Although it is possible to encode a great deal of process knowledge about database design into a system, experience has shown that the contribution of a human designer extends beyond his or her knowledge of database design techniques. The next step in the evolution of automated database design tools is to incorporate knowledge and reasoning capabilities to support this higher level of participation. Doing so requires some understanding of what different terms mean. This paper presents an ontology that can be used as a surrogate for the meaning of words in a database design system to simulate the contributions that a designer would make based on his or her general knowledge. The ontology classifies a term into one or more categories such as person, abstract good or tradable document. It is comprised of a semantic network, a knowledge base containing information on the meaning of terms that have been classified, an expert system knowledge-acquisition component, and a distance measure for assessing the distance between the meanings of terms. The ontology was tested by different types of users on a variety of problems and was shown to be quite effective.

Automated database design systems embody knowledge about the database design process. However, their lack of knowledge about the domains for which databases are being developed significantly limits their usefulness. A methodology for acquiring and using general world knowledge about business for database design has been developed and implemented in a system called the Common Sense Business Reasoner, which acquires facts about application domains and organizes them into a a hierarchical, context-dependent knowledge base. This knowledge is used to make intelligent suggestions to a user about the entities, attributes, and relationships to include in a database design. A distance function approach is employed for integrating specific facts, obtained from individual design sessions, into the knowledge base (learning) and for applying the knowledge to subsequent design problems (reasoning).