ELM-ART: An intelligent tutoring system on world wide web

Abstract

Abstract:Making ITS available on the World Wide Web (WWW) is a way to integrate the flexibility and intelligence of ITS with world-wide availability of WWW applications. This paper discusses the problems of developing WWW-available ITS and, in particular, the problem of porting existing ITS to a WWW platform. We present the system ELM-ART which is a WWW-based ITS to support learning programming in Lisp. ELM-ART demonstrates how several known ITS technologies can be implemented in WWW context. ITS Technologies and WWW ContextWWW opens new ways of learning for many people. However, most of the existing educational WWW applications use simplest solutions and are much more weak and restricted than existing 'on-site' educational systems and tools. In particular, most WWW educational systems do not use powerful ITS technologies. A promising direction of research is to port these technologies to a WWW platform, thus joining the flexibility and intelligence of ITS with world-wide availability of WWW applications. Most of traditional intelligent techniques applied in ITS can be roughly classified into three groups which we will name as technologies: curriculum sequencing, interactive problem solving support, and intelligent analysis of student solutions. All these technologies are aimed at supporting the "intelligent" duties of the human teacher which can not be supported by traditional non-intelligent tutoring systems. Curriculum sequencing and intelligent analysis of student solutions are the oldest and best-studied technologies in the domain of ITS. Most ITS developed during the first 10 years of ITS history belong to these groups. The technology of interactive problem solving support is a newer one, but it is more "intelligent" and supportive (it helps the student in the most difficult part of the learning process and provides the most valuable support for the teacher in the classroom). It is not surprising that it became a dominating technology during the last 15 years. The WWW context changes the attitudes to traditional ITS techniques . For example, interactive problem solving support currently seems to be a less suitable technology for WWWbased ITS. Vice versa, the two older technologies seem to be very usable and helpful

Evaluating the Effects of Open Student Models on Learning

“…This metacognitive skill is encouraged by allowing the student to inspect and, in some cases, to modify the student model. Several projects focused on the effects of opening the student model on students' learning [4,5,8,9]. The efforts range from simply visualizing the model, to actively involving the student in the modeling process through negotiation or collaborative construction of the model.…”

Flexible learning itinerary vs. linear learning itinerary

“…Adaptive hypermedia systems create a model with the features of each individual user (knowledge, preferences, …) in order to adapt the system to the needs of each learner. Adaptive hypermedia and the introduction of the web have promoted the development of educational hypermedia systems such as ELM-ART [17], 2L670 [18] and InterBook [19]. These systems have been used in several experimental studies: for WWW-based tutoring systems [20]; for designing hypermedia architectures consisting of Java servlets [21]; or for creating tools for development adaptive courseware [22].…”

Adaptive Hypermedia for Education and Training

“…The imperative to address the needs of the heterogeneous audience for Web-based courses individually was clear to many researchers and practitioners. A few early adaptive hypermedia systems developed for Web-based education context by 1996, such as ELM-ART (Brusilovsky, Schwarz & Weber, 1996b), InterBook Weber, 1996a), and2L670 (De Bra, 1996), provided "proof of existence" and influenced a number of more recent systems. The majority of adaptive educational hypermedia systems developed since 1996 are Web-based systems which were developed for Web-based education context.…”