The ‘Virtual Tutoring’ project, which is being developed at CIAC’s centre at the Universidade Aberta, is headed by researcher Adérito Fernandes Marcos (Universidade Aberta).
Funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the project is partnered by the Foundation of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FFC / FC / UL) and the Institute of Systems and Computer Engineering, Research and Development, in Lisbon (INESC ID / INESC / IST / UTL).
The aim of the project is to analyse the pedagogical impact resulting from the integration of anthropomorphic interfaces with emotional characteristics, also known as Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) or “avatars”, in online learning environments (OL) based on learning management systems (LMS) in the context of online university education. The main idea is to study and understand how ECAs can be shaped/adapted and used as Virtual Tutors (analogy of the human tutor) in LMS, being available individually to each student for online support and monitoring.
This project envisages setting up three virtual tutorial experimentation scenarios, one in each of the following fields of knowledge: natural sciences; computer sciences; social sciences. In these teaching-learning scenarios students will be placed into virtual classes in online courses with the 1st and 2nd levels of higher education, where each student will have at their disposal a Virtual Tutor service that will accompany them throughout the semester.
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