Title: Contextualised mLearning service delivery through a multi-agent platform

Authors: Damien Meere; Ivan Ganchev; Zhanlin Ji; Máirtín O'Droma

Addresses: Telecommunications Research Centre (TRC), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland ' Telecommunications Research Centre (TRC), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland ' Telecommunications Research Centre (TRC), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; Research Centre for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, University of Science and Technology, Beijing, China ' Telecommunications Research Centre (TRC), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

Abstract: A multi-agent-based platform, designed to incorporate mobile devices into educational practices, is presented in this paper. The platform builds on the InfoStation paradigm. Together with the rationale behind the multi-agent approach, the operations and interactions of agents with the platform's underlying data structures are discussed. Details on the contextualisation of delivered service content together with supporting mechanisms are also presented. This contextualisation function enables system adaptation in response to the varying operating environments inherent to this type of wireless access architecture, and to the service delivery modes dictated by, or matched to, the personal context of the user. The educational opportunities thereby created such as support for dispersed distance learning and enriched learning environments are discussed. Future directions for the development of this platform are also outlined.

Keywords: InfoStations; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; Java Agent Development; JADE; Wireless Universal Resource File; WURFL; mobile learning; m-learning; e-learning; online learning; electronic learning; service contextualisation; service delivery; distance learning; enriched learning environments.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCISTUDIES.2013.057644

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies, 2013 Vol.2 No.3/4, pp.218 - 240

Received: 06 Mar 2013
Accepted: 07 Mar 2013
Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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