Towards a Distributed Architecture for Adaptive E-Learning System

Abstract

Technology is advancing rapidly and the demand and expectation is getting higher, that current monolithic client-server and peer-to-peer e-learning systems can no longer tolerate. Distributed e-learning systems, on the other hand, have the potential to address many shortcomings of current e-learning systems. Distributed systems are mainly based on Web-services or alternatively the Grid. The purpose of this paper is to define a novel distributed e-learning architecture based on multi-agents and intelligent distributed blackboards. The proposed architecture employs the Web-services approach of distributed e-learning systems in a scalable and flexible manner, utilizing a wealth of e-learning content and services in existing on-line learning repositories and intelligently personalizing it to the particular needs of the learners, through the use of multi-agents. Distributed intelligent blackboards, on the other hand, allows the efficient and seamless communication and collaboration among the various distributed agents.