A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT

OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT

AND EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

Expedito Carlos Lopes, Ulrich Schiel

Computing and Systems Department, Federal University of Campina Grande, Campina Grande, Brazil

Vaninha Vieira

Computer Science Department, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil

Ana Carolina Salgado

Informatics Center, Federal University of Pernambuco, Salvador, Brazil

Keywords: Conceptual framework, Evidence-based practice, Context.

Abstract: Conceptual frameworks are used to present a preferred approach to an idea or thought. Its use considerably

facilitates the productivity of the data modelling phase and hence the development of applications, since it

preserves portability and usability across domains. Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), usually employed in

Medicine, represents a decision-making process centered on justifications of relevant information. EBP is

used in several areas; however, we did not found conceptual models involving EBP that preserves

portability and usability across domains. Besides, the decision-making context can have an impact on

evidence-based decision-making, but the integration of evidence and context is still an open issue. This

work presents a conceptual framework that integrates evidence with context applying it to the conceptual

modelling phase for EBP domains. The use of context allows filtering out more useful information. The

main contributions of this paper are: incorporation of contextual information into EBP procedures and

presentation of the proposed conceptual framework. Also an implementation that uses the filtering of

contextual information to support evidence-based decision making in the area of crime prevention is

presented to validate the framework.

1 INTRODUCTION

The conceptual modelling phase within a

methodology for systems development is of main

importance. A conceptual framework is used to

present a preferred approach to an idea or thought. It

aims to provide a class diagram that can be used as

basis for the modelling of the classes of several

application domains. The product generated by a

conceptual framework is not executable software,

but a conceptual data scheme (Rocha et al., 2001).

The use of a conceptual framework considerably

facilitates the productivity of the data modelling

phase in diverse domains, and hence the

development of applications, since it preserves

usability and portability across domains.

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), usually

employed in Medicine, are systematic procedures

that take into account the problem of actors (e.g.

diabetes in children), his/her needs and preferences

for decision, leading to a search for evidence and an

application based on the best research evidence

found (Sacket et al., 2001). The procedures represent

an evidence-based decision-making process,

centered on justifications of relevant information

(Dobrow et al., 2004).

The EBP paradigm is also used in other areas,

such as Crime Prevention (Warren, 2007), Education

(Thomas and Pring, 2004), Computer Science

(Jorgensen et al., 2005), and Social Work

(Satterfield et al., 2009). However, we did not found

conceptual models involving EBP which preserves

Lopes E., Schiel U., Vieira V. and Salgado A. (2010).

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE.

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Speciﬁcation, pages 60-69

DOI: 10.5220/0002898400600069

 SciTePress

usability and portability across domains.

Context is a knowledge that supports the ability

to define what is or is not relevant in a given

situation (Vieira, 2008). The application of evidence

to a particular patient, for example, detains

important contextual information in the EBP

procedures and includes comparative analysis

between different contexts: that of the generation of

evidence and that of the patient.

According to Dobrow et al. (2004, p. 208), “the

two fundamental components of an evidence-based

decision are evidence and context. The decision-

making context can have an impact on evidence-

based decision-making”. But, the integration of

evidence and context is still an open issue.

The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual

framework that integrates evidence with context and

preserves the characteristics of generality, flexibility

and extensibility, applying it to the conceptual

modelling phase for domains that use EBP.

Thus, the evidence retrieval with contextual

information also can facilitate the reapplication of

decision-making justifications, involving similar

problems, and can avoid comparative analysis of

different contexts in the future.

The use of context applies to filter out and share

more useful information so that this information can

meet the needs of the users. It becomes a significant

tool to optimize performance and reduce search

results. Filtering mechanisms avoid more explicit

user interactions with the application (Bunningen,

2004).

Thus, another objective of this paper is to present

an implementation that uses the filtering of

contextual information to support evidence-based

decision making.

In this way, our contribution serves to: (i)

incorporate contextual information into EBP

procedures; and (ii) present a conceptual framework

centred in evidence and context, with portability and

usability across domains.

The key concepts regarding context and

evidence are described in Section 2. Section 3

presents the conceptual framework using UML. In

Section 4, the framework is used in the conceptual

modelling of data in the area of Crime Prevention.

An implementation in this same area, presented in

Section 5, serves to validate our work. Related

Works are described in the next section. In the last

section, we present our conclusions.

2 BACKGROUND

This section defines context and provides an

overview of Evidence-Based Practice.

2.1 Context

There are several definitions of context. A classical

definition (highly referred) is proposed by Dey and

Abowd (2001, p. 11) where context is “any

information that characterizes the situation of an

entity, where this entity is a person, place or object

considered relevant in the interaction between the

user and an application. A context is typically the

location, identity and status of people, groups and

computational and physical objects”.

Context can also be seen as a set of conditions

and relevant influences that make a situation unique

and understandable (Brézillon, 1999) or as a set of

information items (e.g. concepts, rules and

propositions) associated with an entity (Vieira,

2008).

An item is considered part of a context only if it

is useful to support the resolution of a given

problem. This item corresponds to a contextual

element defined as “any data, information or

knowledge that enables one to characterize an entity

on a given domain” (Vieira, 2008, p. 45).

Contextual information regarding acquisitions is:

(i) given by the user, whether from persistent data

sources or from profiles; (ii) obtained from a

knowledge base; (iii) obtained by means of deriving

mechanisms; or (iv) perceived from the environment

(Henricksen and Indulska, 2006). It is usually

identified through of the dimensions why, who,

what, where, when and how (Brézillon, 2007).

One step in the task execution or problem-

solving process is known as focus. The contextual

elements should have a relevant relationship to the

focus of a human agent or software agent. In

general, focus is what determines which contextual

elements should be instantiated (Brézillon, 2007).

2.2 Evidence-based Practice

According to Thomas and Pring (2007), in general,

information labeled as evidence is those whose

collection had concerns about its validity, credibility

and consistency with other facts or evidence. In

relation to its credibility, the authors categorize

evidence in three ways:

1. Based on professional practice, as a clinical

examination;

2. Generated by a process involving scientific

procedures with a proven history in producing

valid and reliable results, for example a

collect performed by biomedical;

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

3. Based from published research that

corresponds to critical reviews of the area,

such as randomized clinical trial.

“Evidence” in EBP, also called “research

evidence”, corresponds to the third category above

and means a superior type of scientific research

proof, such as generated through systematic review

and meta-analysis in the highest level. These

published researches are available in reliable data

bases, usually found on sites over the Internet,

carried out by independent research groups (Sackett

et al., 2001). This is the concept of evidence applied

in this paper.

To clarify further, a systematic review is a

review that presents meticulous research and critical

evaluations of primary studies (case study, cohort,

case series, etc.), based on research evidence related

to a specific theme. It contains analysis of qualitative

results conducted in distinct locations and at

different times. Meta-analysis is a systematic review

of qualitative and quantitative characteristics

(Friedland et al., 1998).

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) involves

complex decision-making, based on available

research evidence and also on characteristics of the

actor of the problem, his/her situations and

preferences.

In the medical area, EBP primary focus is to

provide effective counselling to help patients with

terminal or chronic illness to make decision in order

to cure the illness, extend or increase the quality of

their life (Friedland et al., 1998). What is objectively

searched is “the integration of best evidence from

research, clinical skill and preferences of the patient,

regarding their individual risks and the benefits of

proposed interventions” (Sackett et al., 2001, p. 1).

In crime prevention, EBP involves the

correlations practice that has been proven through

scientific research, aimed at reducing the recidivism

of offenders. EBP primarily considers the risk and

need principle of the offender, besides the

motivation, and treatment and responsibility

principles (Warren, 2007).

The EBP focus for education area is improving

the quality of research and evaluation on education

programs and practices, and hence, the information

diffusion in the educational research field to be used

by professionals and policies creators. (Thomas and

Pring, 2004).

We generalize the EBP steps in the following

way:

1. Transforming the need for information into a

question that can be answered;

2. Identifying the best evidence to answer the

question;

3. Critically analyzing the evidence to answer:

• Is it valid (proximity to the truth)?

• Is it relevant (size of effect)?

• Can it help (applicable in professional

practice)?

4. Integrating critical analysis with professional

skills and the values and cultural aspects of the

actor of the problem answering:

• How much the evidence can help the actor

in particular?

• Is it adaptable to actor’s goal and

preferences?

• How much safety can be expected?

5. Evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the

results of each step for future improvement.

Well-formulated questions usually have four

components, called PICO: Problem (and/or actor),

Intervention, Comparison of interventions, and

Outcome (Sackett et al., 2001). The questions in

steps 3 and 4 were adapted from Heneghan and

Badenoch (2006, p. 7), and the answers of them

represent contextual information that supports

decision-making.

3 A CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK BASED ON

EVIDENCE AND CONTEXT

The primary aim of this conceptual framework is to

provide a class structure that represents information

related to EBP procedures, while taking into

consideration information about its decision-making

context.

The domain analysis was done in juridical,

medical and educational environments, and includes:

bibliographical research, specific legislation

research, analysis of real cases collected and

interviews with decision-makers.

We utilize the extension construct stereotype of

the UML to select enumerated values. To facilitate

its presentation in a systematic way, it became

convenient to group classes in two integrated

packages: Context and Evidence (see Figure 1).

3.1 Context Package

The classes of the context package are based on

Vieira (2008).

The focus is treated as an association of a task

with an agent, which have a role in problem

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

Figure 1: Conceptual framework integrating evidence with context.

resolution. A task "make a critical analysis of the

best evidence found" for a “medical” agent in the

role "evaluator", serve as example.

ContextualEntity represents the entities of the

application conceptual model and is characterized by

at least one contextual element. A contextual

element is a property that can be identified by a set

of attributes and relationships associated with

ContextualEntity (Vieira, 2008, p.66). Accessibility

is an example of a contextual element for the

Document class. The association between Focus and

ContextualElement determines what is relevant for a

focus.

Characteristics attributed to the type of context

(dimension) and the method of acquiring contextual

elements are considered in the framework.

Contextual sources may be internal or external to the

decision-making environment (e.g., the patient’s

medical records, a document with evidence obtained

from websites).

3.2 Evidence Package

The starting point is the observation of a problem

presented by an actor to be decided by agent.

Each problem is associated with an inquiry that

is initiated by a formulated question (see step 1 of

the EBP procedures), and completed with a self-

evaluation of the research performance and

suggestions for the future (see step 5 of the EBP

procedures), whose information is instantiated in the

Research class. Each domain in which EBP is

applied has a list of different types of questions. For

example: "diagnosis" and "prognosis" in the medical

area, "drug testing" and "occurring disorders" in the

area of crime prevention, and "educational research"

in education.

During the evidence research, several searches can

be performed to retrieve documents. For the Seek

class, the expression and the type of search must be

present. InformationSource represents the

independent research groups that generate

documents with evidence, such as Cochrane

Collaboration (medical area) and Campbell

Collaboration (areas of education and crime

prevention). Springer Verlag is not generating

evidence, but has held documents with evidence.

Each document presents a type of study that can

be in all domains (e.g. systematic review, case

study) or more present in the specific domain

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

Figure 2: Framework applied to the area of crime prevention.

(cohort - in the medical area; narrative - in crime

prevention; action-research - in education).

Systematic review and meta-analysis are studies of

second degree; the remains are of first degree

(Friedland et al., 2001).

In the medical area, Evidence-Based Medicine

Guidelines are clinical guidelines for primary care

combined with the best available evidence. The

framework is extendible from perspective of using

guidelines adapted as a type of study.

After selecting the found evidence, the agent

(decision maker) will choose the one that seems the

most appropriate (step 2 of EBP), which is

instantiated in the Evidence class.

The result of the critical analysis – or in other

words the validity, relevance and applicability of the

best evidence (step 3 of EBP) – corresponds to

contextual information. Relevance is a contextual

element in Document, while applicability (practical

utility) is in Evidence. Thus, Document and

Evidence are specializations of ContextualEntity.

The Intervention class is the result of an

association among the Problem, Actor and Evidence

classes. It contains a description of a decision made

(intervening solution) where information about

associated classes have been considered including

preferences, values and cultural aspects (conduct,

behaviour, for example) of the actor with the

problem presented (step 4 of EBP). A preference is a

contextual element and hence Actor is a

specialization of ContextualEntity.

4 THE CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK IN THE AREA

OF CRIME PREVENTION

The framework instantiated for the area of Crime

Prevention is present in Figure 2 which was enriched

with the stereotypes <<ce>> and

<<contextualEntity>>, corresponding respectively

to ContextualElement and ContextualEntity.

The Pernambuco state court (Brazil) was chosen

because of its pioneering work on “restorative

justice” and “therapeutic justice”, themes inherent in

Evidence-Based Crime Prevention.

The main requirements are: to judge cases

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

through judicial sentences, and to make

interventions based on support programs to the

involved participants with the objective to avoid

recidivism. The Figure 2 corresponds to the second

requirement.

Each EBP procedure corresponds to a task. The

following tasks were identified: (i) "make a question

to find evidence”; (ii) "find the best juridical

research evidence" based on the designation of sites

with evidence juridical, types of study and search

expressions associated with the given question; (iii)

"make a critical analysis of the best evidence found";

(iv) "integrate the best evidence found with the

values and preferences of the participant with

presented problem"; and (v) “do a self evaluation of

the judge’s performance” to measure all the tasks of

EBP.

"Translator" and "designer" are the respective

roles for tasks (i) and (ii); "intervenor” for the task

(iv), while "evaluator" for the other tasks.

The association between Judge and

JuridicalFact brings up the judges that decide

juridical cases or make intervention of support

programs.

The characterization of the problem is given

through the constitution of the juridical fact and the

circumstances that motivated the offender being

represented in the JuridicalFact class. To facilitate

information retrieval based on problems, key terms

related to the juridical fact will be instantiated in the

JuridicalFact class. The offender’s personal data are

represented in the Defendant subclass inherited from

Participant. In several cases, the presence of victims

occurs. Thus, Defendant and Victim are

specializations of Participant.

The formulation of a question is based on data

from the participant, possible interventions

(programs like parent counselling, shelter, street

lighting, etc.) and desired results. The question and

its corresponding type are instantiated in the

JuridicalResearch class. The historic attribute in this

class should include general comments and the

number of documents that were accepted and

rejected.

Searches for evidence should mention the

validity period of the documents requested for each

reliable site (start and end).

For the ResearchedDocument class, the required

attributes (besides the contextual elements) are:

location (URI / URL), title, author, keywords,

publication and sample of the study (participants,

age interval, geographic and temporal aspects, etc.).

Searches for secondary studies should be conducted

on Campbell Collaboration’s and Springer websites.

Primary studies should be consulted on the websites

of Courts (federal or state) and in respected

electronic journals in the country (JusNavigandi,

National Association of Therapeutic Justice, etc.).

The homePage attribute value is the reference to the

JuridicalEvidProvider class that hold judicial

evidences.

Regarding the Evidence class, it should contain a

summary of the found evidence and the suggested

intervention contained in the document.

Information about priority solution that contains

the proposals of evidence-based intervention must

be present in the RestorativeIntervention class. The

possible intervention programs are enumerated in

Figure 2. For victim support we must consider

psychosocial, psychiatric and shelter programs.

About Context, contextual entities and elements

of the framework for the area of Crime Prevention

were identified. We describe the contextual elements

associated with the entities of the framework in two

groups.

The first group concerns the elements inherent in

the EBP procedures or elements that we have

analyzed to be present in several domains:

1. Accessibility (Document) – mentions the degree

of access to a document. Some sites display

documents in their entirety (completed or in

progress), while others allow you to view only

the protocol of creation or just the abstract.

2. Quality (Document, InformationSource) - is

derived from the association of the study type

with the provider. Systematic review/meta-

analysis and the databases of MEDLINE,

Cochrane and Campbell Collaboration, when

combined, represent the highest level of quality.

3. Validity (Document, Research) - indicates

whether the document should be selected based

on its quality and the methodological rigor

associated with the question asked by the

decision maker.

4. Relevance (Document) - indicates whether the set

of results (outcomes) in the document, often

presented in statistical form, is consistent and

significant.

5. Applicability (Evidence) - indicates whether the

evidence presented in the document is credible in

the context of other knowledge, or whether it has

practical utility in general.

6. Adaptability (Intervention) – indicates the degree

of coherence in the application of evidence for

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

the conducted behavior, needs and preferences of

the actor.

7. Safety (Intervention) - denotes the degree of

safety that the decision maker have to apply the

specific evidence to a particular actor.

8. Expectation (Intervention) - refers to the

percentage of support expected from the use of

evidence in relation to the actor.

9. Abilities (Actor) – represents the actor’s skills

(profile), and is used to find mutual affinities with

intervention programs (e.g. revenue).

10. Availability (Actor) – registers the availability

preferences, in days and shifts, of the actor. An

actor with a good availability chart has more

alternatives and higher chances of fulfilling the

intervention on the schedule defined by the Judge.

For the second group, in addition to its

relevance, the contextual elements identified are

well suited to facilitate the filtering of large volumes

of data, mainly for juridical domain:

1. ExpertAffinity (Judge) – identifies a relation of

expertise from the Judge profile on a given

subject matter (e.g. crimes against children). It

helps to identify mutual affinities among judges

and in the retrieval of evidence related to facts of

the same nature (e.g. pedophilia).

2. SubjectSimilarity (ResearchedDocument, Judge)

– is automatically derived and refers to

percentage of similarity between keywords in a

document and subjects of interest for the Judge.

3. Recurrence (Defendant, JuridicalFact) –

indicates if the defendant is a primary defendant

or not. This information (automatically derived)

is crucial to sentencing new trials.

4. Risk (DefendantSupport) – it comes from

juridical and psychosocial evaluations (profile).

Behavior data, conduct, fact description and given

sentences, especially for recurrent cases, are bases

for measuring the degree of risk.

5. Complexity (DefendantSupport) – that comes

from the juridical evaluation (defined by the

user). It should represent the degree of difficulty

that the judge had in solving the case and

indicates the intervention program. Recurrence

and risk increase this element.

6. Situation (JuridicalResearch) – is contextual

information queried in the JuridicalResearch

class to indicate whether the problem is ongoing

or concluded.

To conclude this section, we show elements that

characterize a framework through some examples.

The Agent class corresponds, respectively, to the

Doctor, Judge and Professor classes for the medical,

juridical and educational areas. Evidence and Seek,

for example, are general classes for any domains.

Considering the medical domain, Symptom and

Signal subclasses represent extensions of the

Problem class. A point of flexibility can be

presented in the Intervention class to represent

different characteristics: StudentSupport in

educational domain; PatientSupport and

FamilySupport in medical domain; and

DefendantSupport and VictimSupport in juridical

domain.

5 IMPLEMENTATION

We present an example adapted from a real case

involving an alternative penalty - a model for

infractions that are of minor and moderately

offensive potential (e.g., contravention, illegal

weapon possession). It deals with a new

modality, face-to-face restorative justice, in which a

victim that suffered violence of an alcoholic

offender receives support.

This case is justified because many of the present

defendants suffered violence in the past and crime

victims could be turn offenders in the future

(Sherman et al, 2005).

A prototype was developed in Java language that

interacts with a PostgreSQL Database. Figure 3

presents data for searching by evidence in the

Court’s Database.

Figure 3: Data for searching evidence from local database.

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

Figure 4: Retrieved documents with evidence: a) without using context (upper), (b) using contextual element (lower).

The High or Moderate Intervention Complexity is

due to offender and victim need of treatment. The

Judge’s expertise in the new case is “drug crimes”.

We applied Salton’s cosine formula used in

Information Retrieval for keyword similarity search

between query and document with evidence (Salton,

1968).

In the first retrieval, we do not use contextual

elements and the results with several cases are

present in Figure 4a.

Using contextual information parameters as filter

fewer cases were selected (see Figure 4b).

To select a document, we use algorithms of

similarity search between keywords (query and fact

that motivated its intervention) (see Figure 5).

If the similarity value is highly meaningful, it

represents great likeness between the new fact

(query) and an old fact with applied evidence

(retrieved locally). This can be sufficient to avoid

search for evidences on the Internet, and hence, the

comparative analysis of different contexts.

Figure 5: Similarity between query and old fact.

Otherwise, if the presented cases are not

sufficient to give support to the solution, the judge

should search for evidences on the Internet.

The research began with the question containing

the problem and actor (woman with a psychological

problem who was assaulted), intervention (face-to-

face sessions), comparison of interventions (face-to-

face sessions and conventional processes) and

outcome (beneficial effects). The sources Campbell

Collaboration and Springer Verlag were chosen and

their respective home-pages were obtained. Figure 6

show data for second search regarding documents

published between 2005 and now.

Figure 6: Data for searching evidence in Springer Verlag’s

database.

Figure 7: Evaluate the best evidence.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

As shown in Figure 7, the document with the

best evidence found was evaluated; its information

was extracted and recorded in local database.

The decision making is presented in Figure 8.

Data of the victim were informed and they are

compatible with the best evidence founded. The

victim agrees to participate in face-to-face meetings

with the offender, provided that in previously

established time and with the presence of authorities.

Victim support programs, with respect to

psychosocial and psychiatric treatment, must be

offered in this particular intervention.

The process concludes with documentation of the

research performance made by judge.

Figure 8: Decision-making.

6 RELATED WORKS

In this section we present some related work on the

themes evidence, context, and integration of

evidence with context.

In Stolba et al. (2009) is showed how Data

Warehouse facilitating Evidence-Based Medicine

can be applied for reliable and secure processing of

huge amounts of medical data. The authors present a

data model for building a federated Data Warehouse

considering adopted international standards for the

exchange of healthcare data.

Nakaya e Shimuzu (2006) present the

Knowledge representation architecture based on

Evidence based Logical Atomism (KELA) that

consider the anatomic hierarchic structure from

genome to human. Knowledge atoms of molecular

and disease findings are modeled as entities and

relationships - describes species, birthplace, and

existing place as features in an entity.

Vieira et al. (2008) presents a domain-

independent context metamodel, which guides

context modelling in different applications. The

metamodel offers integrated support for modeling

structural and behavioral aspects involved in context

management and usage. Contextual graph and UML

were used.

Sheng and Benatallah (2005) introduce the

ContextUML metamodel developed to support the

modelling of context-aware Web Services. It

separates context modeling (types, sources, etc.)

from context-awareness modeling (objects and

mechanisms) becoming restrict to the Web Services

category of Context-Sensitive Systems.

Dobrow et al. (2004) emphasize the treatment of

evidence with context. In a theoretical approach

about Evidence-Based Decision-Making for health

policy, the authors present a conceptual framework

regarding the role of context in the evidence

introduction, interpretation and application for

decision-making support.

Kay et al. (2007) describe ONCOR, an ontology-

and evidence-based approach applied to contexts.

They provide an approach to build ontology of

places, devices and sensors in ubiquitous computing

in building environment. Locations, activities,

services and devices are considered in ONCOR in

order to treat context history to model indoor

pervasive computing places.

The related works above regard individually

evidence or context. The combination of evidence

with context was developed for specific domains.

But, none of them has the perspectives of integration

and extension for several domains.

7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORKS

This article proposes the integration of context with

evidence represented in a conceptual framework to

facilitate the development of applications centered in

Evidence-Based Practice with the consideration of

context for several domains.

The class structure of the framework was

presented and used in the conceptual modelling

phase for the area of crime prevention. Contextual

information related to the EBP and specific of the

criminal area were modeled and instantiated.

With a practical implementation for the

Pernambuco state court, Brazil, we showed how

contextual EBP can be used to support Judge’s

decision making. Besides, we verified that using

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

contextual information makes the retrieve and

filtering mechanisms more effective.

Future researches encompass: (i) the

incorporation of the classical case structure

(problem, solution and result) into the conceptual

framework and Case-Based Reasoning technique for

decision making support; (ii) the creation of a semi-

automatic Evidence-Oriented Information Extractor

(EOIE); and (iii) the development of a

computational tool for risk assessment.

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A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPLICATIONS CENTRED ON CONTEXT AND

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE