A Web-based Intelligent Learning Environment for Digital Systems

Abstract

Many recent web-based teaching and learning environments that involve the use of fixed sets of problems are unable to accurately measure a student's understanding about the subject matter. Such systems do not contribute significantly to the learning process. A good pedagogical framework is needed to develop effective web-based teaching and learning systems. This paper presents just such an effective system, which is designed for a specific engineering subject, Digital Logic Systems Design. Our system is called Web-based Intelligent Learning Environment for Digital System or WILEDS. WILEDS has been built on a robust framework of intelligent tutoring systems realised on a three-tier Java client-server architecture. It comprises five components: a communications module, a pedagogical module, a student model, an expert model and the domain knowledge. WILEDS incorporates the entire process needed to assess students, starting from automatically generating problems to checking the students' solutions and keeping track of their progress.