For the Faculty of Aviation at San Jose State University, academic adv
ising is a complex and extremely time-consuming task; however, it is e
ssential for aviation students to seek appropriate advice in order to
achieve their individual academic goals in a timely manner. This paper
describes and discusses the development of an expert system solution
which has automated this activity and released faculty members for oth
er important tasks. Within this project, an expert system shell (VP-Ex
pert) was used to develop the Academic Counselling Expert system. The
project illustrates how powerful and extremely useful expert systems c
an be developed by non-programmers in order to perform routine tasks.
The computer-based counselling system was accessed by sixty-five aviat
ion students during the Spring 1996 semester; the majority of them wer
e able to seek appropriate advice, thereby saving the faculty advisor
over thirty hours of consultation time.