A KNOWLEDGE PARTNERSHIP IN PORTUGUESE INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE SERVICES

Abstract

Quality is a contemporary concern of any organisation and it is one of the strategic goals for the European Union for the next decade. In the emergent 'knowledge based economy', quality can only be achieved through knowledge development and learning. In this context, the competitive environment of the Portuguese Knowledge Resources Centres Network (KRCN) made imperative the creation of an Observatory on Quality of Knowledge and Information Services (OQiks). Based on a knowledge partnership between two services of the Central Public Administration - INOFOR (one of the KRCN's Knowledge Resource Centres) and the General Secretary of the Ministry of Education, OQiks aims to contribute to the continuous improvement of information and knowledge services' quality by supporting collaborative and action-oriented knowledge development strategies. This paper intends to describe OQiks' ongoing work. It starts by presenting the actors involved, stressing the main inputs brought by each of them into OQiks' dynamics. OQiks is also characterised in terms of its operational team, vision, mission and strategic goals. OQiks follows an action-research methodology, which is analysed according to the following stages: planning, implementation, evaluation and prospective sceneries. A schematic view of OQiks knowledge management process is also presented. Finally, the outcomes that conceptualise the route of quality for KRCN, as well as some of OQiks' (learning) impacts are presented.