The discussion on the role of knowledge artefacts in the Dynamic Knowledge Creation model starts within the Combination mode, the home of knowledge artefacts.

 

Whilst one might have expected to find a good selection of available, useful, knowledge artefacts, the interviews showed that was not the case. There were in fact too many similar, low quality and out-of-date knowledge artefacts, in too technical and inaccessible formats. It was difficult for users to find what was needed, and they could not know if what they were looking for existed, or which knowledge artefact was the most authoritative or up-to-date (concept pilot interviews, interviews). Sourcing knowledge artefacts was a minefield, hampered by a fog of duplications, lack of a centrally managed index or depository, unclear open access status of the knowledge artefacts, and the, collectively expensive, membership wall (interviews). Although cul-tural heritage organisations preferred to adopt in and adapt existing knowledge arte-facts, the difficulties involved in search meant that most of them created knowledge artefacts internally, even when they lacked capacity or expertise (methodology pilot questionnaires, interviews). 

The levels of present and updated knowledge artefacts were low, however simply having high volumes is not a wise aim. Operating under limited capacity re-quires a judicious collection and management of knowledge artefacts, achieving a balance between bureaucracy and lack of accessible knowledge. Managing high lev-els of updated knowledge artefacts from a modest library of knowledge artefacts is a wiser management strategy than being lost in a fog of out-of-date knowledge arte-facts. However, the full range of objectives and their operations (drums) need to be managed. Whilst large organisations can rely on more available experience, organisa-tions with small teams need knowledge artefacts the most, but also have the least capacity or expertise to source, create, or update them (questionnaires). 

Local, privately owned, and independent sites have higher levels of knowledge artefacts in the intangible operations, whilst regional and child-sites have more knowledge artefacts in the tangible operations (questionnaires). Tangible operations and operations relating to legal requirements, have higher levels of present knowledge artefacts (questionnaires). Higher networking relates to higher levels of knowledge artefact presence. Schemes, such as accreditation, educational, visitor, or other awards, and provider organisations’ memberships all increase the levels of pre-sent knowledge artefacts, at different objectives and operations (methodology pilot interview, questionnaires). Additionally, the presence of software as knowledge arte-facts relates to higher volumes of other knowledge artefacts and around 50% higher performance across all objectives. Overall, all habitats share common objectives and operations, yet each habitat has a different pattern of knowledge artefact needs, a unique fingerprint, depending on which of the four objective(s) is core to its mission, and on its organisational form (interviews, questionnaires). To fill gaps in core objec-tives, wise sourcing across the available provision is needed, to suit each habitat’s fingerprint. 

However, overly bureaucratic cultures, lack of funds, and operational isolation limit the organisations’ ability to benefiting fully from the knowledge artefacts (ques-tionnaires). Fragmented habitats and short intervention funding projects hamper the wise sourcing or combination of different types of knowledge resources, creating bar-riers in knowledge flows and in economies of scale, leading to reactive and ineffective knowledge management (interviews, abductive investigation). Lack of funds triggers better maintenance of the few knowledge artefacts that organisations do have, whilst available budgets relate to increased knowledge artefact presence. The one budget that makes the largest difference is the training budget, relating to 41% more present and 32% more updated knowledge artefacts, and 26% higher performance, compared to sites with no training budget (questionnaires). This moves the discussion from knowledge artefacts to knowledge resources, which alongside knowledge artefacts include the training, access to expert support and networks, and technological infra-structure that joins them. We perhaps need to think of operational knowledge curation as integral to an ecosystem-wide continued professional development. We ought to consider the Combination mode not just as accumulation of knowledge resources within individual organisations, but the strategic, skilful coordination of creating, updat-ing, and sharing knowledge resources, and of a culture of trust, that enables such beneficial application, across thousands of organisations at ecosystem scale. This approach is consistent with a hands-off policy, enabling these organisations to take control of their operations and responsibility for their performance. The model ena-blers for the Combination mode are collaboration, networking, and the ability to apply technology.

 
    Collaboration relates to strategic partnerships to create strength in num-bers, economies of scale and time, knowledge sharing, and joined-up plan-ning of the knowledge resources. 

     The networking required in this function can describe the communities of practice as conduits of professional knowledge and as gatekeepers check-ing the knowledge quality. 

     Ability to apply technology relates to i) the cost and skills to maintain a suit-able infrastructure for sourcing, creating, updating, storing, retrieving, and sharing recorded knowledge, in the required variety or accessible media, and ii) user training and access to the technology and its content. 

Collaboration can be visualised as strategic partnerships that share intelligence on feedback, presence and gaps of knowledge resources, and by being well-informed to strategically plan provision, avoiding duplications. Networking can ensure that expertise across each habitat, objective, and operational drum is connected, filtering in and out the right plurality of knowledge artefacts. The literature pointed out the potential of technology to help overcome barriers. This research shows that technological ability needs to be enhanced at provider-level first, ensuring that the providers can gather and share intelligence, to create high quality knowledge resources at a variety of media, to know what and if those need to be archived or updated, and have intuitive, user-friendly sharing platforms or processes for user organisations to search from. The research has demonstrated that, in general, such technological ability is lacking from the provision (interviews, questionnaires, abductive investigation). Sign-posting to knowledge resources has proved useful for pointing at corporate partners, corporate companies, and external suppliers, but it has significant limitations. The strategic investment needs to be directed to the providers’ technological ability first, for provision to utilise better connected platforms, whether these are websites or oth-er AI empowered applications (integrating KMSs, CRMs, LMSs, Wikis, and so on). Providers can then pass on such technological ability to the thousands of user organi-sations, ably; having first gained experience and expertise.

The role of provision is key, in enabling wise sourcing, access to support, and technological ability. The Collections Trust have definitely succeeded in enhancing accreditation by accumulating quality over time rather than churning out high volumes of knowledge resources (interviews, questionnaires, abductive investigation). The findings show that there is an opportunity for provision itself to be better informed and joined-up, by complementing the providers’ strengths. A closer operational knowledge curation partnership between accreditation (tangible objectives positive relation) and educational awards (intangible objectives positive relation) would strengthen organisa-tions across the four objectives. Furthermore, such partnership linking with providers of knowledge resources from Other awards and with membership organisations, would strengthen organisational knowledge and performance in the middle objectives of Social participation and Economic development. If cultural heritage organisations could achieve the best performance per objective associated with these schemes, their average performance would be 67.51% compared to 54.97% at the time of the research. And operational knowledge curation collaboration in the software application would increase the performance further in all objectives and especially in Economic development. As seen with the funding streams and the source types modelling, it is the wise combination of the available resources that produce the greatest results (questionnaires).