Learner’s Support in the Concept Map Based Knowledge Assessment System

Abstract: The paper is dedicated to the concept map based knowledge assessment system which has twofold goals in the context of the integration of technology into the traditional educational process: 1) to promote learners ' knowledge self-assessment, and 2) to support the teacher in the improvement of the learning course through systematic assessment of learners ' knowledge and analysis of its results. The goals are reached by the use of concept maps as an assessment tool and by providing opportunities to extend an initially created concept map for next assessment stages and to present a learner information about his/her errors at the end of each assessment stage. The system has been being developed already for 3 years by continuously improving its functionality. At the moment it offers not only a graphical user interface for manipulations of concept maps by the teacher and learners and the presentation of information about learners ' errors, but five tasks of different degrees of difficulty and an intelligent algorithm for the comparison of teacher’s and learner’s concept maps. Its current development focuses on the identification and implementation of different kinds of learner’s support intended not only to help the learner to solve concept map based tasks, but also to tutor the learner during the assessment process. The overview of the system is given specifying its goals and the scenario of usage. Related works are described focusing on learner's support in similar assessment systems based on concept maps. Two dimensions of learner's support are identified, that is, help and feedback, and their different kinds are described in-depth focusing on suitable types of tasks, implementation mechanisms and nature. The paper clearly states which kinds of learner's support have been already implemented in the concept map based knowledge assessment system and which ones are in the stage of the implementation