Chapter 2:

UNDERSTAND
KNOWLEDGE: in Depth

Presented by:
Dr. Patrick D. Cerna
 In this Lecture
•  Basic Knowledge-related
Definitions
•  Data, Information and
Knowledge
•  Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge
•  Reasoning: Inductive and
Deductive
•  Knowledge Creation and
Capturing

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 Basic Knowledge-Related
Definitions
Common Inborn ability to sense, judge, or perceive
Sense situations; grows stronger over time
Fact A statement that relates a certain element
of truth about a subject matter or a domain
Heuristic A rule of thumb based on years of
experience
Knowledge Understanding gained through experience;
familiarity with the way to perform a task;
an accumulation of facts, procedural rules,
or heuristics
Intelligence The capacity to acquire and apply
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knowledge
 HOLISTIC VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE

l  Present in ideas, judgment, talents,

root causes, relationships,
perspectives and concepts
l  Stored in the individual’s brain or
encoded in organizational processes,
documents, products, services,
facilities and systems
 ‘Explicit' and ‘Tacit'
Knowledge
Explicit knowledge is formal and systematic and
can be easily communicated and shared, i.e., in a
book or a database in the library, a product
specifications, or a scientific formula or a
computer program.
Tacit knowledge is highly personal, is unrecorded
and unarticulated and is hard to formalize and
therefore difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to
communicate.
 ELEMENTS of Explicity:
l  ACCESSING
l  EVALUATING

l  MANAGING

l  ORGANIZING

l  FILTERING

l  DISTRIBUTING
 Tacit “information” is more
difficult to obtain because it is
buried :
in web-based links to other sites, databases,
publications, and in the knowledge of
experts employed in institutions (the value-
added dimension) in the past,
communication of this information has
always been informal, word-of-mouth, and
not the province of any organizational unit
 Unlike Information, Knowledge
is not just a:
“thing” to be“ managed”

It is a Capacity - of people and

communities - to continuously
generate and renew themselves to
meet new challenges and
opportunities; it is the collective
knowledge of the organization
 KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFORMATION:
l  HUMANS: transform information into a
format that causes it to be easily
converted into knowledge by another
human being
l  KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS:
statistical analysis software; data
mining tools, decision support
systems, AI, data visualization tools,
expert systems, decision support
systems, etc. are aids
 Knowledge should be
differentiated from other
levels in a heirarchy of
assimilation
IERARCHY OF ASSIMILATION

ENLIGHTMENT
WISDOM

UNDERSTANDING
KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION

DATA
In order to
Understand one part of
that hierarchy
one should
Understand all of them
Data:

Data is Symbols:
And has no significance
beyond
its existence;
No meaning in and of itself
Data Example:

Example 1. Bits representing a restaurant sales

order including two large burgers and two
medium-sized soft drinks.
• Example 2. One bit representing the
observation that a tossed coin lands on heads.
• Example 3. 64 bits representing the wind
component (u and v) coordinates for a particular
typhoon’s trajectory at specific instances of time.
Information:
Data that are processed to be
useful: "who", "what",
"where", "when,” data that has
been given meaning
Information Example:
Example 1. For the restaurant manager, numbers
that he understands to indicate the daily sales of
burgers and soft drinks.
• Example 2. Assume the context is a bet: John
offers to
pay $10 for heads and take $8 for tails. Susan
understands that the last 100 tosses included 40
heads
and 60 tails. This is much more information than the
outcome of a single toss, and can be interpreted to
compute an expected value. (Information theory!)
Knowledge:
Answers “How”, “Why”; involves
appropriate collection and
distillation of information

Knowledge Management is concerned with

developing organizations in such a manner
as to derive knowledge from information.
Knowledge Example:

Example 1. The daily sales of burgers (plus other information like

the amount of bread in the inventory) can be used to compute the
amount of bread to buy (which is still information, but is more
valuable information). The relationship between the quantity of
bread to be ordered, the quantity of bread currently in the inventory,
and the daily sales of burgers (and other products that use bread) is
knowledge.

• Example 2. The expected value of the bet is still information, but is

more valuable information. The relationship between the probability
of heads, the number of times the coin lands heads, and the total
number of tosses (probability theory) is knowledge.
 KNOWLEDGE
l  enhances the learning process
l  stimulates innovation in education

l  raise levels of productivity

l  speeds development

l  improves lives

One major difference between
Information & Knowledge
 Information is:
l  Visible
l  Independent from action and decision
l  Format changes after processing
l  Physical product
l  Independent from existing environment
l  Easily transferable
l  Can be duplicated
 While Knowledge
l  Can’t be duplicated
l  Closely related to action and decision
l  Thought changes after processing
l  Invisible
l  Spiritual product
l  Identified with existing environment
l  Transfer through learning
 Wisdom:
Evaluated Understanding

calls upon all the previous

levels of consciousness;
human programming (moral,
ethical codes, etc.)
 Understanding:
appreciation of "why"

difference between knowledge

and understanding is the
difference between
"memorizing” and
"learning"
 Enlightenment

For my Buddhist
Friends this is
the ultimate level -
“be all you can be”
 Categories
l  First two of those elements (data and
information) involve the past (what has
been or what is known)
l  Last four (knowledge, understanding,
wisdom, enlightenment) address the
future- (people can create the future
rather than just grasp the present and
past).
 EXAMPLES (1)

l  Data represents a fact or

statement of event without
relation to other things.
l  Example: It is raining.
 EXAMPLE (2)
l  Information embodies the
understanding of a relationship of
some sort, possibly cause and
effect.
l  Example: The temperature dropped

15 degrees and then it started

raining.
 EXAMPLE (3)
l  Knowledge represents a pattern that
connects and generally providing a
high level of predictability as what is
described or what will happen next.
l  Example: If the humidity is very high
and the temperature drops
substantially the atmosphere is often
unlikely to be able to hold the
moisture so it rains.
 EXAMPLE (4)
l  Understanding; embodies more of an
Understanding of fundamental principles
embodied within the knowledge
l  Example: It rains because it rains. And
this encompasses an understanding of
all the interactions that happen between
raining, evaporation, air currents,
temperature gradients, changes, raining.
 Knowledge and Expertise
1.  Expertise can be defined as knowledge of higher quality
2.  An “expert” is one who is able to perform a task much
better than others
3. Often, an expert possesses many different types and
levels of knowledge
4. Expertise is within a domain
♣ expert brain surgeon > medical intern
♣ expert mathematician > secondary school math student
♣ expert bus driver > novice driver

5. AI expert systems attempt to mimic expertise

ω varying degrees of success, heavily depending on:
♣ domain
♣ type of expertise
What makes someone an expert?
An expert in a specialized area masters
the requisite knowledge

The unique performance of a

knowledgeable expert is clearly
noticeable in decision-making quality

Knowledgeable experts are more

selective in the information they acquire

Experts are beneficiaries of the

knowledge that comes from experience

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 Expert’s Reasoning Methods

Reasoning by analogy:
relating one concept to
another
Formal reasoning: using
deductive or inductive
methods
Case-based reasoning:
reasoning from relevant
past cases

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Deductive and inductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning:
exact reasoning. It deals
with exact facts and
exact conclusions

Inductive reasoning:
reasoning from a set of
facts or individual cases to
a general conclusion

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 Human’s Learning Models
Learning by experience: a function
of time and talent

Learning by example: more

efficient than learning by
experience

Learning by discovery: undirected

approach in which humans explore
a problem area with no advance
knowledge of what their objective
is. 1-35
 KNOWLEDGE CREATION
1.  Dynamic activity that can
enhance organization
success and economic
well-being

2.  Driver of innovation

3.  Involves knowledge
acquisition, selection,
generation and sharing
4.  Maturation - translates
experience into knowledge 3-36
 ASSIGNMENT
1. Identify an example of a KM initiative that has
been undertaken in your organization. Has the
initiative been successful? What are some of the
issues, both technical and nontechnical, that were
faced during its implementation?
2. How would you go about designing a knowledge
management initiative to support your business
needs? What nontechnical issues will you face
during its implementation?
3. Give an example of each of the four forces driving
KM described in this chapter (from your own
experience if possible).

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 ASSIGNMENT
4. Daily life: Consider five decisions you have made
today. (They could be simple, such as taking a turn
while driving or even choosing a soft drink at a store.)
a) In each case determine the (1) data, (2)
information, and (3) knowledge that were involved in
your decision.
b) Now consider how those decisions would have
been influenced by the lack of preexisting data,
information, or knowledge.

DUE: APRIL 22, 2016

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References
[]1 Knowledge Management Systems Theory and
Practice, Editor: Stuart Barnes, Thomson
Learning (2002).
[2] Irma Becerra-Fernandez, Rajiv Sabherwal
(2010). Knowledge Management Systems
Processes. M.E. Sharpe, Inc.  
[3]  Choy  Fa+y  Cheong  (2008)  Librarianship:  what  is  it  
about?  Paper  presented  at  LAS  Conference  2008:  
Innovate  to  Serve.  8-­‐9  May  2008.  Nanyang  
Technological  University,  Singapore.