One of ten pages from Craig Marion's Software Design Smorgasbord. The others are:
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This page focuses on integrating knowledge into user interfaces. Among the techniques involved are:
A clarification of the name of the page, however, is necessary because the term hasn't achieved common usage. According to Gloria Gery in her seminal work on Electronic Performance Support Systems (1991, p. i.), the term EPSS developed "from what we then called knowledge support systems." When I read this, I liked the prior term immediately. And while "performance support systems" is the broader category and the one that has become the official buzzword for these systems, I think it's useful to distinguish elements that support performance from those that support domain knowledge. Various tax programs provide clear models of the distinction. They provide assistance in both using the program and doing your taxes. The former is performance support. The latter is knowledge support. It's important to separate the two because their creation is quite different and because, while performance support has achieved many advances in 90s, knowledge support is a largely untapped area and will probably become a market differentiator in this decade. It's also important to clarify the distinction between Knowledge Support and Learning Support. Learning support can be separated from performing work. Knowledge Support is integrated into the performance of work. An important dimension of it involves the modularization of knowledge and its presentation at time of need. Techniques for creating knowledge support often involve |
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| American Association for Artificial Intelligence | The largest established AI group in the U.S. A good place to start to delve into the field. (Posted 6/97) |
| ACM SIGART | Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence. This is their resource directory. (Posted 6/97. Updated 4/07) |
| A.L.I.C.E Artificial Intelligence Foundation | Home of the A.L.I.C.E. chatbot. I asked the bot what ALICE is about, and she replied "I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater speed and accuracy." (Posted 7/07) |
| Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute | "AIAI applies knowledge-based approaches to support complex tasks making use of rich models of the user, task and domain." Among their projects is work on intelligent documents. Their client case histories are well done. (Posted 2/00) |
| AAAI Calendar of AI-related Events | From the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Web site. A comprehensive and accessible listing. (Posted 12/97) |
| AAAI-08 Chicago |
July 13-17, 2008. Chicago.
American Association for Artificial Intelligence Conference. 23rd AAAI conference "to promote research in AI and scientific exchange among AI researchers, practitioners, scientists, and engineers in related disciplines." (Posted 11/07) |
| Previous Conference Sites Still of Value | |
| IKE'07 |
June 25-28, 2007. Las Vegas.
The 2007 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering. Topics include knowledge and information management techniques, knowledge delivery methods, knowledge life cycle, information retrieval systems, intelligent knowledge-based systems, Decision support and expert systems, Agent-based techniques and systems, Workflow management, and Content management. Held jointly with other conferences as part of WORLDCOMP'06 (The 2006 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing). (Posted 4/07) |
| AAMAS 07 |
May 14-18, 2007. Honolulu, Hawai'i.
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. "Autonomous agents are software and robotic entities that are capable of independent action in open, unpredictable environments. Agents are also one of the most important and exciting areas of research and development in computer science today." (Posted 4/07) 
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| Klein Associates | "We develop decision-centered solutions for our clients by improving interactions between technology and people, among team members, and between decision makers and their environments. Our goal is to enhance the performance of those confronted with judgments and decisions in situations marked by high stakes, time pressure, ambiguous or conflicting information, and rapidly changing situation." See their case studies and discussion of cognitive task analysis. (Posted 10/04; Updated 11/06) |
| Taxonomy Warehouse | "The only site on the Internet dedicated to taxonomies for corporations. Get the information you need to effectively categorize internal and external data collections and ensure users find the information they need with speed and precision." This is their resources page. (Posted 11/06) |
| PortBlue | A tool for distributing expert knowledge. "PortBlue codifies the high value know-how of recognized experts into frameworks and tools that apply that know-how interactively in specific factual contexts. Users will follow different paths through a Module depending upon their facts and circumstances and can evaluate multiple scenarios by changing different inputs." Take their guided tour. Via EPSS Central. (Posted 2/02, Link Updated 11/03) |
| Kepner-Tregoe | "A management consulting and training firm specializing in strategic and operational decision making." Look at their eThink product, software "that revolutionizes the hard part of business -- simplifying, systematizing, and making visible the crucial problem-solving and decision-making processes that yield winning results." (Posted 4/03) |
| Expert Choice | A vendor of decision-support tools. The site provides a full book, Decisions by Objectives by Dr. Ernest H. Forman, online. Via EPSS Central. (Posted 2/02) |
| KSL at Stanford |
Stanford University, California
The Knowledge Systems Lab (KSL) is an artificial intelligence research laboratory within the Department of Computer Science. (Posted 6/97) |
| U Mass Center for Knowledge Communication |
University of Massachusetts.
Focuses on research and development of systems capable of functioning responsively, robustly and flexibly to a variety of students, within a variety of domains, and with multiple tutoring strategies. Research is motivated by the promise of building powerful teaching systems with greater knowledge about a domain, increased ability to make inferences about student behavior and increased reasoning about topic selection and response generation. (Posted 5/98) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| Extreme Markup Languages: Aggregated Proceedings | 2003, 2002, and 2001 proceedings from a conference on XML and related topics. One of the main keywords of these papers is topic maps. For a discussion of how to use them to organize information contextually, see Can Topic Maps describe context for enterprise-wide applications by Duane Degler and Lisa Battle. (Posted 11/03) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| The TAO of Topic Maps | The TAO of Topic Maps: Finding the Way in the Age of Infoglut By Steve Pepper. "Topic maps are destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large and interconnected corpora. . . . While it is possible to represent immensely complex structures using topic maps, the basic concepts of the model - Topics, Associations, and Occurrences (TAO) - are easily grasped. This paper provides a non-technical introduction to these and other concepts." (Posted 11/03) |
| Building Taxonomies | Chapter 6 of Unlocking Knowledge Assets by Susan Conway and Char Sligar. Taxonomies "provide a common framework of concepts (and relations between these concepts) to structure the lexical elements of language. The goal of a corporate taxonomy is not only to provide a list of authorized terms for use in writing and in information seeking, but also to create maps between concepts to connect employees with the right knowledge at the right time." (Posted 4/02) |
| Expert Knowledge Elicitation to Improve Mental and Formal Models | by David N. Ford and John D. Sterman. Getting information on just how things work from experts can be very difficult. "We propose, describe and illustrate an elicitation method which uses formal modeling and three description format transformations to help experts explicate their tacit knowledge." A PDF downoad from M.I.T.'s Systems Dynamics Group. (Posted 12/98) |
| Eliciting Knowledge and Transferring it Effectively to a Knowledge-Based System | by Brian R. Gaines and Mildred L. G. Shaw, Knowledge Science Institute, University of Calgary "The elicitation of expert knowledge and its effective transfer to a useful knowledge-based system is complex and involves a diversity of activities. This paper illustrates the complete development of a decision support system using knowledge acquisition tools." September, 1995. (Posted 6/99) |
| A Tutorial on Situated Learning | By W. J. Clancey. "Situated learning is the study of how human knowledge develops in the course of activity, and especially how people create and interpret descriptions (representations) of what they are doing." From the Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers and Education (Taiwan) Self, J. (Ed.) Charlottesville, VA: AACE. 49-70, 1995. (Posted 12/02) |
| IEEE Intelligent Systems | Intelligent Systems Online. Look at the April 1997 issue. The theme is AI in Design: Catalyst for Creativity. Note: you must be a member of the IEEE Computer Society to access the online articles. (Posted 6/97, revised 11/98) |
| Customer Interface Magazine | The ICCM (International Call Center Management) Journal. Articles from August 2001 to the current issue are online. (Posted 3/03) |
| CallCenter Magazine | Online since the beginning of 2002, each issue contains information on technology, services, and strategies for contact centers. Each issue has a theme. The site also contains a number of case studies. (Posted 8/02) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| XML.gov | "Extensible Markup Language (XML) embodies the potential to alleviate many of the interoperability problems associated with the sharing of documents and data. . .Our purpose is to facilitate the efficient and effective use of XML through cooperative efforts among government agencies, including partnerships with commercial and industrial organizations." Among its other offerings, the site offers several tutorials plus a strong collection of related links. (Posted 11/03) |
| XML: Extensible Markup Language | Lots of terrific information. Begin with this introduction by Selena Sol, then this tutorial by Ken Sall. From the Web Developer's Virtual Library. (Posted 9/99) |
| UMBC Agent Web | "Information, resources newsletters and mailing lists relating to intelligent information agents, intentional agents, software agents, softbots, knowbots, infobots, etc. Published and maintained by the UMBC Laboratory of Advanced Information Technology. (Posted 5/00) |
| BotSpot | "the spot for all the bots on the net" Nice intro, plus a good best of the bot selection and 20 categories of bots. (Posted 11/99) |
| DSS Links Index | by Vicki L. Sauter. Rich collection of links supporting Dr. Sauter's book, Decision Support Systems. Don't miss general DSS sources. (Posted 2/00) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| XML Resources | A list compiled by Ken Soltys. Also contains SGML resources. (Posted 12/01) |
| Decision Support and Expert Systems | Links to sites containing software and information for designing and developing Decision Support Systems, Expert Systems, Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence Systems. From Wiley Higher Education. Via Gary Dickelman's EPSScentral.info. (Posted 7/04) |
| KurzweiAI.net | "The big thoughts of today's big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas." Via Jay Cross'sInternet Time Blog. (Posted 1/08) |
| Decision Theory and Adaptive Systems | "Focused on extending the flexibility and responsiveness of operating systems, databases, information systems, and user interfaces." From Microsoft Research. (Posted 1/01) |
| Knowledge Mapping | A "knowledge map protrays the sources, flows, constraints and sinks of knowledge within an organization." It "aims to track the loss and acquisition of information & knowledge." (Posted 1/01) |
| Intelligent Tutoring Systems | "Until recently, many CBT and CAL systems were passive in that the most they offer is s ome form of user interaction. Now, there is a trend towards the development of tutoring systems with embedded intelligence, so that material is presented to users according to their learning ability or preference." From Computer Based Teaching and Learning Links. (Posted 11/99) |
| Ask Dr. Internet | Have an Internet question? Steve Blass gets answers. As a network architect at Change at Work in Houston, Blass understands the strain of developing and managing intranets. Send your problems to dr.intranet@changeatwork.com. Via Lucdesk. (Posted 9/01) |
| Software Agents | Edited by Jeffrey Bradshaw and published by MIT. Press/AAAI Press. Papers addressing how agents provide intelligent assistance to users in situations where direct manipulation interfaces alone are insufficient. (Posted 6/97) |
