As intelligent tutoring system (ITS) issues are investigated and intelligent tutoring systems are developed, evaluation methodology becomes important. Basic researchers, system developers, and educators working with ITS all have motives for becoming involved in ITS evaluation. In formative evaluation, researchers examine a system under development, to identify problems and guide modifications. By contrast, summative evaluation is carried out to support formal claims about the construction, behaviour of, or outcomes associated with a completed system. Different methodologies are suitable for different types of evaluation, some focusing on internal considerations, such as architecture and behaviour, others on external considerations, such as educational impact. This paper draws upon the areas of intelligent tutoring systems research, expert systems design, computer-based instruction, education, and psychology to identify techniques for the formative and summative evaluation of ITS. Evalu...

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Online Tests do not provide fill-in-the-blank items. In lieu of this, this research hopes to demonstrate that if properly designed, an Online Test could achieve the same test effectiveness as manual paper-and-pencil tests. An Online Test system was built to provide both traditional and intelligent Online Test scoring mechanisms. In this research, 120 students participated in an experiment to compare the scoring effect differences. The result indicated that various scoring mechanisms have a significant effect on test scores. After analysing the students ’ feedbacks, the Online Tests ’ intelligent scoring mechanism proves to be the same as that of manual tests.

Abstract: Most of the VLE design methods focus on producing content for a VLE. However, usability of the VLE is also of great importance. Several potential usability problems have been reported in recent e-learning conferences. These problems could have been avoided by applying usability engineering methods before the VLE was taken into use. This paper describes usability engineering methods used to ensure the usability of Virtu, a virtual learning environment (VLE) concerning safety at work. The results of using each method are summarized and as a conclusion, some general VLE design guidelines are listed to help others in VLE design.

Educators require a variety of delivery methods to maintain students ’ motivation and attention, and to address different learning styles (Born & Miller, 1999). Vehicles that can reinforce cognitive knowledge and provide students the opportunity to put theory into practice include simulations, role-play, and games. Alessi and Trollip (1991) provide five major types of computer-based instructional programs: tutorials, drills, simulations, instructional games, and tests. Computer-based multimedia gives instructional designers the tools of animation, video, and sound to provide learners with working models that convey complex concepts. The purpose of this study was to ascertain if the use of an asynchronously delivered simulation activity to teach leadership styles and ethics theory would improve learning. The study employed a quasiexperimental design with a non-equivalent control group. Comparison of student performance on selected examination questions revealed that the treatment group (N=83) answered 9 % more questions correctly than did the control group (N=113). In addition, students in the treatment group performed significantly better on examination questions written at the knowledge, comprehension, and analysis levels based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives: Cognitive Domain (Bloom, 1956). Students in the treatment group performed equally well, regardless of learning preference (visual, aural, kinesthetic or multi-modal). It was concluded that computer-based simulations have the ability to improve student learning of leadership concepts at higher cognitive levels while allowing students to apply theory to real world situations.

This paper presents a multimedia intelligent tutoring system that teaches context-free grammar. The tutor model of this ITS is composed of a set of teaching strategies and an algorithm that determines which teaching action to be deployed given the goals of the system and the current state of the student model. The student model uses the Constraint-Based Modeling (CBM) approach in diagnosing the learner. CBM reduces the complexity of student modeling by focusing on the difference of the student's solution to the ideal solution only and the analysis is reduced to pattern matching. The assumption here is that there can be no correct solution of a problem that traverses a problem state, which violates the fundamental ideas, or concepts of the domain. The system also includes features for simulating the created context-free grammar to aid in teaching. Keywords Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Constraint-Based Modeling. 1.

Graduate schools of business use computer simulations to achieve a wide variety of pedagogical ends. They are venues for teamwork. They give students realistic experiences in a safe environment. They allow experimentation. However, the learning process is not complete unless students have the opportunity to reflect upon and criticize the events that transpire during the simulation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the debriefing process both as a means of student assessment and as an activity to further learning. This paper shall discuss the simulation and debriefing methodology followed by one Asian graduate business school conducts. This paper will also elaborate on the benefits the debriefing experience affords both faculty and students. Examples of these benefits include the following: the debriefings allow students to critique the business strategies they adopt during the simulation; students are able to verbalize the need for teamwork and cooperation; they express gratitude for jobs well done or else point out failures in communication; finally, the feedback also gave the professor a basis for improving the simulation and debriefing experience. Keywords Business simulations, debriefing, Asian Institute of Management, case method 1.

The number of coursewares available on the Internet has increased greatly recent years. The amount of information we can obtain from the networked environment is enormous. However, the importance of getting right information draws much attention from researchers in the community. Currently, searching techniques are developed to help the learners as well as teachers find information in the World Wide Web. Nevertheless, the users can be confused with search results due to irrelevant information, misinformation, insufficient information, etc. Searching can be performed accurately and efficiently by utilizing metadata for the Web coursewares. This paper proposes a metadata management system trying to help search appropriate coursewares and shows that utilizing metadata for search can facilitate obtaining right information on the Web. Elements of the metadata are selected and their relationships are identified in order to organize them in a relational database. Procedures to obtain the metadata for Web coursewares are designed and implemented in the Microsoft ASP(Active Server Pages). Issues on managing the metadata are addressed and implemented in the system so that addition, deletion, and update operations can be done easily via the Web. The overall metadata management system provides user-friendly interfaces to give essential information on the coursewares and to handle user enquiry correctly and efficiently.

Tutors strive continually to find suitable and innovative teaching resources for the papers they teach. Electronic resources, once identified, designed and developed can become valuable tools in the tutor's toolkit. A generic resource, one that can be used on more than one paper or course, can be of extra value. More students appear to be not only experienced with, but also enjoy using computers. This paper describes the origins and development of the electronic resource; Clipart Breakdown, observations on its practical applications and conclusions drawn from these observations.

The aim of this paper is to consider some possible directions for the future development of our library cum remote storage facility at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland and the impact of digital knowledge products on such a future. It is an exercise in crystal ball gazing. The paper attempts to explore an emerging intellectual landscape, one no longer bound by the implications of the physical storage of printed knowledge and it considers what the long term implications might be. It does this by seeking to frame questions about the unknown, about answers as yet to emerge out of what is known through past experience gained in a print technology culture. It questions possible futures for print collections. It questions what are the implications for the future storage of knowledge if we abandon print technology as a storage medium. The paper is in three parts beginning with a stage setting exercise which profiles what currently exists and which gestures towards a vision of what might be. This is followed by a questioning of the challenges and pathways which implementing change might imply. The paper concludes with some reflections. Its core theme is the possibilities remote storage could offer in the transition from print based to digital libraries. For the purposes of this paper the word digital is loosely defined to mean existence in electronic form and either created in that form or imaged from printed media. Knowledge is defined as information to which some form of intellectual modeling has been applied such as the added value of scholarship or wisdom. By print preservation, I mean preserving book collections not simply because they may carry texts which are not reproduced elsewhere in electronic from. But, because the libraries created from these collections, st...