An Intelligent E-Learning System for Math Course

An Intelligent E-Learning System for Math Course By Abdallah Gomah Tawfik Gomah A Thesis Submitted to Faculty of Computers and Information Cairo Unive...
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An Intelligent E-Learning System for Math Course By Abdallah Gomah Tawfik Gomah A Thesis Submitted to Faculty of Computers and Information Cairo University In partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master in Computer Science Under the supervision of Prof. Ibrahim Farag Abdel Rahman Prof. Amr Badr Dr. Samir Abdel Rahman

Faculty of Computers and Information Cairo University Egypt 2012

Certificate I certify that this work has not been accepted in substance for any academic degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any other degree. Any portions of this thesis for which I am indebted to other sources are mentioned and explicit references are given.

Student Name: Abdallah Gomah Tawfik Gomah Signature:

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Abstract With the increasing use of telecommunication technologies, the Internet has been widely recognized as a valuable and inexpensive medium for transfer of skills, information, and knowledge. The internet has registered the fastest growth among all means of communications known in the communications industry history – faster even than television and telephony. Internet has been universally recognized as a medium for network-enabled transfer of information and knowledge in various areas. Taking advantage of the continuously improving, web-based learning systems plays an important role for self-learning. In this thesis, an architecture for intelligent E-Learning system architecture was proposed which provides helping learners navigate the course content through the use of an automated assistant (a recommender system). The recommender system enriches the e-learning system with additional resources based on the topic learner explores. The additional resources are retrieved from the internet and provided automatically without user interruption. The recommender system makes use of Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing (NLP) for ranking the resources and decides which resources will be offered first. The proposed system designed for Arabic materials and is suitable for Arabic courses, but it can be extended easily to support English courses. The proposed system helps learners to make use of internet and its large amount of information about the materials being studied without need for the learner to be good in using internet.

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Table of Contents List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... VII List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... VIII Chapter 1 Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Problem statement & Solution Direction......................................................................... 3 1.3 Objective ......................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Scope of work .................................................................................................................. 5 1.5 Thesis Outline.................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 2 Background and previous work ................................................................................ 6 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 What is learning? ............................................................................................................. 7 2.3 E-Learning ....................................................................................................................... 8 2.3.1 What is e-learning? ................................................................................................... 8 2.3.1.1 Internet-enabled instruction: .............................................................................. 9 2.3.1.2 Technology-based instruction: .......................................................................... 9 2.3.1.3 Learning tools of the new economy: ............................................................... 10 2.3.2 E-learning history ................................................................................................... 11 2.3.3 E-learning delivery methods................................................................................... 13 2.3.3.1 Asynchronous e-learning ................................................................................. 13 2.3.3.2 Synchronous e-learning ................................................................................... 14 2.3.4 E-learning vs. traditional learning .......................................................................... 15 2.3.5 E-learning system architecture ............................................................................... 16 2.4 Intelligent e-learning systems ........................................................................................ 17 2.5 Recommender Systems ................................................................................................. 17 2.5.1 Content-based Recommender Systems................................................................... 19 2.5.2 Collaborative Recommender Systems .................................................................... 20 2.5.3 Hybrid Recommender Systems .............................................................................. 23 2.6 Related Work ................................................................................................................. 24 2.6.1 Syskill & Webert .................................................................................................... 24 2.6.2 METIOREW........................................................................................................... 25 2.6.3 Letizia ..................................................................................................................... 25 2.6.4 WebWatcher ........................................................................................................... 26

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2.6.5 Web Browser Intelligence (WBI) ........................................................................... 26 Chapter 3 Proposed Architecture: Intelligent E-Learning System for Math Course ............... 27 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 28 3.2 Architecture Overview .................................................................................................. 28 3.3 Domain Module ............................................................................................................. 30 3.3.1 Course Content Tree ............................................................................................... 30 3.4 Student Module ............................................................................................................. 34 3.5 Tutor Module ................................................................................................................. 35 3.5.1 Traditional teaching strategy .................................................................................. 35 3.5.2 Interaction between Tutor Module, Domain Module and Recommender Module . 36 3.6 Recommender Module .................................................................................................. 36 3.6.1 Information Retrieval Engine ................................................................................. 38 3.6.1.1 Crawling ........................................................................................................... 39 3.6.1.2 Detecting Encoding.......................................................................................... 41 3.6.1.3 Special Characters Conversion ........................................................................ 41 3.6.1.4 Word Breaker .................................................................................................. 42 3.6.1.5 Normalizing Words and Numbers ................................................................... 42 3.6.1.6 Eliminating Stop Words ................................................................................... 42 3.6.1.7 Stemmer .......................................................................................................... 44 3.6.1.8 Building Catalog (Indexing) .............................................................................. 45 3.6.2 Recommendation Decision Generator .................................................................... 47 3.6.2.1 Keyword Capture ............................................................................................. 47 3.6.2.2 Ranking ............................................................................................................ 47 3.6.2.3 Building Results ............................................................................................... 48 3.7 Interface Module ........................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 4 Results..................................................................................................................... 53 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 54 4.2 Purpose of this Experiment ........................................................................................... 54 4.3 Experimental Parameters ............................................................................................... 54 4.4 Experimental Preparation .............................................................................................. 54 4.5 Experimental Results ..................................................................................................... 55 4.6 Discussion of Results .................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 5 Conclusion and Future Work .................................................................................. 57 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 58 V

5.2 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 58 5.3 Future Work .................................................................................................................. 58 References ............................................................................................................................... 60

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List of Figures Figure ‎2.1 What is taught? vs. What is learned? ....................................................................... 8 Figure ‎2.2 E-learning definitions................................................................................................ 9 Figure ‎2.3 Cycle of e-learning, Gartner view point.................................................................. 13 Figure ‎2.4 E-Learning system architecture .............................................................................. 17 Figure ‎2.5 Diagram of the recommender systems general idea ............................................. 18 Figure ‎3.1 Architecture of the proposed system..................................................................... 29 Figure ‎3.2 Course Content Tree............................................................................................... 30 Figure ‎3.3 Expert’s main screen .............................................................................................. 31 Figure ‎3.4 Adding course content ........................................................................................... 32 Figure ‎3.5 Define course recommendation sources ............................................................... 33 Figure ‎3.6 define course quiz or final test ............................................................................... 33 Figure ‎3.7 overlay student model............................................................................................ 34 Figure ‎3.8 Traditional method procedures.............................................................................. 35 Figure ‎3.9 Tutor module, Domain module and Recommender module interaction .............. 36 Figure ‎3.10 Recommender Module Components ................................................................... 37 Figure ‎3.11 Building recommendation decision process ........................................................ 38 Figure ‎3.12 Flow of a basic sequential crawler ....................................................................... 40 Figure ‎3.13 High-level architecture of a standard Web crawler ............................................. 40 Figure ‎3.14 Building catalog simple object model................................................................... 46 Figure ‎3.15 Keyword capturing ............................................................................................... 47 Figure ‎3.16 MiEC ranking procedures ..................................................................................... 48 Figure ‎3.17 MiEC building results procedures ......................................................................... 49 Figure ‎3.18 Student's main screen with recommended resources ......................................... 49 Figure ‎3.19 Recommended resources list ............................................................................... 50 Figure ‎3.20 MiEC main screen ................................................................................................. 51 Figure ‎3.21 MiEC login form .................................................................................................... 51 Figure ‎3.22 Course Expert's main screen ................................................................................ 52 Figure ‎3.23 Student's main screen .......................................................................................... 52 Figure ‎4.1 Unique Words Reduction ....................................................................................... 55 Figure ‎4.2 XML and Binary File Sizes ....................................................................................... 56

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List of Tables Table ‎3.1 Sample of HTML special characters ......................................................................... 41 Table ‎3.2 Sample of arabic stop words ................................................................................... 43 Table ‎3.3 Arabic word with all affixes ..................................................................................... 45 Table ‎4.1 Experimental Results ............................................................................................... 55

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction Learning is an important mechanism for organizations of any kind to enhance the skills of their members [28]. Problem of education is mostly connected with knowledge-based economy [16] that needs new methods of delivering education and training, partly to enhance traditional methods of knowledge acquisition and to convey new skills and tools. There are many situations in which people want to learn exactly what they are interested in without time and location constraints. These kinds of needs require learning to be available on-demand. The concept of traditional classroom education does not always fit comfortably into the new world of lifelong learning where the roles of instructors, students, and curriculum are changing [2]. With the increasing use of telecommunication technologies, the Internet has been widely recognized as a valuable and inexpensive medium for transfer of skills, information, and knowledge. The internet has registered the fastest growth among all means of communications known in the communications industry history – faster even than television and telephony. For example we know that, only in Europe, the number of households who have Internet access at home has doubled each year since 1997, while worldwide, the Internet user population has registered a spectacular and continuous growth. Also, the communication on the World Wide Web is very fast, allowing instant transfer and manipulation of large databases, text files, images, multimedia files all over the world. As a result, the consumers can purchase and obtain any digital product (software, ebooks, video presentations, videoconference, etc.) instantly from the Web [31]. E-Learning technology, which delivers educational material electronically via the Internet, has been widely used in both academic education and corporative training [34]. E-learning can be very effective tool for organizations wishing to develop staff or provide training in new products and processes. It can also be a disaster if it is not managed correctly so to be successful, e-learning has to have the right fit with the organization. It should not be chosen because it is fashionable but should be chosen 2

because it is the most efficient and effective way to meet the identified learning need [26]. As standard e-learning systems have many advantages like improving learners‘ performance [20], increasing access to learning materials and convenience and flexibility to learners, it also has some disadvantages like generalization of learners and inability to provide individualized access to learner study [16].

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disadvantage, all learners get the same studying material, which might be suitable for one learner, but not suitable for another. Although a considerably large number of e-Learning systems have been developed in the past few years, many of them have various limitations that may hinder the improvement of e-Learning effectiveness. For example, some systems present textbased materials only, which may seem boring to online learners. Intelligent e-learning systems which have basic principles identical with standard elearning systems (provide education) try to eliminate this problem with intelligent principles [16]. There are many approaches for intelligent principles, selection and application of these principles depends for example on type of studying material or format of courses.

1.2 Problem statement & Solution Direction As standard e-learning systems have some disadvantages like that it contains static materials which might be suitable for one learner, but not suitable for another. So we are in need to an intelligent way to provide a lot of alternative resources to the learners helping them make good use of the course they are obtaining. The provided resources should be provided automatically without the interaction of the learner based on his learning progress. As the internet is recognized as a rich source of information easily tapped by any person who has the skills necessary to login to the World Wide Web, we can use it to collect alternative resources that can help learner (skilled or non-skilled with the internet) in the learning process. The process of providing the learner with additional resources should be done automatically without user interaction to facilitate the

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learning process. Also the process should be handled in an intelligent way to provide the learner with what he needs, not with all available on the internet. The learner could make use of search engines to find out additional resources through internet, but he should have good skills to find out what he wants to know. Also search engines have a lot of disadvantages like [1]: 

Search engines rank pages depending on certain tags appearing in a web page, many web page owners try to cheat those systems by supplying keywords in web tags other than those relevant to their site to be ranked in non-relevant search queries.



Pages without proper tagging cannot be added properly to the search engine index although they may contain very good material.



Search engines usually give a lot of results; a typical search requires a user to check many pages before reaching the needed page.



Using search engines does involve a learning curve. Many beginning Internet users, because of these disadvantages, become discouraged and frustrated.

1.3 Objective The objective of this research is to overcome some of standard e-learning systems disadvantages and provide learners with alternative resources that could help them understand the course. We are aiming at making use of World Wide Web to collect information about the topics that learner is exploring and provide alternative resources that could help improving learner knowledge collection. We are in need to build an intelligent recommender system that can help the learner browse different resources related to the topic he is currently explores. This will help him understand the topic by exploring related topics published on the internet. The proposed system should provide the following features: 

Automatically gives recommended resources based on the topic learner is exploring.



The recommender system should work silently (doesn‘t interrupt user navigation). 4

1.4 Scope of work The proposed work will handle a math course; however the system is extendable to handle various courses with Arabic materials without major modification. In case of changing course with another Arabic course, the domain dictionary should be changed to meet the desired new course. In case of changing course with another course but in a language rather than Arabic, there will be a need to unplug some modules and plug in other modules that can handle the new language.

1.5 Thesis Outline This thesis is organized as follows: Chapter 2 will show an interpretative background and theory behind many fields which may be needed by anyone whom may read it and previous work. Chapter 3 will show the proposed framework "An Intelligent

E-Learning

System for Math Course ", its modules. Chapter 4 will discuss the results from some done experiments. Chapter 5 contains conclusion and some proposed future work points.

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Chapter 2 Background and previous work

2.1 Introduction This chapter is dedicated to give background on the main components of this research E-Learning System, Intelligent E-Learning System and Auto-Recommender Systems, accompanied with related previous work. Section 2.2 deals with overview about learning, Section 2.3 deals with E-Learning definition, history, delivery methods and comparison between traditional learning and E-Learning, Section 2.4 deals with Intelligent E-Learning System overview, Section 2.5 deals with Recommender Systems and Section 2.6 deals with related systems.

2.2 What is learning? Webster‘s Dictionary defines learning as ―the act or experience of one that learns; knowledge of skill acquired by instruction or study; modification of a behavioral tendency by experience." Learning is defined as a change in behavior, which is demonstrated by people implementing knowledge, skills, or practices derived from education [7]. Basically, from an educator‘s perspective, learning involves helping people along the learning process, and learning includes all of the things that we do to make it happen. As an end result, we know that learning occurs when people take newfound information and incorporate it into their life. For example, if we are working with an audience that lacks basic financial management skills for budgeting, one of our objectives is to see people gain knowledge in this area and to actually implement the new skills – hopefully, over a long period of time [22]. In learning process we should differentiate between two concepts: 

What is taught?



What is learned?

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Figure ‎2.1 What is taught? vs. What is learned?

It is clear that some of what we teach is wasted effort; the diagram is a representation of only one learner‘s learning. It may be that within a class as a whole, everything we teach is learned, by someone. The shape representing the teaching is smaller than that for learning, because students are also learning from other sources, including colleagues and the sheer experience of being in the educational system, as well as more conventional other resources such as books [5].

2.3 E-Learning Learning technologies change quickly, and the language and components of the learning industry can be confusing. Many new and different terms, acronyms, and even spellings are thrown around by gurus, vendors, industry organizations, and learning practitioners [4].

2.3.1 What is e-learning? The meaning of the letter ‗e‘ is vast and encompasses many fields – from astronomy to video games. Used in technology, ‗e‘ means electronic. E-learning, then, is e(lectronic) learning, just as e-mail is e-(lectronic) mail. The ‗e‘ represents the means by which we receive or access learning – electronically, typically on the Web (online) via a Web browser [10].

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E-learning is a very broad term. It is used to describe any type of learning environment that is computer enhanced. There are multiple technologies that can be employed in e-learning. It has become one of those types of words that are so general as to have lost some of its meaning. Distance learning is something that has evolved from e-learning. It is used to describe a learning environment that takes place away from the actual traditional classroom and campus [4]. There are many definitions of e-learning; the following graph illustrates the increasing scope of e-learning definitions. Each ring builds upon the previous foundation and adds a new element: technology, methodology, and social context [30].

Figure ‎2.2 E-learning definitions

2.3.1.1 Internet-enabled instruction: Definitions focus on the revolutionary impact of networking technology (Internet & intranet) like the following: 

E-Learning refers to Web-based training — anywhere, anytime, self-paced instruction — that is presented over the Internet to browser-equipped learners.



E-Learning is the convergence of learning and the Internet.



"E-Learning is content and instructional methods delivered on a computer (whether on CD-ROM, the Internet or an intranet), and designed to build knowledge and skills related to individual or organizational goals." [11]

2.3.1.2 Technology-based instruction: Definitions include a broader view of technology (inclusive of mobile, wireless, iPod, video, game & other technologies) and methodology issues such as instructional design and best practices — including, blended learning, personalization and 9

collaboration. Further, they orient to a more inclusive use of instructional technology like the following: 

E-Learning is the use of technology to enable people to learn anytime and anywhere. E-Learning can include training, the delivery of just-in-time information and guidance from experts [13].



E-learning is the delivery of a learning, training or education program by electronic means. E-learning involves the use of a computer or electronic device (e.g. a mobile phone) in some way to provide training, educational or learning material [27]. E-learning can involve a greater variety of equipment than online training or education, for as the name implies, "online" involves using the Internet or an Intranet. CD-ROM and DVD can be used to provide learning materials.

2.3.1.3 Learning tools of the new economy: Cultural and social impacts are key defining characteristics. These definitions are culturally driven, not just technology driven — based on the reality of a new, globally networked and interdependent economy that is being advanced by technology. 

"Best practices for learning in the new economy, implying but not requiring benefits of networking and computers such as anywhere / anytime delivery, learning objects, and personalization. Learning on Internet time. Often includes ILT." (InternetTime).

We can conclude that e-learning is to deliver learning materials to learners electronically by means of new technology like computers, internet and mobiles. One thing, we should distinguish between e-learning and distance learning. The basic thing that distinguishes distance education is the physical separation of the student from the instructor and the class room. E-learning, however, became part of the classroom environment from the beginning. The early use of computers was geared to help the classroom instructor. Gradually, as more and more personal computers became available, the idea of online classes was explored by some pioneering Colleges and Universities. The early attempts at distance education were hampered by resistance from traditionalist within the education field [4].

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2.3.2 E-learning history In October 1999, during a computer based test (CBT) Systems seminar in Los Angeles, a strange new word was used for the first time in a professional environment – ‗e-Learning‘. Associated with such expressions as 'online learning' or 'virtual learning', this word was meant to qualify "a way to learn based on the use of new technologies allowing access to online, interactive and sometimes personalized training through the Internet or other electronic media (intranet, extranet, interactive TV, CD-Rom, etc.), so as to develop competencies while the process of learning is independent from time and place2" [13]. The word itself is not that old, but what about the elements of e-learning? E-learning began at just about the same time that a computer was developed that was practical for personal use. In fact, the concept and practice of distance learning predates the computer area by almost 100 years. In England, in 1840, shorthand classes were being offered by correspondence courses through the mail. The improvements to the postal service made this method of distance learning popular in the early part of the last century. This led to a large number of "through the mail" type of educational programs. The computer only made distance learning easy and better. Television, video recorders, and even radio have all made a contribution to distance learning [10]. Modern distance education has been around at least since Isaac Pitman taught shorthand in Great Britain via correspondence in the 1840s (shorthand is an abbreviated, symbolic writing method that improves speed of writing or brevity as compared to a normal method of writing a language). Pitman was a qualified teacher and taught at a private school he founded in Wotton-under-Edge. He decided to start a distance course and was sending assignments to his students by mail and they completed the 'homework' and sent it back to him [13]. In the early 1920s Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State University, developed a machine to provide drill and practice items to students in his introductory courses. Pressey (1926) stated, "The procedure in mastery of drill and informational material were in many instances simple and definite enough to permit handling of much routine teaching by mechanical means." 11

The teaching machine that Pressey developed resembled a typewriter with a window that showed a question with four answers. The user pressed the key that corresponded with the correct answer. When the user pressed a key, the machine recorded the answer on a counter to the back of the machine and revealed the next question. After the user was finished, the person scoring the test slipped the test sheet back into the device and noted the score on the counter. The introduction of the first personal computer (the Altair 880 in 1975) was quickly followed by the Apple II and the IBM PC. With the Apple and the IBM the computer was reliable enough and was used for didactical purposes. Especially within mathematics and science many projects were started. Simulations and programmed instruction were used the most. Computers were used to make the current, existing tasks easier to perform. They were helpful to some teachers and a nice addition to their teaching tools. A lot of teachers with some technical skills start programming their own courseware (educational programs). Useful 'drill and practice' exercises were created. Not a lot of courseware was shared amongst teachers. At the end of the 90s the learning management systems (LMS) were used. Some universities started to design and develop their own systems but most of the educational institutions started with systems off the market. Every innovation starts in a specific way. It never starts with a balanced use of the new technology. There is a certain process. With Gartner, a leading technology industry analyst calls this the "hype cycle" and it is unfailingly accurate in the way it predicts technology adoption.

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