Data is more than knowledge: implications of the reversed knowledge hierarchy for knowledge management and organizational memory In knowledge management literature it is often pointed out that it is important to distinguish between data, information and knowledge. The generally accepted view sees data as simple facts that become information as data is combined into meaningful structures, which subsequently become knowledge as meaningful information is put into a context and when it can be used to make predictions. This view sees data as a prerequisite for information, and information as a prerequisite for knowledge. In this paper, I will explore the conceptual hierarchy of data, information and knowledge, showing that data emerges only after we have information, and that information emerges only after we already have knowledge. The reversed hierarchy of knowledge is shown to lead to a different approach in developing information systems that support knowledge management and organizational memory. It is also argued that this difference may have major implications for organizational flexibility and renewal. 2

This work analyzes the central role of interpretation in non-routine design. Based on this analysis, a theory of computer support for interpretation in cooperative design is constructed. The theory is grounded in studies of design and interpretation. It is illustrated by mechanisms provided by a software substrate for computer-based design environments, applied to a sample task of lunar habitat design. Computer support of

... This paper makes two claims: first, psychologism is true, and thus a natural behaviorist analysis of intelligence that is incompatible with psychologism is false. Second, the standard arguments against behaviorism are inadequate to defeat this natural behaviorist analysis of intelligence or to establish psychologism. While psychologism is of course anathema to behaviorists, it also seems wrong-headed to many philosophers who would not classify themselves as behaviorists. For example, Michael Dummett says: If a Martian could learn to speak a human language, or a robot be devised to behave in just the ways that are essential to a language speaker, an implicit knowledge of the correct theory of meaning for the language could be attributed to the Martian or the robot with as much right as to a human speaker, even though their internal mechanisms were entirely different. (Dummett, 1976) Dummett's view seems to be that what is relevant to the possession of a certain mental state is a matter of actual and potential behavior, and that internal processing is not relevant except to the extent that internal processing affects actual and potential behavior. I think that this Dummettian claim contains an important grain of truth, a grain that many philosophers wrongly take to be incompatible with psychologism. This grain of truth can be elucidated as follows. Suppose we meet Martians, and find them to be behaviorally indistinguishable from humans. We learn their languages and they learn ours, and we develop deep commercial and cultural relations with them. We contribute to their journals and enjoy their movies, and vice versa. Then Martian and human psychologists compare notes, only to find that in underlying psychological mechanisms the Martians are very different from us. The M...

This study explores learning and instruction within a technology-rich, collaborative, participatory learning environment by tracking the emergence of shared understanding and products through student and teacher practices. The focus is not only on the interactions among students or between students and teachers, but on student–resource interactions, especially student–technology interactions. In a 1-week camp, students worked in activity groups with 3-dimensional modeling software to develop virtual worlds. Holistic accounts of 2 activity groups in the camp are presented, emphasizing the focus of the activity, group dynamics including the role of the teacher, and the historical development of learner practices. Then, a network methodology is used to trace the history of interactions accounting for the emergence, evolution, and diffusion of learner practices. The findings suggest that becoming knowledgeably skillful with respect to a particular practice or concept is a multigenerational process, evolving in terms of contextual demands and available resources. The tracings further reveal the reciprocal nature of learning and doing, with building conceptual understanding occurring in relation to local conditions and practices, and doing practices being a part of student learning.

In this article I elaborate and codify the extended case method, which deploys participant observation to locate everyday life in its extralocal and historical context. The extended case method emulates a reflexive model of science that takes as its premise the intersubjectivity of scientist and subject of study. Reflexive science valorizes intervention, process, structuration, and theory reconstruction. It is the Siamese twin of positive science that proscribes reactivity, but upholds reliability, replicability, and representativeness. Positive science, exemplified by survey research, works on the principle of the separation between scientists and the subjects they examine. Positive science is limited by “context effects ” (interview, respondent, field, and situational effects) while reflexive science is limited by “power effects ” (domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization). The article concludes by considering the implications of having two models of science rather than one, both of which are necessarily flawed. Throughout I use a study of postcolonialism to illustrate both the virtues and the shortcomings of the extended case method. Methodology can only bring us reflective understanding of the means which have demonstrated their value in practice by raising them to the level of explicit consciousness; it is no more the precondition of fruitful intellectual work than the knowledge of anatomy is the precondition of “correct ” walking. Max Weber—The Methodology of the Social Sciences True, anatomical knowledge is not usually a precondition for “correct ” walking. But when the ground beneath our feet is always shaking, we need a crutch. As social scientists we are thrown off balance by our presence in the world we study, by absorption in the society we observe, by dwelling alongside those we make “other. ” Beyond individual involvement is the broader ethnographic predicament—producing theories, concepts, and facts that destabilize the world we seek to comprehend. So, we desperately need methodology to keep us erect, while we navigate a terrain that moves and shifts even as we attempt to traverse it.

Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi-pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the “traditional ” symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recent situated cognition and active vision approaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non-discursiveness, creativity, and seeing as) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non-discursive and relates it closely to seeing as. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought.

et al., is the basis of much of the current research in design methodology and CAD. 1 Mitchell gives an elegant description of the model. 2 He claims that design can be described in words that make up a critical language and such word descriptions can be formalized using the notation of first-order predicate calculus. Design worlds, he says, consist of graphic tokens which, like words, can be manipulated according to certain grammatical rules. 1 See George Stiny, Introduction to Shape and Shape Grammars, Environment and Planning B, 7 (1980): 342-351; William J. Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and Cognition, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1990; H. Yoshikawa, General Design Theory and a CAD System, in T. Sata and E. Warman (eds), Man-Machine Communications in CAD/CAM, Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1981; R.D. Coyne, M.A. Rosenman, A.D. Radford, M. B

In this report of our research on a computer-based three-dimensional (3-D) modeling course for learning astronomy, we use the central tenets of activity theory to analyze participation by undergraduate students and instructors, illuminating the instances of activity that characterized course dynamics. Specifically, we focus on the relations of participant (student) and object (3-D models and astronomy understandings) and how, in our course, object transformations leading to scientific understandings are mediated by tools (both technological and human), the overall classroom microculture (emergent norms), division of labor (group dynamics and student--instructor roles), and rules (informal, formal, and technical). Through analysis of the data, we interpreted and then focused on two systemic tensions MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY, 9(2), 76--107 Copyright 2002, Regents of the University of California on behalf of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition Requests for reprints should be sent to Sasha A. Barab, Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University, Room 2232, 201 N. Rose Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: sbarab@indiana.edu as illuminative of classroom activity. With respect to the first systemic tension, we examined the interplay between learning astronomy and building 3-D models. Results suggested that instead of detracting from the emergence of an activity system that supported learning astronomy, model-building actions frequently coevolved with (were the same as) astronomy-learning actions. With respect to the second tension, we examined the interplay between prespecified, teacher-directed instruction versus emergent, student-directed learning. Our results indicated that it was rarely teacher-imposed nor student-initiated...

The science of the mind, and of consciousness in particular, needs to carefully consider people's common-sense views of the mind, not just what the mind really is. Such views are themselves an aspect of the nature of (conscious) mind, and therefore part of the object of study for a science of mind. Also, since the common-sense views allow broadly successful social interaction, it is reasonable to look to the common-sense views for some rough guidance as to the real nature of the mind. On the other hand, to the extent that common-sense views are inaccurate, and perhaps even in gross conflict with the true nature of the mind, one interesting scientific question is: why do we hold such views, given our access to our own minds? Why should introspection be limited in a way that allows inaccurate views to hold sway? Now, common-sense views of the mind are revealed in natural language discourse that describes mental states, and such descriptions are largely metaphorical. The metaphors are use...

The constructivist pedagogies that are increasingly part of teacher education course work and expectations emerge from an intellectual world where knowledge is seen as created rather than received, mediated by discourse rather than transferred by teacher talk, explored and transformed rather than remembered as a uniform set of positivistic ideas. Increasingly, teacher educators ask new teachers to learn how to elicit and then use students' existing ideas as a basis for helping them construct new, more reasoned, more accurate or more disciplined understandings. While the role a teacher plays in developing or shaping students' thinking via constructivist pedagogies is obvious to teacher educators who advocate such strategies, the case of Taylor, a prospective English teacher, suggests that the role a teacher plays when using these strategies may not be at all clear to prospective teachers. Rather than understanding constructivist pedagogies as techniques for thinking with learners, for teaching them, Tayor saw these strategies as ends in themselves. Faced with models of constructivist pedagogies, Taylor concluded that the teacher's role ends when she has activated learners, invited them to talk, successfully engaged their participation. This article describes how she reached this conclusion and explores the ways in which constructivist pedagogies can lead prospective teachers to project a thin vision of their role as a teacher. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.