians developed teaching modules to familiarize students with the proper methods of retrieving and evaluating information. These modules were sometimes developed in cooperation with faculty members in the disciplines and sometimes not. Sometimes those in other disciplines, like English or history, ended up reinventing the wheel, coming up with their own approach to retrieving and evaluating online information. In those cases, the approaches may have been varied or contradictory. However, if PKM skills were adopted across the curriculum, though certainly tailored for each individual discipline and its unique needs, then a common approach, methodology and shared terminology would help integrate proper technology use and information literacy across the institution. Teaching resources could be shared across the campus, and these skills would be reinforced as they were used in the varied courses the students take.

In the same ways, PKM skills of organizing, analyzing and collaborating around information, can offer an overall structured process for intentionally managing information and turning it into useful knowledge. Technology tools provide a special help in organizing and collaborating around information throughout the disciplines and in analyzing information in selected disciplines. If these skills were taught, known and utilized in each discipline across the curriculum, students would come to understand how important holistic information skills and critical thinking skills are in helping to process, interpret and synthesize information and in producing and contributing knowledge in any content area. If the skill sets are general enough, they tend to apply to typical educational tasks in almost every discipline. Though disciplines like English and biology often concern themselves with different types of information and content, many of the skills associated with organizing, analyzing and collaborating around information, especially using the tools of technology, are much the same and could be shared or at least directly compared and contrasted between disciplines that are aware of a similar skill set.

In covering technology skills themselves, one might as well forget the concept of disciplines altogether. Music majors and political science majors alike are all using technology today to store, arrange and manage information. When it comes to PKM skills of presenting and securing information, every single student, staff member and faculty member in the institution needs a firm grasp and understanding of these skills. Whether it is backing up a hard drive, checking for viruses on a floppy disk or properly creating and projecting a PowerPoint presentation, everyone should have the knowledge and experience to perform these tasks. Shared PKM skills, as part of the general knowledge base of an institution, will put every member of that institution on a level playing field, making each individual responsible for her or his own information management, no matter where they fall in the institutional hierarchy. Then, everyone becomes empowered to locate, access, manipulate, shape, control and secure the information they need to complete their varied duties, whether those duties are to keep a set of course grades, research a critical article for publication or share information with peers over the internet.

With institutional adoption of the PKM processes, there is a leveraging of higher order skills associated with utilizing technology and information literacy. Obviously, instead of focusing on "data processing," or specific technological tools, an overall skills process is emphasized here. This larger stability of skills avoids a concentration on tools that may constantly change every three or four years, investing rather in the overall process of learning how to learn that will remain constant. PKM integration, while recognizing the strengths of technological tools, also allows users to recognize the limitations of technology use in education, thereby demythologizing the place of technology in institutions of higher learning. It represents an antidote to an over-reliance on technology skills. Technophiles may not recognize that these tools are only useful insofar as they can assist with specific inquiry and learning skills.

Conclusion

This paper portrays a vision and framework for integrating inquiry and problem solving skills across the disciplines. Currently at Millikin University it has been implemented only in limited parts of the curriculum by self-selected faculty. At this time, a strategy for broader implementation of Personal Knowledge Management-both as a tool for integrating general education and the majors and for integrating technology into the curriculum-is being developed. At Millikin University, we have piloted three courses where students are beginning to utilize PKM skills in conjunction with the development of electronic portfolios. The librarians are also making a concerted effort to bring to the forefront the integration of PKM skills of retrieval and evaluation of information into instructional sessions that are part of freshmen core courses. Key to that library instruction is the focus on concepts of retrieval and evaluation rather than merely proficiency in using retrieval tools. We continue to look for opportunities to integrate PKM skills into the curriculum. The principal focus of our implementation efforts is on the three key promises of PKM: (1) as a stimulus for an improved sense of student responsibility; (2) as a framework for integrating general education and majors as part of the Millikin Program of Student Learning; and (3) as an approach to technology integration initiatives throughout the curriculum.

Bibliography

Buckholtz, Thomas J. Information Proficiency. New York:Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995.

Davenport, Thomas H. and Laurence Prusak. Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.

Flaherty, John E. Peter Drucker: Shaping the Managerial Mind. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.

Frand, Jason and Carol Hixon. "Personal Knowledge Management: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How?" working paper, 1 Dec. 1999, 11 April 2001 <http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/researcher/speeches/PKM.htm>.

Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

Gilster, Paul. Digital Literacy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

Goade, Jonathon M. "Problem Solving Skills for the Information Age: From Concept to Practice." JMS Project, Millikin U. 2000.

Information Literacy Competency Standards. Association of College and Research Libraries. 8 Apr. 2001 <http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html>.

Katzer, Jeffrey, Kenneth H. Cook, and Wayne W. Couch. Evaluating Information: A Guide for Users of Social Science Research. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1998.

Lawton, Greg. "Knowledge Management: Ready for Prime Time?" Computer. Feb. 2001:12-14.

Lyman, Peter and Hal. R. Varian. "How Much Information?" Journal of Electronic Publishing 6.2 (2000). 21 Mar. 2001 <http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/06-02/lyman.html>.

Schneider, Carol Geary and Robert Shoenberg, "Habits Hard to Break," Change March-Apr. 1999: 30-35.

Shenk, David. Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. New York: HarperEdge, 1998.

Shenk, David. The End of Patience: Cautionary Notes on the Information Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Snavely, Loanne and Natasha Cooper. "Competing Agendas in Higher Education: Finding a Place for Information Literacy," Reference and User Services Quarterly 37.2 (1997): 53-62.

Wurman, Richard Saul. Information Anxiety. New York: Doubleday, 1989.