General framework for ITS: FITS
-- A computational model of tutoring --
A large number of useful techniques which contribute to realization of educational activities have been proposed for the development of ITS. Those achievements contributed not only to the promotion of ITS research itself but also to the establishment of various fundamental techniques in artificial intelligence. It is only in recent years, however, that there have been discussions on the general problems in the design of ITS.
The major objective of this research is the enumeration of the computational agents needed for implementing reactive behavior of tutoring systems. The design and development of a domain-independent framework for ITS posing a number of questions such as "What kinds of inference schema are needed in ITS?", "What can be the framework to control the system?" , "There exist a domain-independent tutoring strategy?" and "What kind of role each domain knowledge should play?" To answer these questions, it is necessary to view the problem in a top-down way based on the concept of gentric task. By generic task, we mean a system of domain-independent but task-dependent vocabulary, which is defined in both knowledge level and symbol level. The symbol level constructs of the generic task are referred to as building blocks. The final goal of this research is to provide the sophisticated building blocks for implementing integrated environments for teaching/learning systems.
In the current implementation, FITS , which stands for Framework for ITS, is composed of six building blocks, each of which covers an essential task for teaching. The functionality needed for the student model module, for example, is realized as a domain-independent inductive inference algorithm and that for the tutoring module is realized as twenty tutoring strategies, in which Socratic tutoring is included. FITS has been implemented successfully in Common ESP(Extended Self-contained Prolog) on a SPARC station. Two prototype systems concerning geography and chemical reactions have been implemented in the framework.
Major publications:
- Mitsuru Ikeda and Riichiro Mizoguchi: FITS: A Framework for ITS -- A Computational Model of Tutoring, J. of AI in Education, Vol.5, No.3, pp.319-348,1994
- Mitsuru Ikeda, Riichiro Mizoguchi, and Osamu Kakusho : Design of a General Framework for ITS, Proc. of ITS88, Montreal, pp.82-89 (1988)
