Adding TQ-BOT into a Third-party Learning Management System

Abstract

Intelligent Tutoring Systems are computer programs that aim at providing personalized instruction to students. In recent years, artificial intelligence conversational robots, usually known as chatterbots, have become very popular in the Internet. In this paper we show how chatterbots can be integrated in e-Learning Systems. To perform such an integration the Service Oriented Architecture paradigm is adopted and e-learning standardization initiatives are considered. A middleware is provided to enable the integration and reuse of chatterbots by e-Learning systems enabling a tight control of their operation. Such middleware takes to account several issues such as authorising users, creating instances, transferring data to and from the chatterbot, assigning permissions to users, and subscribing to events. Our approach is applied to the specific case of TQ-Bot, which is use to track and supervise the student progress and to provide answers orienting the student to the more appropriate course contents.