ITEAMS - An Intelligent Teaching Environment with Assessment Modules for Self-Study

In the area of education technology, there are two categories in which instructional software can be placed: Teaching Environments and Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Teaching Environments, such asWebCT, allow instructors to create presentations, lecture notes, and quizzes, but lack certain abilities including instructional styles, lectures tailored to the needs of the students, or automatic assessment of the students. Intelligent Tutoring Systems allow students to progress at their own pace through a single subject matter while receiving individually tailored content for their knowledge level but are either specific to a subject matter or limited to a small number of courses. The main goal of ITEAMS is to integrate the important aspects of Teaching Environments and Intelligent Tutoring Systems to create a unique educational environment that enhances the student's learning experience while not being restricted to a select group of courses. ITEAMS incorporates key features such as (1) the infrastructure to organize lecture materials, (2) the ablity to track and assess a student's performance, (3) the abilty to dynamically select lecture materials based on the student's inferred knowledge level, (4) the automatic grading of quizzes and assignments, and (5) an interface to external applications through a unique 'plugin' system.