KNOWLEDGE REUSE AS THE VEHICLE TO STABLISH THE BASIS FOR STUDENTS INNOVATION CAPABILITIES

It is a fact that innovation is obtained after many uses of the same knowledge to develop something. Although there is no process to be followed in order to achieve innovation, this is not an excuse to identify and use a set of practices to be followed in order to establish the basis that allow innovation to grow up. Innovation has been traditionally associated with industry but if we want a society where individuals are able to innovate we must prepare them with this skill wherever people is receiving any kind of training. University is one of the places where innovation must be scattered. Students are receiving a lot of knowledge in different subjects but lecturers’ aspiration is beyond the simple acquisition by the students of a set of abilities, this aspiration is also related with the capability of students to create new knowledge from the one acquired so it can be useful during their professional life or even while they are studying. The ability to make existing knowledge to evolve can also be transferred by lecturers and acquired by students during their studies and in this way students will be individuals with the potential ability to innovate and transform the society where they live.
Our vision on how the basis for innovation must be established relies on the following concepts: knowledge elicitation, encapsulation, transference, accessibility and reuse. In this paper the authors present the way these five concepts have been used as well as the results obtained applying them at the university in a computer science degree. In order to create a working environment where new knowledge creation could be eased, in this paper authors also presents PROMISE Framework, a virtual working environment using some Web 2.0 technologies where students were able to create, share, use and reuse knowledge assets, some were created by students and others were created by lecturers; the aim of this virtual environment is to foster knowledge creation and promote innovation by the repetitive and controlled use of the knowledge needed and generated to develop something. As a consequence of the use of these concepts supported by PROMISE Framework, innovation has appeared spontaneously in the classroom.