Domain knowledge is
knowledge
Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...
of a specific discipline or field in contrast to
general
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry.
In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...
(or domain-independent) knowledge. The term is often used in reference to a more general discipline—for example, in describing a software engineer who has general knowledge of computer programming as well as domain knowledge about developing programs for a particular industry. People with domain knowledge are often regarded as
specialists or experts in their field.
Knowledge capture
In
software engineering
Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...
, ''domain knowledge'' is knowledge about the environment in which the target system operates, for example,
software agent
In computer science, a software agent is a computer program that acts for a user or another program in a relationship of agency.
The term ''agent'' is derived from the Latin ''agere'' (to do): an agreement to act on one's behalf. Such "action on ...
s. Domain knowledge usually must be learned from software users in the domain (as domain specialists/experts), rather than from software developers. It may include user workflows, data pipelines, business policies, configurations and constraints and is crucial in the development of a software application. Expert domain knowledge (frequently informal and ill-structured) is transformed in computer programs and active data, for example in a set of rules in knowledge bases, by
knowledge engineers.
Communicating between end-users and software developers is often difficult. They must find a common language to communicate in. Developing enough shared vocabulary to communicate can often take a while.
The same knowledge can be included in different domain knowledge. Knowledge which may be applicable across a number of domains is called ''domain-independent'' knowledge, for example
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
and mathematics. Operations on domain knowledge are performed by
metaknowledge.
See also
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Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
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Domain (software engineering)
In software engineering, domain is the targeted subject area of a computer program. Formally it represents the target subject of a specific programming project, whether narrowly or broadly defined. For example, for a particular programming projec ...
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Domain engineering
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Domain of discourse
In the formal sciences, the domain of discourse or universe of discourse (borrowing from the mathematical concept of ''universe'') is the set of entities over which certain variables of interest in some formal treatment may range.
It is also ...
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Ontology (information science)
In information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definitions of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, or entities that pertain to one, many, or all domains of discourse. More ...
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Knowledge engineering
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Subject-matter expert
A subject-matter expert (SME) is a person who has accumulated great knowledge in a particular field or topic and this level of knowledge is demonstrated by the person's degree, licensure, and/or through years of professional experience with the su ...
Literature
* Hjørland, B. & Albrechtsen, H. (1995)
Toward A New Horizon in Information Science: Domain Analysis ''Journal of the American Society for Information Science'', 1995, 46(6), p. 400–425.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Domain Knowledge
Knowledge engineering