Teaching tunnels : knowledge management and on-line databases

Abstract

We present the structure and the use of a knowledge database of tunnel for teaching purposes. This database, called KBT, is complementary to the e-learning tool DIDACTU. The development of KBT will give an important help to teaching providing text an images to illustrate courses. 2000). Words are ambiguous, so we must express them with definitions in order to resolve their ambiguity. A word and its definition is what we call a “concept”, which refers to every and each item which matches the definition and – hence – the name. So, that we call concept is each thing and tool clearly identified in tunnel works. A jumbo, a beam, a computer code, a theory are concepts. The identification of these concepts is done by automatic language treatment running on chosen texts. An expert of the world of tunnel give definition for any concept and set it in a tree that checks subsumed relations (IS A) between all concepts. The same process applies to various relations between concepts, mainly aggregation (IS A PART OF); the sum of these various trees, featuring the same concepts, offers a kind of common reference for concepts organisation in the field of tunnels. This helps to define some conceptual neighbourhoods, which, we hope, will allow some reasoning in a next future or for the educational software DIDACTU a new kind of navigation and for the knowledge base KBT a new query mode. This part is still under development, and shall be presented next symposium. 3 MAIN CONCEPTS LEADING TO THE KBT DATABASE 3.1 What is an “interesting” tunnel and for what use? When teaching, examples are used for showing some feature or some problem that may occur during the construction of a tunnel. Interesting tunnel are these where something unexpected occurs and where an original solution must be founded. For a teacher, but also for a young engineer, the discussion that can develop when showing the case is usually fruitful, and the student will remember the causes of the incident and its remedial. Several cases, well chosen, would be an appreciated help when teaching, or for new engineers, who wish to upgrade their own knowledge. 3.2 What were the previous works about databases? The previous works about on-line databases are numerous, and the authors contributed to these progresses (Faure et al, 1992). A recurrent subject of discussion about that kind of database is the property of the data. In the WASSS project (Faure, 1999), (Faure et al, 2001) we have decided to share the data into two parts, the first one that we call meta-data, which are information on the data, and the data itself. The meta-data are access free, but the detailed data remains under the acknowledgement of its owner. It is quite heavy and we worried about the management of the rights (Faure et al, 2002). For the actual release of KBT we skip that approach and we think that all data must be free for a gentle use of the database. One other aspect of that kind of database is the feeding of it. Preparation of a case must be very light, if we want obtain numerous cases. We observed that for a men knowing correctly the case he want to display, the capture of the structured data all must no be longer than few minutes, and we conceive KBT as to agree with this constraint. The building of the web 316 Figure 1. First page when entering DIDACTU with the link to KBT. pages presenting the case may be longer, but as the form is completely free, it is easy for the writer to describe his case generally already existing on an other format, and he can use images, maps, sketches and also web links. The WEB page(s) is written in his own language, as KBT allows the use of several languages. 4 THE ON-LINE KBT DATABASE KBT means: “Knowledge data Base for Tunnels”. The word knowledge is used in its full signification, that is to say, that we want collect not only information about tunnel, but also reasoning about it when an incident occurs. For this, when filling the database four kinds of data are asked in a chosen language among French, Italian, Spanish, German and English. 4.1 What data for KBT? 4.1.1 General data about the tunnel These data are asked in a form, the user must fill: Name of the tunnel Country GPS coordinates of the two entrances Owner of the tunnel Builder (name of the company) Number of tubes Mean declivity Shape of section (circular, horse shoe shape, elliptic, rectangular....) (a combo list) Length of the tunnel Excavated volume Name of the road (railways) that uses the tunnel Date of the opening Date of writing the form Name of the writer Used language for web pages.