A knowledge documentation methodology for knowledge-based system development: an example in animal health management

Knowledge acquisition is one of the critical activities in developing a kno wledge-based system. It includes on the one hand knowledge elicitation from different sources such as domain experts, books, maps and real-world obser vations, and on the other hand, a process of analysing, structuring and rec ording knowledge defined as knowledge documentation. Many methods have been developed to elicit knowledge, but not so many techniques are available fo r knowledge documentation. Those published often do not address all relevan t aspects of the documentation process, or do not document all types of kno wledge, for example, experts possess declarative and procedural knowledge. For constructing a knowledge-based system in the field of animal health man agement a documentation methodology has been developed and is reported in t his article. The methodology was based on, among other things, the CommonKA DS technique. It includes three subsequent phases: (1) documenting concepts and facts in hierarchies, (2) documenting separate inferences which integr ate knowledge documented in hierarchies, and (3) documenting the strategy o r sequence of the inferences to be made. The method supports the full pathw ay of the documentation process and addresses both declarative and procedur al knowledge. Also, the method provides a quick insight into knowledge of a knowledge source (e.g. experts) and comprehensible transcripts for the exp ert. The latter facilitates the process of knowledge verification. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.