Data, information, knowledge: An information science analysis

We analyze the text of an article that appeared in this journal in 2007, publishing the results of a questionnaire in which a number of experts was asked to define the concepts of Data, Information, and Knowledge. We apply standard Information Retrieval techniques to build a list of the most frequent terms in each set of definitions. We then apply Information Extraction techniques to analyze how the top terms are used in the definitions. As a result, we are able to draw some objective (data-driven) conclusions about the aggregate opinion of the experts. We contrast this with the original analysis of the data, to provide readers with an alternative viewpoint on what the data tells us.