John, (01)
you wrote: (02)
> AS> I just wanted to share the humble results of an exercise
> > in "convergence" which took place in the context of the
> > last two OOPSLA workshops on domain-specific modeling
> > http://www.dsmforum.org/events/DSM07/
>
> My only suggestion is to drop the word 'humble', since it is
> probably much more relevant to this forum than most of the
> notes that are posted here. (03)
Strongly agree. (04)
> I would agree that the philosophers use a terminology and a
> level of abstraction that is often hard to relate to practical
> applications, but many of their issues are reflected in the
> discussions we frequently have (05)
I would agree, and add "regrettably", and stop there. (06)
> ...
> EB> Knowledge engineering is an engineering field. Thinking of
> > it as fundamentally either philosophical or scientific in nature
> > makes it more difficult for the would-be practitioner to do it well.
>
> I agree with the first sentence. But the second sentence is
> misleading. Maxwell wrote the equations for electromagnetism,
> but a great deal of the theory of how to use those equations
> was developed by electrical engineers who were trying to solve
> problems within the constraints of budgets and deadlines. (07)
I think this would-be counterexample is actually supportive. What the
engineers contributed was not the advancement of the physics, but rather
the advancement of the knowledge of how to use the physics to create
certain valuable "devices". But there is clearly a kind of feedback
loop in a new technology in which engineers discover things that work,
and things that don't, and that creates a new set of observations upon
which the scientists can improve the theory. In such areas, engineers
provide a continuing flow of new observations. I don't know that
knowledge engineering is one of those areas. (That is, I am willing to
consider that an open question.) (08)
The point I was trying to make is that engineers who think they are
scientists get wrapped around expanding the world's collection of
knowledge instead of building a valuable device. And they treat
failures as providing new knowledge (which it usually isn't), as opposed
to providing experience. (09)
The function of knowledge engineers is not to create new knowledge, or
even to create new insights. It is rather to capture the knowledge that
other experts have in a form useful to some "application". (010)
Most of the biomedical ontology work is motivated by a need to provide
the thousands of bio-researchers with a means of finding out what other
bio-researchers have already done! That is the driving application
(although there are others). The function of the bio-ontologists is not
to understand the field better; it is to give the experts the tools by
which they may come to understand the field better. (011)
Yes, there is a need for the ontologist to acquire some expertise in the
field, in order to do his/her job. And Yes, there are people who become
experts at both. The trick is to recognize which expertise is needed
when and apply it properly. But if every knowledge engineer thinks that
s/he must become, or even worse that s/he already is, an expert in the
subject matter, s/he will be less effective in his/her job! Like a data
modeler, the job is to capture what the experts say, and validate the
models with them. In that role, his/her own understanding of the field
is primarily directed toward
- recognizing the same knowledge phrased differently, and
- asking intelligent questions
The value s/he adds is the skill (and insight) in getting the expert
knowledge into a system with limited expressiveness and other limitations. (012)
I have seen scientists become knowledge engineers, even to the extent of
dropping behind the knowledge curve in their own field. But I have
never seen a knowledge engineer become a scientist! (Interestingly, I
have seen fewer corporate analysts become data modelers, and I have seen
data modelers become valuable corporate analysts. And in a stint with
the U.S. Postal Service, I came to understand that the reason for that
is that it is no one else's job to talk to every business unit manager,
and the expertise can be acquired in only that way.) (013)
-Ed (014)
"The trick is to glean from an experience exactly the knowledge that is
contained in it. A cat which sits down on a hot stove will never do it
again, but it will never sit on a cold stove again either."
-- Mark Twain (015)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (016)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (017)
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