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Helping Users Customize Their Pedagogical Agents: Issues, Approaches and Examples

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Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3213))

Abstract

Pedagogical agents are user interface agents embedded in interactive learning environments to provide awareness of social interaction and collaborative knowledge building. We have developed and evaluated pedagogical agents for computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) scenarios. These scenarios, which are not well understood in advance of execution (e.g. providing open ended learning tasks), have stimulated our interest in customizable (end-user modifiable) agents. We have built a pedagogical agent customizer (RuleEditor) that allows end users to modify the presentation (“what to say”) and intervention (“when to say”) attributes of the agent. We survey past work on customizable agents and group them into information search and filtering, delegation of repetitive tasks, and advice giving and design support. The RuleEditor reuses past work and contributes to it in new ways by bringing in the specific concerns of distributed collaborative learning, emphasizing the social dimension of human-agent interaction. We end the paper by discussing the implications of customizing interface agents in multi-user environments, which includes the means for users to exercise a new form of control over their environment (“social empowerment”) that may extend as far as redefining social relations within a community of users.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. InterMedia, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1161 Blindern, N-0318, Oslo, Norway

    Anders I. Mørch & Jan Eirik B. Nævdal

Authors
  1. Anders I. Mørch
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  2. Jan Eirik B. Nævdal
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. KES International, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, EC1V 4PY, London, United Kingdom

    Mircea Gh. Negoita

  2. Centre for SMART systems Engineering Research Centre, University of Brighton, BN2 4GJ, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, UK

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Knowledge Based Intelligent Engineering Systems Centre, University of South Australia, 5095, Mawson Lakes, SA, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Mørch, A.I., Nævdal, J.E.B. (2004). Helping Users Customize Their Pedagogical Agents: Issues, Approaches and Examples. In: Negoita, M.G., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems. KES 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3213. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30132-5_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30132-5_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23318-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30132-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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