Representation of historical knowledge

New technology and new insights

To support the practical work with theory, I am investigating representation of historical knowledge. Knowledge representation includes among others datamodeling and the inference of new knowledge. The research has two parts.

The development of new knowledge by humans

Knowledge representation serves a problem and therefore supports the process in which the problem is solved. Historical knowledge is used and created by humans. Knowledgerepresentation should therefore be investigation from that point of view: how is the search for new knowledge organised and which are the properties of historical knowledge and historical reasoning.

The knowledge in resources

Accept for the 'dynamic' aspect of the processes, resources are a more 'static' aspect of cultural knowledge. Every resource has its own specific properties and these are captured in models. Existing standards like Dublin Core, TEI and EAD are very important. New standards like RDF en OWL provide new opportunities in making cultural information more accessible and are therefore studied intensively.