WEEK ELEVEN

16.05.08

BUILDING KNOWLEDGE: STRATEGIES

Lecture
Today's Lecture was all about the relationships between the terms DATA, INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE.

First we took a POP QUIZ which I learnt will be similar to the exam. The question asked were summing up form what we've learnt over the past few weeks.







In the lecture slides were the definitions of the terms Data, Information and Knowledge. I learnt how i can use the relationship of these words to better my learning at University.
I also learnt the characteristics of each term. These are:

Data:

• Factual
• Non-judgmental
• Non-inferential
• Transient
• Has no intrinsic "meaning"
• Has no intrinsic "value"

Information:

• Summative
• Relational
• Dimensional
• Permanent
• Has meaning
• Uncertain Value

Knowledge:

• Inferential
• Experiential
• Judgmental
• Subjective
• Very valuable
  
  

Tutorial

Today's tutorial class is an extension from what we learnt in the Lecture. It was all about the links between Data, Information and Knowledge.

Task 1.
First i browsed the following website and read up about Data, Knowledge, and information.

This a screen capture of the website: http://www.success.co.il/is/dik.html

I then looked up on the Internet for other definition for Information, Data, Knowledge and Wisdom. I used Google to find them and came across the below definitions.
All the definition's of the following are from this website: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Data: A collection of facts form which conclusions may be drawn; "statistical data".

Information: A message received and understood. A collection of facts.

Knowledge: Acquired through study or experience or instruction.

Wisdom: The quality of being prudent and sensible.

Task 1a.
From the definitions i found on the Internet I then wrote up my own definitions in my own words for better understanding these are:

• Data: is any fact that leads to a conclusion, it may be a figure or a number.
• Information: Is a collection of material or facts that can be used and understood for later use.
• Knowledge: is the conclusion of a study done or facts collected
• Wisdom: is the ability to be smart or have knowledge that you have collected over time.

Task 2.
I then made my own representation of the terms data, information, knowledge and wisdom in Microsoft Word. I inserted arrows to show how one leads to the other.

This is a screen capture of my representation of the terms.

Task 3.
I believe that relationship between the terms data, information and knowledge will help me at university by:

• Giving me a outline where to start when researching
• Knowing you can have one term with out the other, you need the support of each when doing University studies.

I can use the following strategies for my assignment work:

• Data relates to the research part of assignments, I will use the important words,key terms and definitions to find the data.


• Information will be used for building my assignment. I will research the key terms and definitions to put data together.


• Knowledge will be used to make my own judgments about the topic of my assignment. I will base these upon the information found.

Task 4.
Companies that I think would use the relationship data-information-knowledge would be mainly retail companies that are trying to sell a product.

They will go out the the shops they sell their product to to, see how they are selling by finding out data. Then they would use this to collect information and compare other shops selling their product, and then make judgement on things that may need improving of changing from the information they have found.

Some retail companies that may use this method are:

• CocaCola: Selling their drink product.


• Target: Selling all items from clothes to manchester.


• Cadbury Chocolate: selling their different varieties of products in all types of shops.


• Cleo Magazine: Promoting and selling their magazine.


• Ikea: Promoting and selling their products world wide.

Readings.
http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm

The readings were also about the relationship about the terms from the lecture and the tutorial. The web site included definitions about Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom and also understanding. The definition of Understanding that was given was:

• Understanding: appreciation of "why"

It also gave examples where this relationship can be used, and also have a diagram of the relationship between terms, similar to the ones shown in the lecture.