Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques, 3rd Edition

1.2 What Is Data Mining?

It is no surprise that data mining, as a truly interdisciplinary subject, can be defined in many different ways. Even the term data mining does not really present all the major components in the picture. To refer to the mining of gold from rocks or sand, we say gold mining instead of rock or sand mining. Analogously, data mining should have been more appropriately named “knowledge mining from data,” which is unfortunately somewhat long. However, the shorter term, knowledge mining may not reflect the emphasis on mining from large amounts of data. Nevertheless, mining is a vivid term characterizing the process that finds a small set of precious nuggets from a great deal of raw material (Figure 1.3). Thus, such a misnomer ...