Differentiating between Information and Knowledge

Flows

M.sc.ing. Māra Pudāne

Riga Technical University

Challenges

• Successful organisation = well-established knowledge circulation

• Information flow is not enough and it does not show all important viewpoints!

Knowledge Flow and Information Flow

A

B

C

Why is Differentiating Important?

• there is no united terminology

• it could help in developing such fields as information and knowledge logistics

• it would be beneficial to combine information and knowledge flows in one system

IF and KF Differences

• There is a lot of uncertainty...

• ...however KF and IF are used for etirely different purposes

• IF: WHAT to do, WHERE to get resources

• KF: HOW to do it

Flow and Node

• A flow is a movement from one node to another.

• Nodes are units which are located at both ends of the flow.

Difference = value to the node

Differentiating between IF and KF

InterfaceInterface

RepositoryRepository

InterfaceInterface

RepositoryRepository

InterfaceInterface

RepositoryRepository

Information Flow Knowledge Flow

IF and KF Differentiating in IS (1)

• Knowledge and information management systems are extremely complicated

• Node can be complicated and depend on level of abstraction

IF and KF Differentiating in IS (2)

Part of IS Incoming Flow Information Flow Elements

Knowledge Flow Elements

Data Base Management System

Queries DELETE, UPDATE, INSERT, SELECT

CREATE PROCEDURE/ TABLE, ADD

Repository: metadata and procedures

Interface: data, applications

Conslusion (1)

• Main result is method of differentiating between knowledge and information flows in information systems

• It can be further applied to tools that use knowledge and information flow analysis for problem identification and solving

• method could improve the readability of documents and help organisations to document processes better

Conclusion (2)

• Potentially powerful idea

• Could benefit from the research of information and knowledge channels

• The concepts presented here should be researched further and implemented, and tested

Thank You for Your Attention!

Questions, Remarks, Objections?