Lifewide, Lifelong Comprehensive Approach to Knowledge Management Education: Emerging Standards

The knowledge management field has evolved over the past sixty years. It is a rich and complex discipline, with foundational theories, thought leaders, engineerig models, design methods, and practices. A persistent challenge has been the lack of standards for education for the field. Curricula are a reflection of their academic home rather than a holistic representation of the theories, designs and practices of the discipline. There is a need to better align education programs with the needs of business and to ensure that knowledge management learning extends beyond its current graduate level academic focus. In 2013, the Association of Image and Information Management formed a committee of more than 100 international professionals to create a framework of knowledge management standards, including standards for (1) organizational knowledge management capabilities; (2) competencies of individual knowledge management professionals; and (3) standards for academic programs. This paper summarizes the work on standards for education programs.