An Agent System to Support Student Teams Working Online

Abstract

Executive SummaryOnline learning is now a reality, with distributed learning and blended learning becoming more widely used in Higher Education. Novel ways in which undergraduate and postgraduate learning material can be presented are being developed, and methods for helping students to learn online are needed, especially if we require them to collaborate with each other on learning activities. Agents to provide a supporting role for students have evolved from Artificial Intelligence research, and their strength lies in their ease of operation over networks as well as their ability to act in response to stimuli.In this paper an application of a software agent is described, aimed at supporting students working on team projects in the online learning environment. Online teamwork is problematical for a number of reasons, such as getting acquainted with team members, finding out about other team members' abilities, agreeing who should do which tasks, communications between team members and keeping up to date with progress that has been made on the project. Software agents have the ability to monitor progress and to offer advice by operating in the background, acting autonomously when the need arises. An agent prototype has been developed in Prolog to perform a limited set of functions to support students. Team projects have a planning, doing and completing stage, all of which require them to have some sort of agent support. This agent at present supports part of the planning stage, by prompting the students to input their likes, dislikes and abilities for a selection of task areas defined for the project. The agent then allocates the various tasks to the students according to predetermined rules.The results of a trial carried out using teams working on projects, on campus, indicate that students like the idea of using this agent to help with allocating tasks. They also agreed that agent support of this type would probably be helpful to both students working on team projects with face to face contact, as well as for teams working solely online. Work is ongoing to add more functionality to the agent and to evaluate the agent more widely.

Creating a Team Tutor Using GIFT

“…A group, like a team, is comprised of many members, but unlike a team, as a group increases in size, the contributions of each individual decrease (Whatley 2004). A team is usually smaller than a group, and each individual member contributes however he or she can towards a shared objective.…”

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

“…The following is only a partial list (Dede, 2000;NRC, 2002b;Twigg, 2003;Whatley, 2004): (1) virtual reality and computer simulation software to support design, problem solving, and decision-making; (2) cognitive audit trails for automatic recording of user actions to support performance assessments; (3) intelligent tutors and software coaches to provide embedded expertise for greater individualization; (4) optical-disc systems with multiple read/write and mixed media capabilities to support large databases, inexpensive data storage, and shared distributed virtual environments; (5) standardized computer and telecommunication protocols for ready connectivity and compatibility; (6) authoring and user interface systems for development of readily mastered applications; (7) sophisticated cognitive modeling software based on an extensive literature of theory and experimentation.…”

“…Software agents can be made to work actively and adapt to users, they can simulate some of the roles of instructors, they can monitor progress, help organize students' work and provide feedback for themselves and for instructors. Whatley (2004) reports on an agent system, the Guardian Agent, designed to assist student teams working online to search the Internet, share information with other team members and undertake group projects online. The concept of an agent originates from human agents that provide services, such as a travel agent.…”

Ground Rules in Team Projects: Findings from a Prototype System to Support Students

“…In a study with students from five different higher education institutions, it was found that students rarely pay much attention to agreeing on ground rules before they embark on their team projects (Whatley et al, 1999). When the team project was completed without establishing ground rules at the beginning, this may have contributed to some of the problems that arose in these teams, which resulted in some projects not being completed satisfactorily or on time.…”

“…Research has highlighted some of the difficulties students experience in their team working as organising meetings, team members not contributing, free-riding and coming to trust each other (Burdett 2003;Whatley, Staniford, Beer, & Scown, 1999). The tutor can play a part in helping teams to overcome problems (Ruel & Bastiaans, 2003), but as class sizes increase, tutors are becoming hard pressed to offer timely support (Cooper & Heinze, 2003).…”