We’re using a definition of domain model that is close to Tom Franklin’s recent work for JISC “A High Level Domain Architecture for HE”. From Tom’s report the definition is:
“A domain model can be thought of as a conceptual model of a system which describes the various entities involved in that system and their relationships. The domain model is created to
document the key concepts and the vocabulary of the system. The model displays the relationships among all major entities within the system and usually identifies their important methods and attributes (Wikipedia).”

I would slightly question the use of the term “system” in this definition, because there may not be a single clearly defined system involved, and perhaps even some stuff that isn’t actually system-like. We’re considering a ‘domain’ to be a specific area of interest or expertise, in our example, HE admissions. Domains can, I think, be at various levels of granularity; though it’s usually helpful to consider big chunks rather than fine detail.

Our work in ADoM is to develop a model for the HE admissions domain, and to develop a visualisation of this (a domain map), so that admissions practitioners can share their experiences, modify the model and suggest useful future (technological) developments in admissions. We’re gathering information from our primary project partners, University of Nottingham and Manchester Metropolitan University. We’re using Protege to hold the knowledge base and are currently working on a visualisation (a domain map) constructed by tweaking Protege’s HTML outputs and adding some of our own pages and diagrams.

Alan

As an example, we have a narrative for assessing applicants in a professional subject, using holistic methods, for a heavily selecting course in a multi-site environment. We hope that the narrative and characteristics can capture the richness and some of the variety of the domain.

It occurs to me that our approach is quite close to the ecological approach you have outlined here. I’m particularly keen to record the messier aspects of the domain, which are most important to practitioners, even if they cannot be readily captured in business models.