IMPLICIT METHODS Sample Clauses

IMPLICIT METHODS. 4.1.1 Expert judgment Expert judgments are the expressions of informed opinion, based on knowledge and experience that experts make in responding to technical problems (Xxxxxx & Xxxxx, 2001). Xxxxxx & Xxxxx (2001) define an expert as an individual who has background in the subject area and is recognized by peers as having the necessary qualifications to address the technical problem. Judgements, according to Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx (1992), are inferences or evaluations that go beyond obvious statements of fact, data, or the conventions of a discipline. Instead, factual judgments are beliefs or opinions about propositions that can, in principle, be proven right or wrong. Value judgments are expressions of preferences between alternatives, based on tradeoffs and priorities. The process of gathering information from experts is expert elicitation. It is a structured process to elicit subjective judgments and ideas from experts. It seeks to make explicit and utilizable the unpublished knowledge and wisdom in the heads of experts, based on their experience and expertise, including their insight in the limitations, strengths and weaknesses of the published knowledge and available data (Xxxxxxxxx et al 2006). Expert judgement can be the result either of informal or formal processes. Informal processes are implicit, unstructured and undocumented. According to Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx (1992), expert judgement processes have always entered analysis through the experts’ implicit and undocumented reasoning, inferences, scientific conventions or even unconscious processes. Examples for such informal judgements are about the identification of:  the problems that need to be analysed;  the kind of models should be used;  the kind of data should be used;  how should results be interpreted;  the actions to be recommended. In contrast, formal uses of Expert judgment are explicit and documented. They involve a deliberate attempt to bring out the assumptions and reasoning underlying a judgment, to quantify it to the extent useful and to document it so that it can be appraised by others. The following steps describe the process of formal Expert judgment elicitation (adapted from Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx, 1992):