WHAT IS KNOWMATICS ? -SCOPE, THEORY, PRACTICE AND APPLICATIONS OFKNOWMATICS

Knowmatics - A New Revolution in Higher Education. By Prof.(Dr.) Raju M. Mathew

KNOWMATICS : A NEW REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION

PROF. (DR.) RAJU M. MATHEW &

RANJIT RAJU MATHEW

This is based on the paper ‘Knowmatics – A New Revolution in Higher Education’ Journal of the World Universities Forum 4, 1, 2011:1-11 and

its video presentation has been posted in YouTube.


BIRTH OF KNOWMATICS Even though Knowmatics was born in 2005, it was

the result of more than thirty years of intensive study and research on the structure of knowledge found in the scriptures of major religions and hundreds of domains of modern knowledge, besides the growth of knowledge consumption and production in different ages and theoretical foundations of Information Technology. The present work explores the revolutionary impacts of Knowmatics on Universities and the Professions of Teaching and Research .

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Higher Education - A Tradition built upon 2500 Years ago

Starting from The Nalanda or Taxila University in India or Aristotle's Academy in Athens, Higher Education has a long standing tradition and structure for more than 2500 years. The Professors and students of even the high tech universities in the twenty first century have been following the same old learning methods, techniques and strategies employed by the professors and students of the ancient universities without much changes.


Advocating without Practicing Universities all over the world are the

champions of innovations and adaptations besides developing efficient systems, methods and techniques. They advocate modern management techniques to run big governments and multinational corporations, but they are very much reluctant to apply even the simplest principles and introducing innovation in their teaching or research or management.


Getting Obsolete and Irrelevant Universities all over the world are getting

irrelevant and unable to deliver the required skills, expertise and knowledge for the emerging knowledge societies, especially the young. The present global economic crisis exposed the failure or vulnerability of universities, including that of the Business Schools and Noble Laureates in Economics to avoid the crisis or to solve the problems due to their own wrong teaching, research or analysis and advices, giving too much emphasis to fragmented data or information in stead of integrated wisdom and knowledge.


Cost –Ineffectiveness & Sub-optimality If we compare the total skills, expertise and

knowledge delivered by universities or schools and developed by their highest degree holders on the one hand and the total time, efforts and money spent by the students and the society as a whole on the other, it can be seen that all universities or schools are running sub-optimally and cost-ineffectively. There is no justification to spend so much time, money and efforts on the parts of the students to get such a small quantum of skill, expertise and knowledge that too are irrelevant or ineffective.


INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND HIGHER EDUCATION Information Technology was originally designed

for data processing and developed on the basis of algorithms built upon linear and static data structure. Hence, IT has an inherent weakness of putting into higher education , founded on knowledge processing and handling and skill acquisition . The very structure of knowledge is non-linear and dynamic. IT is incompatible in dealing with skill, knowledge and higher education, other than some routine administrative matters, student evaluation and retrieval of practically unusable truck load of information.


Education is Knowledge-Centric and IT is Data-Centric Information Technology is founded on Data or

Information. Data has no meaning or relevance without knowledge. Education is built upon Knowledge – Consumption and Production of Knowledge at different levels. Concepts are the building blocs of knowledge. Teaching, Learning, Skill Acquisition and Developing Expertise are the functions of consumption and production of Knowledge. Sound strategies in Education can be formulated only on the basis of sound theories of consumption and production of Knowledge.


THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

After conducting a series of studies on the knowledge consumption and production pattern of students, professors, scientists, top level decision makers and also the common people, Mathew in 1984 formulated the ‘Theory of Knowledge Consumption--Production Correlation’ and ‘Stage Theory of Knowledge Consumption –Production Growth’. The USSR Academy of Science published them in 1985 for the FID/RI Committee in the work ‘Theoretical Problems of Informatics. A series of studies, including doctoral works, have been carried out on the basis of these theories on different parts of the world in skill acquisition and scientific productivity.


THEORY OF KNOWLEWDGE CONSUMPTION- PRODUCTION CORREALTION

Theory of knowledge consumption-production correlation states that there exists a direct correlation between high level (quality) knowledge consumption and knowledge production, such correlation may or may not exits between low level knowledge consumption even at high quantity and knowledge production.


STAGE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE CONSUMPTION-PRODUCTION GROWTH

Both in the case of individuals and societies, growth of knowledge consumption –production takes places in well defined, low to high levels of stages. By the application of appropriate technology and methods, especially Knowmatics , a quantum leap can be made from lower stages to highest level.


COMMON STRUCTURE FOR ALL DOMAINS OF KNOWLEDGE On the basis of his further studiers on the structure

and representation of knowledge in the Bible, the Koran, The Vedas And Upanishads, the Ayurveda and Modern Science, including Social Sciences and also the Theoretical Foundation of Information Technology, Mathew establishes that there exists a common structure and method for all domains of knowledge and concepts are the basic building blocks of knowledge domains. Knowledge processing technology can be built up on the basis of developing algorithms based on knowledge structure for which he proposed Knowmatics in 2005.


DEFINING KNOWMATICS “Knowmatics”, according to Mathew, “is

the mathematical and engineering study of the structure, representation and communication of knowledge for developing knowledge processing and handling technologies and industries and thereby augmenting knowledge consumption and production into several fold, from lover to higher levels”.


APPLICATION OF KNOIWMATICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Knowmatics is not only a science or mathematics of knowledge but also a revolutionary approach towards knowledge, learning, teaching, research and putting knowledge into practices. High quality Knowledge consumption, production and application are the advanced level of human activities and universities are charged with augmenting these intellectual processes and attaining a quantum leap from low levels knowledge consumption to higher levels of knowledge consumption, production and applications, by developing appropriate methods and technologies.


KNOWLEDGE BANKS AND KNOWLEDGE CORPORATIONs Knowmatics facilitates the emergence of live knowledge

banks based on human experts so as to bring out value added and customized knowledge products, packages and solutions at basic, advanced and professional levels globally to anybody crossing the barrios of language, culture and educational qualifications. The concept of literacy will be changed as the ability to identify, access and apply knowledge for problem solution to a specific context. Knowledge corporations will emerge to meet the entire knowledge needs of humanity as a very big enterprises, surpassing the entire IT sector so that a ten fold knowledge consumption-production can be attained at one hundredth time and efforts and costs.


FATE OF UNIVERSITIES AND THE NEW DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM

With the emergence of knowledge banks and knowledge corporations, thousands of the existing universities will be forced to close down or to become their knowledge service centers. As a strategy for survival, some of the resourceful and adaptive universities are to evolve themselves as mega knowledge corporations to offer cost effective knowledge packages, products and solutions to anybody , crossing the conventional barriers put forth by universities, for easy or direct access of knowledge to anybody. The very profession of university teaching will be redefined and it will affect the entire education process. When knowledge is made accessible to the millions, it empowers them and they bring new development paradigm for the entire humanity.


RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT IN KNOWMATICS

Knowmatics, as a science and technology, offers wonder potentialities of design and development of suitable systems, services and technologies and development and marketing of innovative knowledge products and services for all human endeavors that are based on or related to knowledge –expertise, learning, skill acquisition, innovation, scientific research, professional practices , planning and decision making, formulation of policies, theories and strategies and etc. There is a need for global initiatives in conducting R & D efforts in Knowmatics and Knowledge Processing Technology for collecting, organizing and repacking all knowledge in diverse forms, available in any part of the world, including modern science and technology, spirituality and religion, traditional wisdom and indigenous knowledge besides even the unrecorded tribal myths, beliefs and sayings.


STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF KNOWMATICS

By taking into account the strategic importance of Knowmatics in building Knowledge Economies, attaining efficiency and competitiveness, developing human capital, skill and expertise, individual countries and global agencies must be ready to invest substantial amount for developing Knowmatics and Knowledge Systems, products and Services so as to ensure optimal access to knowledge for all men on earth.


KNOWMATICS AND THE FUTURE OF THE U.A.E. UAE can be considered as one of the

vibrant economies giving very great emphasis for developing as a Knowledge Society or Economy. A Knowledge Economy is characterized by the Consumption and Production of higher levels of knowledge.