The knowledge acquisition workshops: A remarkable convergence of ideas

Intense interest in knowledge-acquisition research began 25 years ago, stimulated by the excitement about knowledge-based systems that emerged in the 1970s followed by the realities of the “AI Winter” that arrived in the 1980s. The knowledge-acquisition workshops that responded to this interest led to the formation of a vibrant research community that has achieved remarkable consensus on a number of issues. These viewpoints include (1) the rejection of the notion of knowledge as a commodity to be transferred from one locus to another, (2) an acceptance of the situated nature of human expertise, (3) emphasis on knowledge acquisition as the modeling of problem solving, and (4) the pursuit of reusable patterns in problem solving and in domain descriptions that can facilitate both modeling and system implementation. The Semantic Web community will benefit greatly by incorporating these perspectives in its work.