A Multi-Agent and Service-Oriented Architecture for Developing Integrated and Intelligent WBES Computing and Information Systems Oscar Lin Peter Holt Steve Leung Mike Hogeboom Yang Cao

Trends in Online Education Student-Centred/Active/Interactive Learning

Our Goal To design, implement, and evaluate with real users an innovative agent-supported on-line and distance learning environment able to support learners during the whole cycle of the learning. Consider Curriculum Goal and Topic Area Estimate relevant existing skills and knowledge of learners Formulate objectives/ learning outcomes Select appropriate learning objects Operate Course/ Curriculum Assess and evaluate

Agents for Education ● Suitability – Relationships among learners, courses, and instructors last for a considerable period of time – Inherent distributed nature of Web-based learning – Reducing information workload and for automatically performing knowledge intensive tasks for both learners and educators. ● Challenges – The lack of an accepted industry-standard method – Accessing and integrating distributed educational resources

Web Services for Educational Systems ● Strengths – Standardized communication protocol for better distributed computing – Interoperability in heterogeneous platforms – Flexible solution with loosely coupled architecture based in dynamic learning environments ● Limitations – Passive until invoked – Not autonomous – Not cooperative

Some Related Work - I-Help [Greer, et al. 2001] - White Rabbit [Thibodeau et al., 2000] - LeCS [Learning from Case Studies] - Baghera [Webber et al, 2001] - AME-A [D'Amiro et al., 1997; Pereira et al., 2001] - Electrotutor [D'Amiro et al., 1997] - JADE [Silveira, 2000] - GRACILE [Ayala-Yano, 1998] - ABITS [Capuano, 2000] Service-oriented Learning Systems Architecture Lab at Carnegie Mellon University …

Learner/ Instructor Info. Web Service Agent platform The Proposed Architecture Course Informatio n Web Service Agent platform Advisor Agent Performance Monitoring Agent Tutoring/FAQ Agent Course Planning Agent Notification Agent Course Delivery Agent Course Update Agent Testing Agent Service Registry Learning Object Repository Web Service Ontology Web Service Web Services Student PA Instructor PA Agent Management and Deployment Service Course Web pages Collaboration Agent Learning Object Recommendation Agent Notification Agent

Learner/ Instructor Info. Web Service Course Information Web Service Service Registry learning object Repository Web Service Ontology Web Service Performance Monitoring Agent Agent-supported Web Services Managing LOR Recommending LOs IEEE PAPI, IMS LIP learning styles, drop-out possibility Knowledge base PROTÉGÉ 2000 Course maintenance, e.g. broken link, content update

Course Planning (Advisor) Agent SD201 SD324SD303 SD389SD423 SD201SD303SD324SD389SD423 Domain Knowledge Available Courses and their Dependency Curriculum Patterns Course sequence Agent

An Embodied Conversational Agent as Interactive Learning Interface Guided discovery learning Online testing and dynamic and adaptive delivery Online FAQ-answering.

Where to Meet Your Personal Agent? - Desktop/laptop/pocket PC - Application/Secure Web Site Agent Platform Configure Present The core of a user agent is a flexible platform into which additional modules can be plugged in as needed. Process

Deltas registry UDDI Registry WDSL document User GUI SOAP parser Apache Tomcat Developer Apache Axis Task Agents Dispatcher SOAP response body Registers Downloads Queries Programs Discovers SOAP request enclosed in HTTP SOAP response enclosed in HTTP Programs Web Service Server DELTA UDDI Registry UDDI replication message User Agent Deltas Agent Platform FIPA ACL request SOAP request SOAP response SOAP body SOAP response body FIPA ACL reply

Conclusions Educational information standardization, Web technologies, and AI technologies have paved a way for Agent-Supported On-line Interactive Learning. Web Services are excellent complimentary partners with Agents in Supporting on-line learning environments by Distributed Resource Access and Integration.

Future Work Applying the current standardization efforts related to the Web Services Choreography to the coordination of the agents in the architecture. Developing more complete domain models and leaner models

Thank You! Contact Person: Fuhua Oscar Lin Computing and Information Systems Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada