## 1 Introduction
### Knowledge Management  
Knowledge management (KM) as a discipline has existed for a number of decades and numerous definitions of, and approaches to, exist in the literature. In the broadest sense, KM encompasses all aspects of creating, maintaining, organising, classifying, representing, storing, retrieving, analysing and presenting knowledge [14]. An informal study conducted by [PERSON] (2005) identified over 100 published definitions of knowledge management, which he describes as a continuous cycle of three processes: (i) knowledge creation and capture; (ii) knowledge sharing and dissemination; and (iii) knowledge acquisition and application [15]. According to [PERSON] (1999), KM is a term that is now used to describe everything from organisational learning efforts to database management tools--but should be considered to be more of \"an approach that adds or creates value by more actively leveraging the know-how, experience, and judgment resident within and, in many cases, outside of an organisation\" [16]. This view of KM is supported by the authors of this paper in relation to the management of soil and landscape information on VRO. In the Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) there are only two staff remaining with over 20 years experience in soil and land survey assessment and mapping. They work in partnership with external and retired specialists to develop web-based information at various levels of generalisation. According to [PERSON] (2000), explicit knowledge is knowledge that is \"documented and public; structured, fixed-content, externalised, and conscious\". Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, is \"personal, undocumented knowledge; context sensitive, dynamically-created and derived, internalised, and experience-based; often resides in the human mind, behaviour and perception\" [17]. In the context of soil and landscape assessment discussed in this paper, tacit knowledge of subject specialists has been developed experientially through decades of field-based work involving the characterisation and mapping of soil and landscapes and understanding their nature, distribution and genesis. Knowledge management involves the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge tends to represent the final product, whereas tacit knowledge is the \"know-how\" or all of the processes required to produce the final product. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2004) describe tacit knowledge as embedded within the human mind, whereas explicit knowledge is codified and digitised (e.g., in documents, reports, training courses) [12]. [PERSON] (2007) offers a perspective that it is difficult to argue that explicit knowledge recorded in documents and information systems is anything other then \"information\" [5]. [PERSON] (2005) describes a popular misconception that KM focuses on rendering whatever is tacit into more explicit or tangible forms, and then storing (or archiving) these into a knowledge portal. He argues that KM is even broader and includes leveraging the value of organisational knowledge and know-how that accumulates over time [15]. VRO leverages organisational knowledge and can therefore be considered a form of knowledge management, whereby tacit knowledge is harnessed to create web-based information. [PERSON] (1999) describes how many organisations have become complex and that their knowledge is often fragmented, difficult to locate and share [7]. Knowledge repositories are usually intranet sites or portals that preserve, manage, and leverage organisational memory [15]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (1996) analysed the major developmental stages of a knowledge repository and mapped these onto a KM cycle that involves: acquisition of data or information; refinement (_i.e._, analyse, interpret, report, edit, format); storage and retrieval (_i.e._, indexed and linked), distribution (_i.e._, form of delivery, such as, internet, CD-ROM) and presentation (e.g., interactive). They also note that ensuring ease of use and sufficient functionality is a key requirement of the information product [18].