Rules-Based System for Personalized Virtual Course Generation

Abstract

Since the dawn of the incorporation of ICTs into educational environments, specifically into teaching and learning processes, there have been expectations about the possibilities of individualized education in versatile environments that acknowledge students’ particularities. Although several studies have examined these situations, they are sometimes subjected to specific platforms or applications. An adaptive system must define the components to be adjusted according to specific determinants, in particular, the characteristics of the students’ profile and contextual elements, and also establish a mechanism for the adaptation. This paper proposes a system to generate customized virtual courses based on the separation of the structure of the course from the educational resources that support the educational activities. Such system is enhanced with production rules that determine the educational resources to be delivered at each moment guided by the characteristics in the student’s model. This methodological approach responds to the systemic definition of the adaptation strategy, which requires making the determinants, components and adaptation techniques explicit based on DSR. The proposed system is versatile because it can be enriched with new elements or variations of the attributes in the student profile, taking different models in learning styles and the categorization of personal, academic, or contextual characteristics reflected in the adaptation process. The result shows that the proposed model can provide a different course plan, with personalized activities, according to students’ characteristics and context.