Effectiveness index of expert system applications in agriculture

Abstract

This research paper focuses on the assessment of the effectiveness index of expert system applications in agriculture with special reference to ‘KAU-Fertulator’ and ‘e-Crop doctor’, developed by Kerala Agricultural University. A survey was conducted among three targeted segments of Kerala extension professionals with a total of 100 respondents who were actively involved in the field of agriculture. Based on the relevant review of literature and discussion with experts effectiveness index of agri-expert system was developed and standardized using the applications such as quick availability and opportunity of the expert system to programme itself, expert systems ability to exploit a considerable amount of knowledge, reliability, scalability, pedagogy, expert systems ability on preservation and improvement of knowledge and expert systems ability to address the new areas neglected by conventional computing. These applications were ranked based on their mean scores in decreasing order of importance and effectiveness index was calculated to distribute the respondents in different categories. Results showed that the effectiveness index of expert system application in agriculture was generally medium. In order to improve the effectiveness index of agri-expert system applications in agriculture, it is necessary to augment the attributes of expert systems such as accuracy, timeliness, format clarity and relevancy of the information from agri-expert systems.