Development of a knowledge base for rehabilitation practitioners

Summary The complex and changing context of vocational rehabilitation requires that practitioners continually upgrade their knowledge. The computer offers the capacity to combine and present current information to persons with different levels of experience and training. Still, access to computer resources can be difficult for novice computer users. AskAbout Vocational Rehabilitation Counselling (AAVRC) is a natural language computer data base that has been developed to ease access for typical vocational rehabilitation personnel. The content of AAVRC was developed in response to questions posed by a sample of rehabilitation practitioners. The data base content will be reviewed by professionals and consumers of rehabilitation. This is a practical approach to constructing a data base and most likely will lead to a different knowledge base than if it was constructed solely from teachers and experts in the field.