Abstract
Historically, knowledge has been viewed as an asset in that, once it is “owned” (i.e., acquired) by an individual, it can never be taken away (Rowley, 2000). First and foremost, we need to distinguish between the concepts of information acquisition and knowledge acquisition. The latter is the third in a five-step process of deep learning with data, information, understanding, and wisdom filling out the continuum (Ackoff, 1999). For this reason, we suggest that the term “knowledge acquisition” that appears to be so often in the literature may actually be a misnomer (Compton & Jensen, 1990). What many may be referring to is actually information acquisition. For the purposes of this chapter, however, we may interchange the two terms with this caveat in mind.