About KMCentral

Mission
History of KMCentral
KMCentral Advisory Board
KMCentral Design and Support

Mission

ICASIT's KM central is a dynamic central resource for practitioners and academics of all levels. The website includes KM material that can be used for general introduction to KM, overviews and links to KM technologies, emerging KM trends and best industry practices. A special section for KM Academics includes selected syllabi, recommended course textbooks and additional readings. Additionally, the website will highlight books, articles, conferences, and events and presentations form leading KM scholars. The website also facilitates communication and interaction between academics and practitioners through a list-serv.

History of KMCentral

ICASIT's initial KM resource was developed by an MBA class -- Leveraging Intellectual Capital -- at George Mason University during the fall term 1999. The "collaboratory", as it was called, was designed to facilitate searching through the ever-growing KM literature in a more focused way. Subsequent classes continued to contribute to the collaboratory. In the summer of 2001, Dr. Stephen Ruth and the ICASIT team recognized the growing importance of this resource, and decided to expand the KM offerings and add new services. The KMCentral Advisory Board was created and the process of evaluating existing content, locating and creating new content and redesigning the KM website began.

The improved and expanded KMCentral launched in June, 2002. We continue to make enhancements to the website, and welcome your comments and suggestions. The resource you are accessing today would not have been possible without that help and support of many people. In particular, recognition for the initial KM resource is given to the twenty five students in Leveraging Intellectual Capital who initially made this happen, former ICASIT manager Jeff Theobald, who oversaw the site's initial development, Erik Thornberg and David Melia, who made valuable software contributions, and special thanks to Dr. Barbara Fillip for her contributions to the international resources of the KM collaboratory. The redesign of the KMCentral site was overseen by Dr. Nancy Shaw and ICASIT manager David Melia, with valuable support and contributions from ICASIT team members Shyam Enjeti, Jiwan Giri, Akins Lawal and Cory Nishi.

KMCentral Advisory Board

KMCentral's advisory board plays a key role in determining the content and resources available on the KMCentral website. The advisory board regularly reviews the existing content as well as suggesting new content and developing resources that are made available on KMCentral. The advisory board consists of the following individuals:

Dr. Nancy Shaw, Chair, KMCentral
Nancy C. Shaw joined George Mason University in Fall 2000 as an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems. Dr. Shaw earned a B.B.A. in Marketing and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Kentucky and a M.Sc. In Management and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the National University of Singapore. She completed additional post-doc work in Artificial Intelligence at the Japan-Singapore AI Institute.

She has worked as a practitioner in the IS field for over 15 years. Dr. Shaw has worked for General Electric, AT&T, and was a former Senior Systems Analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Shaw also served as a Captain, Military Intelligence for the US Army Reserves.

Dr. Stephen Ruth, Director, ICASIT
Stephen Ruth is Professor of Public Policy and Technology Management in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and Director of the International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology (ICASIT). His research interests are focused on the problems of strategic planning associated with leveraging the use of Information Technology in large organizations, with particular emphasis on the effect of Knowledge Management policies on the work of dispersed teams. Ruth's consultancies include National Archives and Records Administration, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, American Management Systems, Inc., Carolina Population Center at University of North Carolina, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Ateneo S.A.(Argentina), National Training Laboratories, The World Bank, Soros Foundations, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, United Nations Development Programme, Navy War College, General Services Administration, Fairfax County (Virginia), and others.

As director of ICASIT, Professor Ruth has received grant and contract awards totaling over $6 million and recently served as Associate Director of the Commonwealth of Virginia's $2 million Internet Technology Innovation Center (ITIC)project, which links Virginia's university research centers to the high tech businesses in the state. His international IT projects cover thirty sites in Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. He has been Chair, Technical Committee on Personal Computing, IEEE Computer Society, and was elected to a three year term to the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Council of Affiliates for International Programs. He has also served as Vice President of the American Society for Cybernetics and on he Board of Advisors for the Czech Management Center, an MBA-granting school near Prague affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. Ruth served for ten years as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Association for Computing Machinery and was selected for two senior Fulbright lectureships, both in Argentina. He has received a Distinguished Professor award at George Mason University, and was a Virginia Outstanding Professor honoree, with a prize of $5,000.

Dr. Ruth received his BS from the U.S. Naval Academy and MS from the Navy Postgraduate School, and served twenty-three years in the Navy, retiring with the rank of Captain. His PhD is from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is author or co-author of over one hundred published articles and four books.

Dr. Virgil Frizzell, Knowledge Management Consultant, ICASIT
Before joining ICASIT as a knowledge management consultant, Virgil served as a change advocate and organizational liaison with a major federal agency. Virgil, who has earned a bachelors’ degrees from San Jose State University and both an MS and Ph.D. from Stanford University, completed his MBA at George Mason University in December 1998. Virgil is now associated with ICASIT's Knowledge Management Round Table.

KMCentral Design and Support

KMCentral is maintained by the ICASIT team. Akins Lawal designed the Web interface for KMCentral, with support from David Melia. Shyam Enjeti, Jiwan Giri and Cory Nishi, along with Akins and David, assisted in researching and posting content and continue to assist in the ongoing maintenance of KMCentral.