Online Learning Systems: Highlights of the TechCast Project
- PDF / 222,806 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 9 Downloads / 223 Views
Online Learning Systems: Highlights of the TechCast Project William E. Halal
Received: 11 September 2009 / Accepted: 11 November 2009 / Published online: 20 January 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract The growth of Internet capabilities allows the creation of “online knowledge–gathering/research systems” or “online learning systems” using collective intelligence and Delphi methods. The TechCast Project is used as an example, illustrating how pooling the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide creates a “virtual think tank for tracking the technology revolution.” Online Research/Learning Systems offer powerful new capabilities for gathering knowledge in complex organizational systems, and they are expected to become widely used to anticipate threats and opportunities, forecast technological breakthroughs and their impact, estimate market demand and planning, evaluate alternative strategies, and almost all executive functions. Keywords Knowledge management systems . Learning systems . Online learning systems . Collective intelligence . Delphi method . Technology Revolution With the onset of a knowledge economy, accelerating advances in information systems are driving scientific advances in all fields. The decoding of the human genome, for instance, was only possible by using a dozen supercomputers to decipher the three billion bits of information stored in DNA. For the first time in history, knowledge—the very heart of scientific progress—is being harnessed systematically on a massive scale. Figure 1 illustrates how information technology (IT) improves our ability to acquire knowledge ⟶ which then allows more widespread commercial innovation ⟶ which in turn improve information systems again ⟶ on and on in a spiral of transformation. This “Technology Revolution” is still at an early stage, but the potential for W. E. Halal (*) Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, The George Washington University, 515 Funger Hall, Washington, D.C. 20052, USA e-mail: [email protected] W. E. Halal TechCast LLC, Washington, D.C., USA
166 Fig. 1 The virtuous cycle of knowledge.
J Knowl Econ (2010) 1:165–172
THE VIRTUOUS CYCLE OF KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE
IT
INNOVATION
Copyright W. Halal 2003
acquiring knowledge to solve technical problems is so vast that it is limited only by imagination and will [1]. This is not simply another scientific advance, then, but a breakthrough in the process of science and industry itself. Scientific research and commercial innovation are growing in power and speed as the ability to amass knowledge drives technological progress as never before. Some scientists, like Ray Kurzweil, think of it as a “singularity” in which the pace of technological change leaps dramatically during the next 20 to 30 years.1 The result is that breakthroughs are appearing everywhere. We can realistically envision replacing oil with alternative energy sources, medical control over the genetic process of life itself, computer power becoming cheap and infinite, mobile communications at lighting speed
Data Loading...
