**DIKW **(data, information, knowledge, wisdom) is a set of models that depict the structural and functional relationships between categories such as data, information, knowledge and wisdom. Demonstrates ways to derive value from data processing. It is not a technology, but a theoretical framework for understanding what steps need to be taken to derive value from the available data.
- Data - a set of disparate facts, symbols (numbers, words, visual data). It is at the bottom of the hierarchy and is a material for processing, from which you can get something valuable. Data by itself is of no use.
- Information - data combined in meaning. At this level, basic bricks of facts form relationships. Unlike data, information is useful because it describes processes and phenomena. It allows us to answer basic questions: "who?", "what?", "when?", "how much?". Information is not enough to solve any problems.
- Knowledge is the result of filtering information that is processed in such a way that it becomes possible to draw conclusions. Interrelated facts form a complete picture of a phenomenon or process with which conclusions can be drawn (if A, then B).
- Wisdom is the top of the pyramid. At this stage of data processing, understanding is added to knowledge. If information answers the question "what?", knowledge answers "how?", wisdom tells us "why?". Understanding allows us to go beyond the boundaries of the phenomenon or process of interest to use it for larger purposes.
With each level, data becomes more structured and usable.
Even before the model was used in knowledge management, the essence of the model was expressed by the writer T. S. Eliot in his poem "The Rock", where he states that information is not yet knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. With the advent of the information age, the amount of data has skyrocketed. Quantitative and qualitative variables in large quantities offer great opportunities, but are not valuable on their own. To use them for your own purposes, you need to understand what to do with them.
The DIKW model is one possible model that helps to extract something of value from the chaos of data. The wisdom gained from applying this model gives value to IT service organizations. Bare data tells nothing about users, their behavior and interaction with services. Only by going through all the steps and reaching the top of the pyramid can user data be applied to create an innovative product that will be in demand.
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Russell Ackoff, who researched systems theories and management, introduced the term DIKW in 1989. The scientist did not envision this model as a pyramid. He saw it as a continuum, the first three stages of which belong to the sphere of the past. Data, information and knowledge allow describing already existing processes and relations, but only wisdom gives the opportunity to predict and forecast. Thus, in order to create innovations one cannot do without the last stage of data processing.
The main area in which the DIKW model is used is knowledge management, information management. Big Data and data visualization have a similar model. A knowledge management system is a set of management procedures, repeated on a regular basis, designed to improve the efficiency of collecting, storing, disseminating and utilizing valuable information from a company's perspective. Knowledge management plays a key role in the service transformation process (ITIL).
As part of the application of this model, semantic technologies (Linked Data, Semantic Graph Databases) are used, which are able to build links between disparate heterogeneous data and extract useful knowledge from the available facts.
