A parametric exercise base 'tutoring system
Rosa María García Rioja, Sergio Gutiérrez Santos, Abelardo Pardo, Carlos Delgado Kloos · 2004
A tutoring system based on hierarchically interconnecting a set of parametric exercises is described. Parametric exercises allow for multiple invocations of an exercise with different data, complexity, formulation, etc. An exercise instance is sent to the student, the answers are processed, feedback is returned and a set of values are annotated. A graph is defined to interconnect these exercises. Edges in this graph are labeled so that exercise sequencing is performed based on previously annotated values. This graph is created by a tutor or designer and defines a hierarchical structure that allows exercises to be organized and connected at different levels much the same as how material is organized in a course. The work aims at filling the gap between generic course delivery tools with barely no support for automatic tutoring and sophisticated tutoring systems which are either too specific or too complex for the manage. The system has been deployed in a first year computer architecture course with very positive preliminary results.