Technology can be employee to help organize and maintain the knowledge of an organization for future use. Knowledge portals, knowledge components, and a knowledge repository make up the architecture of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). (1) People from a knowledge community enter, search for, or access knowledge with knowledge artifacts in a knowledge portal. (1) Web-based knowledge portals offer several advantages. Web-based portals are flexible, user friendly, and provide many types of content. (2) Types of content included projects (paper documents, lessons learned), solutions (methodologies, procedural frameworks, case studies), technology (news, reports, suppliers), costumers (company information, contact, projects, competitors), employees (skills, contact information, education, experiences), and competitors (services, products, company information, best practices). (2) Separate content workspaces can be provided for different users with a personal file folder for each user. Likewise, each project team or community should have their own working environment. (2) The primary functions of the knowledge portal include process support, teamwork, document management, and personalization. (2)
A knowledge component is a self-contained reusable object that meets knowledge management requirements. (1) Traditionally, a knowledge component is defined a mental structure or process used independently or with other knowledge components in order to solve a problem. (3) A knowledge component can be likened to a concept, principle, fact, or skill. (3) It can be used independently or with other knowledge components and must interface with the knowledge portal, knowledge repository, and other knowledge components. (1) A knowledge component may need to be customized to control knowledge events particular to a knowledge community. (1) In such a way, knowledge components are created to meet the particular needs of a knowledge community.
Servers where knowledge indices and artifacts can be accessed are known as knowledge repositories. (1) Artifacts include documents, presentations, databases, charts, graphs, and audio and video files. (1) Knowledge repositories can systematically organize a company’s knowledge and data can quickly be retrieved by searching knowledge repositories. Searches can be conducted across servers. When knowledge repositories are interconnected and globally distributed, they are termed global virtual knowledge repositories. (1)
4) http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Knowledge_Repository
