Ljubomir Jerinic

An Object-Oriented Shell for Intelligent Tutoring Lessons

Many important issues in design and implementation of ITS some functionality focuses on the way inter-object connections are represented, manipulated, and stored in the computer. However, the advancement of AI methods and techniques makes understanding of ITS more difficult, so that the teachers are less and less prepared to accept these systems. As a result, the gap between the researchers in the field of ITS and the educational staff is constantly widening. Acquiring and encoding this large amount of knowledge is difficult and time-consuming. We have been searching for efficient ways to do these knowledge engineering tasks. This paper describes our efforts toward developing uniform data and control structures that can be used by a wide circle of authors, e.g., domain experts, teachers, curriculum developers, etc., who are involved in the building of ITS.

OBOA model of explanation module in intelligent tutoring shell

The important characteristics of any intelligent systems are the possibilities of explanation. So, any software product which intend to be intelligent must provide some kind of explanation, i.e., explanation of some conclusions, explanation of new knowledge (theorem), etc. As Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) intend to be intelligent software, the explanation feature must be provided in ITSs. In this paper, we will briefly survey how we realized the explanation properties and features in Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) shell called EduSof. The OBOA (OBject - Oriented Abstraction) model for representing the knowledge, interaction within that knowledge and actions on that knowledge is used for the model of explanation, the transitions and the interactions features in EduSof shell.

On the Notion of Components for Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The concept of software components has received relatively little attention so far by the researchers in the field of AIED. This paper is an attempt to bring more light on this important concept and to describe the benefits that component-based ITSs can bring to the field. Surprisingly enough, there is still no consensus on the notion of component among AIED researchers. There are many open questions and unclear issues. By carefully structuring the description of software components in general, as well as by showing some examples of components for ITS design, the paper presents several important related issues, like functionality of components, their granularity, generality, interoperability, and reusability. Special attention is given to the architectural and communication considerations, as well as to the relation between components and ontologies for ITS design.

Different Roles of Agents in Personalized Programming Learning Environment

Researchers had recently begun to investigate various techniques to help learners to improve learning effects using e-learning systems. In this paper, we propose an e-learning architecture with a recommendation module consisting of several different kinds of pedagogical agents which actively participate in learning processes, provoking learners and motivating them to learn more effectively. Different kinds of agents can be introduced in order to support scaffolding activities in learning programming languages and problem solving.

The friendly intelligent tutoring environment

The advancement of using the Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods and techniques in design Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) makes understanding them more difficult, so that teachers are less and less prepared to accept these systems. As a result, the gap between researchers in the field of ITSs and the educational community is constantly widening. While ITSs are becoming more common and proving to be increasingly effective, each one must still be built from scratch at a significant cost. Also present ITSs need quite big development environments, huge computing resources and, in consequence, are expensive and hardly portable to personal computers. This paper describes our efforts toward developing uniform data, explanation and control structures that can be used by a wide circle of authors who are involved in building ITSs (e.g., domain experts, teachers, curriculum developers, etc.) that is, the model of the ITSs framework, the GET-BITS model.

Control Knowledge and Pedagogical Aspects of the GET-BITS Model

The difficulty of designing and developing more useable and cost-effective intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) has caused the realization of some new approaches in that field, the realization of intelligent tutoring shells - authoring tools. Our starting point and perspective on developing ITSs shell is motivated by issues of pragmatics and usability. The paper describes pedagogical aspects and the control knowledge of the component based model of intelligent tutoring systems, called GET-BITS. The focus is on class hierarchies and design of classes for representing the pedagogical and the control knowledge in the GET-BITS model_ Distinction has been made between different modes of operation of the pedagogical module in an intelligent tutoring system (teaching, examination, and consulting), resulting in the necessity for the class hierarchies to reflect specific pedagogical knowledge structure.

A survey of components for intelligent tutoring pedagogical aspects of GET-BITS model

The concept of software components has received relatively little attention so far by the researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED). This paper is an attempt to bring more light on this important concept and to describe the benefits that component-based Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) can bring to the field. Surprisingly enough, there is still no consensus on the notion of component among AIED researchers. There are many open questions and unclear issues. By carefully structuring the description of software components in general, as well as by showing some examples of components for ITSs design, the paper presents several important related issues, like functionality of components, their granularity, generality, interoperability, and reusability. Special attention is given to the architectural and communication considerations, as well as to the relation between components and ontologys for ITSs design. The paper describes pedagogical aspects and the control knowledge of the component based model of intelligent tutoring systems, called GET-BITS. The focus is on class hierarchies and design of classes for representing the pedagogical and the control knowledge in the GET-BITS model. Distinction has been made between different modes of operation of the pedagogical module in an intelligent tutoring system (teaching, examination, and consulting), resulting in the necessity for the class hierarchies to reflect specific pedagogical knowledge structure.

The Component Based Model of the Control Knowledge in an Intelligent Tutoring Shell

Issues of pragmatics and usability motivate our starting point and perspective on developing Intelligent Tutoring Systems tool. The advancement of AI methods and techniques makes understanding of ITSs more difficult, so that the teachers are less and less prepared to accept these systems. As a result, the gap between the researchers in the field of ITSs and the educational community is constantly widening. Also, the present ITSs need quite big development environments, huge computing resources and, in consequence, are expensive and hardly portable to personal computers. The paper describes an application of the component based software design methodology for realizing and arranging designing the knowledge bases and manipulating their contents for intelligent tutoring. The component based model of ITSs knowledge bases has been developed, and the concept of the control i.e. action knowledge is presented.

Object Model of Intelligent Tutoring Shell

The difficulty of designing and developing intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) has caused a recent increase in the interest of the AI researchers in realization of some new approaches in that field. Our starting point and perspective on developing ITSs shell is motivated by issues of pragmatics and usability. Considering commercially available and widely used authoring systems for traditional computer-based teaching, we try to give the next step, the next paradigm shift that is needed to enable some of the advantages of ITSs. The paper describes an object-oriented model of ITS shell in which the enduser (teacher) could make their own ITS lessons, alone. The model enables the developing of more flexible software environments for building of the ITS, significantly increasing their reusability.