KNOWLEDGE
Risk Management and Decision Making Glossary
Risk Management and Decision Making — Knowledge
Information on Knowledge
The simple dictionary definition of knowledge, that is, knowing
or familiarity gained by experience, is not sufficient for use
in risk management and decision making. Creating a precise definition
of knowledge is difficult. So, what is knowledge
is distinguished from what is not. Knowledge is a
pluralistic concept. No one framework can capture its facets and
its richness. It is not data, nor information. It exists
only in human minds and cannot be stored directly or
completely in computers or in any other medium.
Knowledge
cannot be communicated directly unlike data, and information, which can
be. In this thesis, both cognitive mapping and concept mapping
are used as intellectual devices with aims of representing and
recording facets of knowledge. Churchman (1971) explains that knowledge and information are distinct entities; knowledge resides in
the user of information and not in the collection of
information; it is how the user reacts to the collection
of information that matters. Jarvis (1999) comments that information becomes
knowledge when it is understood or comprehended at a
deeper level as a result of human mental activity involving
perhaps the further analysis of information including association with other
data or information. Such knowledge can lead to purposeful
human activity, in particular decision-making.
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