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Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge Management (KM) is all about improving staff and student service outcomes through maximising the use of our knowledge. There are often times when you just need a quick answer, and knowledge is there 24/7 to help you.

The Benefits of Knowledge Management in WesternNow

With WesternNow as our platform for services and knowledge we are able to:

  1. Help staff and students get their answer faster to common requests for information (e.g. Parking, how do I…style questions)
  2. Provide knowledge, at your fingertips 24/7, so that there is a single place to help find your answers, which will evolve over time
  3. Make it easy for you to mark your favourite articles so you don’t have to search for them each time – and always connect to the latest version so you keep up to date.
  4. Make it easier and more consistent for staff responding to requests to add knowledge articles to help, and keep that information up to date, which is easily searchable.

To learn more, check out this video on Knowledge Management Awareness (opens in a new window)

How Knowledge Management works in WesternNow

WesternNow is the University’s Services Knowledge Base System (KBS) and is part of the soon-to-be-released portals for Staff and Students.

It helps us keep you up to date with how things work, and what you need to know about those services. It's a database where information about a topic, product, practice or service is stored, organised and accessible through simple browse and search functions.

The KBS includes Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Quick Reference Guides (QRGs), procedural instructions, processes, runbooks, and other information your team may want or need to know or share. The KBS is a core tool in the University’s wider knowledge management and governance of services. Knowledge will truly be at your fingertips.

Please reach out to the WesternNow team (opens in a new window) with any knowledge questions.

The Knowledge Management Playbook

A knowledge management playbook has been created to help guide the creation and management of knowledge articles for services, in a consistent way.

Please note: This can be subject to change with notification. Stay tuned for regular updates here and on Yammer (opens in a new window).

KM Playbook & ApproachVideos + Quick Reference Guides
Managing the University's Knowledge Articles in WesternNow
  1. Quick Reference Guide (.doc file, 1MB) (opens in a new window): A manual of managing knowledge articles in WesternNow
  2. Managing Knowledge Articles (PDF file, 725KB) (opens in a new window)
  3. Guidelines for Managing Knowledge (mp4 file, 1.10 minutes) (opens in a new window)
  4. Creating Knowledge Articles (PDF file, 554KB) (opens in a new window)
  5. Guidelines for Creating Articles (mp4 file, 1.21 minutes) (opens in a new window)

Practising Knowledge

  1. Knowledge-Centered Service Overview (PDF file,1.335KB) (opens in a new window)
  2. Knowledge Management Awareness (mp4 file, 4.07 minutes) (opens in a new window)

Keeping Track: Who is doing what

  1. Knowledge Article Register (.xls file, 51.8KB) (opens in a new window)
  2. Roles and Responsibility Register (.doc file, 27.1KB) (opens in a new window)
Publishing and relating Guidelines (which meets accessibility requirements)
  1. Knowledge Article Template (.doc file, 51.8KB) (opens in a new window)(meets accessibility requirements)
  2. How to publish and relate articles (.doc file, 32.7KB) (opens in a new window)
  3. Prepare article to publish (mp4 file, 1.43 minutes) (opens in a new window)