Knowledge Engineering
Aeturnum uses "Knowledge Engineering" in the deployment, integration and customization of Search solutions, including FAST. This approach makes Search work smarter and more efficiently for users.As the amount of structured data and unstructured content available on internal networks keeps growing, organizations are faced with a complex information glut. The right information gets harder and harder to find. In fact, recent studies indicate that knowledge workers spend between 8-12 hours a week searching for the right and relevant information. As a result, the focus of has shifted from "SEARCH" to "FIND". In all deployment cases a balance between automation and knowledge engineers is required to effectively reduce the time users spend searching and finding the most relevant results.
Aeturnum enhances the 'findability' of the right information by balancing the use of multiple distinct but relevant technologies - forming a domain we call "Knowledge Engineering." These technologies include:
- Search Engine Platforms - such as FAST
- Taxonomy, Thesaurus and Controlled Vocabulary Building - This is the cornerstone for any Search enhancement project. A well defined and rich vertical Taxonomy supported by a deep horizontal Thesaurus provides a key step in which unorganized content becomes manageable, consumable and leverage-able. Moreover, by adding the organization's own Controlled Vocabulary to the Taxonomy and Thesaurus guarantees the specificity and centricity of the organization's internal needs and meanings. This creates a form of internal information consensus that becomes the corporate reference
- Classification - Classification, also known as tagging and categorization technologies, is the real beneficiary of a solid Taxonomy, Thesaurus, and Controlled Vocabulary mix. It also makes mix tagging more effective. Thanks to the classification mechanism every digital asset can be classified under one or multiple categories. This process makes each piece of content a valuable, multi-purpose digital asset depending on the query and text contextual relationship. Due to the nature and the dynamics of both the English language and the organizations own terminology, new words are frequently added leading to new categories and classification schemes. As a result, only classification frameworks connected by the mix tagging will make optimal use of these new terms
- Knowledge Reasoning and Presentation - As a business layer, Knowledge Reasoning and Presentation play a critical, if not indispensable role in the Knowledge Engineering framework. Based on business rules defined by the knowledge engineers, this layer acts as a contextual and linguistic wrapper - presenting controlled blocks of relevant results to query users. It is a well known component of the collective intelligence science where knowledge engineers utilize Taxonomic Knowledge, Semantic Networks, Words Frames, Commonsense Logic, and Intention Maps to present knowledge-based results. This represents the pinnacle in rules-based search experience
