Discusses the role of intelligent agents in facilitating the seeking and retrieval of information in Web-based library environments. Highlights include an overview of agents; current applications in library domains; an agent-based model for libraries; the design of interface agents; and implications for library policy and digital collections.…

Presents a layered architecture for hypermedia systems that uses the MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group) proposal to provide the desired independence between hypermedia applications' conceptual models and storage strategies for hypermedia objects. An overview of the MHEG standard proposal is provided. (Contains 16…

The topic of this article concerns how students make sense of categories of progressive inquiry made available to them through a discussion and inquiry type of software called Future Learning Environments 2 (FLE2). The idea behind tools of this kind is to induce approaches to school-work that build on the metaphor of learning as research. By…

This comprehensive "Handbook" focuses on the most used polytomous item response theory (IRT) models. These models help us understand the interaction between examinees and test questions where the questions have various response categories. The book reviews all of the major models and includes discussions about how and where the models…

We present an inference algorithm for perturbation models based on Poisson regression. The algorithm is designed to handle unclassified input with multiple errors described by independent mal-rules. This knowledge representation provides an intelligent tutoring system with local and global information about a student, such as error classification…

Using Excel, an interactive program is designed to simulate the Solow and endogenous growth models to facilitate the understanding of these models for students of growth theory and macroeconomics.

No longer can courseware providers deal with one homogeneous target group, one learning form and possibly one pedagogical approach. Instead they must develop a broad range of courseware, each serving its specific target group, each adjusted to a specific learning and teaching form, each appealing to its own learning and teaching scenario, and each…

This paper describes the creation and evaluation of a World Wide Web-based courseware module, using conceptual models based on constructivism, that teaches novices how to use the Internet for searching. Questionnaires and interviews were used to understand the difficulties of a group of novices. The conceptual model of the experts for the task was…

Discusses a new paradigm for choosing educational software, based on the perspectives of the teacher, student, and designer; describes a study of the use of this paradigm by a group of teachers. Results indicated the paradigm helped assessors to articulate a holistic awareness of educational issues, enabling a coherent review of pedagogical,…

The data for 104 software projects is used to develop a linear regression model that uses function points (a measure of software project size) to predict development effort. The data set is particularly interesting in that it violates several of the assumptions required of a linear model; but when the data are transformed, the data set satisfies…

Unlike conventional models of software development, the open source model is based on the collaborative efforts of users who are also co-developers of the software. Interest in open source software has grown exponentially in recent years. A "Google" search for the phrase open source in early 2005 returned 28.8 million webpage hits, while…

The dependent variable in a regular linear regression is a numerical variable, and in a logistic regression it is a binary or categorical variable. In these models the dependent variable has varying values. However, there are problems yielding an identity output of a constant value which can also be modelled in a linear or logistic regression with…

Reviews overall structure and design principles of a knowledge-based programming support tool, the Knowledge-Based Programming Assistant, which is being developed at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The system's major units (program design program coding, and intelligent debugging) and additional functions are described. (MBR)

Reports on major change in computer software development process--the prototype model, i.e., implementation of skeletal system that is enhanced during interaction with users. Expensive and unreliable software, software design errors, traditional development approach, resources required for prototyping, success stories, and systems designer's role…

Describes the object-oriented paradigm (modeling a system by the objects that constitute it and the class relationships between objects) and presents examples of its application to automated library systems, including a model of a hierarchical and relational bibliographic database. Advantages and disadvantages of the paradigm for information…