Eng 352 Technical Writing - 17 - Data, information, knowledge

Hi, this is Professor Lipuma from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, recording for my Technical Communications class And this information is based off my text Fundamentals of Undergraduate Education and Learning. What we looking at here is the idea that there are Terms, data information, and knowledge that will be useful for us as we move forward in the course So we want to give a brief discussion about what they are and how theyÅ are related. So let us begin with this idea that what we are trying to do is build knowledge and understanding. And for many people, those words are used interchangeably And so it's important for us to clarify what we mean by them. And this will be looked at as a process that moves from data to information and eventually, to knowledge. And for us, knowledge actually has two parts: there's factual knowledge and thereÅ's process knowledge. Usually, the process knowledge is considered understanding. So, let's begin first with what is data. This is items gathered about Experiences, usually recorded and done through observation, and experimentation. There are lots of different ways to gather data. Each point is a datum point and they are just that. They're just single anecdotal pieces related to experience. Now, one of the things here is to consider is that there are often questions of accuracy and relevance. Just because you saw something, it's just data. And we're not saying that it is not true But many times, that reliability of the observation you made, that data is inaccurate. And so, we can't just say, because you saw it, it's true and make it knowledge. It has to go through a process. So what is that process? It's the process of making into information. And information looks at a series of data to understand connections Between different data through analysis to find trends in connections. As we analyze data, we generate information. The thing is, information has many of the same problems as there are a lot of different paths from data to information. As we mentioned earlier, there are different perspectives and different perceptions of things. And so each person may interpret the data differently. And the idea's that over time, as numbers of people have reviewed and verified the information You are talking about in the data it comes from, you're able to have a greater sense that there is a consensus about it, so that it gains authority. And so now, the next thing you want to talk about is knowledge. Knowledge is built upon this information, which has been verified and accepted by everybody's consensus. And also, that it gains authority because it has knowledge. Now, it's developed from information and hopefully, it's verified to produce a set of facts and an understanding of processes. And that's really what we want to talk about. For us, facts are simply things That have been agreed upon by a group in a specific situation to be true. And now, many times, facts are true only in narrow situations. Meaning that if the situation changes or that the perception of the data That was gathered changes or thereÅfs a problem with it, those facts change. Facts are fluid. So then, understanding for us is the knowledge of the processes and connections Amongst the information so that we see how it all fits together into a larger whole. For us, this idea of facts and understanding come together to form knowledge. It's based upon information, which is hopefully based upon data. For us, these things will be important as we move forward to create our package. Because you want to gather facts and understandings of your target or situation So that your package most effectively accomplishes your goals. So let's look at this again, data can start at an open field with numbers of observations gathering pieces of anecdotal evidence about your situation that you have experienced. But it has to be coded and reduced and analyzed, which means that You're thinking about it and trying to give some structure to these things as you can whatÅ's connected and what isn't. And if there is a connection, you want to make sure that it is valid. Once you have that connection, you move into information. Information is then accumulated and shared such that It can be verified, validated, and connected such that this information you have can be used to move forward and eventually become facts and understanding. It's not a linear process that I showed you. This is just a way to kind of think about how things move from [I saw a star at night] to [Well that was actually a planet called Venus and this is how it moves.] The idea is that we move from data through information to facts and understanding, Which becomes our knowledge. Which is what weÅ're hopefully getting you to learn. Thank you.