Complex knowledge modelling with functional entity relationship diagrams

Purpose – Modelling complex knowledge resources can be problematical as there is currently no formalism that can represent the nature of the data‐seeking process at a conceptual level. The purpose of this paper is to develop a knowledge representation formalism, the functional entity relationship diagram (FERD), which comprises a set of extensions to the industry standard entity relationship diagram established by Chen.Design/methodology/approach – The research uses a design science approach to extend the existing ER formalism using the question‐answering (QA) paradigm. It is an extension of standard data modelling theory and is consistent with category theory.Findings – The authors defined the functional entity, an encapsulated data resource that acts as a QA system and enumerated a typology of nine functional entities generated from two established principles to produce a modelling framework that can depict all existentially quantifiable relations, and demonstrated a satisficing extension to that framew...