Specification and Generation of Custom-Tailored Knowledge-Acquisition Tools

Domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools provide efficient support for the design of knowledge-based systems. However, the cost of developing such tools is high, especially when their restricted scope is taken into account. Developers can use metalevel tools to generate domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools that are custom tailored for a small group of experts, with considerably less effort than is required for manual tool development. An epistemic obstacle to creating such metatools is the specification model for target knowledge-acquisition tools. The metatool DOTS is based on an abstract-architecture approach to the specification and generation of knowledge-acquisition tools. DOTS is domain and method independent, because it is based on an architectural model of the target knowledge-acquisition tool. 1 Introduction Many knowledge-acquisition tools are unsuitable for their tasks because they are adapted neither to the application domain, not to the requirements of individuals, such as developers and experts. Researchers in knowledge acquisition are experimenting with knowledge-acquisition tools custom tailored for specific domains [Gale, 1987; Musen et al, 1987]. Usually, such domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools are more useful than are general knowledge-acquisition tools, because custom-tailored tools can meet the requirements of the particular knowledge-acquisition situation. Simultaneously, traditional knowledge engineering and expertise transfer is being replaced gradually by methodologies where developers assemble problem solvers for knowledge-based systems from reusable *The preparation of this manuscript has been supported approach, developers use method-specific knowledge-acquisition tools to acquire the domain knowledge required by the methods. Method-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools, however, are not domain oriented per se; they must be adapted to specific domains and individuals. Developers of knowledge-based systems wishing to use domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools face several barriers: It is difficult and laborious for developers of knowledge-based systems to adapt existing knowledge-acquisition tools, and to implement new domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools for new domains. Another barrier is that the investment of developing and maintaining domain-oriented tools cannot always be justified within the budget of a single application project. Many of these barriers can be eliminated by tools that enable developers to generate new domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools from high-level descriptions. Such metatools can simplify the task of developing domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools, and can reduce significantly the work required to implement these tools. Thus, metatools can make domain-oriented knowledge-acquisition tools feasible in situations where these tools could not be used previously. The knowledge-acquisition tools generated can then support the development of the target knowledge-based systems. The design of metatools presents several epistemolog-ical and technical challenges. The …