Using an Ontology Conceptualisation Method to Capture an Advice Giving System’s Knowledge

In order to produce effective advisory messages, knowledge coming from different research fields has to be reconciled. Domain knowledge is only part of what is needed: sociological theories of behaviour change are of great help, and, as the messages have to be conveyed with some wording, argumentation theories are definitely crucial. The issue of integrating diverse knowledge representations is among those which have been raised in recent years by researchers in Ontological Engineering, and various methodologies to help conceptualising knowledge have been suggested by a number of research groups. In this paper we take advantage from this community experience, and apply one of the methodologies proposed to the design of an advice giving system which uses argumentation techniques to produce counselling messages in the nutrition education domain.