A knowledge-based approach to domain-specialized information agents

Finding specific information on the Web can be difficult and time-consuming due to the Web's tremendous size and the current speed of network connections. Information agents that search the Web on behalf of users are invaluable. Since information needs are diverse, there should be tools for users to build their own agents that specialize in finding the information they want. These tools should be usable by non-programmers. This paper describes ARIS, a shell for constructing information agents without coding. Our approach is akin to expert system shells, where the user supplies the knowledge for each specialist agent, and a common engine utilizes the agents' knowledge. An agent's search is guided by knowledge about how Web sites in a given domain are typically structured. We also report on our experiences with two agents built using ARIS.