From information to knowledge: Some reflections on the origin of the current shifting towards knowledge processing and further perspective

Although the importance of transforming information into knowledge was recognized early, the stronger shift towards knowledge processing has occurred recently, moving the processes of knowledge gathering, organization, representation, and dissemination into the center of research attention. In the first part of this article an attempt is made to provide more insight into the reasons that prompted the current shift from information to knowledge processing, encompassing both social contextualization and the recent technological advance. Thereafter, the knowledge production, viewed as five-step processing, is briefly discussed. In the last section, the highly interdisciplinary perspective and the primacy of the user are distinguished as necessary prerequisites for (a) solving the basic set of problems addressed by knowledge processing, and (b) improving the user–system interaction.