What is Data, Information and Knowledge.

These are common terms that everyone using in day today life. From these three terms I think Data and Information sounds like same for many people but it is totally different words but one depend on other. I think it is like a series of connected links
Data <-> Information <-> Knowledge
More further it is connected to WISDOM
Data
According to the wikipedia(2009) data defines as this but Gene Bellinger et al,(2004) described in much formal way that data is something that just exist without any meaning, it may useful or not.

Even though different people describe data using different set of words almost all the definitions and descriptions are more or less the same. Data is the very first level of the next levels, those are information and knowledge. By other words data is the building block of information, knowledge and wisdom. Having said that and by looking at all the definitions I can say data is there for knowledge that means without knowledge, data is useless.
For an example in Middlesex University, person comes to each and every class door and count the number of students in the class. He is doing this for every two hours. He is collecting this data because he is advised by the knowledge source. This knowledge guides you to collect data.

Information
Business dictionary gives you a good definition of Information. Israel and John, (1990) tried hard to distinguish data and information. According to the Wilson, (2002) information is relevance data arrangement to the recipient. Having looked at the definitions information can be commentated as something that can be useful and meaningful to someone and also it is to be understood.

For an example "14th of February" it makes no sense, it is just a data. but if add some value to this data it become an information. "14th of February is the valentine's day that celebrate lovers all over the world". Further more when we consider above example of the Middlesex University data collection that go through some process and analyse the class room settings and the free times of the class rooms’ also large rooms that has only few students and vice versa then it will become information for decision makers.

knowledge
Knowledge is what you know about the particular field that is practical and theoretical understanding. Also define as knowledge gain by experience and education (wiki, July 2006). I agree to this definition of wiki because we gain knowledge analysing information. Education and experience gives us information.

According to Reany (March 1988) Knowledge is interaction between concepts and concepts means mental objects. Also there are two object types as physical and mental. Read more
Interesting thing is in this article, he mentioned that “knowledge does not exist without a knower, and there is no such thing as "unknown" knowledge” (Reany, March 1988). It makes sense that knowledge is create within individuals because there is no unknown knowledge and also further he said there is no absolute definition for knowledge.
For an example my teacher has some knowledge on his own and then he has taught me and I got some knowledge as well but it is not the same as my teacher’s knowledge. There is some knowledge in between but that is not the unknown knowledge that is the knowledge that my teacher has but I don’t have. Knowledge can not be transferred as it is but information can so based on same information everyone create knowledge in there own mind according to their capacity.

Wilson (2002) said that knowledge is mental process that how well mind can understand and learn which goes into mind and it is only done by the mind itself. He simply expressed knowledge is what we know. Read more

Considering all the definitions of knowledge it is hard to afford absolutely pure definition of knowledge but word itself sounds “know” that means it is all about what we know. Knowledge might be worth might not be worth because I believe knowledge is created individually and it is based on information what you acquire from other sources. It can be education, experience or even a little chat between friends. Everyone’s knowledge is based on their mental capacity. People analyse information up to their capacity and then create knowledge within their mind. According to that what we know can be wrong. Then that knowledge is defined as inadequate knowledge.

Knowledge is the next level of information that means when information is processed, out come is knowledge.. As far as I know intelligent people have more knowledge than others because they have more analytical skills than the others. you can read more on this in my previous article

Why can not gain the same marks in the exam? Even though all students have same facilities and same lectures at same times still unable to obtain same marks (Assume they studied same hours at home as well). Different students have different level of mind set that means different level of knowledge. Even if they have identical information flow in, still they organise those information in different mind frames which results different expression of the knowledge. Knowledge is a very important thing in human life.

Is there anything that more important that knowledge?

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" (Albert Einstein, Man of the Century)

References:
Chmielecki, A., What is information, Last accessed 25 February, 2009 at: http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cogn/CognChmi.htm

Israel, D. and Perry, J. (1990), What is Information?, Information, Language and Cognition, ed Hanson, P. Last accessed 25 February 2009 at: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry/PHILPAPERS/whatisinfo.pdf

Reany, P. (March, 1988) What is Knowledge?, Arizona Journal of Natural Philosophy, Volume 02, pp 7-14, Last accessed 4 February 2009 at: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_knowledge.htm.

Thilina, K.V. (January, 2009)Basic Idea of Knowledge Management, Thilina's view on Knowledge Management, Last accessed 03 February 2009 at:http://thilinakm.blogspot.com/2009/01/basic-idea-of-knowledge-management.html

Titsworth, S. and Soukup, C. (April, 1998), Definition of Data, Data, Last accessed 24 January 2009 at: http://www.unl.edu/speech/comm109/Toulmin/data/index.htm

Wilson, T.D. (2002) The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’, Information research, volume 8, No.1, Last accessed 4 February 2009 at: http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html