Loop tutor and Hypertutor: Experiences with adaptive tutoring systems

The paper describes the need for adaptive tutoring systems and discusses the design and use of two such systems. These were used in addition to conventional teaching methodology with students from large, diverse, first year computing classes. Hypertutor is a reactive hypertext based system with programmable paths and interactive documents. The Loop Tutor is an intelligent tutoring system in the form of an electronic book which adapts the teaching action, detail level and next topic according to the system's estimate of the user's knowledge. Both can be used in other domains at little additional cost and both have been enthusiastically received by students. Preliminary results suggest that the Loop Tutor has significantly improved the students' knowledge of the topics in its domain. Hypertutor was used as a revision tool and has established metrics of student behaviour in different domains.