IT support for knowledge management within R&D and Education

Knowledge plays a key role within research, development, innovations and education. This paper presents the use of a long term developed of in-house software that enables a manager and teacher to process and manage knowledge on their desktop computers in a user friendly way. The application WritingPad was originally developed for information processing in an industrial R&D laboratory. The further development of the application continued within the implementation of “Technology-enhanced learning” at the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology. This resulted in the development of a preprogrammed work environment called BIKE (Batch Information and Knowledge Editor). The environment works also as a teacher´s personalized knowledge management system. It is programmed by the lead author of this paper who is a teacher; therefore the outcomes into teaching bachelor students are implemented directly into the classroom. The paper also presents how such IT support complements, at a personalized level, the existing organizational knowledge management tool known as the university´s Academic Information System.