The use of animated agents in e‐learning environments: an exploratory, interpretive case study

There is increasing interest in the use of animated agents in e‐learning environments. However, empirical investigations of their use in online education are limited. Our aim is to provide an empirically based framework for the development and evaluation of animated agents in e‐learning environments. Findings suggest a number of challenges, including the multiple dialogue models that animated agents will need to accommodate, the diverse range of roles that pedagogical animated agents can usefully support, the dichotomous relationship that emerges between these roles and that of the lecturer, and student perception of the degree of autonomy that can be afforded to animated agents

HAPA: Harvester and Pedagogical Agents in E-learning Environments

In the field of e-learning and tutoring systems two categories of software agents are of the special interest: harvester and pedagogical agents. This paper proposes a novel e-learning system that successfully combines both of these agent categories and introduces two distinct sub-types of pedagogical agents helpful and misleading. Whereas helpful agents provide the correct guidance for the given problem, misleading agents try to guide the learning process in the wrong direction by offering false hints and inadequate solutions. The rationale behind this approach is to motivate students not to trust the agent’s instructions blindly, but to employ critical thinking. Consequently, students will be put in a "softly stressed" environment in order to prepare them for real working environments in their future work in companies. Nevertheless students themselves will decide on the correct solution to the problem in question

A review on massive e-learning (MOOC) design, delivery and assessment

MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses based on Open Educational Resources (OER) might be one of the most versatile ways to offer access to quality education, especially for those residing in far or disadvantaged areas. This article analyzes the state of the art on MOOCs, exploring open research questions and setting interesting topics and goals for further research. Finally, it proposes a framework that includes the use of software agents with the aim to improve and personalize management, delivery, efficiency and evaluation of massive online courses on an individual level basis.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Software agents in large scale open e-learning: a critical component for the future of Massive Online Courses (MOOCs)

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.MOOCs or massive open online courses are a recent trend in online education. They combine online resources with social tools and have unique challenges due to the large number of simultaneous participants. This paper analyzes some of the challenges in the areas of MOOC design, delivery and assessment. Then the authors present an approach using software agents to overcome some of the challenges that have been identified, as well as optimize efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure the pedagogical effectiveness and educational quality of large scale online learning courses. This paper is a first step towards research in the usage of software agents in massive online courses that we hope will shed more light on potential real life applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Ontology-Based Intelligent Agents in Workplace eLearning

Despite the ever increasing practices of e-learning, most workplace e-learning applications fail to meet the learners’ needs and ultimately fail to serve the organization’s quest for success. The dominance of technology-oriented approaches makes e-learning applications less goal-effective, and makes them perceived to be of poor quality and design. To solve this problem, a performance oriented approach is presented in this study. This approach aims to align the individual learning needs vis-à-vis the organizational goals and makes learning connected with work performance. Based on the approach, a prototype system has been developed that uses intelligent agent and ontology technology. A set of experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach

Conversational agent for supporting learners on a MOOC on programming with Java

One important problem in MOOCs is the lack of personalized support from teachers. Conversational agents arise as one possible solution to assist MOOC learners and help them to study. For example, conversational agents can help review key concepts of the MOOC by asking questions to the learners and providing examples. JavaPAL, a voice-based conversational agent for supporting learners on a MOOC on programming with Java offered on edX. This paper evaluates JavaPAL from different perspectives. First, the usability of JavaPAL is analyzed, obtaining a score of 74.41 according to a System Usability Scale (SUS). Second, learners’ performance is compared when answering questions directly through JavaPAL and through the equivalent web interface on edX, getting similar results in terms of performance. Finally, interviews with JavaPAL users reveal that this conversational agent can be helpful as a complementary tool for the MOOC due to its portability and flexibility compared to accessing the MOOC contents through the web interface.This work was supported in part by the FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades-Agencia Estatal de Investigación, through the Smartlet and H2O Learning projects under Grant TIN2017-85179-C3-1-R and PID2020-112584RB-C31, and in part by the Madrid Regional Government through the e-Madrid-CM Project under Grant S2018/TCS-4307 and under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M21), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation), a project which is co-funded by the European Structural Funds (FSE and FEDER). Partial support has also been received from the European Commission through Erasmus+ Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education projects, more specifically through projects LALA, InnovaT, and PROF-XXI (586120-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), (598758-EPP-1-2018-1-AT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), (609767-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). This publication reflects the views only of the authors and funders cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

Tutores inteligentes en la enseñanza de la matemática en secundaria

En este artículo se presentan las características de los Sistemas Tutores Inteligentes, su definición, los distintos componentes que lo integran y sus interrelaciones entre sí. Igualmente, se alude a las características y ventajas de este tipo de herramienta para la enseñanza de la matemática a distancia por medio de la Web y al final se presenta el caso de un Tutor Cognitivo, basado en inteligencia artificial, para la enseñanza de la Matemática en secundaria (versión en inglés), el cual se utiliza con gran éxito en los EEUU y presenta características muy importantes que pueden ser ajustadas a las necesidades de un proyecto que se desea implementar en Costa Rica, para la realización del Bachillerato de Matemática en Línea

An Ontology-based Approach to Student Skills in Multiagent e-Learning Systems

The main idea of our approach is that the domain ontology is not only the instrument of learning but an object of examining student skills. We propose for students to build the domain ontology of examine discipline and then compare it with etalon one. Analysis of student mistakes allows to propose them personalized recommendations and to improve the course materials in general. For knowledge interoperability we apply Semantic Web technologies. Application of agent-based technologies in e-learning provides the personification of students and tutors and saved all users from the routine operations