Knowledge Management: Cognitive Map (Definitions)

"A cognitive map is a specific way of representing a person's assertions about some limited domain, such as a policy problem. It is designed to capture the structure of the person's causal assertions and to generate the consequences that follow front this structure." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"A cognitive map is the representation of thinking about a problem that follows from the process of mapping." (Colin Eden, "Analyzing cognitive maps to help structure issues or problems", 2002)

"A mental representation of a portion of the physical environment and the relative locations of points within it." (Andrew M Colman, "A Dictionary of Psychology" 3rd Ed, 2008)

"A mental model (or map) of the external environment which may be constructed following exploratory behaviour." (Michael Allaby, "A Dictionary of Zoology" 3rd Ed., 2009)

"An FCM [Fuzzy Cognitive Map] is a directed graph with concepts like policies, events etc. as nodes and causalities as edges. It represents causal relationship between concepts." (Florentin Smarandache &  W B Vasantha Kandasamy, "Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and Neutrosophic Cognitive Maps", 2014)

"A conceptual tool that provides a representation of particular natural or social environments in the form of a model." (Evangelos C Papakitsos et al, "The Challenges of Work-Based Learning via Systemic Modelling in the European Union", 2020)

"A representation of the conceptualization that the subject constructs of the system in which he evolves. The set of cognitive representations that emerge make it possible to understand his actions, the links between the factors structuring the cognitive patterns dictating his behaviors." (Henda E Karray & Souhaila Kammoun, "Strategic Orientation of the Managers of a Tunisian Family Group Before and After the Revolution", 2020)

"A cognitive map is a type of mental representation which serves an individual to acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment." (Wikipedia) [source]

Knowledge Management: Tacit Knowledge (Definitions)

"Know-how that is difficult to articulate and share; intuition or skills that cannot easily be put into words." (Martin J Eppler, "Managing Information Quality" 2nd Ed., 2006)

"The domain of subjective, cognitive, and experimental knowledge that is highly personal and difficult to formalize." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"The knowledge that a person retains in their mind. It is relatively hard to transfer to others and to disseminate widely. Also known as implicit knowledge." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"Knowledge that is based on experience and not easy to share, document, or explain." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"Knowledge that resides in people's heads. Also referred to as know-how, rules of thumb, or heuristics." (Joan C Dessinger, "Fundamentals of Performance Improvement" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Tacit knowledge is sometimes referred to as knowledge inside people’s heads. It includes the skills and intuition that experienced people apply as a matter of course in their work. Tacit knowledge is contrasted with explicit knowledge, which is knowledge that is documented in a sharable form. One of the goals of knowledge management is to enable tacit knowledge to be shared by making it explicit knowledge." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

"Undocumented information." (Project Management Institute, "Software Extension to the PMBOK® Guide 5th Ed", 2013)

"Personal knowledge that can be difficult to articulate and share such as beliefs, experience, and insights." (Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)", 2017)

Knowledge Management: Taxonomy (Definitions)

"A classification system." (Ruth C Clark & Chopeta Lyons, "Graphics for Learning", 2004)

"A hierarchical structure within which related items are organized, classified, or categorized, thus illustrating the relationships between them." (Richard Caladine, "Taxonomies for Technology", 2008)

"A taxonomy is a hierarchical structure displaying parent-child relationships (a classification). A taxonomy extends a vocabulary and is a special case of a the more general ontology." (Troels Andreasen & Henrik Bulskov, "Query Expansion by Taxonomy", 2008)

"An orderly classification that explicitly expresses the relationships, usually hierarchical (e.g., genus/species, whole/part, class/instance), between and among the things being classified." (J P Getty Trust, "Introduction to Metadata" 2nd Ed., 2008)

"This term traditionally refers to the study of the general principles of classification. It is widely used to describe computer-based systems that use hierarchies of topics to help users sift through information." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"A kind of classification method which organizes all kinds of things into predefined hierarchical structure." (Yong Yu et al, "Social Tagging: Properties and Applications", 2010)

"Any system of categories used to organize something, including documents, often less comprehensive than a thesaurus." (Steven Woods et al, "Knowledge Dissemination in Portals", 2011)

"Generally, a collection of controlled vocabulary terms organized into a structure of parent-child relationships. Each term is in at least one relationship with another term in the taxonomy. Each parent's relationship with all of its children are of only one type (whole-part, genus-species, or type-instance). The addition of associative relationships creates a thesaurus." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A definitional hierarchy of concepts. Traditional taxonomies are tree-structured (a concept is assumed to have exactly one superconcept and multiple subconcepts). The higher a concept is positioned in the definitional hierarchy, the more individuals it describes (the comprehension of the concept), but the less definitional properties are needed (the meaning of a concept)." (Marcus Spies & Said Tabet, "Emerging Standards and Protocols for Governance, Risk, and Compliance Management", 2012) 

"A hierarchical representation of metadata. The top level is the category, and each subsequent level provides a refinement (detail) of the top-level term." (Charles Cooper & Ann Rockley, "Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy" 2nd Ed., 2012)

"A hierarchical structure of information components, for example, a subject, business–unit, or functional taxonomy, any part of which can be used to classify a content item in relation to other items in the structure." (Robert F Smallwood, "Managing Electronic Records: Methods, Best Practices, and Technologies", 2013)

"A classification of text" (Daniel Linstedt & W H Inmon, "Data Architecture: A Primer for the Data Scientist", 2014)

"A hierarchical structure of information components (e.g., a subject, business unit, or functional taxonomy), any part of which can be used to classify a content item in relation to other items in the structure." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices", 2014)

"provides context within the ontology. Taxonomies are used to capture hierarchical relationships between elements of interest. " (Judith S Hurwitz, "Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics", 2015)

"Taxonomy is the science and practice of classification. Taxonomies are used when categorizing real-life as well as artificial phenomenon and the aim is to make systematic studies easier." (Ulf Larson et al, "Guidance for Selecting Data Collection Mechanisms for Intrusion Detection", 2015)

"A taxonomy is a hierarchy that is created by a set of interconnected class inclusion relationship." (Robert J Glushko, "The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition" 4th Ed., 2016)

"A hierarchical structure of information components, for example, a subject, business unit, or functional taxonomy, any part of which can be used to classify a content item in relation to other items in the structure." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance for Healthcare Professionals", 2018)

Knowledge Management: Ontology (Definitions)

"A data model that represents the entities that are defined and evaluated by its own attributes, and organized according to a hierarchy and a semantic. Ontologies are used for representing knowledge on the whole of a specific domain or on of it." (Gervásio Iwens et al, "Programming Body Sensor Networks", 2008)

"An ontology specifies a conceptualization, that is, a structure of related concepts for a given domain." (Troels Andreasen & Henrik Bulskov, "Query Expansion by Taxonomy", 2008)

"A semantic structure useful to standardize and provide rigorous definitions of the terminology used in a domain and to describe the knowledge of the domain. It is composed of a controlled vocabulary, which describes the concepts of the considered domain, and a semantic network, which describes the relations among such concepts. Each concept is connected to other concepts of the domain through semantic relations that specify the knowledge of the domain. A general concept can be described by several terms that can be synonyms or characteristic of different domains in which the concept exists. For this reason the ontologies tend to have a hierarchical structure, with generic concepts/terms at the higher levels of the hierarchy and specific concepts/terms at the lover levels, connected by different types of relations." (Mario Ceresa, "Clinical and Biomolecular Ontologies for E-Health", Handbook of Research on Distributed Medical Informatics and E-Health, 2009)

"In the context of knowledge sharing, the chapter uses the term ontology to mean a specification of conceptual relations. An ontology is the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents. The chapter refers to designing ontologies for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and re-use." (Ivan Launders, "Socio-Technical Systems and Knowledge Representation", 2009)

 "The systematic description of a given phenomenon, which often includes a controlled vocabulary and relationships, captures nuances in meaning and enables knowledge sharing and reuse. Typically, ontology defines data entities, data attributes, relations and possible functions and operations." (Mark Olive, "SHARE: A European Healthgrid Roadmap", 2009)

"Those things that exist are those things that have a formal representation within the context of a machine. Knowledge commits to an ontology if it adheres to the structure, vocabulary and semantics intrinsic to a particular ontology i.e. it conforms to the ontology definition. A formal ontology in computer science is a logical theory that represents a conceptualization of real world concepts." (Philip D. Smart, "Semantic Web Rule Languages for Geospatial Ontologies", 2009)

"A formal representation of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the properties of that domain, and may be used to define the domain." (Yong Yu et al, "Social Tagging: Properties and Applications", 2010)

"Is set of well-defined concepts describing a specific domain." (Hak-Lae Kim et al, "Representing and Sharing Tagging Data Using the Social Semantic Cloud of Tags", 2010)

"An ontology is a 'formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualisation'. It is composed of concepts and relations structured into hierarchies (i.e. they are linked together by using the Specialisation/Generalisation relationship). A heavyweight ontology is a lightweight ontology (i.e. an ontology simply based on a hierarchy of concepts and a hierarchy of relations) enriched with axioms used to fix the semantic interpretation of concepts and relations." (Francky Trichet et al, "OSIRIS: Ontology-Based System for Semantic Information Retrieval and Indexation Dedicated to Community and Open Web Spaces", 2011)

"The set of the things that can be dealt with in a particular domain, together with their relationships." (Steven Woods et al, "Knowledge Dissemination in Portals", 2011) 

"In semantic web and related technologies, an ontology (aka domain ontology) is a set of taxonomies together with typed relationships connecting concepts from the taxonomies and, possibly, sets of integrity rules and constraints defining classes and relationships." (Marcus Spies & Said Tabet, "Emerging Standards and Protocols for Governance, Risk, and Compliance Management", 2012)

"High-level knowledge and data representation structure. Ontologies provide a formal frame to represent the knowledge related with a complex domain, as a qualitative model of the system. Ontologies can be used to represent the structure of a domain by means of defining concepts and properties that relate them." (Lenka Lhotska et al, "Interoperability of Medical Devices and Information Systems", 2013)

"(a) In computer science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between pairs of concepts. It can be used to model a domain and support reasoning about concepts. (b) In philosophy, ontology is the study of the nature of being, becoming, existence , or reality , as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences." (Ronald J Lofaro, "Knowledge Engineering Methodology with Examples", 2015)

"It is a shared structure which classify and organizes all the entities of a given domain." (T R Gopalakrishnan Nair, "Intelligent Knowledge Systems", 2015)

"The study of how things relate. Used in big data to analyze seemingly unrelated data to discover insights." (Jason Williamson, "Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies", 2015)

"An ontology is a formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualization." (Fu Zhang et al, "A Review of Answering Queries over Ontologies Based on Databases", 2016)

Knowledge Management: Explicit Knowledge (Definitions)

"Knowledge that is easily codified, shared, documented, and explained." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"The knowledge that deals with objective, rational, and technical knowledge (data, policies, procedures, software, documents, etc.)." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"Explicit knowledge is information that is captured in a way that it can be shared. People can learn it without having to rely directly on other people. In knowledge management practice, explicit knowledge is contrasted with tacit knowledge, which is knowledge that is inside people’s heads." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement", 2012)

"Recorded information, for example, a written policy or procedure." (Joan C Dessinger, "Fundamentals of Performance Improvement" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Knowledge that can be codified using symbols such as words, numbers, and pictures." (Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)", 2017)

Knowledge Management: Knowledge Management (Definitions)

"The conscious and systematic facilitation of knowledge creation or development, diffusion or transfer, safeguarding, and use at the individual, team- and organizational level." (Martin J Eppler, "Managing Information Quality" 2nd Ed., 2006)

"The field of study that relates to the centralized management of a company’s corporate knowledge and information assets in order to provide this knowledge to as many company staff members as possible and thus encourage better and more consistent decision making." (Evan Levy & Jill Dyché, "Customer Data Integration", 2006)

"Discipline that intends to provide, at its most suitable level, the accurate information and knowledge for the right people, whenever they may be needed and at their best convenience." (J Ares, "Guidelines for Deploying a Knowledge Management System", 2008)

"The process of creating, capturing and organizing knowledge objects. A knowledge object might be a research report, a budget for the development of a new product, or a video presentation. Knowledge Management programs seek to capture objects in a repository that is searchable and accessible in electronic form." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"The process established to capture and use specific knowledge in an organization for the purpose of improving organizational performance." (Murray E Jennex, "Technologies in Support of Knowledge Management Systems", 2009)

"1.The management of an environment where people generate tacit knowledge, render it into explicit knowledge, and feed it back to the organization. The cycle forms a base for more tacit knowledge, which keeps the cycle going in an intelligent learning organization. (Brackett 2011) 2.The discipline that fosters organizational learning and the management of intellectual capital as an enterprise resource." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management" 1st Ed., 2010)

"The process that helps organizations identify, select, organize, disseminate, and transfer important information and expertise that are part of the organization's memory and that may reside in unstructured form within the organization." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"Knowledge management is a set of practices related to how organizations learn from their own experiences. Many of these practices focus on ensuring that what employees know and learn is captured in a shareable form (explicit knowledge)." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

"The accumulation, organization, and use of experience and lessons learned, which can be leveraged to improve future decision-making efforts. KM often involves listing and indexing subject matter experts, project categories, reports, studies, proposals, and other intellectual property sources or outputs that are retained to build corporate memory. Good KM systems help train new employees and reduce the impact of turnover and retirement of key employees." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices", 2014)

"The process of capturing, using, leveraging, and sharing organizational knowledge." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"The intentional process of creation, acquisition and sharing of knowledge and its utilization as a key factor in the creation of added value. It is an inextricably human and cooperative process." (António C Moreira & Ricardo A Zimmermann, "Electronic Government: Challenges for Public Services Consumer Behaviour and Value Creation", 2015)

"Knowledge management is considered as a systematic process of managing knowledge assets, processes, and environment to facilitate the creation, organization, sharing, utilization, and measurement of knowledge to achieve the strategic aims of an organization." (Haitham Alali et al, "Knowledge Sharing Success Model of Virtual Communities of Practice in Healthcare Sector", 2016)

"Knowledge management promotes activities and processes to acquire, create, document, and share formal explicit knowledge and informal implicit knowledge. Knowledge management involves identifying a group of people who have a need to share knowledge, developing technological support that enables knowledge sharing, and creating a process for transferring and disseminating knowledge." (Ciara Heavin & Daniel J Power, "Decision Support, Analytics, and Business Intelligence" 3rd Ed., 2017)

"The process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge." (Izabella V Lokshina et al, "Internet of Things and Big Data-Driven Data Analysis Services for Third Parties", 2019)

"The methods and underlying policies for sharing information effectively so that the sum of the skills, experience and entrepreneurial attributes of all stakeholders is greater than the sum of the individual parts. If done well, each stakeholder also benefits, thus increasing the ‘sum of the individual parts’ that go on to increase the ‘sum of the whole’ in a virtuous circle." (Sue Milton, "Data Privacy vs. Data Security", 2021)

Knowledge Management: Knowledge (Definitions)

"Justified true belief, the know-what/-how/-who/-why that individuals use to solve problems, make predictions or decisions, or take actions." (Martin J Eppler, "Managing Information Quality" 2nd Ed., 2006)

"An individual’s understanding of facts or information. Knowledge provides the basis for performing a skill that an individual must have to perform a task successfully." (Sally A Miller et al, "People CMM: A Framework for Human Capital Management" 2nd Ed., 2009)

"1.Generally, expertise; familiarity gained through experience or association; cognizance, the fact or condition of knowing something; the acquaintance with or the understanding of something; the fact or condition of being aware of something, of apprehending truth or fact." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"The body of information and facts about a specific subject. Knowledge implies familiarity, awareness, and understanding of information as it applies to an environment. A key characteristic of knowledge is that 'new' knowledge can be derived from 'old' knowledge." (Carlos Coronel et al, "Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management" 9th Ed., 2011)

"The fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Knowledge adds understanding and retention to information." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"The metadata about all the changes that a participant has seen and maintains." (Microsoft, "SQL Server 2012 Glossary", 2012)

"A collection of specialized facts, procedures, and judgment rules. Knowledge refers to what one knows and understands. Knowledge is categorized as unstructured, structured, explicit, or implicit. What we know we know we call explicit knowledge. Knowledge that is unstructured and understood, but not clearly expressed, we call implicit knowledge." (Ciara Heavin & Daniel J Power, "Decision Support, Analytics, and Business Intelligence 3rd Ed.", 2017)

"A mixture of experience, values and beliefs, contextual information, intuition, and insight that people use to make sense of new experiences and information." (Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)", 2017)

"Knowing something with the familiarity gained through experience, education, observation, or investigation; it is understanding a process, practice, or technique, or how to use a tool." (Project Management Institute, "Project Manager Competency Development Framework" 3rd Ed., 2017)

"That array of facts and relationships that an individual has available to him or her for the performance of work, it may be part or all of an accepted body of knowledge, or knowledge that has been produced as largely self-generated content by the individual." (Catherine Burke et al, "Systems Leadership" 2nd Ed., 2018)

"The sum of a person’s - or mankind’s - information about and ability to understand the world." (Open Data Handbook)