Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
4.2.1
Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is a skill or understanding that can be demonstrated but cannot be
represented by, say, a list of rules or instructions. Typical examples of tacit knowledge
are:
•
Riding a bike
•
Playing the piano
•
Laboratory skills
•
Problem solving (e.g. factors of a simple polynomial through inspection).
Tacit knowledge may tentatively be divided into three distinct types:
Motor skill
or kinaesthetic knowledge (the ability to interact physically with the
world)
Perceptual knowledge
(the ability to observe the world in an active sense)
Gestalt
(the ability to recognise patterns or 'situations' in the world).
Though many of these can be transferred (e.g. by instruction), tacit knowledge
is personal in that its acquisition requires first-hand experience of the situations in
which it is applied (Polanyi
1958
). Studies of scientific practice have also emphasised
the importance of personal knowledge (Collins
1975
,
1985
; Gooding
1990b
,
c
,
1992
,
1993a
,
b
; Shapin
1989
). Tacit knowledge remains in the world of being human.
4.2.2
Declarative Knowledge
Declarative knowledge is the main result of the knowledge elicitation processes; it is
a knowledge schema. Much of a knowledge engineer or analyst's work is concerned
with identifying an appropriate taxonomy (often referred to within artificial intelli-
gence as the 'ontology') of an expert's domain. This involves determining a set of
distinctions made about the world, hypotheses or beliefs about that world, and facts
taken to be 'True' of that world. The roles of knowledge are:
4.2.2.1
Facts
Facts are represented as propositions that ascribe specific properties to particular
objects (or events). The ascription is based on observation. Thus, a fact is an instance
of a concept and a concept is a generalisation from specific set of instances. Con-
cepts can be used to imply new facts or to confirm known facts.
Facts
are 'known'
observations, deductions or beliefs of or about the world.
