Final stage of the INTUITEL project

The INTUITEL project (Intelligent Tutoring Interface for Technology Enhanced Learning) has entered its final stage. The Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), through the Research and Technology Unit (UNIR Research), participates in the project, which is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union, and co-financed by project partners. INTUITEL is executed as part of the Specific Programme on ‘Cooperation‘ within ‘The ICT Work Programme’. The project lasts three years (2012-2015) and is developed in collaboration among twelve international partners.

The system designs and develops an adaptive learning system integrated in Learning Management Systems (LMS). It performs tasks that until now only could carry out by a human tutor, and creates an integrated learning environment automatically depending on the user profile, her activity and the environmental conditions (such as the connecting device). It is available for any person at any place, with any access device and under any external condition.

“The prototype works”, states Luis de-la-Fuente-Valentín, researcher of UNIR Research and project member. So far, the system has generated recommendations under laboratory conditions. Now is the moment to transfer it to the classrooms.

“We have simulated students, with a sequence of actions to verify how the system responds”, comments de-la-Fuente-Valentín. INTUITEL recognizes the learning abilities of each student and personal aspects like gender, culture and age. It also recognizes the environmental aspects like available communication bandwidth, ambient noise level, screen size and type of access device.

All these variables feed the INTUITEL Engine, which uses the learner data and the content metadata to perform the recommendations according to the system rules. From the technical point of view, this is the core part of the whole system.

INTUITEL is versatile in terms of knowledge areas and gives the liberty to the teacher to choose. “The challenge is how to make the recommender system good for the teacher”, admits the researcher.

Project phases

In the first year of the project, two main research areas were developed: technology and pedagogy. LMS were modified and the pedagogical model for the project was developed.

The second year was dedicated to the implementation of INTUITEL system in the LMS, with the definition and implementation of SLOM (Semantic Learning Object Model), a new metadata model that will allow the combination of teaching knowledge with learning material. It involves the development of INTUITEL Engine and editing software.

Among all the INTUITEL software pieces, UNIR has developed the INTUITEL Merger. This software merges different SLOM objects into new ones, and therefore plays an important role in the interoperability of INTUITEL enhanced learning packages.

The last phase is being devoted to the pedagogical and technical integration and validation of INTUITEL in existing learning scenarios: for the open source version and commercial version.

You can find all the details on the project website: http://www.intuitel.de/