LANCA: A Distance Learning Architecture Based on Networked Cognitive Agents

The use of Internet as a general vehicle to support distance learning is a recent orientation of learning with multiple positive and negative consequences. The important disadvantage of such an approach is to forget the difference between information and knowledge, between consultation and pedagogy, leading to poor training as a consequence. The need of providing access to information to a larger number of people should not be realized to the detriment of the quality of training. In this paper we first explain why and how ITS techniques using intelligent agents can be adapted to distance learning. We precise the main characteristics of these agents and their functions in a distributed environment. We then present the architecture of this environment with the role of the different intelligent agents. We show, on an example, how the agents interact with the learner and particularly how a pedagogical agent can switch to a new strategy according to the progression of the learner.