Generating domain knowledge for requirement analysis based on acquisition ontology

An acquisition ontology is proposed for the knowledge engineer to acquire domain knowledge for requirement analysis. It includes an acquisition library, which contains basic acquisition components, and acquisition support entities, which contain construction and acquisition instructors. The construction instructors work with the acquisition library, with the help of methodical knowledge, to construct domain-specific acquisition structures. The acquisition instructors then interpret the acquisition structures to extract domain knowledge. This approach allows the user to easily acquire specific domain knowledge for requirement analysis. It relieves burdens of the knowledge engineer to select different KA tools for and applying them to different domains. Moreover, the generated domain knowledge can be coupled with appropriate methodical knowledge to form a domain-specific RA tool to ease the work of requirement analysis. Finally, the ontology can be enhanced readily, since it is designed as an open architecture, which helps us to evolve it by assimilating new knowledge acquisition techniques. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.