The role of ontologies in the verification and validation of knowledge based systems

The author gives some preliminary examination of the ways in which an ontology-an explicit specification of the conceptualisation of the domain-can support the verification and validation of a knowledge based system. The discussion is focussed on a simple, well known example, relating to the identification of animals. Key elements of the support provided by the ontology relate to: attempting to give coherence to the domain conceptualisation; making the role of experts in verification and validation more structured and less at the mercy of interpretation; constraining the number of test cases required to give good coverage of the possible cases; and structuring the testing to give better assurance of its efficacy, and a possible basis for greater automation of the testing process. Finally the author makes some brief remarks on the relation between the ontology of a knowledge based system, and a database and its schema.