This page provides some introductory material for using KnowWE. The Semantic Wiki KnowWE builds on the open-source wiki engine JSPWiki, extended by the core libraries of d3web and semantic extensions of the KnowWE project.

First steps#

  • First Steps: The first and most basic activities in KnowWE
  • Basic Markup: Describes how for format article with headlines, bold letters, bullet lists, etc.
  • Tables: Explains how to use tables

Knowledge Engineering with KnowWE#

A knowledge base is defined by a collection of knowledge elements. These elements can be distributed over the wiki by placing them on different articles. For each knowledge element, we need to define its corresponding package, i.e., a tag that describes its affiliation.

Defining your Knowledge#

You may declare a new knowledge base by specifying the used packages, that should be included into this knowledge base. For the creation of the knowledge base all knowledge elements of the specified packages are picked and included. Detailed descriptions on the definition of knowledge base elements are provided as following:

  • Creating a knowledge base and KnowledgeBase: The mandatory markups to define a knowledge base
  • Package: Defining packages to group knowledge
  • Covering Models: Using set coverage models to derive solutions
  • Solution: Defining solutions and groups of solutions
  • Question: Defining questions and questionnaires
  • DiaFlux: Using diagnostic flowcharts to ask questions and establish solutions
  • Rule: Using rules to derive abstractions and score solutions
  • Abstraction Tables: Use tables to define a bunch of rules about the same objects
  • Property: Adding special behavior to objects and translate them into multiple languages
  • Resource: Adding multimedia resources to your knowledge base. To add clickable images with sensitive areas to questions, also have a look at the Image Maps.

Executing your Knowledge#

The created knowledge base can be tested directly in your wiki. For this you can use the inline quick interview or a user-driven simple click-dialog. Alternatively you may download the knowledge base as a separate file to run on Android or in a stand-alone application.

  • Using the knowledge: Run a interview session in the wiki and check the derived solutions
  • Quickinterview: Embed a inline dialog to use the knowledge in a wiki page
  • ShowSolutions: Show the derived solutions and/or values in a wiki page

Testing your Knowledge#

There is a bunch of functionalities to test your knowledge during development. Some tests may be executed manually as required, but you can also define them to be running automatically in the background every time a change is applied to the wiki. In this case, you can specify a signal in the left menu of the wiki to indicate the current quality status.

  • CIDashboard and CIDaemon: continuous integration of knowledge bases; a dashboard always informs you about the healthiness of your knowledge project
  • TestCasePlayer: Execute the test cases to verify the behavior of the knowledge base
  • TestCase: Define test cases to verify the behavior of the knowledge base. It explains, how knowledge can be evaluated in KnowWE using a suite of test cases.
  • TestCaseTable: Table based definition of test cases
  • TestCaseSessionRecord and TestCaseSTC: Two alternative ways to define test cases
  • TestDocumentation: Create a PDF file out of a knowledge base to review the contents that have been compiled into it

Using Semantic Wiki Extensions#

Other helpful markups#

Depending on your use case you may find the following commercial extension helpful: