Case study: A course advisor expert system

Abstract

This article presents the development of a knowledge-based expert system for a non-trivial application domain, i.e. selecting a customised postgraduate study program from existing- and targeted sets of skills. Following a customised spiral development paradigm, the paper describes the problem domain, followed by the concepts and requirements involved in the expert system design. The main design constraints are stated and the design decisions are justified in light of the specific task. Attention is paid to the knowledge representation/acquisition and rule base design processes. Implementation and deployment are explained, together with a sample run and result evaluation. Finally, further work is detailed in light of existing features and limitations of the prototype.