Wisdom extraction in knowledge-based information systems

Purpose This paper aims to provide a number of distinct approaches towards this goal, i.e. to translate the information contained in the repositories into knowledge. For centuries, humans have gathered and generated data to study the different phenomena around them. Consequently, there are a variety of information repositories available in many different fields of study. However, the ability to access, integrate and properly interpret the relevant data sets in these repositories has mainly been limited by their ever expanding volumes. The goal of translating the available data to knowledge, eventually leading to wisdom, requires an understanding of the relations, ordering and associations among the data sets. Design/methodology/approach While the existing information repositories are rich in content, there are no easy means of understanding the relevance or influence of the different facts contained therein. Therefore, the interest of the general populace in terms of prioritizing some data items (or facts) over others is usually lost. In this paper, the goal is to provide approaches for transforming the available facts in the information repositories to wisdom. The authors target the lack of order in the facts presented in the repositories to create a hierarchical distribution based on the common understanding, expectations, opinions and judgments of the different users. Findings The authors present multiple approaches to extract and order the facts related to each concept, using both automatic and semi-automatic methods. The experiments show that the results of these approaches are similar and very close to the instinctive ordering of facts by users. Originality/value The authors believe that the work presented in this paper, with some additions, can be a feasible step to convert the available knowledge to wisdom and a step towards the future of online information systems.