Key word "knowledge engineer"

The most fundamental step in the knowledge acquisition phase of the development of an expert system is the elicitation of knowledge from a skilled individual. The knowledge acquisition phase has typically involved the knowledge engineer’s working closely with a specialist to elicit relevant knowledge from the latter’s domain. This is typically a tedious and ad hoc cycle that consists of extensive verbal interviews followed by the construction of prototypes, testing, and more interviews. This approach has two significant drawbacks – it has been extremely laborious, and domain experts often have difficulty articulating their knowledge in forms useful to the knowledge engineer. Indeed, it has been suggested (Feigenbaum & McCorduck, 1983) that “the problem of knowledge acquisition is the critical bottleneck in artificial intelligence” (p. 80).

Key words: expert system, knowledge acquisition, domain expert, knowledge engineer, personal construct