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464 Glossary

Complex adaptive systems Organizations that are composed of a large number of self-organiz-
ing components, each of which seeks to maximize its own specifi c goals but which also operate
according to the rules and context of relationships with the other components and the external
world.
Concept analysis A technique used to clarify the meaning of subjective, value-laden terms
such as “ democracy. ” Derived from science education and philosophy, the technique explicitly
distinguishes between related terms to pinpoint the boundaries of the concept, and lists
examples and nonexamples of the concept in order to extract a set of “ necessary and suffi cient ”
attributes that the a defi nition must have in order to adequately refl ect the meaning of the
concept.

Concept clustering A methodology for organizing and summarizing domain data by producing
an abstraction of the domain based on the analysis of clusters.
Concept dictionary A conceptual analysis technique that provides a mechanism to visualize an
abstraction of the primary concepts in a domain and the terminology used to label them.
Concept hierarchy A structural taxonomy or arrangement of the associations that make up a
concept.

Concept sorting A psychological paradigm that can be used to tap into the way in which a
subject matter expert has organized key concepts.
Content management The processes and workfl ows involved in organizing, categorizing, and
structuring information resources so that they can be stored, published, and reused in multiple
ways. A content management systems (CMS) is used to collect, manage, and publish content,
storing the content either as components or whole documents, in such a way as to maintain the
links between components. “ Content ” in this context generally refers to computer-based infor-
mation such as the content of a web site or a database. Content management is about making
sure that content is relevant, up-to-date, accurate, easily accessible, well organized, and so on,
so that quality information is delivered to the user.
Content steward Person responsible for improving the management of an organization ’ s
knowledge assets, driving new processes and promoting behaviors for creating higher quality
information and sharing knowledge.
Continuous process improvement An ongoing effort to incrementally improve how products
and services are provided and internal operations are conducted.
Core competency Set of skills that confer a competitive advantage on an organization; required
to carry out the mission-critical business of the organization.
Core or key process Business processes that are vital to the organization ’ s success and
survival.
Corporate memory All the information, data, and know-how that a company possesses;
accumulation of historical events and experiences. The knowledge and understanding embedded