A multi-agent system for advising and monitoring students navigating instructional Web sites
Claudia Roda · 2000
A growing community of teachers, at all levels of the educational system, provides course material in the form of hypertext/multimedia documents. In most cases this is done by creating a course Web site. This paper explores the issues related to the design of software systems that aid teachers in monitoring how students use their sites and proactively advise students navigating the sites. In connection to these functions two important topics in current applications of technology to education are discussed. Firstly the definition of a set of criteria allowing the evaluation of the appropriateness of multi-media and hypertext technologies vis vis to classic course support material and in particular textbooks. Secondly the issue of the utility and acceptability of proactive user interfaces such as interface agents or personal assistant agents. A multi agent system capable of advising and monitoring students navigating instructional Web sites is introduced and it is used as a basis for discussion of the above two topics. The system generates and uses a set of indicators evaluating how much use is made of hypertext and multimedia tools as well as indicators of usefulness and cognitive support of the proactive user interface. Keywords: Tutoring systems, Multi agent systems, World Wide Web, Autonomous Interface Agents, Digital Course Material, XML. 1.