| The amount of information that police officers come into contact with in the course of their work is astounding. Such information is captured within police organizations in various forms. A challenge for police organizations is how to surface information, make it into knowledge, and bring it to bear on the problems faced by police officers in a timely and effective manner. This information and knowledge challenge in police organizations is the focus of and the reason for this book.
As will be explained later, a hierarchy of terms is used in this book. The hierarchy consists of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Information is data that makes sense to people, while knowledge is information combined with interpretation, reflection, and context. Based on such definitions, this book argues that information can be stored in computers, while knowledge is stored in human brains. Given such distinctions, knowledge management technology supports knowledge work by receiving codified knowledge in terms of information from knowledge workers, and by supplying information that knowledge workers transform into knowledge.
This book is designed as compulsory literature for courses in management information systems and knowledge management at advanced bachelor level and at master level in all police academies and police university colleges around the world. It can be considered supplementary literature in management information systems courses and knowledge management courses in business schools in terms of knowledge work case studies.
In addition, practitioners in business and public organizations as well as the IT industry itself will benefit from insights in this book. This book is based on the premise that it is difficult, if not impossible, to manage an organization without at least some understanding of knowledge management and knowledge management systems. |
