Chapter 45 – Human Factors in Knowledge Acquisition

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the human factors in knowledge acquisition. An initial need to build an expert system is for the system builders to acquire a good understanding of the domain. There is no substitute for this, and it constitutes the first stage of knowledge acquisition. Similarly, it is important to identify an expert, or a small group of experts who can work with the knowledge acquirers. These experts should come to understand the goals and constraints of a computer system, so they can be helpful in imparting their knowledge. The multiple methods of eliciting and acquiring knowledge should be used, both because knowledge is so complex and because any method should bring with itself characteristic biases and potentials for distortions and gaps. Closely related to this, mixed methods of knowledge acquisition show considerable promise. This means that multiple, integrated techniques for extracting knowledge should be used, which can combine the virtues of different technique.