Educational Hypermedia System ALICE: an Evaluation of Adaptive Features

This paper presents a Web-based educational hypermedia system, called ALICE, and focuses on the evaluation of its adaptive features. The system builds on the concept domain model and includes the elements of knowledge uncertainty in the process of user modelling. The two models are used for adapting system’s navigation support to an individual user; link annotation, direct guidance and link insertion are implemented in the system. The system has been evaluated in a real environment on the course Introduction to Java as a testing teaching domain. The results of the experiments have shown that the presented educational system and its adaptation techniques provide a valuable, easy-to-use tool, which positively affects user knowledge acquisition and thus leads to better learning results. Key-Words: Educational hypermedia, adaptive systems, adaptation technologies, user modelling, knowledge uncertainty, fuzzy set theory, evaluation.