Design of a generic knowledge acquisition shell

A generic knowledge acquisition shell (GAS) which allows users to easily construct and then execute a domain-specific knowledge acquisition tool is designed. GAS contains six modules-a structure editor, a tool generator, a tool interpreter, a knowledge processor, a data management system, and a graphics-based user interface-and a primitives kernel including sufficient primitives in problem-solving strategy, knowledge representation, and knowledge acquisition techniques. This approach relieves knowledge engineers from selecting and applying different knowledge acquisition tools for different domains. GAS is an open architecture so that further enhancement can be done easily.<>