DEVELOPING A STRATEGY FOR EXPERT-SYSTEM VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION

Research and practice has produced numerous methods for expert system verification and validation (V&V) that augment traditional software an d systems approaches to V&V These methods, however, are not associated with software development methodologies, as has been the case with co nventional V&V, and there is evidence that this is a considerable stum bling block in expert system V&V. This paper shows how to develop a st rategy for expert system V&V. A strategy for V&V has three components: 1) the criteria by which an expert system will be judged as valid, 2) a life cycle model that specifies what V&V can be done when, and 3) t he constraints (and opportunities) imposed by the characteristics of t he system being developed. Starting with a development methodology, we shown how to map V&V methods onto the software life cycle and then ma tch V&V methods to system characteristics. We give an example of our a pproach to developing a V&V strategy in the context of an expert syste m development project.