Building consensual knowledge bases: context and architecture

A protocol and architecture are presented in order to achieve consensual knowledge bases (i.e. bases in which knowledge is expressed in a formal language and which are considered as containing the state of the art in some research area). It assumes that the construction of the base must and can be achieved collectively. The architecture is based on individual workstations which provide support for developing a knowledge base: formal expression of knowledge through objects, tasks and qualitative equations annotated with hypertext nodes and links. It also provides tools for detecting similarities and inconsistencies between pieces of knowledge. These bases can be grouped together in order to constitute a new reference knowledge base. The process for constructing this last base mimics the submission of articles to peer-reviewed journals. This is achieved through a protocol for submitting knowledge to the group base, confronting it with the content of that base, amending it accordingly, reviewing it by the other knowledge bases and finally incorporating it. The system is to be used by researchers in the field of genome sequencing.

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