For many centuries, the rural communities have developed their own, locality-specific knowledge or culture and practices regarding agriculture, natural resource management, health and also education. This knowledge, beliefs, and practices are essential as part of survival strategies to many communities, and without these forms of knowledge, such communities would have long extinct.
The research group at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, led by Assoc Prof Dr Alvin Yeo Wee, believed that there is a need for further collaborative development, management, and utilization of this knowledge. Hence, there is a need to develop the application of knowledge management (KM) to community knowledge. KM4RC or Knowledge Management for Rural Communities research project aims to provide a knowledge management platform for the rural communities of Bario, Sarawak. The preservation of this knowledge is essential to ensure future generations awareness of their invaluable inheritance.
KM approach is applied in this project to find out ways on how to effectively capture, represent, and manage the local knowledge. The KM cycle that consists of six activities or steps, namely, create, capture, refine, store, manage, and disseminate, is used as guide. These steps are important to determine the tasks involved in collecting the various information needed, and the following methods of acquiring, managing, and presenting the information.
