Knowledge types classification
This article presents a draft list of construction knowledge types. This is a work in progress and is presented here for discussion purposes only. You can add to or amend items on the list by clicking 'Edit this article' above, or you can make comments by clicking 'Add a comment' at the bottom of the article.
Construction industry knowledge types (should these be separated into types of knowledge and delivery mechanisms?):
- Legislation, regulations and policy
- Standards and codes
- Definitions
- Technical and design guidance
- Business and project management guidance
- Contracts and specifications
- Product information
- Case law and case studies
- Research and innovation
- CPD, education and training
- Market insights
- Practice and project knowledge
- News, commentary and blogs
- Forums
- Books and journals
- Images, drawings and models
- Schedules, tables and data
- Events
- Forms and templates
- Video
- Lessons learned
- Experiences, micro-narratives and stories
Other knowledge attributes that might be described include:
- Name (Title)
- Identification number / code (DOI - Digital Object Identifier?)
- Author(s)
- Source (organisation(s) / publisher(s))
- Location of original
- Status (current / archived / draft / live / managed / superseded etc)
- Permissions (accessibility / license for use and modification)
- Sector(s) (what sectors is it relevant to)
- Discipline(s) (who is it relevant to)
- Project stage(s) (what stages is it relevant to)
- Subject (is this necessary? search engines are able to determine subject matter)
- Trust / ranking (quality / reliability)
- Medium
- Language
- Country
- Dates: created / last edited
Elements of the content of knowledge can also be described in a way that makes them machine readable - eg https://www.w3.org/standards/xml/schema
In deciding how many attributes to attach to knowledge there is a balance to be found between a system that is simple enough to be easily and willingly applied, and a system that is detailed enough to be useful.
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Comments
Some of the items in the list are types of knowledge, some are delivery mechanisms for knowledge - does this matter?
Some of the non-industry specific schemas may be applicable for general 'things' like people, dates such as the Dublin Core (https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/) or schema.org (https://schema.org/docs/gs.html).
The linked open data cloud also contains a number of current initiatives which might provide the basis or groundwork for some of the above mentioned attributes and definitions (https://lod-cloud.net/)