A prototype distributed adaptive learning system

The authors report on a distributed adaptive learning system (DALS) project at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This project grew out of work reported previously by the first author (2001), in which he described a generic DALS based on his KAL model of human learning comprised of three interacting components, a knowledge space, a collection of intelligent agents called an agency and a learner space. The DALS view of a learner is an electronic file called the learner filter. What DALS presents to the learner is called a knowledge view. The DALS agency manages the interface between knowledge views and learner filters. The current project implements a basic prototype DALS as a proof of concept of the earlier work. The DALS prototype was developed by a graduate student, Sachin Sood, under the supervision of the first author. The third author, Bhavesh Advani, also a graduate student, is designing and integrating a multiple intelligence module into the prototype to provide an innovative new presentation mode. The goal of this project is to create a very broad foundation within which to assemble the many ideas and techniques for adaptive interaction available or being developed in both the academic and commercial venues. An underlying premise is that adaptive interaction strategies are propelling us toward practical theories for knowledge organization and user profiling, where users may be individuals, teams or large organizations, with objectives to learn, sell, persuade or govern, to mention a few possible goals. In our project the paradigm is an individual learner; but the model applies in other contexts as well.