Knowledge is considered important for the survival and growth of an enterprise.
Currently knowledge is stored in various places including the bottom drawers of
employees. The human being is considered to be the most important knowledge
provider. Over the years knowledge based systems (KBS) have been developed to
capture and nurture the knowledge of domain experts. However, such systems were
considered to be separate and different from the traditional information systems
development. Many KBS development projects have failed. The main causes for such
failures have been recognised as the difficulties associated with the process of
knowledge elicitation, in particular the techniques and methods employed. On the other
hand, the main emphasis of information systems development has been in the areas of
data and information capture relating to transaction based systems. For knowledge to be
effectively captured and nurtured it is necessary for knowledge to be part of the
information systems development activity.
This thesis reports on a process of investigation and analysis conducted into the areas of
information, knowledge and the overlapping areas. This research advocates a hybrid
approach, where knowledge and information capture to be considered as one in a
unified environment. A meta-schema design based on Formal Object Role Modelling
(FORM), independent of implementation details, is introduced for this purpose. This is
considered to be a key contribution of this research activity. Both information and
knowledge is expected to be captured through this approach.
Meta data types are provided for the capture of business rules and they form part of the
knowledge base of an organisation. The integration of knowledge with data and
information is also described. XML is recognised by many as the preferred data
interchange language and it is investigated for the purpose of rule interchange. This
approach is expected to enable organisations to interchange business rules and their
meta-data, in addition to data and their schema. During interchange rules can be
interpreted and applied by receiving systems, thus providing a basis for intelligent
behaviour. With the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet the modelling of an
enterprise as a series of business processes has gained prominence. Enterprises are
moving towards integration, establishing well-described business processes within and
across enterprises, to include their customers and suppliers. The purpose is to derive a
common set of objectives and benefit from potential economic efficiencies. The
suggested meta-schema design can be used in the early phases of requirements
elicitation to specify, communicate, comprehend and refine various artefacts. This is
expected to encourage domain experts and knowledge analysts work towards describing
each business process and their interactions. Existing business processes can be
documented and business efficiencies can be achieved through a process of refinement.
The meta-schema design allows for a ?systems view? and sharing of such views, thus
enabling domain experts to focus on their area of specialisation whilst having an
understanding of other business areas and their facts. The design also allows for
synchronisation of mental models of experts and the knowledge analyst. This has been a
major issue with KBS development and one of the main reasons for the failure of such
projects. The intention of this research is to provide a facility to overcome this issue.
The natural language based FORM encourages verbalisation of the domain, hence
increasing the understanding and comprehension of available business facts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216588 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Wijesekera, Dhammika Harindra, n/a |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Dhammika Harindra Wijesekera |
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