Abstract
Generally, during learning, students usually have issues and problems that they cannot resolve by themselves without the assistance of their tutors and instructors. In web-based learning, chat rooms, e-mails, and bulletin boards play an important role in answering student stalled issues. However, the tutor has to be online at a specific time to support and answer students' questions. Unfortunately, repeated questions consume tutors' time and decrease the chances to serve more students during the time specified. Not to mention, the student time is not efficiently utilized due to the waiting time until being able to schedule and attend a chatting session with the tutor, or to wait for receiving a response to his/her question by e-mail or on a bulletin board. It is worth noting that psychologists recognized that each individual student has his own model that determines the best way to receive answers to questions, which differs from one student to another. The student model describes how individual students differ in their way of learning, therefore, adapting the answer to a question in such a way to match the student model would improve the efficiency of his/her understanding and, hence, elevates the learning effectiveness, according to psychologists. In this research, we approached the office hours' problem by supporting both students and tutors by automatic answering of students' repeatedly asked questions. We treated repeated questions similarly to frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) but with a novel manipulation to match the specific student model. Accordingly, we developed a model for a Smart Office Hours Assistant (SOHA) that imitates online office-hours' sessions in a manner that suites more the e-learning paradigm. In SOHA, different students will receive different versions of the answer to the same question. Among the considered student model attributes are background domain knowledge, learning styles, and IQ level. A framework for designing SOHA for e-learning and a prototype have also been developed under this research.