When agents make suggestions about readings

Abstract

Significant efforts have been made during the last few years in the design and implementation of pedagogical agents for a wide range of application domains. One of the most common target area is the assistance to students in cases of regular subject studying, promoting means that help them to improve their performance and expertise in some specific subject areas. Frequently students ask their teachers about the “best” and more effective bibliographic resources that they could use to study and validate knowledge for some working topics. In this paper we will discuss the basic characteristics of pedagogical agents, approaching their typical functional architecture, and services, reinforcing the discussion on a specific class of pedagogical agents that are responsible to support students during their studying sessions, helping them in the validation of their knowledge, suggesting bibliographic resources information whenever requested.