Selecting knowledge acquisition tools and strategies based on application characteristics

Abstract

One of the most troublesome and time-consuming activities in constructing a knowledge-based system is the elicitation and modelling of knowledge from the human expert about the problem domain. A major obstacle is that little guidance is available to the domain expert or knowledge engineer to help with (1) classifying the application task and identifying a problem-solving method, and (2) given the application task characteristics, selecting knowledge acquisition tools and strategies to be applied in creating and refining the knowledge base. Our objective is to provide automated assistance to a knowledge engineer or domain expert in analysing the problem domain, classifying the problem tasks and sub-tasks, identifying problem-solving methods, proposing knowledge acquisition tools, and suggesting the use of specific strategies for knowledge acquisition provided in selected tools. We describe such an implementation in the Dialog Manager subsystem of the AQUINAS knowledge acquisition workbench. The Dialog Manager provides advice to potential AQUINAS users as well as continuing guidance to users who select AQUINAS for knowledge base development.