Making knowledge assessment easier

R. KRISHNAMOORTHY

Tiruchi-based professor R. Dhanapal has designed a software aimed at overcoming the difficulties in assessing where the student is headed academically.

A HANDY TOOL: Dr. R. Dhanapal of Bishop Heber College, Tiruchi, receiving the Excellence Award for his software from Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission.

In today's world of active competition, multimedia exposure and distractions, students are constantly under pressure. They have to fulfil parental expectations and their own personal desires too. Where and how achievement needs (desire to succeed and excel) are learnt is complex and how motivated the students are depends on their consistency.

A knowledge-based software has been designed by R. Dhanapal, Reader and Head, Department of Computer Science, Bishop Heber College, to overcome the difficulties of assessment of knowledge and the future academic performance of students. On the heels of the release of the software at Hawaii, U.S., Dr. Dhanapal was recently conferred with Excellence Award by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India.

Artificial intelligence techniques have been used to infer the futuristic academic motivation and academic performance of learners. AMS (Achievement Motivation Scale) and Wechsler Adult Performance Intelligence Scale tests (WAPIS) administer a candidate's socio-demographic details and academic performance. An expert system analyses the candidate's answers using an inductive inference algorithm to generate futuristic academic performance, social, vocational and skill motivation. Finally, the scores inferred through Artificial Intelligent techniques are analysed with the academic performance of the subsequent years of the candidates. Ultimately, the complete personalised educational model is produced.

For the development of an academic excellence prediction system, the software integrates knowledge engineering concepts from Artificial Intelligence with a database system. Objects allow encapsulation of data and operations for representation of knowledge of spatial data at various levels of abstraction. Actions and conclusions are inferred from facts, rules and heuristics contained in the knowledge base by an inference engine. The software focuses on factors that motivate or de-motivate the young adults to achieve or not achieve what they desire.

By being able to study the factors that increase or decrease the students' level of motivation, the software is able to gain proper insight into the commonly found but neglected aspects of one's daily life that influence one's thought and decision-making process.

Two approaches are employed here: a forward chaining system is used to establish how much educational credit is due when the candidate provides information about the completed material in each question on motivation, and a backward chaining system when the candidate wants to find out how much more he/she has to add to achieve a certain educational goal in the future.