A social knowledge management framework for harnessing collective knowledge capital of senior citizens

Abstract

Social knowledge management can be defined as a knowledge management framework that allows us to create and modify content collaboratively using social media and web 2.0 technologies. Another definition of social knowledge management is the management of social knowledge - where the aim is more towards social development - not only promoting competitive advantages for companies. This paper combines both the aspects of social knowledge management to address the challenges faced by the contemporary societies to impart "education for all" and to ensure delivery of holistic education for underprivileged children. To achieve this, our paper proposes a framework for a social media based social knowledge management platform that captures and disseminates informal wisdom of the elderly for teaching underprivileged children online using synchronous mode of distance learning. Elderly citizens can play a critical role in shaping the future of our society, if they choose not to withdraw as they age, but to nurture themselves as active elders. In this context, we have developed a prototype named OwlishOracle to realize a scalable online platform based on web 2.0 technologies in order to facilitate quality education to underprivileged children in all parts of India. Our work wishes to create a pool of online elderly teachers to harness the collective knowledge capital of this vast pool of dormant knowledge resource of the educated senior citizens, who are capable but otherwise not involved in any mainstream productive activities. This collective knowledge capital of the senior citizens is a form of "crowd capital" that is derived from dispersed knowledge of the elderly, and is a key resource (a form of capital) for the productive growth of the society through educating underprivileged children. Our aim is to mobilize this heterogeneous social knowledge resource, activated through social engagement of senior citizens with children through OwlishOracle. In this paper, we discuss our framework and highlight several design issues in order to make our platform acceptable, usable and beneficial to the targeted community. Aiming to address issues of exclusion and inequality in educational attainment by "connecting generations", it fosters the exchange of both formal and non-formal knowledge between elderly providers and young recipients. Copyright The Authors, 2015.All Rights Reserved.