Expert-supported object-oriented analysis in knowledge engineering

Abstract

One of today's major bottlenecks in software development and knowledge engineering is the analysis phase. Both software engineers and knowledge engineers have to collect and classify all relevant information to identify proper objects. An evolutionary, seamless, non-domain-specific object-oriented analysis (OOA) method is derived that starts at the definition of a software system and integrates knowledge engineering needs in a new manner, especially when following a deep knowledge approach. Based on this method, an expert-supported OOA tool environment (ESA) is presented that supports an analyst starting at the collection of the requirements through the analysis of any software system up to a preliminary high-level design. Due to the many similarities between OOA and knowledge engineering, the method and its supporting tool are rather valuable means in knowledge engineering and are conceived for the needs practitioners.<>