Knowledge-based systems, viewpoints and the World Wide Web

The paper brings together three technologies-knowledge based systems, viewpoints and the World Wide Web-to produce a system which delivers advice either directly to a user or through an intermediary (such as a telephone operator). Furthermore, that advice can be tailored to groups of users and to the delivery medium. For example, an official adjudicating a benefit claim may need more complex advice than the user who is making that claim. At the heart of this approach is a rule based system, IMVEX, which uses a simple syntax, allowing easy creation of rule bases. IMVEX also incorporates a mechanism known as viewpoints (I. Finch 1993) which allows different parts of the underlying knowledge base to be utilised, presenting a different view of the knowledge base to different groups of users. The final part of the system is its integration with the World Wide Web, making its advice accessible to users anywhere on the Internet. It must, however, be noted that other interfaces are also available, so a user on the machine where the knowledge base resides can access it using a faster `command line´ interface, if they so desire