Expert and information systems

Expert and information systems are being increasingly discussed, but we have no knowledge about serious attempts made on defining the principal concepts involved, in such a way that they could be adequately related. We make a brief systemic definition of “data”, “information” and “knowledge”, and identify the conceptual relations among them. Then, we define “methodology”, in order to present such a notion as a knowledge system, and as such, expert systems could form part of any kind of methodology. We show that for a systemic methodology, an expert system must be part of it. Last we present macro-features of the expert system that could support a systemic methodology for information systems analysis and synthesis