ABSTRACT
Knowledge can be factual, procedural, or embedded within the formal procedures and minds of experts. Knowledge that is directly available is generally factual knowledge. The factual knowledge is of low level, data centric, and less powerful to solve a problem. Factual knowledge is explicit and easy to codify. It is used in many situations as it forms an independent reusable unit at lower level in a ¤exible way. On the other hand, the embedded procedural knowledge, also called tacit knowledge, is high-level knowledge that helps a lot in speciŽc problem solving and decision making. In spite of its high degree of usability, tacit knowledge utilization is costly, as most of the tacit knowledge is less ¤exible and lies in the subconscious minds of experts. Moreover, it is not easily represented electronically. This situation is shown in Figure 9.2.
