Harvey Singh: Better eLearning and Knowledge Transfer with Web 2.0

Monday, April 02, 2007: To get "the right information to the right person at the right time" is a popular notion in the world of information technology. This used to be a slow, one-way process. Web 2.0 changed all that. Today, consumer sites like del.icio.us, Flickr, and YouTube offer a more "participatory" Web that allows anyone with a computer and browser to contribute content.

On an enterprise level, companies can utilize Web 2.0 to build "knowledge communities" - be it a team or an entire workforce or customer base -- as a way of gaining a performance edge, says Harvey Singh, founder and CEO of four-year-old Instancy Inc., based in Cary, NC. These communities might be highly structured, as a means to collaboratively author formal learning programs and develop standard operating procedures (SOPs). Or they might be ad hoc, to encourage informal learning via discussion forums and blogs. Ideally, they're some combination of both.

With the "many-to-many communication" allowed by Web 2.0, says Singh, "the responsibility, or onus, is on all members of a community [or at least those with permission] to share their expertise about a product, business process, or procedure." Through a repository, experts and skills are searchable by anyone seeking help or mentorship. It's all about "collective wisdom" and the speed at which it can be tapped.

All that's needed is the right software and an "information designer" to work with subject matter experts and organize the community in a way that's best for individual users, says Singh. "We find that a lot of companies have marketing writers or other business process or operations managers who can handle that [task]." Computer programming knowledge is not required.

Linking knowledge to eClinical processes could be of "enormous benefit," says Singh. The technology can be used to limit the information a person receives to what they need to know via "knowledge portals" tailored to groups of individuals based on their job and learning requirements. Sub-communities, perhaps representing individual clinical trial sites, could be created within these master communities.

Knowledge portals are enabled by search engines like Google that can quickly hunt down every variety of content - whether an individual wants to "look at best practices or learn how to do something," says Singh. Metadata tags, such as preferred search terms and job functions, get added whenever content gets accessed, so searches become more meaningful to individuals over time.

eLearning can also happen within knowledge communities, says Singh, including sequenced, personalized programs that include an upfront assessment of current knowledge. The same technology can be leveraged for informal learning, which accounts for 90 percent of workplace education.

A knowledge portal might also be the place to go for support while performing a specific task, much as a GPS device is used to guide drivers to their intended destination, says Singh. A study coordinator, for example, might be prompted about how to move through a patient assessment based on responses to certain questions.