Knowledge - Based Information Access

Current data storage, retrieval, and management mechanisms are inherently complex, perpetuating the need for intuitive access to stored data. The Internet has complicated the situation further by vastly increasing the quantity, types, and availability of data. In a distributed environment, data storage, retrieval, and management must coordinate among multiple heterogeneous sources. In this article, we present approaches to simplifying access to data sources. We begin by presenting automated query generation as a means to provide high-level access to a single database. We then present an overview of architectures that support the interoperability of multiple distributed heterogeneous data sources, including an architecture which generalizes an automated query formulation technique to support multiple distributed heterogeneous sources. We conclude by discussing the role of distributed object and agent technologies in distributed information access. 2 The Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering