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Another useful knowledge typology is one I compiled from some interesting references in Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models, a 2004 JISC report by Terry Mayes and Sara de Freitas. This model focuses on individual rather than collective knowledge, but like Alice Lam’s framework sees knowledge as extending in two binary dimensions, domain specific – generic, and declarative – procedural, as in the diagram below.

In this schema, domain-specific refers to knowledge of the data, concepts, and language particular to a distinct realm of knowledge such as physics or plumbing; while generic knowledge covers the general learning abilities which enable people to become successful independent learners – skills like self-confidence, self-discipline, organisation, communication and collaboration skills, critical thinking and reflexivity.

Declarative knowledge is explicit, conceptual, conscious and externalised knowledge of the kind that normally results from academic learning; as opposed to procedural knowledge which is implicit, instrumental, largely unconscious and internalised knowledge of the kind we associate with skillful practice of any kind.

While the declarative – procedural dimension is very similar to Lam’s explicit – tacit one, the domain-specific – generic axis draws attention to a different but equally important aspect of learning. In particular, many of the types of learning that are most important to a networked organisation in a fast-moving knowledge economy – generic learning skills which can only be developed through practice in a particular context – take place in the generic / procedural quadrant of the framework. This type of learning is cumulative and sustained, and yet more habitual than theoretical. And it is precisely this type of learning that the Just-in-time approach would seem least suited to delivering.

Mayes and de Freitas comment:

There is a growing agenda … giving greater emphasis to what are becoming called employability assets. These outcomes are all generic – not dependent on declarative knowledge – and include analytical and flexible learning capabilities, but also emphasise qualities that are much harder to specify as part of a curriculum: confidence, self-discipline, communication, ability to collaborate, reflexivity, questioning attitudes. These outcomes start to suggest a crucial role for the community of practice approach, and turn our attention to learning environments that provide maximum opportunity for communication and collaboration…
(Mayes & de Freitas, 2004)

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Mayes, T & de Freitas, S, 2004, Review of e-learning theories,frameworks and models: JISC eLearning Models Desk Study, Stage 2, available online in pdf format from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/

The Just-in-time approach to learning clearly has huge advantages in delivering short bursts of bespoke, context-specific knowledge or skills to learners (especially workplace learners) wherever or whenever they are needed. But there are some learning settings – ones where learning needs to be more sustained, cumulative, theoretical or collaborative in nature – where Just-in-time seems less appropriate. So exactly what types of knowledge or cognition does Just-in-time work well for? To answer that question we need some tools for thinking about categories of knowledge.

Perhaps the best known knowledge typology is that of Alice Lam, which sees knowledge as extending in two dimensions: explicit-tacit (the epistemological dimension) and individual-collective (the ontological dimension). The interplay between these dimensions gives rise to four categories of knowledge, as follows:

(Lam, 2000)

Embrained knowledge, then, is formal, abstract and conceptual knowledge. It is general, conscious and explicit and is the result of individual acts of cognition. Embodied knowledge also resides primarily within individuals, but is applied, practical, bodily, context-specific and largely unconscious. Embodied knowledge is about doing rather than knowing.

Encoded knowledge is the collective, conscious knowledge of an organisation or society which has been codified into language or information – rules, standards and systems – which then regulate behaviour. Embedded knowledge is also collective, but instead of residing in an explicit code is tacitly embedded in social practice and a community’s shared beliefs and norms. Embedded knowledge is relation-specific, contextual and dispersed.

Lam’s typology makes it clear that much of an organisation’s most valuable knowledge exists at the tacit rather than the explicit level. But tacit knowledge, being neither fully conscious nor encoded, is something which is learnt through practice and over time and is not very readily engaged with via short bursts of targeted information. Just-in-time learning, then, would appear to be most useful for learning at the level of explicit knowledge, either embrained or encoded.

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Lam A, 2000. Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework. Organization Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 3, p487

The term “knowledge management” is one normally associated with the idea of the learning organisation – the kind of 21st century network enterprise that is equipped to take full advantage of the internet’s potential to make work a fulfilling learning experience for its workers. But according to Knowledge in Question: from Taylorism to Knowledge Management by Anne de Vos et al, knowledge management (KM) is in a direct line of descent from the soulless ‘scientific management’ prescriptions of the arch-theorist of early 20th century industrial mass production, Frederick Winslow Taylor.

The parallels are certainly striking. Taylorism and KM both attempt to solve the problem of transforming tacit, interiorised knowledge into explicit, collective knowledge, which is then available for the purpose of maximising efficiency across the organisation. Both approaches see the enterprise as a thing in itself, a repository of knowledge above and beyond the separate individuals who make it up. Both explicitly assume that enterprises are at least in principle zones free of social conflict, in which it is taken for granted that it’s in everyone’s interest for individual workers’ knowledge to be exteriorised, rendered explicit, codified and managed in the interests of market performance and profitability.

Both approaches reify the idea of knowledge, by seeing it as something that can be dissociated from individuals, analysed, formalised and stored. Finally, both approaches produce shifts in corporate power relationships as a result of the shifting patterns of knowledge ‘ownership’. Taylorism creates a new management layer of process experts, the codifiers and standardisers of shopfloor knowledge; while KM may give rise to another new group of experts in the form of information or knowledge managers, responsible for the efficient pooling and exchange of the organisation’s collective understanding. The paper concludes that

Despite the separation in time and the great disparity in the contexts in which each appeared, the work of Taylor and work done on KM both share a certain vision of the world.

Fascinating stuff…