An Architecture for Developing Multiagent Educational Applications for the Web

Abstract

New applications in training and education are emerging daily trying to meet the requirements of distance learners. Network-based or World Wide Web (WWW)-based intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) are expected to meet most of these requirements. In this context, software agents seem to be a promising distributed software technology that can be used to implement WWW ITSs. In this chapter, we present a multiagent approach for constructing an educational application for distance learning. The proposed architecture exploits the assumption that each teaching subject can be regarded as the synthesis of elementary pieces of knowledge, each of which can be presented by an independent expert. Moreover, in order to better support individualized learning, a mobile agent is placed at the disposal of each distance learner.