Integrating information systems technologies to support consultation in an information center

This paper presents an approach for integrating different types of information systems technologies to support the functions of an information center (IC). A knowledge-based system, information center expert/help service (ICE/H), has been developed to provide support for the help services of an IC. A general process model to represent the consultation process in an IC is described. Based on this model, an architecture has been developed to support the consultation process. The architecture depicts the use of a knowledge management system, a data management system and a communication (e-mail) system to emulate the consultation process. The ICE/H system has been implemented using this architecture to support an IC with 5000 users.