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What
is Information Science? What are its boundaries, and its basic
building blocks?
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Reflections
Hanne
Albrechtsen  Anthony Debons Nicolae
Dragulanescu H.M. Gladney Glynn Harmon
Paul
Sturges |
Dr. Hanne Albrechtsen, Institute of Knowledge
Sharing, Denmark
Congratulations
on your successful finalisation of the knowledge map study! I look
forward to disseminating the results of your study in the classes I
teach, and especially the classes I am going to teach from September
this year, in connection with a new curriculum in Information
Management, at the Copenhagen Business School. I think that your study
will be most useful for the faculty as well, in order to define a
research framework for their field. [March
11, 2007]
Jacek
Borysowski, Poland
.
It
was a great pleasure to read your articles, and
let me express my admiration for the way of explaining the
philosophical
problems. Following Einstein’s position that a scientist who
can not explain
his idea to a child does not worth the attention, you passed
this test. My
12 years old son did not have any problems to understand your point of
view
(which does not mean that he accepts it).
Although
defining "data",
"information", and "knowledge" gave me no base for doubts,
the agnostic point of view at the existence of world of
knowledge is
something that I can not agree with. The question about the
way of
existence of knowledge (i.e. objective or subjective) seems to
be
crucial as the consequences of the answer can lead us to
different
definitions of information science. Following a subjective, or
‘a bucket’
theory of human knowledge would limit IS to neurosciences. As a fan of
K.R.
Popper I have no choice but to insist on independence of 3rd
World
from human mind, which makes IS independent and mathematical
science.
Regarding
your example of the Jones family, the scientist
and poet, I think that there is a big difference between a lost poem
and a lost
discovery. In case of death of both members of the family, a scientific
discovery can be made once again by others only on the base of Mrs.
Jones diary
with a small note about it – as it happened many times in the
history of
mathematics. What is more, majority of the scientists would agree that
this is
EXACTLY the discovery which Mrs. Jones made, even if she can not
confirm it.
This observation can lead us to the assumption that mathematical
theorem of Mrs.
Jones exists independently from her, or is, at least, independently
verified.
Recovery
of Mr. Jones' poem is not possible without a
creator even if one has information that the poem was about the gentle
wind in
his wife’s hair. A poem is connected to the mind of the
author and although it
can have its influence on the world of knowledge, it cannot be the
object of
observation if we want to make IS a branch of human activity based on
scientific methods...
In
the same article you defined universal knowledge
as "recorded, documented, or physically expressed subjective
knowledge”. Do
you mean that logarithm charts or statistical data created by computers
and
never read by any human being are excluded from knowledge? [Yes. These are mere
sets of characters; not knowledge. Chaim Zins]
The
question whether Information Science should focus
on psychological aspects of human activities or on their objective
results is
still open. Still I think that the world of universal knowledge can
bring us
better results.
Before
expressing my admiration to the knowledge map
let me tell you about some researches that I made. A few years ago I
divide all
branches of science into three groups following Popper's division of
the world.
Geography, physics... formed group 1, psychology, psychiatry...- group
2,
mathematic, logic, linguistic...- group 3.
I
was interested to present the condition of IS so I
analyzed the index of LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts)
to find
the relation between IS and other branches of science. The results were
really
astonishing. I
wonder if this method could be applied to the
Knowledge Map of Information Science. It seems interesting and useful
to find
out how many IS scientists explore FOUNDATION problems, how many
explore USER
oriented problems, and the like. Historical comparison can show the
trends in
development of IS.
The
map itself is really useful in clearing up the idea of information
science for
me and my students".
[September
6, 2007]
Prof.
Anthony Debons,
University of Pittsburgh, USA
The JASIS paper was superb !! I have included the
conclusions from your study in the forthcoming text "Information Science 101".
[March 3, 2007]
Prof.
Nicolae Dragulanescu, University
Polytechnics of Bucharest, Romania
I
visited all the pages in your website and read all your papers related
to your mapping study, "Knowledge Map of
Information Science".
You
did a very hard and smart work !!! Congratulations !!!
I recommend that you'll continue to work on
the theoretical foundations of Information Science on
an international basis. I would be delighted to translate your
website pages
to Romanian and French.
I
am delighted to inform you that my book entitled Information Science and Technology - Genesis
and Evolution was recently published by Denbridge Press, New
York.
Chaim Zins:
Thanks Nicolae, for your great idea. I will be honored If this website
will be translated to Romanian and French. [March 9, 2007]
Dr. Henry M. Gladney,
HMG Consulting
In
the Digital Document Quarterly (DDQ), Voulum 6,
Number 2 (July 2007) Dr. Gladney published a commentary
on this study and on other academic studies and
projects.
Prof.
Glynn Harmon,
University of Texas at Austin, USA
You
did a beautiful job posting it all in a nice accessible way for all to
see, and I am sure that the collective set will be a monumental work.
[March 14, 2007]
Prof.
Lena Vania Pinheiro, Brazilian Institute
for Information in Science and Technology, Brazil
Prof. Paul Sturges, Loughborough University,
UK
I
must say that this has been an impressive project and you have done
very well to involve such a large and significant group. As you know,
my own participation was minimal, but that doesn't mean I don't admire
what you have done. [March
9, 2007]
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Data,
Information, Knowledge
G.
Athithan
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Dr. G. Athithan,
Head, Information Sciences Division, Center for Artificial Intelligence
and Robotics, Bangalore, India
I find the variety of views on Data,
Information, and Knowledge interesting. I am a research
scientist in a Govt. funded laboratory in Bangalore India and I have
been reflecting on this topic too over the last ten years. My views
on data, information, and knowledge are as follows.
Data are raw
numerical entities or values. They can be qualitative or logical as
well. Examples are 36.4, 9.78, High, False etc. These are of course
scalar in form. Data may also be organized in the form of a vector,
matrix, etc.
Information. When we
tag or label a given piece of data, we get
information. Connected pieces of labeled data are also
information. Some examples are the following.
i) Temperature of the room is 36.4 Deg. C.
ii) The risk is high and returns are
low.
iii) '20 June 2006 is a holiday' is false.
iv) The state of the system is S, a vector
Knowledge.
Information that is constant or invariant with respect to space, time,
or any other extensible parameter becomes knowledge.
Generalization of information and causally connected
information also become knowledge. The following examples are
illustrative.
i)
Summer temperatures in Bangalore India are always <
40 Deg. C.
ii) Sundays are Government holidays.
iii) Sun rises in the east
iv) The density of gold is 13.6 gm/cc
v) If the temperature of water is 110 Deg. C, it
is boiling.
All the three
may have hierarchies or multiple layers of their own. One may
derive or relate these entities at one level to entities in lower
or higher levels. Thus one can talk about higher or lower
level information; similarly higher or lower level knowledge.
I feel that the
above outlook on data, information, and knowledge is somewhat practical
and can be applied concretely. [March 3, 2007]
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Knowledge
Science
Alireza
Noruzi |
Alireza
Noruzi, the University of Tehran, Dep. of
LIS, Iran
I read
your articles about "Knowledge Science".
They are really interesting and useful. I'm talking about your
suggestion to change the name of "Information Science" to
"Knowledge Science", which is rational. But we have the same problem in
our country and since 1970 Dr. Hooshang Ebrami, suggested to chose "Knowledge
Science" for "Library & Information Science". He
even published a book titled "Introduction to Knowledge
Science"
«
شناختی از دانش شناسی »
This
book is one of the classical LIS books in our field and it was
reprinted several times. Unfortunately, the book is in Persian
and some years after the Iranian Revolution, Dr. Ebrami went to the
USA. But his idea was not accepted and nobody wants to write about
this subject. Finally, he died in the USA and anything
finished.
Now, I, as an information professional, try to quicken his Idea therein
into active life expression. This is the reason for creating a
weblog entitled "Knowledge Science" (دانش شناسی) at: www.nouruzi.blogfa.com I
write about KS, IS, Scientometrics, Bibliometrics, Data, Info, Science
& Knowledge. I presented some of your articles there.
Moreover,
last year one of LIS departments established a Persian journal called
"Journal of Knowledge Science". [March 2, 2007]
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10 Pillars of Knowledge: Map
of Human Knowledge
Library
Classifications |
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November
2013 ©
Copyright Dr.
Chaim
Zins, Jerusalem, 2002-2013. All rights reserved.
Chaim
Zins,
Knowledge Mapping Research, 26 Hahaganah St. Jerusalem, 97852 tel:
972-2-5816705 chaim.zins@gmail.com |
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