Developing K-ONCOCIN: a case study in the cognitive process of knowledge engineers

The domain of knowledge engineering reflects a strong emphasis on the acquisition and modelling of knowledge structures and the processes used to manipulate and transform them. Knowledge engineering activity has been largely focused on the epistemological and representational aspects of knowledge. A different, yet complementary view would identify knowledge engineering as the interaction of cogniting agents with the emphasis on the cognitive processes used in knowledge engineering. This paper presents the results of an intensive discussion between the author and Marc Linster who acted as the interviewee. The topic of discussion focused on his activity with Mark Musen during the modelling stages of knowledge engineering activity in the development of K-ONCOCIN which is a KADS conceptual model of a part of the ONCOCIN system. For each state of this ‘bottom-up’ modelling, the tasks were identified, the available knowledge and information resources identified, the classes of cognitive processes inferred and the outcome structures described.