kennismodellering

Kennismodellering, or knowledge modeling, is a discipline within information science and knowledge management that focuses on representing knowledge about a domain in a formal, machine-interpretable way. The aim is to support understanding, reuse, sharing, and automated reasoning across systems. It differentiates knowledge structures from raw data by capturing concepts, their properties, relations, rules, and constraints.

Core artifacts include ontologies (formal specifications of concepts and how they relate), taxonomies, thesauri, and knowledge graphs. These artifacts enable semantic interoperability and can be queried using languages such as SPARQL. Semantic technologies commonly used include RDF, RDFS, OWL, and SKOS, often complemented by reasoning engines.

Common approaches are ontological engineering, conceptual modeling, and knowledge-graph construction. Methods include domain analysis, ontology alignment, and the use of competency questions to assess coverage. Modeling often combines logic-based representations with more intuitive visual models such as UML or DSLs for domain-specific concepts. Tools include Protégé, TopBraid, and specialized graph databases.

Process typically involves problem scoping, domain analysis, conceptualization, formalization, encoding in a computable representation, deployment, and evaluation. Applications include information systems design, data integration, enterprise knowledge management, AI research, and customer-support knowledge bases. Challenges include maintaining consistency and coherence, handling evolving knowledge, scalability, and governance over ontologies and vocabularies.