Applications: The ECS Administration Suite

A management tool to support a knowledge-based decision support system for counselling employment problems.

The Problem

The Expert Counselling System (ECS) is a user friendly expert system which clients can use to understand the problems they encounter when looking for jobs. The ECS helps clients identify and clarify their employment problems, set goals to resolve these problems, provides job tips to deal with them, and indicates where to find appropriate local resources that can help them achieve their goals.

The ECS provides a very useful service. However, relevant employment information varies across Canada. We now faced a new challenge: Could the ECS knowledge-based decision support system be easily customized to meet the varied needs of local communities while still performing the same basic service across the country?

The Solution: The ECS Administration Suite

To meet the challenge presented by regional disparities, Acquired Intelligence developed a management package that local staff could use to customize the ECS. The Administration Suite is a Windows application that lets local staff change the appearance and presentation of the information provided by the ECS, customizing the Expert Counselling System to suit local needs.

Changing Information in the ECS

Local staff can use the Information Editors to edit most of the information presented in the ECS, in order to suit local clients, including:

messages, explanations and instructions,
screen and button labels,
local resources,
job finding tips, and
parts of the report printed for clients.

These editors allow staff to change information content and associations in the ECS, and make additions or deletions. For example:

The Goals Editor is used to select a Problem Area and a Goal to change the message displayed in the top right panel of the Goals screen and the message printed with the goal in the Client Report.
The Tips Editor is used to select a Problem Area and a Goal to view associated tips and change or add new ones.
The Resources Editor is used to enter descriptions of local resources, associate them with goals, and then assign an appropriate way for clients to work with the resource. When clients select that working method for any of the associated goals, the local resource will be then listed.

Changing Examples in the ECS

The ECS lets explanations be tailored for local clients, but software applications often permit too little space to provide adequate explanations for a program's purpose and the response expected of its users. Fortunately, people do understand good examples. The ECS presents examples to help clients understand the issues underlying employment problems and to illustrate the appropriate kind of information to enter. The Example Editors let staff add, change or delete examples to suit their local clients, including those for:

the types of employment problems that people experience,
effective and ineffective behaviours in handling those problems,
assumptions that people have about problems and how to overcome them, and
the assets and liabilities that people have that are useful, or not in addressing these problems.

Other Changes

Staff can also change:

the password to exit the kiosk-based program,
the password to use the ECS Administration Suite,
the durations for which certain messages are displayed,
the period within which clients must react before the program stops

Staff can display and print the Units of Business Report which summarizes the number of clients setting goals in each Problem Area: Career Exploration, Skill Enhancement, Job Search, and Job Maintenance. They can restrict the report to certain types of clients or a particular reporting period.