ExpertGuide: A conversational case-based reasoning tool for developing mentors in knowledge spaces

Case-based reasoning (CBR) has been used to improve knowledge management in corporate activities. It was initially used for problem solving and then f or facilitating the distribution of knowledge and experiences. Since conver sational CBR appeared, it has also been used to develop mentor systems in c omplex knowledge spaces. ExpertGuide was designed as a tool for developing WWW-based mentor systems. It was designed during the development of CBR sys tems used at NEC. Multilink retrieval provides a method for searching a cas e library from several viewpoints. Question selection by entropy finds most effective questions in discriminating cases. It does this by calculating t he information gain of candidate questions. Indexing with scripts is a case -indexing method using Schank's scripts and is effective when situations an d problems are hard to express and assess. ExpertGuide tightly integrates t hese techniques and provides a user interface for users who want advice fro m mentors. It is currently being used when building WWW-based mentor system s with scales ranging from division-wide to corporate-wide and nationwide.