Knowledge Management Plan

KnowledgeManagementPlanDec. 2018Date: December 2018Cooperative Agreement Number: 7200AA18CA00001Activity Start and End Dates: May 1, 2018 to April 30, 2023Implemented by: Public Health Institute (PHI)

Sustaining Technical and Analytic Resources (STAR) ProjectKnowledge Management PlanThis publication is made possible through the support provided by the US Agency forInternational Development (USAID), under the terms of Cooperative Agreement No.7200AA18CA00001. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and donot necessarily reflect the views of the Agency or the United States Government.Page 2 of 14

TABLE OF CONTENTSAcronyms . 4Introduction . 5Defining our KM approach and Structure. 6STAR’s Learning Approach 7Adaptive Management Practices . 8Internal Collaborative Learning Mechanisms . 13External Collaborative Learning Mechanisms . 12Page 3 of 14

llaborating, Learning, and AdaptingConsortium for Universities for Global HealthGlobal Health BureauGlobal Health Fellows ProgramJohns Hopkins UniversityLow-and-Middle-Income CountrySustaining Technical and Analytic ResourcesTechnical Advisory GroupUniversity of California, San FranciscoUnited States Agency for International DevelopmentUnited States GovernmentPage 4 of 14

INTRODUCTIONKnowledge management (KM) is the process of capturing, synthesizing, sharing, and effectivelyusing individual and institutional knowledge. A key element of knowledge management isturning tacit knowledge – information that is often subconscious, internalized, and difficult totransfer from one individual or institution to another – into explicit knowledge – informationthat is conscious, readily transferable, and able to be codified. Under the US Agency forInternational Development’s (USAID) Global Health Bureau (GHB), the Sustaining Technicaland Analytic Resources (STAR) Project aims to support the Agency’s KM aims by employing alearning agenda with a variety of people, processes, and technology-centric approaches toensure open-access, efficient, and sustainable information sharing practices between globalhealth individuals and academic institutions.STAR is a five-year Project of the Public Health Institute (PHI) and has two primary aims:1) to strengthen the capacity of diverse American and international health professionals at alllevels to make innovative contributions to global health; and2) to facilitate effective, mutually beneficial, long-lasting partnerships between U.S. andinternational academic institutions resulting in stronger knowledge-sharing systems and toolsWhen individuals and organizations have the knowledge and skills to achieve their missions,and actively translate that knowledge to practice, it benefits the global health sector overall.STAR’s collaborating partners will support the Project’s knowledge management activities andinclude: Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the Consortium of Universities for Global Health(CUGH), and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).STAR understands that there is an important difference, and interdependence, betweeninformation, data, and knowledge. Information can be singularly acquired and shared at an exponentially increasing rategiven globalization and technological advances.Data is most commonly used to track and report progress against targets at regularintervals.Knowledge is the ability to utilize data to continuously inform strategic decisions. Itmust then be tested, adapted, scaled, and codified.The three are interrelated in that information and data, both quantitative and qualitative,are needed to generate knowledge.Page 5 of 14

DEFINING OUR KMAPPROACH ANDSTRUCTUREThe STAR Project is committed toapplying USAID’s Collaborate, Learn andAdapt (CLA) model to learning activitiesacross Fellowships, Internships, and theCollaboration Laboratory activities foracademic institutions. STAR aims topractice continuous Project learning totrack and analyze participant data andprogress towards milestones and makerecommendations towards Projectimprovements.USAID’s CLA FrameworkThree key thematic areas will drive STAR’s learning agenda:1) Modular, adaptive, tailored learning programs for individual participants2) Capacity-building partnerships for academic institutions; and,3) Bi-directional and country-to-country exchanges for global health professionals andacademic institutions.Global health competencies learning and adaptation activities (i.e. modular, adaptive, tailoredlearning programs for Fellows and Interns) will support the generation of evidence-basedresources and tools across a variety of STAR host organizations. These materials may beadapted and support the creation of new or evolved STAR Fellowships/Internships,continuing to energize and strengthen the Project’s continuous learning.U.S. and low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic institutional partnerships, via our“Collaboration Laboratory” experiments and activities, will help STAR assess existingknowledge, while generating new knowledge around best practices for effective, mutuallybeneficial partnerships and collaborations that bolster the global health evidence base. Thesepartnerships and collaborations will also highlight and/or spur the curation of existingknowledge, prompting STAR to synthesize this information into stronger, more accessible andactionable content.Accessible, inclusive technical exchanges will support STAR collaborations and relationshipbuilding efforts between U.S. and LMIC-based institutions. These exchanges will generatePage 6 of 14

collaborations and partnerships that support STAR’s goals to develop sustainable knowledgesharing systems across the global health landscape.To this end, STAR will continually document technicallearning gathered from both individual and institutionalparticipants, use that information to inform thelearning curricula of our individual participants and ourglobal academic institutions (institutional participants)capacity-building “Collaboration Laboratory” activities,and share lessons learned (both internally andexternally) to advance USAID’s goals for stronger, moreeffective partnerships that bolster the global healthevidence base.STAR’S LEARNING nalPartnershipsEvidenceBuildingSTAR’s learning agenda is well-aligned with USAID’sand includes a set of broad questions. STAR intends toorganize and disseminate existing data, generating newevidence, and produce conclusions and recommendations throughout the Project.These questions include:Individual Learning Do Fellowship and Internship placement opportunities in LMICs build the capacity ofparticipants and/or their host organizations to better contribute to global healthpractice?How do we strengthen the capacity of diverse, international global health professionalsat all levels to make innovative contributions to the sector?Institutional Learning What is the most effective partnership model for creating, maintaining, and developingmutually beneficial knowledge sharing systems across global health? Are there systemic, cultural or programmatic inhibitors (or challenges) for US-basedacademic institutions to develop strong partnerships with those based in LMIC? How do we engage with global health and academic communities so that they learn,exchange, and apply knowledge across the global health practice? How do we improve knowledge sharing systems to engage individuals and institutions inglobal settings?Cross-cutting questions How will STAR’s Gender Strategy incorporate gender equity practices across Projectactivities?How will the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) leverage innovative and sustainableopportunities for academia, USAID, and other relevant government agencies in LMICsto promote STAR’s vision, goals, and objectives?Page 7 of 14

These questions will enable STAR to work moreeffectively and efficiently, particularly in evaluatingevidence and making key decisions. Our learning agendais an iterative process that attempts to prioritize andestablish a plan to answer short- and long-termquestions and to systematically review the questions andadapt accordingly over the Project’s duration.To address the questions around individual learning, STARwill develop and implement a comprehensive outreachstrategy to engage the broadest range of potential Projectparticipants and promote awareness of STAR’s goals andobjectives. As a part of the STAR brand, a Global Health competencies and milestonesframework for technical professionals was developed to support and monitor individual Fellowand Intern learning. Those who successfully complete a STAR Fellowship/Internship willachieve core competence across eight domains: development practice, communication andinterpersonal effectiveness, cross cultural practice, capacity strengthening, global burden ofdisease, ethics, health equity and social justice, and gender equality.In addition, participants will select a subset of 1-2 specific technical knowledge competencies(e.g. epidemiology or health policy) and 1-2 content knowledge competencies (e.g. maternalhealth, HIV/AIDS, or chronic diseases) to build additional skills in during their program.Competency Levels and MilestonesCompetence ingDescriptionEmerging awareness ofskill/subject and its bearing onGlobal Health.Exploration of topic area andopportunities in Global Health.Active involvement in GlobalHealth and application of skills inthe topic area.Design, plan, coordinate, evaluate,supervise in the topic area.Inform and create the frontiers ofglobal health in the topic area.Within each core and selected domain,STAR participants will identify whichlevel of competency they possess at thebeginning of their participation andidentify goals for increasing competencythrough their learning activities. At eachlevel of competency for each domain,specific milestones are identified thatserve as the basis for assessingparticipant’s progress and achievements.Participants will have regular follow-upand support to ensure that they remainon-track towards their learning goals.The individual learning will be assessed at the end of the Fellowship / Internship, so that we canevaluate and identify how the individual’s knowledge and competencies have been improved.Collectively, these individuals will contribute their skills to strengthen their organizations andthe global health sector.To address the questions around institutional learning, in the first year of the Project, STAR willconduct a literature review of existing academic partnerships to learn what conditions areneeded to develop and sustain a successful partnership between academic and otherinstitutions/organizations. The literature review will examine four different types ofpartnerships:Page 8 of 14

1) U.S.-based institution to LMIC academic institution2) LMIC academic institution to LMICacademic institution3) Academic institution (anywhere) with a professional association, as well as an academicinstitution with an NGO4) Academic institution (anywhere) with private sector, as well as an academic institutionwith the public sectorFigure 1: Knowledge Management Roadmap – a six step systematic process forAssessing, Generating, Synthesizing, Documenting, Using, and SharingKnowledge under STAR’s activities.Page 9 of 14