The technology of knowledge-based systems undoubtedly offers potential for educational modelling, yet its practical impact on today's school classrooms is very limited. To an extent this is because the tools presently used in schools are EMYCIN -type expert system shells. The main argument of this thesis is that these shells make knowledge-based modelling unnecessarily difficult and that tools which exploit knowledge acquisition technologies empower learners to build better models. We describe how such tools can be designed. To evaluate their usability a model-building course was conducted in five secondary schools. During the course pupils built hundreds of models in a common range of domains. Some of the models were built with an EMYCIN -type shell whilst others were built with a variety of knowledge acquisition systems. The knowledge acquisition systems emerged as superior in important respects. We offer some explanations for these results and argue that although problems remain, such as in teacher education, design of classroom practice, and assessment of learning outcomes, it is clear that knowledge acquisition systems offer considerable potential to develop improved forms of educational knowledge-based modelling.

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This research is concerned with designing representations for analytical reasoning problems (of the sort found on the GRE and LSAT). These problems test the ability to draw logical conclusions. A computer program was developed that takes as input a straightforward predicate calculus translation of a problem, requests additional information if necessary, decides what to represent and how, designs representations capturing the constraints of the problem, and creates and executes a LISP program that uses those representations to produce a solution. Even though these problems are typically difficult for theorem provers to solve, the LISP program that uses the designed representations is very efficient.

Introduction The innovation systems literature has provided a useful framework to analyse the linkages of firms and other organisations with both domestic and foreign actors. Although the concept of innovation systems was originally developed at the national level (Freeman, 1982; Nelson & Winter, 1982; Lundvall, 1985; Nelson, 1988, etc), the literature has expanded rapidly over the years. Since its origins innovation systems have been defined at different levels. National, regional, local, sectoral and technological systems of innovation now constituted alternative units of analysis to better understand the processes of creation, diffusion and use of knowledge. These different views, rather than conflicting, tend to complement each other and depend on the attributed boundaries to the system subject of analysis. This paper proposes that the reciprocal interaction between regional economic poles within the developing regions can be studied by employing systems of innovation perspective. The application of the systems of innovation perspective serves as a window to explore the quality of interactions in economic, education, productive activities and institutions. The importance of the regional dimension in stimulating the innovation capability and competitiveness of firms and regions has been examined by many authors (Asheim et al., 2003: Cooke, 2003, Wolfe, 2003, Isaksen, 2002, Malmberg and Maskell, 2002). The regional dimension is acquiring more relevance as the interactions between actors within the region become more intense. In the context of Africa, for example, the emergence of South Africa as an economic outlier in the region has created new challenges both opportunities and dangers for the rest of Africa. This paper suggests that a systems‟ of innovation perspective might be useful to examine how South Africa, as a regional pole in Africa, interacts with the region by sharing knowledge, learning and capacity building.

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This work examines one of the major stumbling blocks of knowledge based systems development, namely knowledge elicitation. The challenge is a fundamental one of eliciting knowledge from domain experts including tacit knowledge. This thesis argues that, in the past, knowledge elicitation has been limited since elicitation has been performed from one or a limited number of aspects. A method is needed to assist in providing a pluralistic approach to knowledge elicitation that will aid multi-aspectual viewpoints of the domain knowledge to be elicited. MAKE (Multi-Aspectual Knowledge Elicitation) is such a pluralistic method. Using the work of Herman Dooyeweerd (1955) MAKE is developed from a sound philosophical basis. Two levels of knowledge are elicited using MAKE. The method starts by building a top-level knowledge map that covers all of the knowledge aspects and provides an overview of the domain. Such an overview determines the complexity of the domain allowing a knowledge based systems developer to see the effects of taking a minimalist approach to the development; that is the top-level map may be used to help define the scope of a system. The second level involves detailed knowledge elicitation. Using a process of abstraction, the concepts defined in each aspect are refined to a sufficiently detailed level to enable a system to be built. The resulting knowledge forms an ontological view of the domain knowledge. The empirical work adopting a case study approach has demonstrated that: MAKE can be used by people who are not necessarily versed in artificial intelligence techniques or in the philosophy of Dooyeweerd. MAKE has shown itself to be adaptable across a very varied set of domains MAKE is adaptable and useful for eliciting tacit knowledge. It is argued that MAKE indicates a change of direction from methods that are currently in use.

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