Nigel Major

COCA: A Shell for Intelligent Tutoring Systems

There are several reasons why intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) have failed to gain widespread acceptance in the classroom. These include cost (ITSs often run on platforms that are too expensive for schools). Also, many ITSs are restricted to one particular domain and do not allow teachers to configure them for other domains. From interviews with teachers we identified yet a further reason: most ITSs teach according to a fixed teaching strategy, and do not allow teachers to alter the way in which material is taught. In this paper, we describe a system that allows one to do so. The system, COCA (CO-operative Classroom Assistant), contains a number of user-changeable control heuristics which implement decisions that need to be made during teaching.

REDEEM: Simple Intelligent Tutoring Systems from Usable Tools

REDEEM allows teachers and instructors with little technological knowledge to create simple Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Unlike the other authoring tools described in this book, REDEEM does not support the construction of domain material. Instead, authors import existing computer-based material as a domain model and then use the REDEEM tools to overlay their teaching expertise. The REDEEM shell uses this knowledge, together with its own default teaching knowledge, to deliver the courseware adaptively to meet the needs of different learners. In this chapter, we first explain how the REDEEM tools capture this knowledge and how the REDEEM Shell uses it. Then, we describe four different studies with REDEEM aimed at answering questions concerning the effectiveness of this approach to ITS development. We conclude by reflecting on the experiences of the last six years and the lessons that we have learned by using REDEEM in a variety of real world contexts.

Applying the REKAP Methodology to Situation Assessment

This paper outlines a principled methodology, based on KADS, for generating runnable expert system knowledge-bases from the output of high-level knowledge acquisition tools. This methodology is based upon a synthesis of earlier work arising from the UK CONSENSUS, ESPRIT P2576 ACKNOWLEDGE and P5365 VITAL projects. REKAP integrates knowledge elicitation techniques, real-time structured analysis and a model of the the desired run-time architecture within a common framework based upon extensions to the original KADS four-layer model of expertise. The methodology has been realised as a compiler between ProtoKEW, a knowledge acquisition toolkit, structured task-analysis tools and MUSE, a real-time expert system shell. The paper focuses on a particular example of the use of the methodology, in the domain of situation assessment.