Graph based framework and its implemented prototype for personalized study planning

The fast technological development dictates the growing demand for knowledge and skills. Thus, it is necessary to offer learners a more flexible way of knowledge acquisition, in which they can plan their studies independently. The studies are adjusted individually to the needs of each learner, because not everybody has the opportunity to participate in traditional learning process. The authors offer a graph-based framework consisting of four graphs to plan and carry out each individual study process. Within the framework every learner can design his/her own study programme, which is described by AND - OR graph. The second graph represents the structure of a study course by showing relationship between topics. The third graph is constructed by mapping each topic to the graph, which includes all topics and their relationships. The fourth graph represents a topic and its relationships with all needed learning objects to acquire knowledge about the topic. The proposed framework has been implemented as a personalized study planning system prototype SPS, which is also described in this article.