vi This book presents a systematic presentation of processes, procedures and routines to organize a general
knowledge acquisition project. The beauty of the approach is that it is independent of whether the project is to deliver a
decision support system, a knowledge management product or a website.
p.1 A quick definition of knowledge is that it is equivalent to expertise. And what is expertise?
It is the ability of people to do effective and efficient work and to deal with complex situations.
p.3 knowledge is an active thing that manipulates, transforms or creates something out of something
else. It is a machine in someone's head that takes in data and information at one end and spurts out decisions and actions
at the other end.
p.4-5 Procedural knowledge... is about processes, tasks and activities... Conceptual knowledge... is about
the ways in which things (which we call 'concepts') are related to one another and about their properties... Basic, Explicit
knowledge.. is concerned with basic tasks that an expert performs, basic relationships between concepts, and basic properties
of concepts... Deep, Tacit Knowledge... is the sort of knowledge that someone gains when they practice something.
p.8 We are good at communicating - evolution has seen to that - and we are good at developing expertise
in performing complex activities. But we are not so good at communicating complex ideas with people who are not in the same
subject area.
p.46,47 Identify where you will get the knowledge... Alongside people, you are likely to identify knowledge
resources that have already been written by experts... For all but the shortest document, it is important to identify which
parts of the document, website or database will be of most use for the project
p.61 Familiarize yourself with basic knowledge in the domain from the available sources of knowledge
(documentation, websites, people)... It is important to move yourself up the learning curve to prepare for the next
steps. The more you can find out now by reading and informal knowledge gathering, the more effective will be
the semi-structured interviews and the subsequent steps that involve modelling.
p.62 You should already have identified all of the relevant sources of knowledge (during step 9). You now
need to select those that are most applicable to this stage... Read relevant sections from documents, websites and databases...
Analyse and model relevant sections from documents, websites and databases.
p.118 A knowledge web is a website that presents the contents of a k-base to human end-users in a clear
and navigable way.
p.119 A knowledge document is a document that details the knowledge that is required for the development
of an intelligent software system, such as an expert system
p.168 I would not say 'Knowledge is power', but rather I would say 'Knowledge is powerful'... Exciting
times are ahead for those working in the world of knowledge.
