Such a system would provide a vehicle for quick and complete promulgation of research results. We envisage a future where knowledge created in the laboratory and in the field can be reported to a knowledge-based system and become immediately effective in viticultural practice. Such a system will enable multiple kinds of access to the knowledge, by decision support systems or computer-aided education systems for example, which will use the knowledge in different ways, for advice, forecasting, education and training, explanation and so on. It will also be a resource for researchers in hypothesis testing and research management. A prototype KMS is being built in the irrigation of grapevines as a means of evaluating the KMS approach.
Private knowledge is that held in and used by the minds of all humans.
In its public form, knowledge is published as periodical articles, research papers, conference proceedings, technical reports, textbooks, and so on. The applied sciences create public knowledge through research and publication, but current methods of organizing and mobilizing this knowledge are inadequate. It is possible that research is unwittingly being duplicated because the original was not found in the literature review. Therefore the full weight of current human knowledge is not brought to bear on problem solving. The reliability of the public knowledge is complex.