Tatiana Gavrilova

Knowledge elicitation techniques in a knowledge management context

Purpose – A significant part of knowledge and experience in an organization belongs not to the organization itself, but to the individuals it employs. Therefore, knowledge management (KM) tasks should include eliciting knowledge from knowledgeable individuals. The paper aims to argue that the current palette of methods proposed for this in KM discourse is limited by idealistic assumptions about the behavior of knowledge owners. This paper also aims to enrich the repertoire of methods that can be used in an organization to extract knowledge (both tacit and explicit) from its employees by bridging KM and knowledge engineering and its accomplishments in the knowledge elicitation field.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on extensive literature review and 20 years of experience of one of the authors in applying various knowledge elicitation techniques in multiple companies and contexts.Findings – The paper proposes that the special agent (analyst) might be needed to elicit knowledge from individ...

Practical Design of Business Enterprise Ontologies

This paper presents one approach for developing enterprise ontologies. The underlying research framework is pursuing a methodology that will aid the process of knowledge structuring and practical ontology design, with emphasis on visual techniques. For illustration of the proposed technique, the development of a practical ontology of information technology skills for a human resources knowledge management system is described.

Visual knowledge engineering as a cognitive tool

Paper presents research framework based on methodology of knowledge acquisition via visual structured analysis of the domain. The methodology includes formal procedure and special techniques of knowledge stratification and detalisation. Described approach is implemented in computer programs, that may be used as special cognitive tools, helping domain experts to investigate the domain knowledge through visual design of concept maps of knowledge bases. The paper also discusses how ontologies can be specified at the knowledge level using the set of graphical intermediate representations. Special software tool implementing visual knowledge engineering techniques and principles is described in the paper. In this paper, we also present the CAKE as a software tool to specify ontologies and concept maps at knowledge level. Its multilingual generator module automatically translates the visual specification into targeted knowledge representation languages. CAKE may be also effectively used for visual hypertext design and development of hypermedia applications on WWW.

Work in Progress: A Visual Specification of Knowledge Bases

The paper presents the research framework for the design of a special software environment to support visual knowledge base design and specification. Flexible user centred graphical interface is described. The approach is aimed at three interrelated topics: knowledge specification, visual structuring and hypertext design. The proposed ideas and methods may be applied to those systems where structured analysis of data and knowledge is of special interest, such as intelligent tutoring systems, expert systems, decision support, etc.

To a method of evaluating ontologies

The problem of evaluating the quality of ontologies is addressed. A classification of the existing methods of evaluating ontologies is given and a model for evaluating the human perception of ontologies from the cognitive point of view is proposed. In addition, a methodology of application of the proposed model is presented, as well as an example of comparison of two ontologies in the field of artificial intelligence by the given method.

Gestalt principles of creating learning business ontologies for knowledge codification

This paper presents an approach aimed at creating business ontologies for knowledge codification in company. It is based on the principles of ontological engineering and cognitive psychology. Ontologies that describe the main concepts of knowledge are used both for knowledge creation and codification. The proposed framework is targeted at the development of methodologies that can scaffold the process of knowledge structuring and orchestrating for better understanding and knowledge sharing. The orchestrating procedure is the kernel of ontology development. The main stress is put on using visual techniques of mind mapping. Cognitive bias and some results of Gestalt psychology are highlighted as a general guideline. The ideas of balance, clarity, and beauty are applied to the ontology orchestrating procedures. The examples are taken mainly from the project management practice. The paper contributes to managerial practice by describing the practical recommendations for effective knowledge management based on ontology engineering and knowledge structuring techniques.

Ontology design and individual cognitive peculiarities

Visual ontology design is affected by cognitive peculiarities of expert or analyst.Field-independence, reflection and category width are main cognitive style features.Ontology assessment is feasible via cognitive ergonomic metrics.Collaborative ontology design may have several different scenarios. The paper presents the main results of the KOMET (Knowledge and cOntent structuring via METhods of collaborative ontology design) project, which aims to develop a novel paradigm for knowledge structuring based on the interplay between cognitive psychology and ontology engineering. By the knowledge structure (a conceptual model) we define the main domain concepts and relations between them in the form of a graph, map or diagram. This approach considers individual cognitive styles and uses recent advances in knowledge engineering and conceptual structuring; it aims to create new, consistent and structurally holistic knowledge bases for various areas of science and technology. Two stages of research have been completed: research into correlations between the experts individual cognitive style and the peculiarities of the experts subject domain ontology development; and research into correlations between the experts individual cognitive style and the group ontology design (including design accomplished by groups of experts with either similar or different cognitive styles). The results of these research stages can be applied to organizing collaborative ontology design (especially for research and learning purposes), data structuring and other group analytical work. Implications for practice are briefly delineated.

Measuring Psychological Impact on Group Ontology Design and Development: An Empirical Approach

This paper describes the interdisciplinary problems of group ontology design. It highlights the importance of studying individual features of cognitive style and their influence on the specifics of collaborative group ontology design and development. The paper describes the preliminary results of the research project focused on working out a new paradigm for structuring data and knowledge with respect to individual cognitive styles, using recent advances in knowledge engineering and conceptual structuring, aimed at creating new consistent and structurally holistic knowledge bases for various domains. The results of this research effort can be applied to organizing the group ontology design (especially for learning purposes), data structuring and other collaborative analytical work.

Personalization of Immediate Feedback to Learning Styles

Feedback provided to a user is an important part of learning and interaction in e-learning systems. In this paper we present the results of our pilot experiment aimed to study interrelation between several types of immediate feedback presentation and learning styles (LSs) of users. In the experiment we used the feedback supported by quiz module of moodle learning system. The obtained results demonstrate tendencies in interrelation between LS and immediate/summative feedback presentation and we suggest three hypotheses for future research.

Ontological Engineering for Corporate Knowledge Portal Design

The paper presents one approach aimed at corporate knowledge portal design based on the principles of ontological engineering. This approach proposes knowledge acquisition technique that scaffolds the process of information structuring by visual knowledge/data mapping as a powerful mindtool.