An Architecture for Intelligent Collaborative Educational Systems.

A major technological concern of our work is to improve the cost effectiveness, reusability, and interoperability of advanced educational software. To make these technologies viable, we must be able to add component functionality incrementally, and enable systems to interoperate with commercial software and internet resources. We have designing and implemented an architecture that places shared resources and "heavyweight" functionality on servers, and uses Java and Netscape to deliver student interfaces on a wide variety of client platforms at any location with internet a ccess. This paper describes the architecture at five levels of description. Its strengths and weaknesses provide a case study in how to improve the deployability and interoperability of knowledge-based educational software without sacrificing advanced functionality.