A conceptual modelling language for the humanities and social sciences

Abstract

Conceptual modelling is usually accepted as a crucial technique for exploring, understanding, documenting and communicating complex domains. It is then paradoxical that a context where highly complex domains are very common, that of humanities and social sciences specialists reasoning about their fields, lacks appropriate conceptual modelling tools. This paper introduces ConML, a conceptual modelling language designed to be affordable for end users with no previous exposure to information technologies, and created with humanities and social sciences in mind. Some practical experiences about its usage in different scenarios are described, and future research directions and presented.