A variety of software tools have come into existence for the management of knowledge. These tools generally provide features such as intranet, logged chat, search, FAQ lists, personalization, database maintenance and so on. All these supposedly help the process of knowledge sharing within an organization. The development of technology has resulted in facilities such as the Internet, search engines, group support systems, portals, data warehouses and the use of artificial intelligence techniques. This is very useful in managing large databases of knowledge and providing access to them from anywhere in the world. It is in this regard that software tools provide valuable assistance to knowledge management systems. The question of managing and keeping track of myriad documents in an establishment, searching for a certain piece of knowledge from a huge knowledge base, or providing customer service round the year, 24/7, is resolved through software tools that help organize and manage knowledge. Knowledge management tools have the advantage of the existing information technology infrastructure in any organization. With the evolution of the IT industry, companies are keen to empower their employees with access to information, intranets, document management tools and full text indexing tools, to name a few, as called for by knowledge management. It follows, therefore, that employing those technologies in knowledge management has encouraged the development of knowledge management tools. Knowledge management is nothing but a collection of technologies used for authoring, indexing and storing data, and for the application of this information and knowledge, where applicable. Knowledge is an invaluable advantage for organizations, and the security of this knowledge has to be addressed by all tools used in the management of this knowledge. No matter what the type or format of knowledge, it has to be stored in repositories. All tools that sustain these repositories must have shared features such as regulation, storage, search and recovery, content delivery and content evolution. |
