AN OVERVIEW OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge management and e-learning both use the same "coin of the realm"-knowledge. Whereas e-learning uses that "coin for the sake of individual learning, knowledge management uses it to improve the functioning of an organization or groups of people. Knowledge is of the most important assets in any organization, and thus it is important to capture, store, and apply it. These are the major purposes of knowledge management. Thus, knowledge management (KM) refers to the process of capturing or creating knowledge, storing and protecting it, updating it constantly, disseminating it, and using it whenever necessary (see Online Tutorial T9 and Awad and Ghaziri 2010)
Knowledge is collected from both external and internal sources. Then it is examined, interpreted, refined, and stored in what is called an organizational knowledge base, the repository for the enterprise's knowledge. A major purpose of an organizational knowledge base is to allow for knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing among employees, with customers and with business partners, has a huge potential payoff in improved customer service, the ability to solve difficult organizational problems, shorter delivery cycle times, and increased collaboration within the company and with business partners. Furthermore, some knowledge can be sold to others or traded for other knowledge