Bridging the Gap between Desirable Web-based Education Systems and Current Technical Solutions

The increased use of the web as a means of disseminating material seems a dominant trend in third level institutions. This modern development is the latest in a long trend in harnessing technology to mimic the traditional classroom model. However, systems to-date do not deal with many of the issues recognised in pedagogical research and instead merely present information via a new medium. Techniques from AI seem to offer the potential to address some of the oft overlooked evidence from the pedagogy research community. This paper discuss some topics from the arena of education research and their incorporation into automated educational systems. A review of many of the existing approaches is presented. The paper also outlines ideas from AI which offer hope in bridging the gap between the desirable requirements of web-based education systems and current systems.