Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!cunyvm!byuvax!fordjm
From: fordjm@byuvax.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: RE: interviewing experts
Message-ID: <108fordjm@byuvax.bitnet>
Date: 5 Feb 88 02:58:18 GMT
Lines: 57


     
Note:  The following article is from both Larry E. Wood and John
M. Ford of  Brigham Young University.
     
We have also recently read Evanson's AI Expert article on
interviewing experts  and feel that some discussion of this topic
would prove useful.  Relative to Steve  Smoliar's reactions, we
feel it is appropriate to begin with a disclaimer of sorts.  As
cognitive psychologists, we hope those reading Evanson's article
will not judge the potential contributions of psychologists by
what they find there.  Some of the points Evanson  chooses to
emphasize seem counterintuitive (and perhaps counterproductive)
to us as well.  We attribute this in part to his being a
practicing clinician rather than a specialist in cognitive
processes.

On a more positive note, as relative newcomers to the newly
emerging field of knowledge engineering (two years), we do
believe that there are social science disciplines which can make
important contributions to the field.  These disciplines include
cognitive science research  methodology, educational measurement
and task analysis, social science survey  research,
anthropological research methods, protocol analysis, and others.
     
While knowledge elicitation for the purpose of building expert
systems (or  other AI applications) has its own special set of
problems, we believe that these social science disciplines have
developed some methods which knowledge engineers  can adapt to
the task of knowledge elicitation and documentation.  Two
examples of such interdisciplinary  "borrowing" which are
presently influencing knowledge engineering are the  widespread
use of protocol analysis methods (see a number of articles in
this  year's issues of the International Journal of Man-Machine
Studies) and the  influence of anthropological methods and
perspectives (alluded to by Steve  Smoliar in his previous
posting and represented in the work of Marriane  LaFrance, see
also this year's IJM-MS).  It is our belief that there are other
areas in the social sciences which can make important
contributions, but which  are not yet well known in AI circles.
     
This is *not* intended as a blanket endorsement of approaches to
knowledge  elicitation based on social science disciplines.  We
do, however,  believe that it is important for practicing
knowledge engineers to attend to methodologies developed outside
of AI so that they can spend their time  refining and extending
their application to AI rather than "reinventing the  wheel."

We have a paper in preparation  which addresses some of these
issues.


Larry E. Wood                      John M. Ford
woodl@byuvax.bitnet                fordjm@byuvax.bitnet