Week 11 - Building Knowledge 15/10/2007

This week's topic was Building Knowledge. The key concepts in today's lecture included of data, information and knowledge. I found this lecture hard to understand and I feel that this might be the hardest topics we've covered so far in the unit, therefore everything had to be clearly defined by our lecturer. Knowing how to define data, information and knowledge is important, as they might be questions that may appear in the exam.

Data: A fact or proposition

Information: A collection of facts or data that relate to each other.

Knowledge: The range of what has/had been discovered and/or learnt.

The next part of the lecture focused on how we can apply data, information and knowledge to our studies. Data and information applies to research in our studies. Statistical data can be used to backing up statements, opinions and ideas related to a particular topic. Researching information can also provide us with background information on a topic. Data is important also when forming conclusions.Knowledge is required when forming your own opinions, judgements and conclusions. Without prior knowledge, an individual cannot form an opinion, judgements or conclusion on a researched topic.

Workshop Activities:

As mentioned earlier above in the lecture summary, Data , Information and Knowledge can be defined as :

Data : A fact or proposition

Information: A collection of facts or data that relate to each other.

Knowledge : The range of what has/had been discovered and/or learnt.


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Data, information, knowledge:

Data, Information and Knowledge is the key to study success. It is important to know how to collect reliable data on a given topic so that you can back up your ideas, and make statements or opinions about those topics. With data comes information and having credible information sources allows you to back up your ideas, opinions and judgements and prove that you have deeply researched on your topic. The result from doing the above well, is Knowledge which is the result of good data and information.


Readings:

http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm

This reading was not in my reach of understanding. I found this reading extremely uncomfortbable to understand and follow what was happening and being said, however it might have some relevance to information and this week's topic.

http://camellia.shc.edu/literacy/index.html


This was a good reading, because it helped me into some ideas on how to achieve the best out of information literacy. Although I found this site similar to the lecture content, it was still a good reading with key points to note for questions that might come up in the exam regarding this topic.