A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> Our interactive multimedia presentation development system uses artificial intelligence to specify knowledge inheritance relations between presentation windows. An object-oriented multimedia database organizes resources and presentations, and a database browser facilitates object reuse. The system runs under Windows 95 and can be used for general-purpose presentations or for education, training, or product demonstrations. <s> BIB001 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> Application of data mining techniques to the WWW (World Wide Web), referred to as Web mining, has been the focus of several research projects and papers. One of several possibilities can be its application to distance education. Taken as a whole, the emerging trends in distance education are facilitating its usability on the Internet. With the explosive growth of information sources available on the WWW, Web mining has become suitable for keeping pace with the trends in education, such as mass customization. In this paper, we define Web mining and present an overview of distance education. We describe the possibilities of application of Web mining to distance education, and, consequently, show that the use of Web mining for educational purposes is of great interest. <s> BIB002 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> Recently, the Internet has become very widely used and the number of Web pages has been increasing. The authors believe that it is possible for many Web pages to become educational materials. Therefore, they focus on a learning environment using Web pages. They propose a novel framework called WECE (Web based Educational Customize Environment). WECE adds knowledge (annotations, questions, answers, etc.) to any Web pages. WECE is a new approach that introduces a customizing layer model into WWW systems. In addition, the authors develop a prototype WECE system which is called "Web-Retracer". Introducing Web-Retracer to a classroom may reduce a teacher's burden in selecting teaching materials for the learners. The teacher can select the contents of the teaching materials without considering the learner's level. <s> BIB003 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> In this study, an agent based Virtual Classroom defined within the Virtual University is presented. A set of agents of the same type is responsible for handling different users and their requests. The classroom represents an interface between the students and a virtual professor and should provide personalized learning materials. The Virtual Classroom system is Web based and its usage is intuitive, although the content provided to students, changes accordingly to its affinities for subjects and media types. <s> BIB004 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> We propose a novel approach of video imaging method suitable to support distance learning. Automatic active camera control and video selection system visualizes presentation information of a lecturer and active students. We consider the dynamic situation of the lecture to determine the appropriate target object to be shot which gives remote students live lecture information. We have implemented our method and used it in several distance learning courses held between Kyoto University and UCLA. <s> BIB005 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Intelligent Technologies <s> This paper focuses on a systematic treatment for developing a generic online learning control system based on the fundamental principle of reinforcement learning or more specifically neural dynamic programming. This online learning system improves its performance over time in two aspects: 1) it learns from its own mistakes through the reinforcement signal from the external environment and tries to reinforce its action to improve future performance; and 2) system states associated with the positive reinforcement is memorized through a network learning process where in the future, similar states will be more positively associated with a control action leading to a positive reinforcement. A successful candidate of online learning control design is introduced. Real-time learning algorithms is derived for individual components in the learning system. Some analytical insight is provided to give guidelines on the learning process took place in each module of the online learning control system. <s> BIB006
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been studied since many decades ago. In general, there are two directions of AI research: computational logic and neural network. The former has symbolic representation of knowledge. Using deductive reasoning and searching techniques, the former method tries to compute conclusions, which may represent new knowledge. On the other hand, there is intelligence which is hard to have a symbolic representation. The use of neural network relies on network of nodes, which encapsulate the second type of intelligence. Training is applied to the network, with modification to thresholds among these nodes. The resulting network is able to recognize the subsequent queries with proper suggestions. Whether the intelligent technology has a symbolic representation, it is possible to build autonomic systems, which help or guide students in an online learning session. Research issues of these systems include intelligent tutoring BIB001 , individualized learning (Ha, Bae, Sung-Min, & Park, 2000) , behavior analysis, auto-reply to frequently asked questions, and so on. We give some examples of intelligent technologies in distance education. IMMPS BIB001 is an integration of a multimedia presentation design system and a back end intelligent system. The author is able to design rule-based knowledge for each presentation window, with different layout and multimedia references. An instructor can use the system to design individualized course materials. A learning control strategy based on neural network is presented in BIB006 . The mechanism learns from mistake of user through the reinforcement signal, and tries to improve the user's future performance. Positive reinforcement is also learned by the system. A path analysis technique BIB002 is used for customized education. The discovery of Web page association rues is also used to analyze knowledge structure. The information collected will help the designer to develop a more efficient courseware. Another system and framework for Web content customization is proposed in BIB003 . The system supports resource customization, sharing, and searching. Using personal agents, a virtual classroom environment BIB004 serves as a bridge between students and a virtual professor. An active video control and selection mechanism is proposed in BIB005 . The mechanism is based on dynamic object detection, and a human intrinsic time constraint. The implemented system is used in distance-learning courses between UCLA and Kyoto University. An online assessment mechanism using Web technology is presented  . The system is for students of control engineering, in the practice of answering several questions, before an experiment is actually carried.