The client‐centred approach: expert system maintenance
Ian D. Watson, Andrew Basden, Peter Brandon · Expert Systems · 1992
Abstract: Developing an expert system is a considerable investment in time and money and yet very little attention has focused on keeping expert systems in regular beneficial use. The problems of maintaining expert systems and the lack of research that this area has attracted are major contributing factors to the continued lack of acceptance of these systems. This paper discusses the maintenance of expert systems within the context of the Client Centred Approach. Although there are many similarities between maintaining expert systems and conventional systems maintenance there is one vital difference—knowledge changes. Consequently an expert system requires regular evolutionary maintenance if its performance is not to be impaired. This paper is intended to promote discussion of maintenance issues within the community. We review some principles and techniques that can assist the maintenance of expert systems and describe some formative work towards a maintenance methodology derived from a case study of maintaining a commercially‐available expert system.