The full potential of knowledge based systems will be realized only when users who are not knowledge engineers are able to easily develop and deploy the underlying knowledge bases. To this end we are developing a system for rapid knowledge base design that permits such users to populate knowledge bases. The system provides a wizard style interface that is configurable for specific knowledge acquisition tasks. Supporting this system is an efficient knowledge representation system that provides frame system semantics and sophisticated constraint reasoning.

The full potential of knowledge based systems will be realized only when users who are not knowledge engineers are able to develop and deploy the underlying knowledge bases. To this end we are developing a system for rapid knowledge base design that permits users to draw on an existing library of knowledge components and, through intuitive interfaces, shape them into an ontology for a domain and application of interest. The models created are supported by an expressive language that provides sophisticated constraint reasoning.