Question-answering – Connecting and Supporting the Learner

Van Rosmalen, P. (2007). Question-answering – Connecting and Supporting the Learner. Presentation at the 1st European Workshop on Latent Semantic Analysis in Technology-Enhanced Learning, March, 29-30, 2007. Heerlen, The Netherlands: The Open University of the Netherlands.Tutors have only limited time to support the learning process. In this paper, we introduce a model that helps answering the questions of students. The model invokes the knowledge and skills of fellow students by bringing them together based on the combination of question posed and their study progress and supports them with text fragments selected from the material studied. We will explain how we used LSA to select and support these peers; examine the calibration of the LSA- parameters and conclude with a small practical simulation to show that the results of our model are fit for use in experiments with students