There is a lot of discussion about what is data, what is information and what is knowledge.

This brief draft serves the only purpose to clarify about the most basic word usage when taking about MetaData and KnowledgeManagement in the MoinMoin context, and doesn't pretend to make any exhaustive investigation.

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Data

Information

Knowledge1

Structure

High ˆ

Medium ˆˇ

Low ˇ

Human given meaning

Low ˇ

Medium ˆˇ

High ˆ

Description

One or more pairs number/unit

A package of data with certain meaning.

Information in action, i.e., that can change our world.

Example: temperature

10° C

Last week daily average temperature in my city: 17°C, 15°C, 16°C, 12°C, 10°C, 13°C, 11°C,

Since these days is getting colder and the sun doesn't shine very much today, it will be better to go out with some coat.

Example: written language

Some glyphs (little graphics), perceivable over a certain surface

The words and their meaning.

Change some opinion or action because of this message.

As you can see, there is gradient between this spaces. It is almost impossible to delimite a certain frontier. And also, it is not necessary. :-)

  1. Following knowledge is wisdom, but this is out the scope of this document. (1)

MoinMoin: GradientDataInformationKnowledge (last edited 2007-10-29 19:08:51 by localhost)