Edwards M, Cooley R E
Computing Laboratory, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
Comput Appl Biosci. 1993 Dec;9(6):657-65. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/9.6.657.
In this paper it is argued that an expert system requires more than factual knowledge before it can display expertise in a given domain. The additional knowledge consists of the heuristics or 'rules of thumb' used by an expert to manipulate and interpret the factual knowledge. The knowledge acquisition phase of an expert system project involves determining the factual knowledge (which may be obtained from published sources) and the heuristics used by an expert to manipulate that knowledge--these heuristics can only be obtained from an expert. In reviewing existing biological expert systems it is apparent that many contain only the factual knowledge relating to the domain, and lack the heuristics that enable such systems to show expertise. This paper reviews a number of knowledge acquisition techniques which could be used for acquiring heuristic knowledge and discusses when their use is appropriate. The knowledge acquisition techniques discussed are those suitable for the development of small-scale expert systems as these are most likely to be of interest to biologists. The techniques include the use of questionnaires, interview techniques and protocol analysis; particular emphasis is placed on a modification to the 'twenty questions' interview technique which was developed specifically to elicit taxonomic knowledge relating to water mite identification.
本文认为，一个专家系统在能够在给定领域展现专业知识之前，需要的不仅仅是事实性知识。额外的知识包括专家用于处理和解释事实性知识的启发式方法或“经验法则”。专家系统项目的知识获取阶段包括确定事实性知识（可从已发表的资料中获取）以及专家用于处理该知识的启发式方法——这些启发式方法只能从专家那里获得。在回顾现有的生物专家系统时，很明显许多系统只包含与该领域相关的事实性知识，而缺乏使这些系统能够展现专业知识的启发式方法。本文回顾了一些可用于获取启发式知识的知识获取技术，并讨论了它们在何时适用。所讨论的知识获取技术适用于小型专家系统的开发，因为生物学家最可能对这些技术感兴趣。这些技术包括使用问卷、访谈技术和协议分析；特别强调了对“二十个问题”访谈技术的一种改进，该改进是专门为引出与水螨鉴定相关的分类学知识而开发的。
