Mike Bennett wrote: (01)
> Well I would put it the other way around - a knowledge engineer
> working with domain experts. I have managed to achieve some
> results with this. The key is for the knowledge engineer to
> recognize that they are not an expert, but that they know enough
> to put forward a model which is largely complete and correct
> (what the techie folks often call a "strawman"), and then
> facilitate a session which involves changing that model, within
> its stated formalism, until it is a complete and correct record
> of the knowledge of the domain experts.
> (02)
Exactly! I have described the process of learning "enough about the
domain to put forward a model which is largely complete" as 'osmosis'.
The knowledge engineer talks to enough domain experts and asks questions
and gradually forms an image of the basic model. (03)
> ...
> The secret is to know just enough to present something that's
> nearly right, and then come to the table with humility (04)
Yes! And that last is the real difference between the expert knowledge
engineer and the journeyman. (05)
> and well-directed questions for the SMEs. (06)
Spot on! (07)
> And of course having a
> model format which does not require them to learn some language.
> (08)
Ultimately, they do have to learn the language of the model. If nothing
else, there will always be terminology issues. The value of a CNL is
that it can make that learning process much easier. It is a small step
from a language they speak. (09)
Over the years, I have found that domain experts can also easily
understand simple diagrams in UML, NIAM/ORM and BPMN, and the first two
can be readily transformed into formal ontologies. The trick is not to
introduce more than 5 concept-symbol pairs and talk about them at the
thing/relationship/action level. But CNLs allow for presenting more
elaborate rules, both 'structural' and 'operational' (in Ron Ross's
terminology). (010)
-Ed (011)
> Mike
>
> (012)
> On 10/03/2011 17:21, Rich Cooper wrote:
>
>> I have yet to see a domain expert working with a knowledge engineer who
>> produces quality results. The few good examples I have seen are where the
>> knowledge engineer IS a domain expert.
>>
>> Remember that in every domain, there is no Ulysses. Every expert has an
>> experience that is unique, personal, and not very communicable in language.
>> The domain expert doesn't have the "aha" reaction of suddenly seeing a
>> simplification that the knowledge expert does.
>>
>> So I disagree with this long held, but factually incorrect, assumption.
>>
>> JMHO,
>> -Rich
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Rich Cooper
>> EnglishLogicKernel.com
>> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
>> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ed Barkmeyer
>> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 8:58 AM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Using controlled natural languages for ontology
>>
>>
>>
>> Simon Spero wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 11:01 PM, John F. Sowa<sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>> <mailto:sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 3/6/2011 10:39 PM, Zhuk, Yefim wrote:
>>> > I'd think of CNL as an intermediate step towards ontology...
>>>
>>> It's more like an alternate notation for logic that makes comments
>>> readable by both the humans and the computer.
>>>
>>> A controlled natural language has a formally defined mapping to
>>> and from some version of logic. Its main advantage is that
>>> it can be read as if it were ordinary language.
>>>
>>>
>>> There may be some small differences in ease of reading between CNL
>>> and regular NL, but these do not appear to be important.
>>>
>>> Tobias Kuhn (until recently a student of Norbert Fuchs) has some
>>> interesting results on the understandability of controlled natural
>>> language in his dissertation (see Chapter 5 in Kuhn (2010) for info).
>>> Also, as part of his work on ACEWiki Tobias built a native java
>>> implementation of ACE, making it easier to use without having to
>>> install prolog).
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> * Tobias Kuhn. /Controlled English for Knowledge Representation/.
>>> Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration
>>> and Information Technology of the University of Zurich, 2010.
>>> [PDF
>>>
>>>
>> <http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/pubs/papers/doctoral_thesis_kuhn.pdf>|BibTe
>> X
>> <http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/pubs/papers/bibtex/doctoral_thesis_kuhn.bib
>>
>>> ]
>>>
>>>
>> In our experience the problem isn't intelligibility, unless the
>> expressions become extraordinarily convoluted. The problem is that the
>> average domain expert naturally _writes_ a different language and takes
>> some training to learn to write the controlled language. Further, I
>> would add, the domain expert is usually reluctant to 'waste his/her
>> time' doing so. So the practice is still knowledge engineer working
>> with domain expert to create the ontology. The primary advantage of
>> using the CNL as a means of expression for _most of_ the ontology is
>> that it allows the domain expert to read, understand and validate that
>> part. I say 'most of', because there are usually technical
>> considerations in the formulation of the ontology that the domain expert
>> should not be expected to understand -- that is the domain of the
>> knowledge engineer.
>>
>> [Experts tend to be annoyed when the CNL interpreter complains about
>> what they wrote, especially since its diagnostics only usually identify
>> the syntactic point(s) at which it became confused, and its guidance for
>> what might have been meant is not often helpful. The worst cases,
>> however, are those in which what the expert writes is unambiguously
>> parsed by the CNL intepreter, but the interpretation it makes is not at
>> all what was intended. My favorite recent example was:
>> The surface must be contained between two planes that are 0.25mm apart.
>> The CNL interpreter understood the constraint to refer to two distinct
>> instances of a class of object described as 'plane that is-apart by
>> 0.25mm'! We needed to have the ontology in place to determine that that
>> interpretation was not comprehensible (there is no such binary
>> relation). And OBTW, the correct expression of that rule in the CNL was
>> 'extraordinarily convoluted'.]
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> (013)
--
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 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 (014)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (015)
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