The management of knowledge has always been at the heart of education and research in terms of development and improvement. This reality together with the complex interplay of social, economic, and technological forces are strengthening the importance of knowledge and its management.

Significant changes have been witnessed with the arrival of the knowledge age. During the industrial age, learning was assumed to be largely an individual activity and a consequence of formal instruction. However, today’s reality supports that learning is a collaborative problem solving activity that involves far more than instruction alone. It occurs through progressive construction of individual knowledge, not simply through information transfer.

Changing societal and workplace demands of our current century call for learning processes that support inquiry, self-reflection, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. This kind of learning process, at variance to those of industrial age, requires continual updating, so a top quality on-going education system is essential for living and working in the knowledge age.
Future implies increased collaboration with community, institutions, and students. Then the focus in education will be on the learning and collaborative knowledge construction. Thus, the purpose of education will move from being curriculum driven to being learning centered. It is stated by many researchers that key aspects of the emerging pedagogy for the information society are emphasized as active, integrative, creative, collaborative, and evaluative.
Today’s knowledge society emphasizes innovation and intellectual capital and makes knowledge management a strategic issue that holds one of the highest potentials for gaining efficiencies, and creating value in organizations. Consequently, the asset base is shifting from traditional tangible assets to an intangible asset base such as innovation, effective utilization of knowledge and human capital resources.

To increase the capacity of identifying, distilling, harnessing and using information to construct knowledge for the organizational learning process became an indispensable objective for any organization. As being very powerful tool to reach this objective; knowledge management represents the core work of organizations in education and research. It deals with the creation, interpretation, critique, and distribution of knowledge within communities of scholars, researchers, experts, learners and teachers. However, only some education organizations are pioneering knowledge management by creating necessary infrastructure, and support systems. It is necessary to understand how to strengthen the management of knowledge for supporting activities, and planning quality standards. Furthermore, knowledge management initiatives are required to adapt to meet new challenges and retain the leading organizations in education and research.

This presentation will discuss knowledge management concept in the context of education. Presentation will thus recall fundamental concepts of knowledge management and relate with the field of education through different perspectives to explore the ways to solve educational problems. The presentation will also include knowledge management experiences obtained in different lectures.

Biography
Tarkan Gürbüz is an Instructor at Middle East Technical University, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in Ankara, Turkey. He holds a PhD and MS in Computer Education and Instructional Technology, MBA in International Business, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. His areas of interest include distance education, e-learning, human computer interaction, knowledge management, and teacher education.