A Virtual Research Partner
Abstract
This report describes a design study carried out at the Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University. The goal was to investigate the feasibility of creating a software agent that would be able to interact with researchers and provide them with support at a level equivalent to a human research partner. This agent is referred to in the report as the Virtual Research Partner (VRP). The authors investigated what current researchers do and what tools they use. This work was based on a small set of interviews with active researchers at NMSU. The authors searched the business and research literature for equivalent projects that provide support for managers or other subject matter experts. The authors looked at research projects working on developing computers which act as assistants. We itemized the capabilities of an ideal autonomous VRP and attempted to define a feasible subset of support capabilities that would make initial versions of a VRP useful to a researcher. The authors then proposed a design based on using an ontology (world knowledge representation) and a software architecture based on blackboard systems as a basis for an extensible VRP. The actual implementation of a large coverage VRP with capabilities that support much of the research process is a massive task. One possibility is to bootstrap this effort by providing an initial system and developing a community of users to implement and improve the many capabilities needed by such a system.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA450971
Entities
People
- Felicia Guerrero
- Jim Cowie
Organizations
- New Mexico State University