Knowledge-Based Systems, Viewpoints and the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for disseminating advice or help to users of products or services. Some of these advice systems axe based around knowledge-based systems and as such, can exploit many of the advantages of this technology. However, a wide range of users come into contact with ffi Web site, bringing with them differing needs. In order to tackle this issue, the viewpoints mechanism, devised by the author to address such problems in more conventional knowledge-based systems, can be employed. This mechanism allows different parts of a single underlying knowledge base to be utilised, presenting a different view of the knowledge base to different groups of users. By combining the viewpoints mechanism with the Web, a single knowledge base can provide advice in a number of ways for different classes of user. For example, & council can provide advice directly to users through the Web, via telephone operatives on a help line and to claim adjudicators, with each interaction tailored to that user’s