While some information stabilizes over time to become a Body of Knowledge (BOK), most information is not static enough. Naturally, the dream is to have a dynamic BOK, but that has all kinds of trouble written all over it. The BOK creates its own vocabulary that gives rise to professions and software applications.
Creating a BOK is largely a political challenge. What information is in?
What information is out?
What definitions to use?
How accessible is the BOK?
What kind of benefit is derived from the BOK?
What is the process for modifying the BOK?
Some BOKs are in the pseudo democratic form of a wiki that allows multiple people to contribute and build.
The BOKs that I know about were usually developed by professional associations and while I don’t hear the term nearly as much these days, the concept of a BOK is very much out there.
BOKs are largely about power and control. The most successful BOKs have testing and certification based on them. The BOK opened doors to some and closed doors to others.
The BOK provides standardization and an assurance of quality within a range. But even the most open BOK was not a tool to spark innovative approaches.
Information has an evolving lifecycle of its own. A BOK captures that life at a moment in time
Photo by Marcus Sümnick 
