The Visual Modeling (Language) Editor

The Visual Modeling (Language) Editor provides an extension to the basic functionalities offered by the KP-Environment and allows users to create, share, use, and update visual models as well as the underlying visual modeling languages as another type of shared artifacts.

Description of the tool

The Visual Modeling (Language) Editor is part of the Knowledge Practices Environment currently under development in the KP-Lab project. It provides an extension to the basic functionalities offered by the KP-Environment and allows users to create, share, use, and update visual models as well as the underlying visual modeling languages as another type of shared artifacts. The aim of the Visual Modeling (Language) Editor is to provide users with an easy to use and customizable but yet semantically powerful tool for collaborative modeling in diverse domains of interest. The direct integration into the KP-Environment allows for an easy transition between modeling and other collaborative activities. For example, models and their elements can be directly linked with other artifacts at the group’s disposal. Exemplary application scenarios include but are not limited to the collaborative analysis and advancement of social practices, the modeling of problems, requirements, and options in design projects as well as the explication and analysis of logic models for evaluation and strategy development. In all these cases, modeling is conceived as part of a more overarching activity whereby the model is meant to be an epistemic artifact for knowledge creation.

The Visual Modeling (Language) Editor allows users to work collaboratively on visual models with explicitly defined semantics. The semantics are accessible to the user by means of the respective visual modeling languages. Providing access to the semantics of visual models and enabling users to revise and update these semantics, while working on a particular model, allows users to create their own conceptual tools. VM(L)E allows for both synchronous and asynchronous work. Therefore, changes are propagated in real time to all members of the group that are on-line but also logged by the system in order to trace back changes while someone has not been on-line when a model was modified. Commenting and chat functionalities provide additional support towards that end. Moreover, visual models can evolve not only based on direct user-inflicted changes but also because of changes to the underlying modeling languages. This is now part of the system specifications and will be supported in future releases. By tracking users' interaction both on visual models and visual modeling languages, the VM(L)E also provides means to follow their (interrelated) evolution in time. These functionalities are supported by the use of advanced Semantic Web Knowledge Management Services that allow the retrieval, storage, querying, updating, comparison and evolution of both visual models and visual modeling languages.

Prospective users

The tool is meant for a wide variety of users including scientific, professional and student communities that are in need of technical affordances allowing them to create their own conceptual tools for collaborative visual modeling to support research, design, learning and other knowledge creation processes.

The tool and knowledge creation

The creation and manipulation of various external models can be seen as a genuinely epistemic activity that aims to produce new insights and ideas. The use of models is to represent not only what is already known, but to come to terms with what is not known yet. Modeling should not be treated as an isolated activity, but as an integral part of some more overarching knowledge practices, such as scientific inquiry or product development. Models have a material form, and therefore are subject to the affordances and constraints of the medium used for modeling. These affordances and constraints are due both to the technical as well as conceptual tools used for modeling. Modeling languages, here in the sense of conceptual tools, are crucial towards this end as they entail ontological commitments and make some aspects of domain more salient than others. Providing access to the semantics of visual models and enabling users to revise and update these semantics while working on a particular model VM(L)E, allows users to create visual models as well as underlying conceptualizations that support their knowledge creation activities in various target domains.