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How do knowledge management systems help organizations find expertise and useful documents?
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information system
A woman taking a driver's license test on a computer, an example of a government using an information system to provide services to citizens.
Knowledge management systems (KMS) assist organizations in managing accumulated knowledge by providing tools to assemble, index, and act upon information. These systems help organizations find useful documents and expertise through the following methods:1
- Document Indexing: By placing an organization’s communications, patents, design methods, and best practices into an indexed and cross-referenced format, KMS enable rich search capabilities. This process is often supported by software that utilizes machine indexing to create inverted indexes, allowing for efficient retrieval of digital-form information.12
- Expertise Identification: Because much of an organization’s knowledge is tacit rather than explicit, effective KMS are designed to direct users to specific members of the organization who possess the necessary expertise.1
By combining these approaches, KMS ensure that both documented intellectual assets and the specialized knowledge held by individuals remain accessible to the organization.1