Chapter 1
Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom
by Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills
There is probably no segment of activity in the world attracting as much attention at present as that
of knowledge management. Yet as I entered this arena of activity I quickly found there didn't seem
to be a wealth of sources that seemed to make sense in terms of defining what knowledge actually
was, and how was it differentiated from data, information, and wisdom. What follows is the current
level of understanding I have been able to piece together regarding data, information, knowledge,
and wisdom. I figured to understand one of them I had to understand all of them.
According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content
of the human mind can be classified into five categories:
1. Data: symbols
2. Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to "who", "what",
"where", and "when" questions
3. Knowledge: application of data and information; answers "how" questions
4. Understanding: appreciation of "why"
5. Wisdom: evaluated understanding.
Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what
is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and
design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But
achieving wisdom isn't easy; people must move successively through the other categories.
A further elaboration of Ackoff's definitions follows:
Data... data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It
can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a
spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.
Information... information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection.
This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database
makes information from the data stored within it.
Knowledge... knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it's intent is to be
useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (as lessaspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has
useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would
infer further knowledge. For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge
of, the "times table". They can tell you that "2 x 2 = 4" because they have amassed that knowledge
(it being included in the times table). But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they can not respond
correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires
a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level... understanding. In
computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type
of stored knowledge.
http://dekkid.blogspot.com
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น