Agent-based E-learning System Research Articles

Teaching Introductory Programming

From the educational point of view, learning by mistake could be influential teaching method, especially for teaching/learning Computer Science (CS), and/or Information Technologies (IT). As learning programming is very difficult and hard task, perhaps even more difficult and extremely demanding job to teach novices how to make correct computers programs. The concept of design pedagogical patterns has received surprisingly little attention so far from the researchers in the field of pedagogy/didactics of Computer Science. Design pedagogical patterns are descriptions of successful solutions of common problems that occur in teaching/learning CS and IT. Good pedagogical patterns could help teachers when they have to design new course, lessons, topics, examples, and assignments, in a particular context. Pedagogical patterns captured the best practice in a teaching/learning CS and/or IT. They could be very helpful to the teachers in preparing their own lessons. In this paper a brief description of special class design of pedagogical patterns, the group of patterns for learning by mistakes, is presented. In addition, usage of helpful and misleading pedagogical agents, which have been developed in Agent-based E-learning System (AE-lS), based on pedagogical pattern for explanation Explain, and pedagogical pattern for learning by mistakes Wolf, Wolf, Mistake, is described.

Specifying distributed multi-agent systems in chemical reaction metaphor

This paper presents an application of Chemical Reaction Metaphor (CRM) in distributed multi-agent systems (MAS). The suitability of using CRM to model multi-agent systems is justified by CRM's capacity in specifying dynamic features of multi-agent systems. A case study in an agent-based e-learning system (course material updating) demonstrates how the CRM based language, Gamma, can be used to specify the architectures of multi-agent systems. The effectiveness of specifying multi-agent systems in CRM from the view point of software engineering is further justified by introducing a transformational method for implementing the specified multi-agent systems. A computation model with a tree-structured architecture is proposed to base the design of the specified multi-agent system during the implementation phase. A module language based on the computation model is introduced as an intermediate language to facilitate the translation of the specification of multi-agent systems. The multicast networking technology pragmatizes the implementation of communications and synchronization among distributed agents. The paper also discusses the feasibility of implementing an automatic translation from the Gamma specification to a program in the module language.

Goal-Oriented Methodology for Agent System Development

The Goal-Orientation is one of the key features in agent systems. This paper proposes a new methodology for multi-agent system development based on Goal Net model. The methodology covers the whole life cycle of the agent system development, from requirement analysis, architecture design, detailed design to implementation. A Multi-Agent Development Environment (MADE) that facilitates the design and implementation of agent systems is presented. A case study on an agent-based e-learning system developed using the proposed methodology is illustrated in this paper.