The authors introduce FACT, a Framework for the Analysis of the learning process and Collaborative Tutoring. The main feature of FACT is the use of representations of learning histories, analysis and related annotations, that enhance the guidance of the teaching process. FACT learning histories play an important role from the didactic point of view, since they allow tutors to review what students have done and to guide their work. Annotations to the histories also allow tutors to include links to simplified learning scenarios. In this way, students learn by working on simple examples related to their previous wrong decisions in their learning and practicing process.

In this work we present a tool for assisting object-oriented framework instantiation based on Intelligent Agent technology. Differently from other approaches, the user is able to select the functionality needed for the new application, and based on this selection an agent elaborates a sequence of programming activities that should be carried out in order to implement it. In addition, the agent guides the execution of the activities according to the framework design. To enable this behavior, the framework need to be documented following the SmartBooks method, which extends traditional framework documentation with instantiation rules. In this paper we present an example of an instantiation environment built based on these ideas and the main characteristics of the SmartBooks method for documenting frameworks through instantiation knowledge rules.

The construction of visualization systems is a difficult task. The management of large quantities of data and the support of dynamic exploration processes are some of the main causes of this difficulty. However, current approaches are far away from the system designer needs. Automatic construction systems, toolkits and dataflow based systems do not considerate all quality aspects such as flexibility, extensibility, modularity, reusability and generality. The design of a software architecture for construction of visualization systems, called Telescope, is described. This architecture allows building of visualization applications in different domains, as exemplified by the several developed applications. Also, it allows the incorporation of new tasks, algorithms and data types, and the specification of presentations in a declarative way. The development of applications using Telescope is described, along with a system developed with it, WarVis, for visualizing information about military conflicts.

Model-based interface design can save substantial effort in building help systems for interactive applications by generating help automatically from the model used to implement the interface, and by providing a framework for developers to easily refine the automatically-generated help texts.This paper describes a system that generates hypertext-based help about data presented in application displays, commands to manipulate data, and interaction techniques to invoke commands.The refinement component provides several levels of customization, including programming-by-example techniques to let developers edit directly help windows that the system produces, and the possibility to refine help generation rules.