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Article Excerpt
In today's information technology society, members are increasingly required to be up to date on new technologies, particularly for computers, regardless of their background social situation. In this context, our aim is to design and develop an adaptive hypermedia e-learning system, called PERSO (PERSOnalizing e-learning system), where learners with different learning goals and different learning aptitudes are treated differently, by building a model of knowledge and preferences for each of them. This model is used to propose to the learner a personalized course fitting his/her needs. We focus on both the way information about the learner is collected and the way a hypermedia course composed of several learning object data are updated. We consider two types of adaptation: adaptive content and adaptive presentation.
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With the spread of New Technologies of Information and Communication (NTIC), we are living a multi-domain revolution particularly in education and training thanks to the development of a new mode of education: e-learning (Arroyo, Conejo, Guzmand, & Woolf 2001; Brusilovsky, Eklund, & Schwartz, 1998).
E-learning, the electronic delivery of information, communication, education, and training, provides a new set of tools that can add value to traditional learning modes: classroom experiments, textbook study, CD-ROMs, and traditional Computer-Based Training.
E-learning is a revolutionary way to empower a workforce with the skills and knowledge necessary to bring about positive points. It will not replace the classroom environment, but it can considerably enhance it, by taking advantage of new content and delivery technologies.
However, the rise of this new way of education needs new didactic models. Both pedagogical and technological aspects must be carefully reviewed. Consequently, the demand for intelligent systems that make teaching in distance learning environments more efficient and adaptive is increasing.
With this premise in mind, we are developing an hypermedia adaptive system for supporting e-learning, called PERSO (PERSOnalizing e-learning system) (Chorfi & Jemni, 2003).
In this article, we start by providing an overview and a diagnosis of an e-learning experiment we recently conducted at the University of Tunis. Second, we explain the role and the fundamental structure of PERSO. Next, we detail the system functioning: we focus on the way we collect information about the learner and the way we adapt the personalized course. Finally, we present the findings of our research.
EXPERIMENTAL DIAGNOSIS
To explore the different aspects of this new teaching mode and to analyze how it can be performed effectively, the e-learning team of the Ecole Superieure des Sciences et Techniques de Tunis (ESSTT) conducted a pilot experiment on e-learning (from November 2001 to February 2002). Two courses on MS-Word and MS-Excel were developed and taught to a group of 130 first-year Computer Science students (divided into 8 groups). The courses were developed by the teachers themselves with the help of two multimedia specialists to process images, audio and video sequences, and to prepare flash animation and Java applets.
For these courses, we used a locally web-based learning platform that provides a learning management system and a range of content creation and publication tools. (For more details see Chorfi & Jemni, 2002).
At the end of the experiment, we performed two types of analysis:
* Analysis of users appreciation: questionnaires were...
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