An Intelligent Tutoring System for Efficient Usage of Databases

We have developed an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) for intelligent use of databases by students. The goal of the software is to improve students´ abilities in three areas: a. the ability to provide a correct description of the search query in the databases; b. the capacity to understand the results of the search query and reach conclusions according to these results; c. to broaden and deepen knowledge in the knowledge area of the databases. Our system presents questions and goals to the students in order to improve these three components. An intelligent tutoring system chooses questions and goals that are appropriate for the level of each student. Our system, in contrast to other ITS models, considers the student´s level as a vector, based on the three components of intelligent usage of databases described above. The questions and goals given to each student are built according to the current level of the student in these three areas. The software is based on intelligent algorithms for determining the current level of the student, and for choosing appropriate questions w.r.t. the level determined. During the research, we developed a pool of online questions concerning an online database, and we ran a manual simulation of the system on a High School classroom, using online history databases, and we tested the way students use our system and its efficiency in improving their abilities.