Definition
The term knowledge organization has at least two meanings depending on the concept of knowledge. If you concentrate on personal knowledge to which only the individual has direct access, knowledge organization indicates a mental and therefore internal process of structuring or transforming (e.g., visualizing) knowledge. If you concentrate on public knowledge (synonym: information) which is materialized in documents (text, image, audio, video) so that principally all persons can access it, knowledge organization refers to the technical and external processes of describing and classifying information. A third definition takes a sociological perspective and indicates such social entities as knowledge organizations whose work primarily relies on knowledge (like universities); this latter meaning will not be included in this entry.
Theoretical Background
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References
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Reinmann, G. (2012). Knowledge Organization. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_445
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