Motivation
Providing learners with an environment that reacts intelligently to their needs and incorporates their individual characteristics for presenting suitable information and learning material helps to support learners and makes learning easier for them. Such systems and environments can incorporate, for example, the learners’ prior knowledge, preferences, learning goals, misconceptions, learning styles, and cognitive abilities.

Technology enhanced learning takes place in many different forms and contexts, including formal and informal settings, individual and collaborative learning, learning in the classroom, at home, at work, and outdoor in real life situations, as well as desktop-based learning and learning by using mobile devices. Environments range from desktop-based learning systems such as learning management systems, which present learners with learning material and activities, to mobile, pervasive, and ubiquitous learning environments which are used in real life settings and enable learners to learn from real learning objects. In each of these forms and contexts, adaptive and intelligent support has potential to contribute in making such learning environments more personalized, user-friendly, and effective in supporting learners in learning.

Objective of the Book
This book focuses on how intelligent support and adaptive features can be integrated in currently used learning systems and discusses how intelligent and adaptive learning systems can be improved in order to provide a better learning environment for learners. Furthermore, the book will show how adaptivity and intelligent support enriches emerging areas of technology enhanced learning by supporting learners and/or teachers through intelligent techniques, as well as incorporating learners’ and/or teachers’ needs and characteristics.

The book aims at presenting innovative research work for enhancing learning environments with adaptivity and intelligent support in different contexts and settings, ranging from provision of courses and assessment in formal desktop-based learning systems to learning environments that support collaborative, informal, ubiquitous learning.

Target Audience
The primary market includes libraries, as well as academics and professional practitioners working in the area of technology enhanced learning and interested in adaptive and intelligent learning environments. Furthermore, the book is targeted at teachers who are interested in using learning technologies and/or have an interest in reading more about the potential of adaptive and intelligent learning technologies. Another market includes those interested in specific themes of the book (e.g. adaptive assessment, intelligent support for collaborative learning, and so on).

Recommended Topics
Topics of chapters deal with models, architectures, development, and evaluations of intelligent and adaptive learning environments and systems, as well as with best practices of using adaptive and intelligent learning environments and systems. The book consists of six sections dealing with application areas of adaptivity and intelligent support in technology enhanced learning and covering specific issues of the respective application areas, as well as general issues such as student modeling, authoring, and usability issues in the respective areas. The sections of the book deal with:

Intelligent and Adaptive Course Provision
Chapters in this section deal with intelligent and adaptive learning systems that focus on provision of courses, learning material, and learning activities by considering learners’ characteristics, behaviour, and needs and/or providing intelligent support for learners and/or teachers. It includes intelligent and adaptive aspects related to (but not limited to):