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Index
A - B
C
D - E
F - J
K - L
M - Q
R - Z |
Glossary of Terms
Act:
Single actions that people
do
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Activity: A set of related acts people do
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Actor: The people involved
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Adaptation: A process whereby an organism fits
itself to its environment by changing its rules
(knowledge base). This process is guided by
accumulated experiences and results in structural
(strategy) changes that allow the organism to make
better use of its environment.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Holland
Adaptive Agents: A mechanism within a system
that can change its internal rules (knowledge base) in
order to adapt to its environment.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Additive Innovation: The addition of new
procedures to existing routines.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Adoption: A decision to make full use of an
innovation as the best course of action available.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Agent: Short for autonomous agent. Think of an
agent as an entity that learns your preferences and
then independently does things for you within a
physical or virtual environment. Might be a robot,
might be a knowbot (short for "knowledge robot"),
might be a Web spider; might retrieve info, filter
incoming email, or recommend music for you.
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Wired
Agent: A mechanism that acts in response to a
condition. Agents interact and adapt to each other and
are governed by rules.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Holland
Aggregation: The clustering together of agents
that result from agent attraction based on tags. An
aggregation itself can be an agent with specific
detectors, effectors, rules, tags etc., of its own.
(Synonymous with Collective)
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Aide: A less than fully professional change
agent who intensively contacts clients to influence
their innovation-decisions.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Analysis: The systematic examination of
something to determine its parts, the relationship
among the parts, and their relationship to the whole.
Searching for patterns.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
ANSI: A privately funded federation, with both
private and public members, the oft-derided American
National Standards Institute is dedicated to promoting
national (and international) technology standards.
Pronounced "an-see"
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Hardwired
Artifact: The physical tools invented and used
by people, such as a hammer, books, computers,
software, etc. One way knowledge is diffused is
through the diffusion of artifacts. Artifacts are
created using technology.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Artificial Knowledge Management System: A
computer system that assists a Knowledge Manager in
measuring and managing the knowledge processes of an
organization.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Audience Segmentation: A strategy in which
different communication channels or messages are used
with each sub-audience.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Authority Innovation-Decisions: Choices made by
relatively few individuals in a system who possess
power.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Awareness-Knowledge: Information that an
innovation exists.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Building Blocks: The reusable components of a
complex whole, such as patterns of facial features
(where building blocks of the face are the: forehead,
eyebrows, eyes, skin, hair, etc.), or patterns of
rules. Building blocks are the prerequisite elements
in the generation of internal models of complex
adaptive systems.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Holland
Butterfly Effect, The: Chaos theory principle
holding that a small occurrence, the flap of a
butterfly's wings in Beijing, for instance, can send
ripples of effects that cause larger occurrences, such
as a hurricane in Florida, throughout the rest of a
complex system.
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Hardwired
CAS (Complex Adaptive System):
A goal-directed open system,"...composed of
interacting agents that are diverse in form and
capability and described in terms of rules." Consists
of ever-changing complex patterns generated by the
interactions transpiring between the system's array of
adaptive agents.
Discipline:
Source: Holland
Causal Coupling: The term causal coupling can
be expanded to include cases where all of the changes
take place inside a single system, rather than just
interactions between symbols in the system and
entities in the environment.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Change Agent: An individual who influences
clients' innovation-decisions in a direction deemed
desirable by a change agency. The change agent usually
seeks to obtain the adoption of new ideas, but may
also attempt to slow down diffusion and prevent the
adoption of undesirable innovations. Change agents use
opinion leaders in a social system as their
lieutenants in diffusion campaigns.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Channel: Is the means by which a message gets
from the source to the receiver.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Chaos: A state of a system where patterns
exist, but are difficult to discover, in contrast to
random where there are no patterns.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Class: A collection of things that has a
defined quality in common.
Discipline:
Source:
Client/Server: An adjective describing the
network architecture in which the computer processing
is distributed among many individual PC's (clients)
and a more powerful, central computer (server) that
accepts requests for resources. Clients can shore
files and access data stored on the server.
Discipline: Computer Science
Source: Wired
Code: Programmers write source code. Computers
read machine code. And binary code is the DNA of
digital life. Programmers are sometimes called code
masters.
Discipline: Computer Science
Source: Wired
Codifiability: The ability of the firm to
structure knowledge into a set of identifiable rules
and relationships that can be easily communicated. Not
all kinds of knowledge are conducive to codification.
Discipline: Management Science
Source:
Cognitive Map: An interpretive framework of the
world which, it is argued, exists in the human mind
and affects actions and decisions as well as knowledge
structures.
Discipline: Cognitive Science
Source:
Cognitive or "Mentalist" Perspective: When we
are interested in the use of symbols for automated
reasoning in the computer, we are taking a cognitive
or "mentalist" perspective.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Cohesion: An individual's set of direct
contacts.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Collective: Multi-agent clusters resulting from
agent attraction based on tags (attributes). A
collective can itself be an agent with detectors,
effectors, rules, tags, etc.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Collective Innovation-Decisions: Choices made
by the consensus among members of a system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Common Knowledge: ..knowledge generated from
the experience of people engaged in organizational
tasks, and knowledge (or information) that is more
theoretical--"know-how" as opposed to "know what".
Common knowledge is always linked to action. It is
derived from action and it carries the potential for
others to use it to take action.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source: Dixon, Nancy M.
Communication: The process by which
participants create and share information with one
another in order to reach a mutual understanding.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Communication Channel: The means by which
messages get from one individual to another.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Communication Network: ...consists of
interconnected individuals who are linked by patterned
flows of information. Networks have a certain degree
of structure, of stability. This patterned aspect of
networks provides predictability to human behavior.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Communication Structure: The differentiated
elements that can be recognized in the patterned
communication flows in a system. This communication
structure is so complex that in any but a very small
system even the members of the system do not
understand the communication structure of which they
are a part.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Compatibility: The degree to which an
innovation is perceived as consistent with the
existing values, past experiences, and needs of
potential adopters.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Complexity: The degree to which an innovation
is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and
use.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Componential Analysis: The systematic search
for attributes
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Computational View of KM: A particular view of
or approach to KM that views organizational knowledge
functions as computational or informational
processing. While similar to the cognitive science
perspective, the computational view of KM Seeks to
understand the knowledge processes of collectives.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Computations: In the KM context, the cognitive
operations also called knowledge processes that make
up the Computational View of KM.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Concept: A pattern of objects or events given a
label. (See Novak and Gowin, 1984)
Discipline:
Source:
Consequences: The changes that occur to an
individual or to a social system as a result of the
adoption or rejection of an innovation.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Constellation: A group of enterprises working
together toward a common goal. The aggregation that
built the 777 is an example of a constellation.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Constellation: A collective of organizations
working together toward a common goal. The collective
that built the 777 is an example of a constellation.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Toffler
Contingent Innovation Decisions: Choices to
adopt or reject that are made only after a prior
innovation-decision.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Corporate Strategy: Corporate strategy is the
pattern of decisions in a company that determines and
reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces
the principle policies and plans for achieving those
goals, and defines the range of business the company
is to pursue, the kind of economic and human
organization it is or intends to be, and the nature of
the economic and noneconomic contribution it intends
to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and
communities. It consists of two important processes;
formulation and implementation.
Discipline: Management Science
Source: Andrews, Kenneth R.
Cosmopoliteness: The degree to which an
individual is oriented outside the social system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Cover Term: The name for a category of cultural
knowledge. For example, tree is the cover term for a
larger category of knowledge, the various types of
trees such as oak, pine. And yew.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Cover Terms: The name for a cultural domain.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Critical Mass: The minimum percentage of
participants necessary to sustain an activity.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Cue-to-Action: An event occurring at a certain
tome that crystallizes a favorable attitude into overt
behavior change.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Cultural Artifacts: The things people shape or
make from natural resources
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Cultural Behavior: What people do
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Cultural Domains: A category of cultural
meaning that includes other smaller categories
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Cultural Knowledge: What people know. Either
explicit or tacit.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Cultural Theme: "a postulate or position,
declared or implied, and usually controlling behavior
or stimulating activity, which is tacitly approved or
openly promoted in a society."
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Culture: The learned, nonrandom, systematic
behavior and knowledge that can be transmitted from
generation to generation. The acquired knowledge
people use to interpret experience and generate
behavior.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley
Culture: The acquired knowledge people use to
interpret experience and generate behavior
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Culture: "A set of principles for creating
dramas, for writing script, and of course, for
recruiting players and audiences.. Culture is not
simply a cognitive map that people acquire, in whole
or in part, more or less accurately, and then learn to
read. People are not just map readers; they are
map-makers. People are cast out into imperfectly
charted, continually revised sketch maps. Culture does
not provide a cognitive map, but rather a set of
principles for map making and navigation. Different
cultures are like different schools of navigation
designed to cope with different terrains and seas."
Discipline:
Source: Frake, Charles O.
Culture: Culture may be seen as a process
through which we create our living environment and are
able to improve it progressively by retaining and
modifying advances made by previous generations,
teaching the whole to subsequent generations,
borrowing innovations made by other groups, and making
innovations which are capable of perpetuation.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Mead
Culture: For a business, a culture still holds
this definition. New employees learn the innovations
of the past from older employees and borrow
innovations from other groups or create new
innovations to help the organization accomplish and
perpetuate its goals.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Customer Capital: "The value of an
organization's relationships with its customers
including the intangible loyalty of its customers to
the company or a product, bases on reputation,
purchasing patterns, or the customer's ability to
pay."
Discipline:
Source: U. of Texas, Austin- KM Server
Declarative Knowledge: The
knowledge about "Knowing-What"- Knowledge that is in
the form of statements about a truth.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Deduction: Forming a rule from other rules.
Reasoning from the general to the particular.
Discipline: Philosophy
Source:
Deductive Reasoning: Reasoning in which one is
able to discover (or generate) new knowledge, based on
beliefs one already holds.
Discipline:
Source:
Designate: When he associates symbols with
objects in the situations, we say that the symbols
designate the objects.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Designation: The relation indicating what
symbols stand for is called designation, or
equivalently, detonation.. Designation is in the mind
of an observer, who can give an account of both the
symbol system and the manner in which its symbols
designate aspects of an environment.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Detector: A mechanism used by an agent to scan
its environment and identify patterns (other agents
and agent behavior) that are important to the agent's
goals. For example: business intelligence, marketing,
and customer relations are all detectors.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Development: "Development in a business should
be understood as the changes in economic life that
arise from its own internal initiatives, not those
forced on it from without."
Discipline: Economics
Source: Schumpeter
Diffusion: Diffusion is the process by which an
innovation is communicated through certain channels
over time among the members of a social system. It is
a special type of communication, in that the messages
are concerned with new ideas.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Diffusion: The process that occurs when
elements of one culture spread to another without
wholesale dislocation or migration. "The process by
which an innovation (new idea) is communicated through
certain channels over time among the members of a
social system. It is a special type of communication
concerned with spread of messages that are perceived
as new ideas. It is a kind of social change, defined
as the process by which alteration occurs in the
structure and function of a social system."
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Discontinuance: A decision to reject an
innovation after having previously adopted it.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Disenchanted Discontinuance: Is a decision to
reject an idea as a result of dissatisfaction with its
performance.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Document Perspective: When we are interested in
the use of symbols to communicate with another person,
we are taking a document perspective. In this role we
are interested in symbols as presentations, that is,
in the way that they can be used to explain things.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Domain: Any symbolic category that includes
other categories where all the members of the category
share at least one feature of meaning. All the domains
have a cover term, two or more included terms, and a
single semantic relationship.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley
Domain Analysis: A process used for finding
patterns in cover terms, included terms, and semantic
terms used by the people within the culture.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley
Economy: Enterprise, consumer, and other agents
engaged in the use, production, consumption, and trade
of resources. The behavior of this pattern is defined
by economic rules.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Economy: An Enterprise, consumer, and other
agents engaged in the use, production, consumption,
and trade of resources. Economic behavior is defined
by economic rules.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Effector: The mechanism of an agent used to
interact with and mobilize within the environment. An
agent uses effectors to interact with its environment.
For example, the HR department is an effector for the
company that performs certain actions such as: hiring
people, communicating information, producing employee
database records, counseling on health benefits, etc.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Efficacy: Defined as the degree to which an
individual fails they can control their future.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Empty Vessel Fallacy: Assuming that potential
adopters are blank slates who lack relevant experience
with which to associate the new idea.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Enterprise: An enterprise is an aggregation
pattern of organizations.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Enterprise Portal: "Enterprise Portals are
applications that enable companies to unlock
internally and externally stored information, and
provide users with a single gateway to the
personalized information needed to make informed
business decisions. They are "and amalgamation of
software applications that consolidate, manage,
analyze and distribute information across and outside
of an enterprise (including Business Intelligence,
Content Management, Data Warehouse, Data Mart, and
Data Management applications."
Discipline: Computer Science
Source: Finklestein & Aiken
Environment: The total set of conditions that
surround the individual and the organization. The
external world providing stimuli to a CAS. The stimuli
may come from undefined agents, from random
disturbances, or from non-purposive and undefined
mechanisms.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Epidemic Model of Ideas: The model of ideas
spreading like a contagious infection. (See Thought
Contagion) Revolutionary ideas spreading like an
epidemic. The revolutionary ideas are the infection or
disease. "Infectives" are individuals who are actively
winning over ("infecting") others who are susceptible
to revolutionary ideas. Counterrevolutionary tactics
aim to "contain" the infection or revolutionary ideas
and include physical curfews, restrictions on free
assembly, internal passport requirements, etc.
Discipline: Memetics
Source: Epstien, Joshua
Ethnographic Fieldwork: ..the hallmark of
cultural anthropology..the anthropologist goes to
where people live and "does fieldwork." This means
participating in activities, asking questions.eating
strange foods, learning a new language, watching
ceremonies, taking fieldnotes, washing clothes,
writing letters home, tracing out geneologies,
observing play, interviewing informants, and hundreds
of other things.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Ethnographic Focus: "a single cultural domain
or a few related domains and the relationships of such
domains to the rest of the cultural scene."
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Ethnography: The description of a culture
produced by an ethnographic record. The goal of
ethnography is "to grasp the native's point of view,
his relation to life, to realize his vision of his
world."
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Malinowski
Ethnography: ..is the work of describing a
culture. The essential core of this activity aims to
understand another way of life from the native point
of view. The goal of ethnography, as Malinowski put
it, is "to grasp the native's point of view, his
relation to life, to realize his vision of his world."
Rather than studying people, ethnography means
learning from people. Ethnography always implies a
theory of culture.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley
Ethnography: Ethnography is the study of both
explicit and tacit cultural knowledge. Ethnography is
conducted on any social situation whether it is with a
tribe in the Amazon or the workers in a corporation.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Ethnography: ..the work of describing a
culture, understanding another way of life from the
native point of view.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Ethnography, Strategic: The focusing on a
limited number of cultural domains. For example
focusing the ethnographic process on how the culture
manages its knowledge towards the fulfillment of its
goals.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Event: A set of related activities that people
carry out
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Exograms: Single entries in the ESS are called
exograms, after Lashley's (1950) term "engram," which
refers to a single entry in the biological memory
system. An exogram is simply an external memory record
of an idea. Exograms are crafted; that is, they are
symbolic inventions that have undergone a process of
iterative examination, testing, and improvement.
Discipline:
Source:
Expert: A specialist in a narrow domain area or
specific discipline.
Discipline:
Source:
Explanatory Power: The ability of a knowledge
claim to explain the existence of a thing or event.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Explicit: In the KM context, represents the
visually and verbally apparent forms of knowledge that
are shared in a culturally determined codified form.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Explicit Culture: ..makes up part of what we
know, a level of knowledge people can communicate
about with relative ease.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Exposure: The percentage of adopters in an
individual's personal network.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Exposure Distribution: A sample or population
of exposure levels for a diffusion process (exposure
levels over time).
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
External Symbolic Storage Systems (ESS): This
represents the network of physical entities such as
people, books, databases, and totem poles that are
used to store knowledge outside of an individual or
group. ESS is made up of a network of Monads and
Nodes.
Discipline:
Source:
Fad: An innovation that
represents a relatively unimportant aspect of culture,
which diffuses very rapidly, mainly for status
reasons, and then is rapidly discontinued.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Feeling: The emotions felt and expressed
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Flow: The movement of things (information,
data, knowledge, goods, services, fluids, messages,
etc.) from one agent to another through a connector.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Holland
Formal Management: In the KM context, includes
Henri Fayol's 1949 definition of 'planning,
organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling'
plus current time tested understandings of management
science.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Formal System: The organizational structure,
roles, responsibilities, job descriptions, policies,
rules, and tasks defined by the manager of the
organization.
Discipline: Management Science
Source:
Generators: Patterns of rules that generate new
patterns and building blocks.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Geodesic: The shortest path between two people.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Goal: The things people are trying to
accomplish
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Goals: A desired procedural end-point or
outcome. Each process will have a measurable goal(s)
that is (are) driven by the needs of the agents
supplying that process. Such goals need to be aligned
with the goals in parent processes. At the beginning
of each process, stakeholder agents will be identified
with measurable satisfiers (valued outputs that
satisfy the stakeholder agent). For example, the
primary stakeholder of the order fulfillment process
is the customer. The customer's satisfiers could be an
accurate delivery date, prompt service, a responsive
order specialist, or the ability to track the order,
etc. These satisfiers drive the definition of the
metrics inside the process.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Group: "A social entity capable of acting as a
whole and of expressing feelings and thoughts over and
beyond those of its members."
Discipline:
Source: Smith & Berg
Heterophily: The degree to which two or more
individuals who interact are different in certain
attitudes, beliefs, education, social status, and the
like.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Heuristic: "Any principal or device that
contributes to a reduction in the average search for a
solution."
Discipline:
Source: Newell, Shaw, and Simon
Heuristic: A method for attempting the solution
of a problem or a rule or item of information used in
such a process.
Discipline:
Source: The Compact English Dictionary
Homomorphism: A mapping of many elements in the
real world into one mental category. Used to describe
a mental model.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Homophily: Homophily is the degree to which two
or more individuals who interact are similar in
certain attributes, such as beliefs, education, social
status, and the like. In a free-choice situation, when
an individual can interact with anyone of a number of
other individuals, there is a strong tendency to
select someone who is very similar.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
How-to-Knowledge: Consists of information
necessary to use an innovation properly.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Human Capital: "The knowledge, skills, and
competencies of people in an organization. Unlike
structural capital, human capital is owned by the
individuals that have it rather than the organization.
Human capital is the renewable part of intellectual
capital."
Discipline:
Source: U. of Texas, Austin- KM Server
Ideal Class: A notion of a class that is only
an ideal of real classes. These classes do not
represent real things, but serve as contrasts for
benchmarking real things. An example is the ideal
adaptable agent.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
IEEE: Pronounced "eye-triple-E," it stands for
the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers.
The IEEE is 'the' hardware and software standards body
and the world's largest professional organization; it
also sponsors technical conferences, symposia, and
meetings across the globe and publishes nearly 25% of
the world's technical papers in electrical and
computer engineering.
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Hardwired
Implementation: Occurs when an individual (or
other decision-making unit) put an innovation into
use.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Incentives: The direct or indirect payments of
either cash or in kind that are given to an individual
or a system to encourage some overt behavioral change.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Incidental Learning: A byproduct of exposure to
the environment.
Discipline:
Source:
Included Term: The names for all the smaller
categories inside the domain. All domains have two or
more included terms. These folk terms (the actual
terms used in social situations) that belong to the
category of knowledge named by the cover term.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley
Indigenous: A state of being "born or produced
naturally in a land or region; of, pertaining to, or
intended for native; "native", "vernacular"
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: The Oxford English Dictionary
Indigenous Knowledge: Knowledge that is not
written down. It is orally transmitted within local
groups. An example of indigenous knowledge is the
knowledge shared within an organization (such as a
department within AT&T) that is not written down.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Existing
practices that are familiar to the individual or
social system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Induction: Forming a general rule from specific
examples.
Discipline:
Source:
Influence: The psychology of persuasion.
Discipline:
Source: Cialdini, Robert
Influence: ..to "sway or affect" the behavior
of others.
Discipline:
Source: Dictionary
Informal Management: In the KM context, means
the natural governance of human processes within a
collective that exist without an individual or group
controlling or monitoring them.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Informal System: The systems related to
organizational member's personal lives. Informal
systems are informal social networks that emerge
within organizations to accomplish work tasks.
Discipline: Sociology
Source:
Information: A difference in matter-energy that
affect uncertainty in a situation where a choice
exists among alternatives.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Information: ..data that is "in formation" --
that is, data that has been sorted, analyzed, and
displayed, and is communicated through spoken
language, graphics displays, or numeric tables.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source: Dixon, Nancy M.
Innovation: The recombination of conceptual and
physical materials that were previously in existence.
Discipline:
Source:
Innovation: "An invention, when applied for the
first time, is called innovation."
Discipline:
Source: Mansfield, Edwin
Innovation: The process of adopting a new
thing, idea, or behavior pattern into a culture. "An
innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is
perceived as new by an individual or other unit of
adoption.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Innovation: An innovation is an idea, practice,
or object that is perceived as new by an individual or
other unit of adoption.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Innovation: Innovation...occurs when a new idea
is adopted or rejected. (See Invention.) So invention
and innovation are two different processes, although
both deal with a new idea." (p 135) It is an
instrument or tool. The "carrying out of new
combinations, such as the introduction of a new good,
the introduction of a new method of production, the
opening of a new market, the opening of a new source
of supply, or the reorganization of any industry.."
Discipline:
Source: Schumpeter
Innovation Adoption: A decision to make full
use of an innovation as the best course of action
available.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Innovation Rejection: A decision not to adopt
an innovation.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Innovation-Decision Process: The mental process
through which an individual (or other decision-making
unit) passes from first knowledge of an innovation to
forming an attitude toward the innovation, to a
decision to adopt or reject, to implementation of the
new idea, and to confirmation of this decision.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Innovation-Evaluation Information: The
reduction of uncertainty about an innovation's
expected consequences.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Innovativeness: Innovativeness is the degree to
which an individual or other unit of adoption is
relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than the
other members of a system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Intellectual Capital: "The sum of everything
the people of the company know which gives a
competitive advantage in the market."
Discipline:
Source: Stewart, Thomas
Intellectual Capital: "Knowledge that is of
value to an organization. It is made up of human
capital, structural capital, and customer capital."
Discipline:
Source: Leif Edvinsson & Michael S. Malone
Intellectual Capital: Knowledge that has been
given a monetary value allowing it to be included in
the financial accountancy of an organization.
Discipline: Economics
Source:
Intellectual Capital: "Intellectual Capital can
be segmented into three sub-categories: Human Capital,
Structural Capital, and Customer Capital. Although
acknowledged as valuable in most organizations, these
assets are not measured and accounted for in an
organization's financial statements other than as
goodwill. Many believe these assets form the basis for
most equity valuations of an organization."
Discipline:
Source: The Delphi Group
Intellectual Capital: "Intellectual material
that has been formalized, captured and leveraged to
produce a higher-valued asset."
Discipline:
Source: Prusak, Laurence
Intellectual Capital: "Knowledge that can be
turned into value"
Discipline:
Source: Edvinsson, Leif
Intellectual Property: A knowledge claim that
is legally owned.
Discipline: Economics
Source:
Intelligence: ..intelligence is essentially
applied knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Feigenbaum, E. A.
Intentional Learning: The deliberate attempt to
learn.
Discipline:
Source:
Internal Model: A construct that is made up of
rule patterns that an agent uses to describe,
understand, and explain patterns in its environment in
order to anticipate and predict future patterns. The
agent learns to anticipate and predict better by
adding, removing, and changing these descriptive
patterns based on experience. See Mental Model.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Invention: "Invention is the process by which a
new idea is discovered or created. See Innovation
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E. M.
Knowledge: ..is defined as the
meaningful links people make in their minds between
information and its application in action in a
specific setting.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source: Dixon, Nancy M.
Knowledge: "Justified true belief"
Discipline:
Source: Nonaka & Takeuchi
Knowledge: "The capacity to act" "..knowledge
is embedded in people and knowledge occurs in the
process of social interaction."
Discipline:
Source: Sveiby, Karl-Erik
Knowledge: "The generality of any form of
knowledge always lies in the power to renegotiate the
meaning of the past and future in constructing the
meaning of present circumstances."
Discipline:
Source: Lave & Wagner
Knowledge: "A fluid mix of framed experience,
values, contextual information, and expert insight
that provides a framework for evaluating and
incorporating new experiences and information. It
originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In
organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in
documents or repositories but also in organizational
routines, processes, practices, and norms. Key
concepts of knowledge are experience, truth, judgment,
and rules of thumb."
Discipline:
Source: Thomas H. Davenport & Laurence Prusak
Knowledge: Socially created, validated and
regulated agent rules. This network has useful,
predictive, and explanatory power for people and is
held in intellectual, cultural, social,
organizational, and physical memory. Individuals,
groups, organizations and societies manage these
rules. Knowledge is validated by an agent's validation
criteria, which specifically reflects their viewpoint
(as well as that of their culture). "Stored
information which refers to important structures,
processes and functions of the system producing it..
And which therefore generates evaluative processes".
See Declarative and Procedural Knowledge.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Von Cranach
Knowledge Base: The hierarchical network of an
agent's validated rules. There are two different kinds
of validated rule networks: Explicit and Tacit.
Explicit knowledge bases are rules sets that are
identified, communicated, and usually codified for
other agents to share. Tacit knowledge bases are
unidentified, unwritten and are usually communicated
non-verbally. Tacit knowledge can also be communicated
unconsciously.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Knowledge Ecology: The entire microcosm of
interacting agents and resources in equilibrium within
a system.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Knowledge Ecology: "The component of Knowledge
Management that focuses on human factors: namely, the
study of personal work habits, values, and
organizational culture."
Discipline:
Source: The Delphi Group
Knowledge Economy: An environment where
knowledge claims either compete against each other or
unite with each other in order to procure a place in
the organizational knowledge base. The concept and
activity of treating knowledge as a product that can
be measured by the same economic model used for a
physical product, consumer satisfaction and utility.
The value of knowledge is determined by a knowledge
market and is driven by knowledge consumers. The
primary difference between a classical economic model
and a knowledge economy model is that the traditional
way of measuring scarcity of resources does not apply,
for once knowledge is produced and placed in the
market as a product, the supply is unlimited. On the
consumer side, time and money are limited, so
knowledge products have to compete with each other for
the same consumer resources.
Discipline: Economics
Source:
Knowledge Engineer: A person who communicates
with experts in order to acquire relevant knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Environment: The total set of
conditions that influence the way individuals or
organizations produce, diffuse, acquire, store, and
use knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Factory Model: A useful way to
illustrate how knowledge can be treated as a product
that can be produced, moved, inspected, rejected, and
valued, just as a widget in a factory.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Half-Life: The point where the cost
of replacing knowledge is less than keeping it.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Management: ..a cross disciplinary
practice which enables organizations to improve the
way they create, adopt, validate, diffuse, store and
use knowledge in order to attain their goals faster
and more effectively.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge Management is
the transformation of knowledge into business-and
learning the transformation of information into
knowledge."
Discipline:
Source: Bellman, Matthias
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge comes alive in
an organization when people learn to trust one another
and seek out and build upon their capabilities and
aspirations-individuality, across functions and with
other companies."
Discipline:
Source: Savage, Charles
Knowledge Management: "It is creating value
based on the intangible assets of the firm through
relationships where the creation, exchange and
harvesting of knowledge builds the individual and
organizational capabilities required to provide
superior value for customers."
Discipline:
Source: Saint, Hubert
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge Management is
the collection of processes that govern the creation,
dissemination, and utilization of knowledge."
Discipline:
Source: Newman, Brian
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge management is
about the use of computer and communication tools to
help people gather and apply their collective data,
information, knowledge and wisdom in order to make
better, quicker, wiser and more effective decisions."
Discipline:
Source: Meieran, Gene
Knowledge Management: "It's about using
information strategically to achieve one's business
objectives. Knowledge Management is the organizational
activity of creating the social environment and
technical infrastructure so that knowledge can be
accessed, shared and created."
Discipline:
Source: Logan, Robert K.
Knowledge Management: "A knowledge management
system is a virtual repository for relevant
information which is critical to tasks performed daily
by organizational knowledge workers."
Discipline:
Source: Lepeak, Stan
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge Management is
an oxymoron and could run the course of a fad.
Knowledge innovation is fundamentally sustaining a
collaborative advantage for the excellence of an
enterprise, the sustainability of a nation's economy
and the advancement of society."
Discipline:
Source: Amidon, Debra M.
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge management
initiatives help to transform an individual's tacit
knowledge and experience into explicit knowledge that
is readily accessible by others, which thereby
increases our structural capital."
Discipline:
Source: Stone, Linda
Knowledge Management: "It's about elevating
organizational conductivity to improve our capability
to engage with the outside world and our customers.
This requires creating the place, time and mood to
promote reflective work and the strategic
effectiveness of our interactions."
Discipline:
Source: Armstrong, Charles
Knowledge Management: "Its attempt to recognize
what is essentially a human asset buried in the minds
of individuals, and leverage it into an organizational
asset that can be accessed and used by a broader set
of individuals on whose decisions the firm depends."
Discipline:
Source: Prusak, Larry
Knowledge Management: "The management of the
organization towards the continuous renewal of the
organizational knowledge base. This means the creation
of supportive organizational structures, facilitation
of organizational members, putting IT-instruments with
emphasis on teamwork and the diffusion of knowledge
(as e.g. groupware) into place."
Discipline:
Source: Bertels, Thomas
Knowledge Management: "The leveraging of
collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and
innovation."
Discipline:
Source: The Delphi Group
Knowledge Management: "The modern term
knowledge worker is a misnomer. Instead we need
Thinkers, people who can perceive current limitations,
detect emerging trends, anticipate possibilities and
heuristically re-tool themselves for the opportunities
of tomorrow. Such knowledge workers would then become
appreciating assets-the reserve and source of
intellectual capital which can be deployed to create
competitive advantage."
Discipline:
Source: Eisenberg, Howard
Knowledge Management: "An audit of
"intellectual assets" that highlights unique sources,
critical functions and potential bottlenecks which
hinder knowledge flows to the point of use. It
protects intellectual assets from decay, seeks
opportunities to enhance decisions, services and
products through adding intelligence, increasing value
and providing flexibility."
Discipline:
Source: Grey, Denham
Knowledge Management: "KM is the systematic and
explicit management of policies, programmes, practices
and activities in the enterprise which are involved in
sharing, creating and applying of knowledge. The
management of knowledge aims to enhance existing
knowledge and its networking and reuse. The management
for knowledge aims to enhance new knowledge and the
ability for innovation."
Discipline:
Source: Josef Hofer-Alexis, w/ackn to P.
Seeman & K. Wiig
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge management is
the ability to link structured and unstructured
information with the changing rule by which people
apply it."
Discipline:
Source: Koulopouloas, Thomas
Knowledge Management: "It is one of the most
important factors for enterprise value, competition
and production."
Discipline:
Source: Hofer-Aleis, Josef
Knowledge Management: "The art of management is
managing knowledge. That means we do not manage people
per se, but rather the knowledge that they carry.
Leadership means creating the conditions that enable
people to produce valid knowledge and to do so in ways
that encourage personal responsibility."
Discipline:
Source: Argyris, Chris
Knowledge Management: "Focusing on determining,
directing, facilitating, and monitoring knowledge
related practices and activities required to achieve
the desired business strategies and objectives."
Discipline:
Source: Wiig, Karl
Knowledge Management: "People do not manage
knowledge; knowledge manages people."
Discipline:
Source: Toffler, Alvin
Knowledge Management: "The hybrid medium of
Internet technology facilitates information and
knowledge sharing among colleagues which enhances the
intellectual capital of the organization."
Discipline:
Source: Vieser, Peter
Knowledge Management: "Knowledge management is
the conceptualizing of an organization as an
integrated knowledge system, and the management of the
organization for effective use of that knowledge.
Where knowledge refers to human cognitive and
innovative processes and the artifacts that support
them."
Discipline:
Source: U. of Technology, Dept. of Info
Studies-Sydney AU
Knowledge Management: "It is the art of
creating value by leveraging the intangible assets. To
be able to do that, you have to be able to visualize
your organization as consisting of nothing but
knowledge and knowledge flows."
Discipline:
Source: Sveiby, Karl Erik
Knowledge Management: "A system for managing
the gathering, organizing, refining, analyzing, and
dissemination of knowledge in all its forms within an
organization. It supports organizational functions
while addressing the needs of the individual within a
purposeful context."
Discipline:
Source: Jackson, Charles
Knowledge Management: "Information or data
management with the additional practice of capturing
the tacit experience of the individual to be shored,
used and built upon by the organization leading to
increased productivity."
Discipline:
Source: -KMTool-ON-line KM Resources
Knowledge Management Landscape: A mathematical
model derived from biology that describes the dynamics
of competition between the most and the least 'fit'
knowledge. The description is based on how the
knowledge is managed.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Management Processes: Processes that
monitor, validate and change knowledge processes in
accordance to criteria based on improving knowledge
value and flow.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge Object: A well-defined set of rules
bundled with a concept.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Knowledge Processes: The set of processes
occurring in an organization that create, refine, use,
retrieve, extract and transfer knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Knowledge System: A computer system that
represents and uses knowledge to carry out its task.
Discipline: Computer Science
Source: Stefik
Learning: Learning is the detection and
correction of error. An error is any mismatch between
our intentions and what actually happens.
Discipline:
Source: Argyris
Lever Point: A set of input stimuli that
produces the greatest output effect with the least
amount of energy and cost. In studying CAS, the
primary quest is to discover lever points.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Leverage: The ability of a knowledge claim to
leverage on other knowledge within the agent to help
the agent successfully act in its environment with the
least resources.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Management: In the KM context,
means monitoring and improving knowledge by measuring
and modifying the knowledge processes and environment.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Mass Media Channels: Means of transmitting
messages involving a mass medium such as radio,
television, newspapers, and so on.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Matrix: ..bright lattices of logic unfolding
across the colorless void..
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Gibson, William
Measurement: An analysis process that consists
of the assignment of numerals to things in a manner
both determinative (consistent with regard to
numerical value and relationship) and non-degenerative
(can be manipulated with different numerals under
varying conditions). Measurements allow people to
understand a variety of relationships and validate
claims regarding those relationships.
Discipline:
Source:
Memes: A term invented by Richard Dawkins for
self-replicating ideas. (Richard Dawkins - The Selfish
Gene). Memes are "Instructions for carrying out
behavior, stored in brains (or other objects) and
passed by imitation". Susan Blackmoore, The Meme
Machine, says a meme is "An element of a culture that
may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic
means, esp. imitation. Memes can spread across
generations and across the same generation. The study
of memes helps us understand how ideas and knowledge
flow from a source and diffuse to other brains. Memes
spread because they appear to provide advantages even
when they do not, because they are easily imitated by
human brains, because they change the selective
environment to the determent of competing memes, and
so on".
Discipline: Memetics
Source:
Mental Model: A mental model is a rule system
that is internal to humans. It can also be a shared
mental model that is maintained as an emergent
property from an organization of agents.
Discipline:
Source:
Mentifacts: Mental or cognitive tools; i.e.,
knowledge conveyed via communication or through
apprenticeship and mentoring
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Metaknowledge: The knowledge about the very
nature of knowledge and knowing.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Metaknowledge Portal: A comprehensive gateway
to knowledge about knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Metalearning: The learning about the nature of
learning.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Metaportal: A portal used to manage other
portals based on metarules. See Enterprise Portal
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Metaprise: A new form of organization where the
leadership uses KM as its primary strategic
initiative.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Micro world: The modeling space for the CAS
where the boundaries and rules are defined for the CAS
being studied. The design of a micro world makes it a
'growing place' for a specific species of powerful
ideas or intellectual structures."
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source: Papert
Monads: Biological encapsulated minds in the
network that can form temporary connections in the
network, namely people. Monads can only store a small
amount of knowledge. Most of that knowledge is the
knowledge of how to interpret and decode the knowledge
in the ESS because most of the knowledge is stored in
the ESS. This knowledge of how to decode the ESS is
called metaknowledge or knowledge of how to process
knowledge.
Discipline:
Source:
Monomorphism: The degree to which an individual
acts as an opinion leader over one topic.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Morphisms: A mathematical structure used to
describe Mental Models.
Discipline:
Source:
Nodes: A node can be defined as an individual
location within a system and is represented by
physical entities such as a: written tablet, totem
pole, stop sign, book, costume, poster, legal
document, etc. Most knowledge is stored in nodes.
Discipline:
Source:
Nonlinearity: The interactions of agents that
produce aggregate behavior are nonlinear in that you
cannot derive that behavior by adding up the
individual agent behavior or interactions. The sum is
greater than the parts.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Norms: The established behavior patterns for
members of a social system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Object: The physical things that are present
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Observability: The degree to which the results
of an innovation are visible to others.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Opinion Leadership: ..is the degree to which an
individual is able to influence other individuals'
attitudes or overt behavior informally in a desired
way with relative frequency.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Optional Innovation-Decisions: Choices made by
an individual independent of the decisions of other
members of the system to adopt or reject an
innovation.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Organization: Groups and teams with a common
identity unified to achieve a common goal. "A stable
system of individuals who work together to achieve
common goals through a hierarchy of ranks and division
of labor."
Discipline:
Source: Rogers & Agarwala-Rogers
Organization: Teams with a common identity with
other groups seeking to achieve a common goal form
organizational aggregation patterns.
Discipline:
Source:
Organization: "All organizations are in
important aspects social networks and need to be
addressed and analyzed as such." See Social Networks.
Discipline:
Source: Nohria & Eccles
Organization: Any pattern of interacting agents
with a common rule set.
Discipline:
Source:
Organizational Memory: The routines that an
organization remembers. Organizations remember by
doing.
Discipline: Management Science
Source: Nelson and Winter
Over adoption: Is the adoption an innovation by
an individual which experts feel that he or she should
reject.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Paradigm: Any given field of scientific
research is launched by a major breakthrough or
reconceptualization, called a revolutionary paradigm
by Kuhn (1970)..
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Pattern: A matrix or model that is stable and
repeatable. "A pattern is something that is capable of
being copied where the copies are similar to the
original" (Grenander 1996). In a CAS, a stable
structure emerging from interacting agents. An
arrangement or order of things or activity in an
abstract sense; an order or form discernable in
things, actions, ideas, situations, etc.
Discipline:
Source: The Compact Oxford Dictionary
Physical Symbol System: .. A machine such as a
computer that operates on symbol structures.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Physical Symbol System Hypothesis: A physical
symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means
for general intelligent action.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Polymorphism: The degree to which an individual
acts as an opinion leader over more than one topic.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Predictive Power: The ability of a knowledge
claim to accurately determine events of the future.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Prevalence: The proportion of adopters in a
system.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Preventive Innovation: A new idea an individual
adopts in order to avoid the possible occurrence of
some unwanted event in the future.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Principles-Knowledge: Consists of information
dealing with the functioning principles underlying how
the innovation works.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Procedural Knowledge: The knowledge of
"Knowing-How" or knowledge that is in the form of
procedural rules. This is the most fundamental form of
knowledge.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source: Ryle
Process: A set of sequential tasks performed by
agents in order to fulfill a specific, measurable
goal. Processes are value streams in that they are
oriented toward producing, and do produce, value for
the enterprise, and for the agents who use the
process.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Process Research: A type of data gathering and
analysis that seeks to determine the time-ordered
sequence of a set of events.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Processes and Metrics: Metrics are the
attributes providing more or less precise measurable
values of accuracy that are applied to the agents and
mechanisms of a given system. For the model to be
meaningful to business analysts, the process flow will
be organized into a hierarchy of processes with
proposed process owners and a process metrics. For
example, the Order Creation Process might have an
Order Manager as the process owner and the metric
might consist of time to create the order, customer
satisfaction, time to process the order, etc.
Discipline:
Source:
Rate of Adoption: ..is the
relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by
members of a social system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Rationality: The use of the most effective
means to reach a given goal.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Real Time: No lag time. No processing time. The
actual amount of time it takes you to open Merriam
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and read the following
definition: "the actual time during which something
takes place." Fred Hapgood on real time: "Every form
of human communication, from body language to improv,
can be sorted into categories of real time or
store-and-forward. In real time, both ends of the
communication are chronologically tuned, meshed, and
running on the same clock. It's messy, domestic,
impulsive, subliminal, warm, fast, and emotional; it's
the medium of gossip, anger, and intimacy."
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Wired
Registration: .. Which is about recognizing and
identifying markings. ..different accounts of what
symbols are, are called different registrations of the
figure.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Reifies: When an observer picks some set of
perceived objects in a situation and makes symbols for
them, we say that he reifies them.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Re-Invention: The degree to which an innovation
is changed or modified by a user in the process of its
adoption and implementation. Some researchers measure
re-invention as the degree to which an individual's
use of a new idea departs from the mainline version of
the innovation that was originally promoted by a
change agency.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, Eveland & others
Relative Advantage: ..is the degree to which an
innovation is perceived as being better than the idea
it supersedes. The degree of relative advantage is
often expressed as economic profitability, social
prestige, or other benefits.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Relative Advantage: The degree to which an
innovation is perceived as being better than the idea
it supercedes.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Replacement Discontinuance: A decision to
reject an idea in order to adopt a better idea that
supercedes it.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Resource: A resource is information, energy, or
matter used, consumed, or created by an agent.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Routine: All regular and predictable behavioral
patterns of firms. (Nelson & Winter, 1982) A
repetitive pattern of activity in an entire
organization, to an individual skill, or, as an
adjective, to the smooth uneventful effectiveness of
such an organizational or individual performance.
Discipline: Management Science
Source: Nelson & Winter
Rules: The mechanism that governs an agent in
how to handle stimulus from its environment and
respond to it. Each agent requires rules (or a set of
procedures) to guide its action or effect behavior.
The sum of an agent's rules is the knowledge base of
that agent. An agent adapts to its environment by
changing its rules. For the study of CAS, we sill use
rules in the form of IF THEN statements.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Saturation: All potential adopters have
adopted.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Science: A method of creating knowledge about
the world by applying the principles of the scientific
method, which includes making empirical observations,
proposing hypotheses to explain those observations,
and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable
ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge
that results from scientific study.
Discipline:
Source:
Script: "A structure that describes appropriate
sequences of events in a particular context or a
predetermined stereotyped sequence of actions that
defines a well-known situation."
Discipline:
Source: Schank & Abelson
Selfish Gene, The: The first book in Richard
Dawkins's influential trilogy on evolution. This
contentious 1976 work argued that living beings are
but vehicles for genes bent on replication. Dawkins is
probably cited more often, though, for his coinage,
the word meme- a self replicating idea that functions
like a gene.
Discipline: Memetics
Source: Wired
Semantic Relationship: The linking together of
two categories based on their particular relationship.
In a domain the semantic relationship links a cover
term to all the included terms in its set. For
example, we can define an oak by saying, "An oak is a
kind of tree." (Spradley, 1979: 101) This concept is
important in the mapping out (or modeling) of the
relationship dynamics and diversity of meaning within
social networks.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Semantics: The term semantics is used to
describe both natural language and computer languages.
A semantics is an approach for assigning meanings to
symbols and expressions.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Skills: A capacity for a smooth sequence of
coordinated behavior that is ordinarily effective
relative to its objectives, given the context in which
it normally occurs.
Discipline:
Source: Nelson & Winter
Social Intelligence: The knowledge and images
that originate in an individual's brain and that are
transferred by speech to others. 'Writing to the
brains of others'.
Discipline:
Source:
Social System: Is a set of interrelated units
that are engaged in joint problem-solving to
accomplish a common goal.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Social System Structure: The patterned
arrangements of the units in a system, which gives
stability and regularity to individual behavior in a
system.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Socialization: The process by which a person
acquires the technical skills of his or her society,
the knowledge of the kinds of behavior that are
understood and acceptable in that society, and the
attitudes and values that make conformity with social
rules personally meaningful, even gratifying; also
termed enculturation.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Sociofacts: Social tools; knowledge conveyed
through social behavior and norms.
Discipline:
Source:
Source: Is an individual or an institution that
originates a message.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Space: The physical place or places
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Structural Equivalence: The degree individuals
have similar patterns of communication with others in
the community (status similarity)
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Structural Question: ..makes use of the
semantic relationship of a domain with the cover term.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Substitutive Innovation: The creation of new
products, technologies, processes or procedures to
take place of, or eliminate old ones.
Discipline:
Source: Toffler
Supply-Chain: A business management term for
describing how companies supply a production line.
Discipline: Management Science
Source:
Symbol: A written or printed mark that stands
for or represents something. A symbol may represent an
object, a quality, a process, or a quantity as in
music, mathematics, or chemistry. Symbols are
fundamental to creating and using computational
models.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Symbol Structures: Symbols arranged into larger
structures or simply expressions. In the context of
knowledge systems, we usually mean words, numbers, and
graphics.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Systems Thinking: A method of formal analysis
in which the object of study is viewed as comprising
distinct analytical sub-units. Thus in KM, it
comprises a form of explanation in which a group,
organization, society or culture is seen through the
interaction an interdependence of its component parts;
these are referred to as system parameters, and may
include such things as population size, work
locations, production, technology etc.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Tacit: In the KM context, represents the
unspoken, non-codified sum of all the know-how,
skills, and experience of individuals.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Tacit Culture: ..outside of our awareness..
makes up part of what we know, a level of knowledge
people can't communicate about with relative ease.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Tacit Knowledge: The knowledge that represents
the unspoken, non-codified sum of all the know-how,
skills, and experience of individuals. What you know
that escapes standard comprehension and communicative
transfer. It is the primary source of knowledge in the
knowledge production process. It can be codified and
formed into new knowledge through careful observation,
questioning, and validation processes, such as
mentoring and apprenticeship.
Discipline:
Source:
Tag: A tag is an attribute of an agent or a
mechanism, that facilitates the formation of
aggregates by providing a condition that distinguishes
one agent from others like it, thus enabling selective
interaction with that agent, while ignoring others.
(Holland, 1995) A tag broadcasts the identity of one
agent to another so the other agent can detect and
identify it. For example, advertisement, logo, legal
warning, name, flag, header on Internet message, etc.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Tagging: Tagging is a mechanism that
consistently facilitates the formation of an
aggregation by producing tags.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Task: The pattern of agents interacting with
each other in the execution of a set of procedures
that transforms input into positively or negatively
valued putout in order to fulfill a specific,
measurable goal-state.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Taxonomy: A set of categories organized on the
basis of a single semantic relationship.
Discipline: Anthropology
Source:
Team: Team agents are attracted to each other
by a common "team oriented" tag. A set of team tags
can be the identity of the team, the goal, the leader,
a set of tasks, etc. The team shares a common
knowledge base.
Discipline: Complex Adaptive Systems
Source:
Technology: The application of knowledge to
produce material and conceptual objects.
Discipline:
Source:
Technology: "Both physical artifacts themselves
and the person-embodied knowledge to develop, operate
and improve them."
Discipline:
Source: Pavitt
Technology: A design for instrumental action
that reduces uncertainty in the cause-effect
relationship involved in achieving a desired outcome.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Technology: "Technology is a design for
instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in
the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a
desired outcome. This definition implies some need or
problem that a tool can help solve. The tool has a
material aspect (the equipment, products, etc.) and a
software aspect, consisting of knowledge, skills,
procedures, and/or principles that are an information
base for the tool. ..Some technologies are almost
purely software in nature."
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers
Technology Clusters: Consists of one or more
distinguishable elements of technology that are
perceived as being interrelated.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Technology Hardware: Consists of the tool that
embodies the technology as a material or physical
object.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Technology Software: Consists of the knowledge
base for the tool.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Thought Contagion Theory: The science of
self-replicating and spreading beliefs. Thought
contagion is the belief that programs do their own
spreading. These beliefs spread across small groups,
companies, and whole societies.
Discipline: Memetics
Source:
Threshold: The proportion of adopters in an
individual's personal network necessary for an
individual to adopt. In other words, a threshold is
the exposure level at the time of adoption.
Discipline: Innovation Management
Source: Valente, T. W.
Time: The sequencing that takes place over time
Discipline: Anthropology
Source: Spradley, J. P.
Trait: A unit of culture that can be
transmitted from one culture to another.
Discipline:
Source:
Transformation: The action of transforming or
fact of being transformed. The action of changing in
form, shape or appearance; metamorphosis.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source: The Oxford English Dictionary
Trialability: The degree to which an innovation
may be experimented with on a limited basis.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
UML: Unified Modeling Language is a modeling
language used for object-oriented software development
developed by the Object Management Group.
Discipline: Computer Science
Source:
Universe of Discourse: Constants are used to
name elements on a special set known as the universe
of discourse. This set includes terms for all of the
things we are talking and reasoning about.
Discipline: Knowledge Engineering
Source: Stefik, Mark
Unstructured Knowledge: Procedural and
declarative knowledge that is expressed in
communication but lost due to lack of documentation or
ease of accessibility.
Discipline: Knowledge Management
Source:
Variance Research: A type of data gathering and
analysis that consists of determining the co variances
among a set of variables but not their time order.
Discipline: Communications
Source: Rogers, E.M.
Wisdom: The application of knowledge to
knowledge.
Discipline:
Source:
Workflow: The process of a worker. Trajectory
taken by knowledge as it diffuses throughout the work
activities of an organization. Where the procedural
knowledge and rules of work can be located.
Discipline: Sociology
Source:
Xerox PARC: Founded in Palo Alto, California,
in 1970, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center has helped
develop GUI's, object-oriented programming language,
Ethernet LANs, and laser printers, in addition to
specific technologies for Xerox copiers and printers -
not to mention the Alto. Xerox PARC's motto: "The
easiest way to predict the future is to invent it."
Discipline: Multiple
Source: Wired
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