Developing innovative training material for novice knowledge portal users

Knowledge portals are tools that are used in knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, knowledge storage and retrieval. Knowledge portals provide stakeholders with timely and relevant information which are easily accessible. However, research has shown that individuals who have access to knowledge portals often do not have the necessary capabilities of using knowledge portals effectively. The aim of the study was to determine how the development and improvement of a knowledge portal training material would impact novice portal users' ability to understand and use a knowledge portal. The study also aimed at understanding the level of skills and insight that students possess when using knowledge portals, in order to develop efficient knowledge portal training material. The chosen philosophical paradigm for this study was pragmatism, this is due to the practical nature of the intervention study. The study was based on a pre-test, intervention and post-test as a data collection instrument and quantitative nature of this research prompted the use of frequency statistical analysis to analyse the data collected from 71 students enrolled for the Information Portals course. The pre-test, intervention and post-test shows that most first year information portals students lack significant knowledge of knowledge portals, however the students do understand the basics of what a knowledge portal entails. Students require additional training, due to the fact that some of them lacked the ability to understand the functions and features of knowledge portals. The study requires future introspection as certain novice user's capability to understand knowledge portal were still limited. Further improvements need to be finalised and implemented on the intervention, which means the training material is not sufficient enough to improve the student's ability to understand and use knowledge portals.