Marco Bettoni

Constructivist foundations of modeling—A Kantian perspective

By linking Knowledge Engineering to Kantian Philosophy, this paper attempts to elaborate a potential theoretical foundation for understanding the nature of expertise and the processes of modeling. The established way of modeling is criticized for presuming the relation between the real objective world and the AI software models being a “mapping” (abstraction, copy, representation, etc.) relation. The paper argues that this aspect of the foundations of modeling in Knowledge Engineering could be improved by employing the standpoint presented in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Two hypotheses and ten principles of a constructivist modeling paradigm based on Kants work are proposed. The term Constructivist here refers to the hypothesis that a model cannot “correspond to” reality but merely be “viable in” (i.e., “fit into”) reality.

Individual knowledge management with MailTack

We present our EU-sponsored research in the domain of individual knowledge management and collaborative learning: the MailTack system. MailTack is a stand-alone software tool that we use to understand and support our behaviour in complex e-mail discussions with the aim of contributing to a systematic Individual Knowledge Management and Team Learning. Based on a constructivist understanding of knowing, we have developed MailTack as a tool for Persistent Business Discussions combined with an Individual Knowledge Assessment. By helping the involved individuals in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their asynchronous conversations we think that MailTack could contribute to make collaborative learning and asynchronous interactions (for cooperating, coaching, tutoring, etc.) more successful and attractive thus facilitating the dynamics of Communities of Practice and more generally of learning communities.