MEDEA: an Open Service-Based Learning Platform for Developing Intelligent Educational Systems for the Web

As a consequence of the increasing importance of distance education there is a growing interest in the application of intelligent techniques to existing web-based educational systems. Many researchers are focusing their efforts on reusing high quality educational software and material to take advantage of their sound theoretical foundations and effective teaching strategies. In this paper, an open learning platform for the development of intelligent web-based educational systems is presented. MEDEA is a service-based learning platform that allows using intelligently different integrated learning systems for instruction purposes. To achieve this task, MEDEA provides a common student model and an instructional planner. Learning resources are integrated as web services. Systems developed with MEDEA guide students in their learning process but permit free navigation to better suit their learning needs. The learning platform has been instantiated and evaluated by developing with satisfactory results two intelligent web-based systems for the study of Logic and Agrarian Economy