Domain and User Knowledge in a Web-based Courseware Engineering Course

AIMS is a knowledge-based system for learning and teaching support within the context of distance education. It is aimed not only at enhancing learner's conceptual knowledge in a specific subject area but also at providing knowledge verification tools for the teacher. The system can be used to aid learning and teaching in different subject areas and to provide user-oriented support in searching course- related information, concept teaching and learning, and conceptual and task-oriented domain structuring. AIMS has an agent -based system architecture, which accommodates a team of agents mediating the process of providing information to the individual user. Each of those agents is an active system entity characterised by a set of specific roles with respect to the main system functionality. In this paper we present a general view on AIMS with an emphasis on its agent-based architecture and the domain and user knowledge.