This is an extremely difficult question. Part of the complexity is the definition of knowledge and of quality. I might assume that quite different views on these terms exist. In my view it depends on the purpose or goal one might have by establishing a level of "quality" for "knowledge". As developer of expert systems or knowledge systems, my goal is to be able to reproduce exactly the process of application of knowledge rules to get a final decision: applying the same set of criteria should lead to the same decision. Besides that, the knowledge as included in the system should be able to find one and only one suited decision at the time. In order to establish measurement of these goals, I have developed and published some parameters. See: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51362 .

As Leo has pointed out, the concept of quality is very difficult to get a handle on. Quality can be conformance to specification, i.e. does it match the rules or requirements. It can be "fitness for use", i.e. does the user of it find that it works for their purpose. It can be transcendent, i.e. "I know it when I see it". Unfortunately, while we all can use the transcendent appropriate, it is very difficult to get an objective measure for quality. This is because quality is ultimately a judgement and unless you are dealing with a material object with defined specifications, there is not going to be an objective way to assess quality. For a concept such as knowledge which by nature is immaterial, I'm afraid it is going to impossible to measure its quality be any means but especially quantitatively. Tacit knowledge is be definition going to be impossible as it cannot be reduced to anything material. Explicit or codified knowledge being encoded in a transfer media such as writing is really just data. Since it must be decoded to bring knowledge and thus becomes immaterial again, I don't see how you would be able to assess anything about it quantitatively.

Generally speaking, knowledge evaluation can be divided into two processes:

(1) verification and (2) validation. Some authors (like M.L. Owoc) assigned specific criteria to them: (1a) completeness, (1b) consistency and (2a) adequacy, (2b) reliability and (2c) effectiveness. Next you have to choose appropriate measures due to your knowledge structures.

For example, you can find additional information here:

http://www.kssi.ae.wroc.pl/~mowoc/Dydaktyka/SDInfo/OnPrKV.pdf

Dear Tomek,

Also, prof. A. Ligeza from AGH and his team have developed a few methods on knowledge verification and validation.

You can find a set of publication (and other authors too) on google scholar:

http://scholar.google.pl/citations?user=pI8_NIsAAAAJ&hl=pl

Hello all,

Thank you fror all your answers, remarks and publications. I need to dig through them all soon.

I am aware that knowledge is strictly specific within given domain and methods for measuring its any aspects should also be specific. However, my interests focus on different way of representing knowledge and there are some more or less complex standards such as rules, ontologies. They are being applied in various domains.

Therefore in my opinion, having knowledge base full of rules makes us deal with "material" knowledge (according to Michaels' comment). This is of course sometimes simplification of reality. But whole A.I. concept is such kind of simplification (yet). That is why I would like start from some simple methods and try to evaluate results. Pawel and Michael gave some interesting clues - to make a use of some set of solid knowledge quaility criterias and work out some measures for each of them.

Hi Tomasz,

I would suggest you read Knowledge Orientation in Organizations by Edward Truch. You may also want to look at my Paper - which is based on first identifying and then finding out the contribution of various knowledge elements in the development of overall KM practice in the organisations. Accordingly, the organisation decides which element to drop, re-shape or augment.

Hi Tomasz,

In my opinion measuring the quality of knowledge could mean assessing the value created by intangible asset and/or intellectual capital within an organization. To do this, it is important to identify the valuable and meaningful intellectual capital elements and assess their capability to create value.

In this process, no reliable valuation can be carried out without taking

into consideration the context, the strategic management challenge and their personal opinions. So it is necessary that managers and decision makers cooperate during the most relevant phases of the value creation assessment process.

In the framework that I'm attaching, some procedural steps are proposed to quantitatively assess the intellectual capital.

see this http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1063304

I agree with Michelle, one way to measure the  quality of knowledge is to evaluate its effectiveness on the associated  application, where such knowledge is used. as Michelle indicated, it could mean assessing the value created by intangible asset and/or intellectual capital within an organization.

The following article describes a methodology for both evaluating & measuring the quality of knowledge  and then applying them for developing better products & processes.

Take a look... Thanks.

Article Total value management - A knowledge management concept for ...

  Dear Tomasz Sitek, your question has generated an interesting discussion, with very goods comments.

  To join in the discussion, I comment you that we have used the SECI model (“SECI, Ba and leadership: A unified model of dynamic knowledge creation) from Nonaka, Toyama & Konno and we have tried to analyze the management of knowledge from the point of view of logistics. In a couple of works we have finished using multicriteria models, specifically Matrixes Of Weighing with Multiplicative Factors (MOWwMf). One of the last jobs at Research Gate is Knowledge management through the Manager of External Relations (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310817366_Knowledge_management_through_the_Manager_of_External_Relations_Gestion_del_conocimiento_a_traves_del_Gerente_de_Relaciones_externas) and it is also the work Generation and Knowledge Management System Through the information and networks manager (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304076616_GENERATION_AND_KNOWLEDGE_MANAGEMENT_THROUGH_THE_SYSTEM_INFORMATION_AND_NETWORKS_MANAGER?ev=prf_pub), in which discusses the use of MOWwMf.

I hope that these comments will serve to enrich the discussion.

Best regards,

José Hernández.

Conference Paper Knowledge management through the Manager of External Relatio...

Article GENERATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE SYSTEM INFOR...

Again, greetings to all the esteemed colleagues who are followers of this question. Last week I submit to the Research Gate platform, the Spanish version and the English version of the work: Multicriteria models to evaluate social development projects [New version], what we assume may be in the interest of all of you.

I apologize to those who receive this information multiple times, since I am sending it to several questions related to the subject.

Thank you for your attention and I hope you find the information useful.

Best regards,

José Herández.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330205251_Modelos_multicriterio_para_evaluar_proyectos_de_desarrollo_social_Nueva_version?_sg=-kvK9X0bzxMahqSlW07QkmzFnhDBAoWH5RgS2uwZvCOL_CMOE2P-9-0hA85EG7X4l-4GTMNWR2uMTJ5B8Ks5hxVMxEy9iULap7QfAfUz.SDl1CjD-_Gc_FAvKYD1YlNXOXTMLbA4_iR5GwJ4xApIdL-NR_6HdVD_kinFOZ7hC4_bsbjKiYmbltNswb_XAvg

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330354600_Multicriteria_models_to_evaluate_social_development_projects_New_version_Modelos_multicriterio_para_evaluar_proyectos_de_desarrollo_social?_sg=-kvK9X0bzxMahqSlW07QkmzFnhDBAoWH5RgS2uwZvCOL_CMOE2P-9-0hA85EG7X4l-4GTMNWR2uMTJ5B8Ks5hxVMxEy9iULap7QfAfUz.SDl1CjD-_Gc_FAvKYD1YlNXOXTMLbA4_iR5GwJ4xApIdL-NR_6HdVD_kinFOZ7hC4_bsbjKiYmbltNswb_XAvg