I-MINDS: an application of multiagent system intelligence to on-line education

In this paper, we introduce I-MINDS (intelligent multiagent infrastructure for distributed system in education), an application based on multiagent system intelligence that enables students to actively participate in a virtual classroom rather than passively listening to lectures in a traditional virtual classroom. I-MINDS agents, equipped with intelligence of their own, and knowledge about other agents in the system, have the ability to collect information from and collaborate with other agents and serve their users (students and teachers alike) behind-the-scene effectively. Rather than being programmed to do a specific job, each agent has the ability to self-configure and learn based on the behavior of its users and its stored experience. To support the communication and collaboration process among the intelligent agents, we developed a hierarchical system that is more flexible and extensible.