Master of Science in Knowledge Management (KM)

Master (Coursework)

Programme Type

Full-time, Part-time

WKWSCI Graduate Coursework

[email protected]

Knowledge Management (KM) is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an enterprise's information assets.

These assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously uncaptured expertise, experience and social networks in individual workers. 

The MSc in Knowledge Management (KM) programme is designed for students from both public and private sector organisations that utilises human and knowledge resources to contribute directly to its survivability and profitability.  

The following highlights the key features of the KM programme:  

  • It is the only full-fledged KM graduate programme in Singapore 
  • Blend theory with industry practice with inputs from the members of the Knowledge Management Society of Singapore (KMS) 
  • Emphasis on creativity innovation, which is critical for today's organisations to prepare professionals to champion and implement KM initiatives in their organisations 
  • A holistic approach to KM that emphasises the importance of people in an organisation 

Tuition Fees

The MSc in Knowledge Management (KM) is a self-financed programme. Applicants are not eligible for Financial Assistance such as Tuition Fee Loan, Service Obligation or MOE Subsidies.

Please click here for the Tuition Fees and Incentives available.      

To apply to the MSc in Knowledge Management (KM) programme, you need to meet these minimum requirements: 

  • A good Bachelor's degree in any discipline, 
  • Preference is given to applicants with management or corporate experience in a public or private organisation.
  • Degree classification second class lower/Honours (Merit) and above or equivalent

*: Internships are not counted towards working experience, and it is recommended for applicants to have at least a minimum of one-year of full-time working experience.

For undergraduate degree not awarded by an English-medium University or is awarded by an English-medium University but the language of instruction was not English, you must meet the English Language Proficiency Requirement (ELPR): 

Minimum Score Required 

Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)

International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Academic


85 (internet-based) 


6.0 


Note: The validity period for IELTS/TOEFL scores is two (2) years at the point of application. Please note that only TOEFL or IELTS test scores will be accepted. Also, we do not require the submission of GRE or GMAT test scores.

In view of Covid-19, the following online test scores are acceptable for admissions for the AY2024-2025 intake by the Office of Admissions (OA).

  1. TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition
  2. TOEFL ITP Plus for China students
  3. IELTS Indicator
  4. IELTS for UKVI

There is only one intake in August. Applications for August admission will be open in November and close in mid-February. The outcome of application will be released from end May-June onwards via online. 

Programme 

Admission 

Intake 

Closing date for submission of online applications with supporting documents 

M.Sc.(Knowledge Management) 

[Programme Code: 122] 

August 

Application Period: 

1 November to 15 February 


Applications are to be submitted electronically via the NTU admissions website. Applicants are required to pay a non-refundable application fee of S$50.00 when you send in your admission application per programme applied. Applications without application fee will not be processed. 

Applicants may check their application or result status online after receiving the acknowledgement receipt of your application via email. 

For more information on the admissions procedures, online application, list of supporting documents application or result status and other relevant details, please click here to view the NTU admissions website. 

Submission of personal statement and referee letters are not compulsory, however, applicants may submit them if it is a value-add to their application.

We have no restrictions to the number of referee letters submitted, though applicants can limit them to two (2) or three (3) letters. Applicants can refer to the attached document for guide for referee letters.

The programme commences each year in early August and is available in both full-time and part-time. Students are required to complete 30 Academic Units (AU) to be awarded the degree within their candidature period. 

Programme Structure 

Students have two option of study: 

  • Coursework and Dissertation 

    In this option, students take 2 core courses, at least 4 Group A electives, 2 Group B electives and an individual project on which the student must submit a dissertation. To pursue dissertation, students require a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.00 and above. Students may require additional semesters for completion of their project. 

    For more information on Dissertation, please click here. 

  • Coursework Only

    In this option, students take 2 core courses, at least 4 Group A electives, 3 Group B electives and Critical Inquiry (group project). 

    For more information on Critical Inquiry, please click here. 

Students can take one additional Group 'A' elective in lieu of one Group ‘B’ elective. 

Each course carries 3 Academic Units (AU) while Dissertation carries 6 AUs. Students may graduate after completing the programme requirement from either option of study. 

Candidature 

Candidates may apply either for full-time or part-time programme. To be awarded the degree, students will need to complete their programme requirement within their candidature period. A minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average of 2.50 is required to successfully complete the programme. 

Full-Time Candidature 

Part-Time Candidature 

Minimum 

Maximum 

Minimum 

Maximum 

2 semesters 

4 semesters 

4 semesters 

8 semesters 

(Note: 1 academic year is equivalent to 2 semesters.) 


For more information on Grade Point Average (GPA), please click 
here

NOTE 

Not all courses listed in the curriculum will be offered in a semester. Courses offered are subjected to availability of instructors and resources.  

KM6301 Foundations of Knowledge Management 

Data, information, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom continuum. Forms and sources of knowledge. Types of best practices. Knowledge market: the players, dynamics, and pathologies. Theories and principles of knowledge management. Perspectives of knowledge management. Steps in the knowledge management process: knowledge generation, knowledge codification, knowledge transfer. Organisational enablers for sharing and managing knowledge: management, information and technology. 

KM6302 Knowledge Management Practices and Implementation 

Approaches to implementing knowledge management. Application examples with focus on people-process-technology issues: enterprise knowledge portals, communities of practice, after action reviews, knowledge café, benchmarking and best practices, organisational learning, and incentive programmes. Success stories and lessons learnt from industry. Roles, responsibilities and competencies of KM professionals. 

Group A Electives 

KM6303 Information and Knowledge Assets 

Internal and external knowledge sources important for organisational effectiveness. Knowledge assets in organisations. Using the I-Space model to map organisational knowledge assets. Social learning cycle. Understanding the knowledge worker: Schumpeterian and Newtonian learning, Career Anchors, Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Sternberg’s Balance Theory of Wisdom. Social network analysis: Measures of centrality, Measures of cohesion. 

KM6304 Knowledge Management Strategies and Policies 

Defining and developing knowledge strategies. Determining the value of knowledge and innovation. Organisational knowledge creation strategies. Managing knowledge flows in alliances, subsidiaries, M&A and outsourcing contexts. Effective management of knowledge assets – creating a knowledge index or expertise locator, conducting a knowledge audit, good practices repositories. Knowledge fusion strategies. Issues and challenges for knowledge economies and enterprises. Micro and macro KM case studies. 

KM6305 Knowledge Management Technologies 

Frameworks for study of KM tools. Assessing organisational and technological readiness. Developing a KM infrastructure and architecture. Selection and evaluation of KM tools including content management, business intelligence, search engines, intelligent agents, mind mapping and idea processors, taxonomy builders, enterprise knowledge portals, collaboration and learning systems. Trends and future directions of KM technologies.  

KM6306 Organisational Theory and Practice 

The course focuses on the macro aspects of organisations and ties together the classic and contemporary works of both conceptual and empirical natures of organisational designs and structure. It explores the notion of the organisation as an entity (business, corporation, institution) with that of a process: the actions necessary to take part in organising and to organise. Topics include organisation theories, systems and structures and their impact on ‘the doing’ and ‘the being’ of the organisation. The idea is to explain the phenomena to which these concepts refer to populate the studies of society, individual, structure and corporations. 

KM6307 Organisation of Knowledge 

Knowledge organisation systems, services, and structures. Intellectual foundations in knowledge structures. Features and procedures used in knowledge organisation schemes: classification and categorisation systems, thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies. Using knowledge organisation tools for content organisation and management: websites, intranets, portals, document management systems, and other web-based services. 

Group B Electives 

KM6308 Business Intelligence 

Business intelligence in the corporate environment: application, systems and processes. Characteristics of competitor, competitive and social intelligence. Business intelligence and growth opportunities: political, economic and social environments. Business intelligence strategies and systems. Business intelligence in various contexts: product, customer and supplier. Internet and Web-based intelligence. Ethical issues related to business intelligence. 

KM6309 Intellectual Capital Management 

Fundamentals of intellectual capital. Intellectual capital measurement framework. Major knowledge assets valuation approaches: income, market and cost. Intellectual capital measurement models including Skandia’s IC navigator and Intangible Asset Monitor. Parameters for managing intellectual capital. Managing knowledge workers and intellectual capital in organisations. Intellectual property protection and exploitation. Disclosure and corporate governance. 

KM6311 Storytelling for Organisations 

Living narrative, corporate storytelling, and the power of the tale in organisational life. Gargiulo’s strategic use of stories in organisational communication and learning. Booker’s basic plots of stories: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth. Denning’s narrative patterns for leadership storytelling: motivating others to action, building trust, branding, transmitting values, collaborating, sharing knowledge, taming the grapevine, creating a vision. 

KM6312 Information Mining & Analysis 

Principles and concepts of knowledge discovery and data mining. The knowledge discovery process. Data preparation. Techniques and methods for extracting information and knowledge from large amounts of data. Statistical methods. Machine learning techniques: decision tree induction, nearest neighbour categorisation, Bayesian learning, neural networks, association rules, and clustering. Text and Web mining for unstructured data. Data mining for KM applications. 

KM6315 Information Entrepreneurship 

Entrepreneurship theory; the entrepreneurial process; Developing successful business ideas, identifying markets and sources of revenue, industry and competitor analysis, and understanding the value chain; Developing an effective business model, creating a venture team, and marketing, sales and financial plans; Developing an efficient operations model, getting financing and funding, and strategies for growth; Managing partners and investors, staff and suppliers, and customers. 

KM6316 Organisational Leadership 

Introduction to leadership. Challenges for leadership in knowledge management. Leadership research. Charismatic and transformational leadership. Leadership traits and styles. Personal leadership profile. Power, politics and influence. Leadership communication. Leading teams. Followership. Managing organisational processes and innovation. Managing KM initiatives. Leadership and strategy. Leading change. 

KM6318 My Learning Journey

As technology renders jobs obsolete, remaining employable has become a challenge that workers need to face.  Lifelong learning is way of not mere remaining relevant but thriving at the workplace.  There is no single method of learning. What works best depends on the task, the context, and the personality of the learner.  Learners will be more effective at earning if they are aware of the range of possible learning methods, when to apply each, and what works best for him. This course seeks to broaden students understanding of the role of learning in the modern career and the modern life. Students will learn how to ownership of their learning and create a disciplined, synthesising, creating, and learning mind within themselves.

KM6319 Leading through films and plays

The course aims to harness the power of stories for building leadership skills.  It is a story-based approach to learning and applying effective, ethical, and empathetic leadership. Students will read/view and reflect on the stories carefully selected for this course outside class, and enter class to discuss them. Through the process of engaging with the material, it is hoped that you will formulate a workable and meaningful framework on your own for dealing with the ethical tests and emotional demands of leading while ensuring leadership effectiveness.

The course studies how characters (main and supporting) in the selected stories make sense (or not), build trust (or not), solve problems (or not), make decisions (or not), meet needs (or not), take actions (or not) to achieve (or not) achieve visions and goals with their followers or people in their lives, and why they do what they do, along with the effects and consequences of their actions. Students will benefit from diving deep into the world of others and seeing their world through their eyes, thereby growing in greater understanding and sensitivity to the task of leading the people under their care and for whom they are responsible. Students will also develop greater confidence and readiness in navigating the drama of leadership in the real world.

In this course, students will learn the skill and discipline of describing, analysing, and judging (in this order) as you wrestle with the material in the chosen texts. Drawing evidence from the texts, students will also learn to distinguish facts from assumptions, opinions, and pre-conceived notions, recognize ethical challenges, reason from a particular perspective, and feel for/with/against the characters with a heightened sense and awareness of the details of their situations, both internal and external. Such skills are critical in the development of an effective leader, grounded in ethics and capable of empathy.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
1. Discover more of themself
2. Grow in narrative, emotional, and social intelligence
3. Apply a more empathetic leadership to leading people under their care
4. Formulate an approach to the issues of ethics in leadership
5. Appreciate the relevance of fiction in the effective practice of leadership
6. Develop a habit of reading/viewing, reflecting, and discussing issues of leadership drawn from fiction
7. Build up a store of stories as maps for navigating and leading in this VUCA world

 

Research Project 



KM6399 Critical Inquiry 

Role of critical thinking, evaluation and research in information and knowledge work; steps in carrying out a research project: problem identification, critique and review of research; selection and use of theoretical framework, methodological design, data collection and analysis; developing a research proposal; communicating research results; assessment and use of results of research studies; ethical concerns and issues associated with research. 

 

Cross-listed Courses from Other Programmes 

IS6723 Business & Management Information Sources & Services 

This course provides an overview of the wide world of business information sources and services. Students will learn both the major print and electronic resources as well as a variety of business information services that can be provided by libraries and information centres. 
 

Business print resources and databases. Government sources and services for business. Economic and industrial indicators. Marketing information resources. Investment information resources. Corporate information needs and services. Competitive intelligence and business. Intellectual property issues. Future trends in the provision of information to business. 

Course Fees

Fees for Academic Year 2024-2025

DescriptionFees (in S$)Remarks
Application Fee
 
 
50.00
 
 
Non-refundable and payable during application.
Deposit Fee
 
 
5,000.00
 
 
Non-refundable and non-transferable
(This is required upon the acceptance of the offer and will be used to offset your tuition fee payment.) 
 


Tuition and Miscellaneous Fees for Academic Year 2024-2025

DescriptionFees (in S$)Remarks
Total Tuition Fees
 
 
31,976.08
 
Students are required to complete 30 Academic Units (AU). Tuition Fees are charged by Academic Units (AU).
 
Per Course
 
 
3,197.61
 
Each course carries 3 Academic Units (AU).
Dissertation
 
 
6,395.22
 
Each dissertation carries 6 Academic Units (AU).
Miscellaneous Fees Miscellaneous fees payable follow the prevailing rates set by the University. Please access the NTU fees website link here for miscellaneous fees payable.
 


Incentives for Academic Year 2024-2025

IncentivesRemarks
Singapore Citizens (SC) and Singapore Permanent Residents (SPR) All Singapore Citizens (SC) and Singapore Permanent Residents (SPR) will be eligible for a $5,000 tuition fee subsidy rebate.
 
NTU/NIE Alumni All NTU/NIE alumni, regardless of nationality, will be eligible for a 10% tuition fee rebate.
 
KM Alumni All KM Alumni will enjoy a 90% discount for a single course in the KM programme, 12 months after graduation. This is subject to availability and approval from the school.
 

 

Note:

  1. All fees listed are in Singapore Dollars and are inclusive of prevailing Goods and Services Tax (GST).
  2. Tuition and Miscellaneous Fees are applicable to both full-time and part-time applicants of all nationalities.
  3. Tuition Fees are charged by Academic Units (AU); You will be billed on a semester basis based on the total number of courses you have registered in that semester, subject to academic load and candidature period set by Office of Academic Services (OAS).
  4. Tuition Fees stated above exclude transport/airfare and accommodation expenses. 
  5. The University reserves the right to revise its fees every academic year without notice.
  6. Additional fee subsidy is available for qualifying needy Singapore Citizens (SC) and Singapore Permanent Residents (SPR) students. Terms & conditions apply.

 

For tuition fees from previous academic years, please click on the link below:

AY2021-2022

AY2022-2023

AY2023-2024

 

Academic Integrity

Wee Kim School of Communication and Information is committed to pursue research excellence and ensures the highest standards of integrity and ethical behaviour in all academic and research endeavours. It is fundamental that assignments, projects and proposals for coursework and research programmes submitted by students are of the highest integrity, and plagiarism will not be condoned. 

Plagiarism is defined as having used or passed off one’s own writings or ideas of another, without acknowledging or crediting the source from which the ideas are taken. It includes the following: 

  • The use of words, images, diagrams, graphs, or ideas derived from books, journals, magazines, visual media, and the internet without proper acknowledgement; 
  • Copying of work from the internet or any other sources and presenting as one’s own; and 
  • Submitting identical work for different courses or to different journals and publications. 
Students are expected to observe academic integrity when writing and submitting assignments, projects or proposals for their coursework or research programmes, and provide references when citations are mentioned in their works. 

For more information on NTU Academic Integrity Policy, please click  here

Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures for Declaration of Authorship 

In view of the University’s implementation of the academic integrity policy and code of conduct, publications of research done at NTU, including written assignments, theses and dissertations, must adhere to responsible reporting practices​. For more information, please refer to the Research Integrity website. 

Mode of Submission for Student 

  • Online/softcopy assignments: Students are required to attach their assignments with a softcopy of the signed declaration of authorship form as one document for online submission. 
  • Hardcopy assignments: Students are required to attach the hardcopy declaration of authorship form on the front page of their written assignments for hardcopy submission.

Please check with respective course instructors if your written assignment requires the declaration forms. 

 


Graduate Requirements

Course Load and the Academic Unit System 
 
With the introduction of the Academic Units system in the university, the Master by Coursework programme students have to accumulate a total of 30 Academic Units (AUs) to graduate. Each course in the curriculum carries 3 AUs, with the exception of the Dissertation Project which carries 6 AUs. A 3-AU course comprises 39 contact hours of lectures, tutorials and laboratory work (unless otherwise specified). 

Grade Point Average Requirements 
 
The university adopts a Grade Point Average (GPA) system of calculating the overall academic performance of a student in a particular semester and for the whole programme. Letter grades obtained for courses are assigned grade points of 0 to 5.0. 

For more information on GPA, please refer to this link
 
The Term Grade Point Average (TGPA) represents the grade point average for all courses taken by a student in a particular semester. The Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) represents the grade point average for all the courses taken by the student. 

Poor Academic Performance 

A coursework student with poor academic performance will be subjected to the following actions: 

  1. Academic warning if TGPA < 2.50 in any term of study 
  2. Termination of Candidature if TGPA < 2.50 for the second consecutive term of study. 

A student is considered to be making satisfactory progress in any semester of study if he or she attains a minimum TGPA of 2.50. A student who obtains a TGPA of less than 2.50 in 2 consecutive semesters of study will be dismissed from the programme. 

To meet the academic requirement for graduation, a student must: 

  1. Complete all the requirements for the programme of study, and 
  2. Attain a minimum CGPA of 2.50 at the completion of the programme of study. 


FAQs

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KM E-cards

Learn about KM and send greetings to your friend and family. Click here to send e-cards with KM quotes.

 

KM Webinar Series

The focus and curriculum have evolved as the KM programme matured, and the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting “new normal” has caused us to modify the programme further. We grew because we adapted to the changes in the industry and in the workplace. We grew because we focused on what was, and still is, important – quality teaching, and relevant and updated content. Our faculty, part-time lecturers and industry experts share the latest developments and their knowledge in KM through our KM Webinar Series.

Please click here to view the videos of all the webinars we have conducted so far.