ENHANCED DESIGN CHECKING INVOLVING CONSTRAINTS, COLLABORATION AND ASSUMPTIONS -- Ontology-supported Rationale for Collaborative Argumentation

• Main Authors: Janet Burge, Valerie Cross, James Kiper, Perdito MAYNARD-ZHANG, Stephan Cornford
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Orca
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.304.3061; http://www.springerlink.com/content/n06gw87k457484w6/fulltext.pdf

The design process involves selecting between design alternatives based on the requirements and constraints defining the system being developed. The design alternatives and the reasons for selecting one over another form the Design Rationale (DR) for the system. This information represents the designers’ intent and can be used to evaluate the design alternatives and determine the impact on the design if requirements and constraints change. Here we introduce the Ontology-supported Rationale for Collaborative Argumentation (ORCA) system which uses DR to capture and evaluate alternatives for Engineering Design. Moreover, we motivate and demonstrate our system using a NASA spacecraft design study.