An Approach to the Integration of Expert Systems and Hypermedia Technology in Developing a Prototype Tourist Information System for Ethiopia,
| dc.contributor.advisor | G.G Chowdhury (PhD) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Kebede Melaku | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-06-12T08:08:58Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-18T12:45:44Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-06-12T08:08:58Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-18T12:45:44Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1997-05 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In Africa, though the potential for tourism is said to be much higher, the number of tourists arrived at the continent and revenue generated from this sector is very low as compared with the other continents. Lack of technical persons to provide relevant and sufficient information to the tourists is one of the main stumbling blocks for development of tourism in Africa Ethiopia is no exception to this. There is only one training institute (called CITI) which has trained 59 tour guides and travel operators; at least 23% of them don't work in the tourism sector. On the other hand the number of tour operators and travel agencies in the country is highly increasing just after 1990 and now they are altogether 109. These tour operators and travel agencies are acting as a tourism information center (TIC) in providing information to the tourists coming to the country. In Ethiopia, usually the media that are used to promote tourism are guide books, brochures, flyers, amI few documentary films . In all these media, the information is organized in a linear way and the user has to search all over the document from beginning to the end until he/she has got the required information. Had the information been organized in such a way that the user can easily branch out from one chunk of information to the other in a meaningful way with all types of media, it would have saved the time of the user and increase also the level of understanding. Hypermedia system, which incorporates textual databases, sound, animation, video, still pictures and other type of media, can support the \ facilities mentioned above. In a hypermedia system, the intonation nodes are organized in a non linear way so that the users can easily navigate around the knowledge corpses. Utilities of such databases can be enhanced by developing an expert interface on top of it to provide guidance to the users. In this study an attempt has been made to develop an integrated expert and hypermedia system to guide tourists planning to visit Ethiopia. The knowledge base for the expert system was acquired from one experienced tour guide and two of his trainees. The acquired knowledge was represented in a hierarchical model and a production rule method was used to map the knowledge base for computer programming. Information for the textual database and still pictures for the hypermedia system were taken from various guide books and brochures and the recorded 'sound was taken from the concerned organizations. KnowledgePro was used as a tool for developing the prototype. The prototype expert and hypermedia components were integrated at three levels. The first was at the start of the system i.e. the user will be asked whether he/she is in need of assistance. If yes expert system will run otherwise the user will be taken to the hypermedia knowledge corpses. The second situation is at the end of the expert systems' suggestion. After the user is advised to visit a particular tourist site, there is an explanation about that selected tourist site using the hypermedia system. The third position where these two systems are integrated is using the two buttons found on each system. One button is labeled as 'Hypermedia' on expert system module and the other button is labeled as Expert' on hypermedia system module. Using these two buttons the user can go from one system to the other easily at any time | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/21528 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | Information Science | en_US |
| dc.title | An Approach to the Integration of Expert Systems and Hypermedia Technology in Developing a Prototype Tourist Information System for Ethiopia, | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |