Page 62 - Cyberculture and New Media

Sheizaf Rafaeli, Tsahi Hayat & Yaron Ariel 53
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distinguish tacit and explicit knowledge, and identify its locus as either
individual or collective. Any definition of knowledge must start by
discriminating between “Data”, “Information” and “Knowledge”. Many
scholars offer hierarchies of information also known as Data-Information-
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Knowledge and Wisdom Hierarchies. A common distinction holds that:

Data is a raw fact out of context, Information is data in
context relevant to an individual, team or organization …
Knowledge evolves as new insight and experiences are
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brought to bear on new and existing information.

An important distinction concerning knowledge should be made
between Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge: Explicit Knowledge is
knowledge that can be express in a tangible ways. It is only a drop in the
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bucket considering the entire body of knowledge. Tacit knowledge, on the
other hand, is personal, context - specific, and therefore difficult to
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communicate.
Another central aspect of knowledge concerns the “locus of
knowledge”. We can distinguish between Individual Knowledge and
Collective Knowledge. Individual Knowledge is “owned” by the individual,
and is therefore transferable. Collective Knowledge is distributed and shared
among members of a group; it is the “accumulated knowledge of the
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organization stored in its rules, procedures, routines and share norms”.
Furthermore, collective knowledge is “Dynamic, relational, and based on
human action, thus, it depends on the situation and people involved rather
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than absolute truth or hard facts”.
Let us elaborate on our suggestion to consider Wikipedia content as
knowledge. Davenport and Prusak suggest a constructive definition for this
purpose; they consider knowledge as “information combined with
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experience, context, interpretation and reflection”. Wikipedia obviously
offers its users more than raw data. Furthermore, the process of content
creation in Wikipedia facilitates the context for the combining of information
(this notion will be elaborated later).
As mentioned earlier, Wikipedia contains features that enable co-
authoring. The individual Wikipedian needs to externalize his knowledge,
and convince other Wikipedians to combine this knowledge into Wikipedia’s
content. This process may foster Wikipedians’ collective reflection and
interpretation of Wikipedia’s content. The idea that Wikipedia fosters the
combination of information with context, reflection and interpretation leads
us to consider Wikipedia’s content not as information, but rather as
knowledge. Based on the “locus of knowledge” notion, we can refer to it as a
collective knowledge.
After presenting key terms concerning knowledge and offering our