A multiplicity approach to organization of knowledge and development of web software

We start with the premise that incorporating knowledge into web software can make the web wiser due to the knowledge-is-power hypothesis. This paper explores to incorporate knowledge with web engineering, in the process proposing a multiplicity-based methodology to create wise web systems more effectively. The paper examines the nature of knowledge, linking to artificial intelligence hypotheses and the associated shift in views. From a multidimensional knowledge structure, it argues for a dual modelling view to organizing the multi-faceted knowledge at knowledge level. Subsequently, the model-based software development method that uses the dual structural and behavioural models is mixed with the web system development, taking the belief that web engineering shares a lot of similarities with conventional software engineering. The later part of the paper concentrates on resolving the two difficult tasks of switching between system views and deepening abstraction levels. Copyright © 2011 IEEE Computer Society.