A Pervasive Computing Platform for Individualized Higher Education

Abstract

Advances in database management, distributed computing, computational intelligence, and especially pervasive systems, provide fertile ground for radical changes in pedagogy. We propose a pervasive educational platform that builds on these technologies to facilitate customization of courses and degree programs to the needs, interests, and backgrounds of individual students. Computer-based teaching tools are coupled with remote access to course content to present the same information in different ways, to accommodate differences in learning styles; encourage active, rather than passive learning; allow selfpacing, privacy, and flexibility; and ensure efficient utilization of resources. In this platform, an educational system, e.g., an undergraduate degree program in computer science, is viewed as a collection of three communities; the student community, the degree (or program) community, and the instructor/advisor community. In each community, the members are represented by software agents. Each agent carries sufficient intelligence and knowledge to allow communication and negotiation among agents. The platform aims to achieve a virtual one-to-one student/faculty ratio for the purposes of mentoring, advising, guiding, and educating students.

Meeting Name

International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering (2009: Dec. 11-13, Wuhan, China)

Department(s)

Computer Science

Second Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsor(s)

National Science Foundation (U.S.)

Comments

This work was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-0324835.

Keywords and Phrases

Computational Intelligence; Computer-Based Teaching; Course Contents; Database Management; Degree Program; Distributed Computing; Educational Platforms; Educational Systems; Higher Education; Learning Style; Passive Learning; Pervasive Computing; Pervasive Systems; Remote Access; Undergraduate Degrees; Artificial Intelligence; Computer Privacy; Curricula; Distributed Database Systems; Management Information Systems; Software Agents; Software Engineering; Students; Teaching

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-1424445073

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2009 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Dec 2009

Link to Full Text

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