An Intelligent System for An Intelligent System for Academic AdvisingAcademic Advising

Authors: Oscar Lin （林复华） Frank Zhang Dunwei Wen

Athabasca UniversityCanada

第十届全球华人计算机教育应用会议 GCCCE2006, 中国 北京 清华大学

Needs in Distance EducationNeeds in Distance Education

• The academic advisors are handling more and more questions by email or phones then ever before.

• The means of communicating and dispersing information are vital in serving and retaining students.

• Providing personalized, student-oriented help, is particularly important to help students fight against isolation.

Academic Advising in Distance EducationAcademic Advising in Distance Education

• The academic advisors need to be more flexible, and adaptable.

Table 1. Typical Job Objectives of MSIS Graduates (MSIS 2000)

Advancement in current job Outsourcer/systems integrator

First or middle IS management Project manager

Management consultant Systems analyst/designer

Internal consultant/senior staff Technical specialist

CIO IT Liaison

Business analyst A Ph.D. program leading to teaching

Entrepreneur Electronic commerce specialist

The Complete MSIS CurriculumThe Complete MSIS Curriculum IS

FoundationsBusiness

FoundationsIS Core Career Electives

Fundamentalsof IS

IT Hardwareand Software

Programming,Data and Object

Structures

FinancialAccounting

Marketing(CustomerFocus)

OrganizationalBehavior

Data Management

Analysis, Modelingand Design

Data Communicationsand Networking

Project andChange Management

IT Policy andStrategy

Required

Tracks (representative)• Consulting• Decision Making• Electronic Commerce• Enterprise Resource Planning• Globalization• Human Factors• Knowledge Management• Managing the IS Function• Project Management• Systems Analysis and Design• Technology Management• Telecommunications

Integration

ElectivePre-/Corequisite

9-12units

9units

15units

3units

12units

Literature ReviewLiterature Review

• Intelligent systems for advising– Since 1980s– Knowledge-based

systems – Run on mainframes

environments or standalone PCs User Interface

Knowledge-basedAdvisingSystem

DatabaseKB

Original standaloneadvising system

Challenges Challenges

• Goal: – Making the service more flexible and automated – Propose a methodology of developing e-Scheduler

which can be applied to e-Business, e-Education, e-Commerce.

• Strategies: – Realize the interoperability with other systems in

educational environments– Provide knowledge modeling and management

methodology and tools

PlanningAgent

Delegate

Monitoring Agent

Inform

Inform

InterfaceAgent

NotificationAgent

Evaluation Agent

Inform

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

PlanningAgent

Delegate

Monitoring Agent

Inform

Inform

InterfaceAgent

MSc ISOntology(agent)

NotificationAgent

Evaluation Agent

Mon

itor

Inform

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

PlanningAgent

Delegate

LearnerProfile

Monitoring Agent

Inform

Inform

CourseDB

Monitor

UpdateInterface

Agent

MSc ISOntology(agent)

NotificationAgent

KB

Evaluation Agent

Mon

itor

Monitor

Inform

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

PlanningAgent

Delegate

LearnerProfile

Monitoring Agent

Learner

Inform

Inform

CourseDB

Not

ify

Monitor

UpdateInterface

Agent

MSc ISOntology(agent)

NotificationAgent

KB

Evaluation Agent

Mon

itor

Monitor

Inform

Delegate

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

PlanningAgent

Delegate

LearnerProfile

Monitoring Agent

AdvisorLearner

Inform

Inform

CourseDB

GUIN

otify

Monitor

Maintain

UpdateInterface

Agent

MSc ISOntology(agent)

NotificationAgent

KB

Evaluation Agent

Mon

itor

Monitor

Inform

Delegate

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

PlanningAgent

Delegate

LearnerProfile

Monitoring Agent

GUI

AdvisorLearner

Inform

Inform

CourseDB

GUI

Administrator

Not

ify

Monitor

Maintain

UpdateInterface

Agent

MSc ISOntology(agent)

NotificationAgent

KB

Evaluation Agent

Maintain

Mon

itor

Monitor

Inform

Delegate

Delega

te

Inform

Info

rm

Multi-agent System based Architecture for E-Advisor(Flexible, Reliable, Reusable)

Knowledge Modeling and Knowledge Modeling and RepresentationRepresentation

• Protégé OWL --- Domain knowledge model

• Program structure and regulations

• Decision Tables --- Academic advising knowledge

• Petri Net based course pre-requisite model (Lin, et al., 2005)

• Preference-based Optimization Model

The overall program planning workflowThe overall program planning workflowcontrolled by the interface agent of a studentcontrolled by the interface agent of a student

Enter the programSemester # = 1

Opportunistic Planning

Pre-planning

Final decision

Semester # increases by 1

Credit requirementSatisfied?

Graduate

The course schedule for the next semester is unavailable yet

The course schedule for the next semester is

available

Deadline for course registration

has passed.

Planning Requirements and PreferencesPlanning Requirements and Preferences

• Plan parameters– expected graduation semester– numbers of courses to take for

the remaining semesters– designated courses to take, etc.

• Preferences– job objectives– career tracks– specialization– assessment style– route (project or essay)

Overall Objective Function of Overall Objective Function of Planning AgentPlanning Agent

• The quality of goodness --- a weighted sum of the following two objectives– Minimum span-time– Maximum the degree of preference fitness

Search Tree and PlansSearch Tree and Plans

Now

1st semester to come

2nd semester to come

B1 B2 Bm…

3rd semester to come

…

Ontology-Based MSc IS Course Pre-requisite Determination Ontology-Based MSc IS Course Pre-requisite Determination

Pre-requisite topic set 1

Course A

Course C1

All Pre-requisites Topic Set Pre-T(A)

Ontology-basedReasoning

A set of courses C = {C1, C2, …, Cm} whose topics minimally cover the topic set T.

match

Goals:

1. Help professors to determine the pre-requisites of a course

2. Pre-requisite maintenance: if a course is added or deleted or revised, the pre-requisite relationship may be changed.

3. Help students to know what courses need to be taken first if he/she wants to take a course.

Learning Object/Unit 1 LO2 LO3

PTS2 PTS3

Course C2

Topics T(C1) Topics T(C2)

1. Pre-T(A) T(C1) T(C2) … T(Cm)

2. If B = {B1, B2, …, Bn} C, and Pre-T(A) T(B1) T(B2) … T(Bn) T(C1) T(C2) … T(Cm) T(B1) T(B2) … T(Bn)

MSc ISOntology

Theoretical and Empirical Results Theoretical and Empirical Results

Test with student data

Strengths and Weakness in PracticeStrengths and Weakness in Practice

• Adapt to preference changes • Reusability: domain knowledge

The Current Project TeamThe Current Project Team

Chief Programmer

Programming Expert

Modeling Expert

Database Expert

Usability Expert

Domain Expert

Principal Investigator

An Ideal Project TeamAn Ideal Project Team

Team Leader(Technical management)

Programming Expert

Modeling Expert

Database Expert

Usability Expert

Domain Expert

Team Manager(Nontechnical management)

Project Manager

ConclusionsConclusions• The e-Advisor has been developed to add many benefits

to both staff and students– 40 AU MSc IS students are using e-Advisor– Active role of students in planning their program study suited to

their goals and desires– Lessen the workload on human advisors– Allow the administrators to better design programs and work out

schedules based on students’ needs and status.• MAS approach facilitates software development,

maintenance and upgrades• MAS architecture fosters collaboration in system design,

providing the all members of the team can understand and contribute to the design.

Future WorkFuture Work

• More extensive testing• Data mining to add intelligence to the agents• Ontology maintenance• The first generation system has provided us

experience in designing more generalized tools that could be applied in many academic programs and schools

• Web services development and integration into MAS.

www.e-advisor.orgwww.e-advisor.org

Thank You!