Epistemic modeling for sustainability knowledge management in construction

One of the key factors for enabling sustainable construction is facilitating the acquisition, transfer, and exchange of knowledge about sustainable construction practices (SCPs). However, knowledge about SCPs is complex, interdisciplinary, multi-faceted, and context-sensitive. Semantic modeling is a key to achieving context-awareness. The development of a context-aware knowledge management (KM) system can be successfully achieved based on a semantic (computer-understandable and meaning-rich) model. This paper proposes an epistemic model for SCPs based on epistemology (the theory of knowledge and knowing). The proposed epistemic model is a theory-based, semantic model for representing and reasoning - in a context-aware manner - about: 1) the knowledge of SCPs and 2) the process of knowing this knowledge. This paper starts by presenting our analysis of the requirements of sustainability KM in the construction domain and the limitations of existing methods and systems. It follows by presenting our modeling approach for KM system development, which is epistemology-based, context-aware, and semantic. Finally, the paper presents our initial modeling efforts towards a formal epistemology for SCPs and discusses its application as the backbone of our proposed KM system.