GENERATION OF KNOWLEDGE-ACQUISITION TOOLS FROM DOMAIN ONTOLOGIES

Metalevel tools can support the software development process by automa ting the design of task- and application-specific tools. DASH is a met alevel tool that allows developers to generate domain-specific knowled ge-acquisition tools from domain ontologies. Domain specialists use th e knowledge-acquisition tools generated by DASH to instantiate the con cepts and relationships defined in the domain ontologies. The output o f the knowledge-acquisition tools is a collection of instances that co nstitute the knowledge base for a knowledge-based system. To automate the generation of appropriate tools, the DASH architecture uses a dial og-design module to produce a dialog structure that defines the target tool at the editor and window level. Given the dialog structure, a la yout-design module completes the window layouts. DASH allows the devel oper to custom tailor the layout of the knowledge-acquisition tool for its users, and to store such modifications persistently so that they can be reapplied when the target tool is regenerated. The DASH impleme ntation is based on a mapping problem-solving method that defines the tool-design steps. The DASH Development Environment (DDE) is an applic ation-specific environment that supports the configuration of the mapp ing method and the maintenance of DASH. We have used DASH to generate several knowledge-acquisition tools for a broad range of application t asks.