Clustering the Academician Knowledge Qualification: K-Means for Performance Measurement Analysis

The assessment of an academic’s performance is not solely based on the tangible results achieved. Nonetheless, the formation aspect of the Knowledge Management (KM) process, which arises in the pursuit of outcomes, must be acknowledged. This emphasizes the significance of KM process development for academics in achieving their essential responsibilities including teaching and learning, research and publishing, and community service. Consequently, it is essential to develop a KM model for assessing the accomplishments of academics in higher education. An evaluation of academic performance in higher education was conducted to identify the success factors of knowledge management, by considering five key elements viz, knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge storage, knowledge sharing, and knowledge application. Accordingly, sixty-five sub-variables were identified as success model factors for evaluating academic knowledge management performance. A K-Means clustering method was utilized to assess the KM qualifications of academics at an Islamic public institution in Indonesia (University X) as the primary study. Herein, a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to 500 academics and subsequently categorized into three performance levels such as low, medium, and high performance. As a result, 140 academicians were categorized as low KM performance, 139 were clustered as medium qualification, and 221 academicians were positioned in high performance. Furthermore, a recommendation analysis is presented to elucidate the accomplishments of academic credentials for each cluster and propose corrective actions for enhancement. Therefore, the scholars at University X might enhance their knowledge management practices to get a superior quality university.