Q&A

Monday, Nov 8, 1999 1-2 PM

Tuesday, Nov 9, 1999 5-6 PM

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Angel, (1999), Angel Project at CyberLab, [Online]. Available: http://cyberlab.iupui.edu/jafari/aboutAngel3.html [1999, November 5].

Baylor, Amy L. “Intelligent agents as cognitive tools.”  Educational Technology. 39(2): 36-40. 1999.

Baylor, Amy L. and Jafari, Ali. "What are the possibilities for Intelligent Agents in Education?" International Conference on Technology in Education, Tampa, Florida, October 1999. PowerPoint presentation available online.

Huhns, Michael N. & Singh, Munindar P. (1998). Readings in Agents, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California

Jafari, Ali. "The Rise of a New Paradigm Shift in Teaching and Learning," T.H.E. Journal, 27(3): 58-68. Available on-line. 

Jafari, Ali. "Putting Everyone and Every Course On-Line:  The Oncourse Project" WebNet Journal. 1(4): 43-49.

Jafari, Ali. "Intelligent Agents in Distance Learning." Unpublished white paper, CyberLab, June 1999.

Jennings R. Nicholas & Wooldridge J. Michael, (1998). Agent Technology: Foundations, Applications, and Markets, Springer, New York. 

Williams, Bonnie C. “Intelligent Messenger.” Unpublished white paper, CyberLab, July 1999.

Agent-Based Learning Environments: An Emerging Intelligent System for Distance Learning 

Instructors teaching distance learning courses are saying that they are spending too much time maintaining these courses - as much as twice the time they would have spent for the same course taught in a traditional classroom environment.  In the traditional classroom concept, teaching time mainly consists of activities such as lecture preparation, lecturing in the classroom, office hours, and grading - all activities which are very manageable within normal working hours.  In the distance learning environment, however, instructors seemed to spend more time with their students on the Internet, especially in the evening and at night.  Office hours are no longer limited to a fixed time posted on the door of a faculty member’s office.  The activities of reading course-mail, bulletin board messages, chat rooms and searching the Web for course content begin to consume too much of the instructor’s time. 

Why is distance learning instruction taking so much time?  Is it because we are in the initial stage of our learning curve and have not gained the Web proficiency required to teach in a cyberspace environment?  Is it because the management of our course sites is taking too much of our time?  Is it due the asynchronous nature of distance learning, causing bulletin board messages and email to pile up at the course site at all hours of the day?  Is it because of the extra work required to assess student learning since we no longer have a face-to-face interactions in the classroom?  Or could it be because communication and instruction via the Web is less efficient and more time consuming than the face-to-face classroom instruction?

Let’s hypothesize that the operation of distance learning courses could become more efficient and less time consuming by making the course management environment “smarter” or  more “intelligent.”  All current course management tools on the market could then be considered “dumb,” because they require instructors to spend the majority of their time accomplishing little more than site baby-sitting and maintenance.  The lack of “intelligent” teaching and learning environments seems to be a major factor in doubling our teaching time requirements in distance learning courses.  For instance, a distance learning instructor is obligated to watch his course web-site and regularly check to see if every student has logged in, read the lesson contents, and submitted assignments.  Why don’t we include an “intelligent agent” in the course management software to automatically do these tasks for the instructor?  When students miss a deadline, for instance, the intelligent agent would automatically send out a reminder email to those with overdue assignments.  If a student misses the deadline again, the agent could send him a more serious email.  It would be possible, after three missed deadlines, for the agent to inform the instructor of delinquent students when the instructor logs into the course the following day.

Another example where intelligent learning environments could contribute to the effective management of online courses is in the arena of course assessment.  Many of us are not comfortable with the idea of unproctored on-line testing. There is no way to be sure that our students are taking the tests themselves or to know if their friends are helping them with the questions.  We need to have another intelligent agent in our course environment to watch virtual students, a “cheat-buster intelligent agent.”  This agent will notify the course instructor when it has noticed a discrepancy between the student’s learning pattern, attendance, quiz scores and the result of the final exam. 

In my online courses this term, almost all of my students have complained about the use of the course chat room.  The typical complaint has been that, “whenever I go to the chat room I don’t see anyone there and I need to wait for a long time until someone logs on.”  Why don’t we include an “intelligent messenger” in our course environment to notify other students as well as the instructor when John Doe has signed on?  Why don’t we allow this messenger to notify us when new messages arrive in our mailbox or on the course message board?  This would take much of the stress out of course management, allowing us to evaluate the importance of messages as they arrive without the effort of manually checking those messages at every hour of the day.

Course management software companies have just begun to deliver the second generation of course management systems with enterprise functionality, allowing the system to dynamically add or delete students into course templates instead of requiring instructors to enter this information manually (for examples, see http://oncourse.iu.edu, http://blackboard.com, and http://www.webct.com).  It is evident that there is a need for the design and development of the next generation of course management environments, a third generation, that is heavily structured and designed around using intelligent agents to assist learners and instructors.  The forthcoming third generation learning environment will not only reduce overhead time for course maintenance, but it will also provide a better and more effective Web pedagogy for distance learning and instruction.

The CyberLab at IUPUI has begun the development of the third generation of course management system.  It is called “A New Global Environment for Learning” or simply “Angel” (http://angel.iupui.edu/). Angel was architectured from the ground up as an agent-based course management enterprise system.  In an effort to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of online education, I am inviting course instructors and research faculty to beta test and participate in the research and development of the Angel environment. Please see the CyberLab homepage for more information (http://CyberLab.iupui.edu).

NOTE:  Please join me via the Web (http://CyberLab.iupui.edu/classcast/start.htm) for discussion and Q&A at 1 PM ESTon Monday, November 8 and 5PM ESTon Tuesday November 9, 1999.  Click on the above link, type in your first and last name (no password necessary) and participate in the discussion.  ClassCast provides one-way streaming video and two-way chat and push-site technology to low speed Internet connections.  RealMedia G2 is required to receive the video broadcast portion of the conference. Any questions you might have before or after the broadcast period may also be addressed to jafari@iupui.edu.