Knowledge organization system

Definition

A generic term used for structured knowledge models such as authority files, glossaries, thesauri, taxonomies, ontologies etc.

Description

The emphasis on developing comprehensive knowledge organization systems (KOSs) can be seen in the works of our earliest philosophers, many of whom continue to influence our view of the world. For example, Aristotle's effort to categorize knowledge into groups (such as physics, politics, or psychology) is reflected in our language, our education and our science.

Knowledge organization systems are deceptively simple and complicated at the same time.

They are simple because they are absolutely basic to human consciousness, so everybody manipulate and creates them with great ease. Our world is populated with categories of family, friends, social groups, objects, concepts, activities, feelings, places and many other things.

At the same time they are complicated because we use them for the most part unreflectively - they are simply part of our mental and social background - and we use categories in a huge variety of ways, often in contradictory and inconsistent ways.

The main point is that knowledge organization is not simply about locating and retrieving relevant knowledge, knowledge organization is a fundamental precondition for managing knowledge effectively.

The concept 'knowledge organization' means in general the rules or conventions of order or arrangement of information and knowledge.

The term knowledge organization systems is intended to encompass all types of schemes for organizing information and promoting knowledge management. Knowledge organization systems include classification and categorization schemes that organize materials at a general level, subject headings that provide more detailed access, and authority files that control variant versions of key information such as geographic and personal names. Knowledge organization systems also include highly structured vocabularies, such as thesauri, and less traditional schemes, such as semantic networks and ontologies. Because knowledge organization systems are mechanisms for organizing information, they are at the heart of every information system and archive.

Knowledge organization systems are used to organise materials for the purpose of retrieval and management an information collection. All information systems use one or more KOS. Just as in a physical library, the KOS in an information system provides an overview of the content of the collection and supports retrieval. The scheme may be a traditional KOS relevant to the scope of the material and the expected audience for the digital information system (such as the INIS Thesaurus, the Dewey Decimal System or the INSPEC Thesaurus), a commercially developed scheme such as Yahoo or Excite categories, or a locally developed scheme for a corporate intranet.

Main types of Knowledge organisation systems

There is no single knowledge classification scheme on which everyone agrees.　 Culture may constrain the knowledge classification scheme so that what is meaningful to one culture is not necessarily meaningful to another. Therefore, we live in a world of multiple, variant ways of organizing knowledge.

All knowledge organization systems can be grouped into three clusters:

term lists

classifications and categories (lists with hierarchy)

relationship lists (lists with hierarchy and semantic links)

In many publications a Knowledge Organization System is a term which refers to a (Document- and Content-) management system which is based on a well structured taxonomy or ontology. In accordance to the modern interpretations in context of linked data taxonomies and ontologies themselves are also often referred as knowledge organization systems.