Scalability Issues in AIED (Full day workshop)

July 6/7, 2009
Thistle Brighton, Kings Road, Brighton, United Kingdom

Description:

As AIED technologies have matured, there is increasing demand and opportunity to create large-scale AIED systems. Developing and operating such systems requires addressing issues and overcoming challenges that do not arise in small-scale prototypes and learning systems. Since each large-scale AIED project is often focused on a specific subject matter domain, there is a tendency for each project to address these scalability issues independently, without reference to similar scale-up efforts in other projects and in other domains. There is thus a need for a common forum for discussion of these issues.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together people who have investigated scaling issues in AIED systems in a variety of domains, in order to share lessons learned. Both positive case studies (AIED projects that successfully scaled up) and negative case studies (those that did not, for whatever reason) are of interest. AIED developers who have not yet developed large-scale systems, but are interested in doing so, are also welcome to attend.

We welcome a wide range of educational technology developers (e.g., developers of learning management systems, serious games, etc.) who have experience relevant to this topic. Although some scaling issues are specific to AIED systems (e.g., tools for authoring rich knowledge representations), others apply to educational technology generally.

Content and themes:

The following are some of the scaling dimensions that will be considered as part of the workshop:

• Large curricula, that span an entire semester, multiple semesters, or even lifelong learning.
• Integrated suites of learning materials, comprising not just computer applications, but also textbooks, instructor guides, workbooks, and everything else required to support a complete curriculum.
• Learning product lines: architectures, tools, and processes that support the creation of multiple learning systems for multiple domains and learner communities.
• Materials that span multiple delivery platforms - Web browsers, mobile devices, etc.
• Large numbers of learners, possibly distributed at many schools and institutions, in multiple countries.
• Large numbers of authors, including participatory authoring (e.g., Web 2.0 support).
• Large-scale organizational support issues - marketing, customer support, quality assurance, etc.
• Long-term sustainment of AIED systems.
• Large-scale evaluations of AIED systems.

We will investigate and discuss different organizational models for scaling up, such as licensing to publishers, open source development, starting up a company, or posting and hoping.

To the extent that the workshop identifies lessons learned that would be of general interest to AIED developers, we plan to summarize those lessons learned and make them more broadly available, e.g., via the AIED Society Web site, or as a journal publication if appropriate. We also hope to identify scaling issues that require further investigation, and which might be part of a roadmap for future research.

Workshop chair(s):

W. Lewis Johnson
President and Chief Scientist, Alelo, Inc.
Tel: +1 (310) 566 7649
Email: ljohnson@alelo.com

Dr. W. Lewis Johnson has extensive experience in developing and scaling up AIED systems. Alelo, the company he co-founded, is delivering AIED-based language and culture learning environments to thousands of learners worldwide. One of Alelo's projects, an English language learning Web site for Voice of America, will be available to millions of VOA listeners by the time of this workshop. Lewis is past president of AIED Society, and was local arrangements chair for AIED 2007.

Kurt VanLehn
Arizona State University
Email: kurt.vanlehn@asu.edu

Prof. Kurt VanLehn’s research group grew Andes from a pilot physics tutoring system that coached about 10 mechanics problems in the lab to system that coaches 500+ problems for a full year of physics to students in multiple universities and high schools.  Andes is currently being converted to an open-source cloud-computing distribution model.

Organizing/program committee members:

Peter Brusilovsky, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Tak-Wai Chan, National Central University
Jim Greer, U. Saskatchewan
Neil Heffernan, Worcester Polytechnic
Randall Hill, USC ICT
H. Chad Lane, USC ICT
Tanja Mitrovic, University of Canterbury
Jack Mostow, CMU
Kevin Perry, Alelo
Steve Ritter, Carnegie Learning
Bruce Roberts, BBN Technologies

Others interested in participating include:
Kerrin Barrett, Alelo
Mike Emonts, Alelo
Rohit Kumar, CMU & Alelo

Format of the workshop:

The workshop will be a mixture of paper presentations with opportunities for questions and discussion, and panel discussions on particular topics. Papers that chronicle successes, failures, and lessons learned regarding scale-up are particularly encouraged.

Important Dates:

• Submissions due: April 21, 2009 (*if you require additional time to submit, please contact Dr. Johnson at the submission address below.)
• Reviews returned: TBA
• Camera ready copies due: TBA

Submitting Papers:

The length restrictions for submissions are:

• Full papers must be no more than 10 pages long.
• Short papers must be no more than 5 pages long.

All submissions should be styled according to the AIED 2009 submission guidelines.

Please send submissions as attachments (M/S Word .doc or .pdf format files) to

Consult with the conference organizers if you wish to submit but are unable to meet the submission deadline.