Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) provide individualized instruction. They offer many advantages over the traditional classroom scenario: they are always available, nonjudgmental and provide tailored feedback resulting in increased and effective learning. However, they are still not as effective as one-on-one human tutoring. The next generation of intelligent tutors is expected to be able to take into account the cognitive and emotional state of students. We present a proposed contribution of affect to student modeling, and reports on the progress made in the development of a facial expression analysis component for intelligent tutoring systems.

Despite the advantages that object technology can provide to the software development community and its customers, the fundamental problems associated with identifying objects, their attributes, and methods remain: it is a largely manual process driven by heuristics that analysts acquire through experience. While a number of methods exist for requirements development and specification, very few tools exist to assist analysts in making the transition from textual descriptions to other notations for object-oriented analysis and other conceptual models. We describe a methodology and a prototype tool. Linguistic Assistant for Domain Analysis (LIDA), which provide linguistic assistance in the model development process. We first present our methodology to conceptual modeling through linguistic analysis. We give an overview of LIDA's functionality and present its technical design and the functionality of its components. We also provide a comparison of LIDA's functionality with that of other research prototypes. Finally, we present an example of how LIDA is used in a conceptual modeling task.

The Davis-Jordan requirements metamodel (DJRM) is a model and accompanying notation which allows system and software requirements to be represented independent of the method employed to capture those requirements (A.M. Davis and K.A. Jordan, 1990). They describe a concept of requirements as a sphere (of requirements) surrounded by a Lucite box. The idea is that requirements may be viewed from a variety of perspectives (e.g. data flow diagram (DFD), object-oriented analysis (OOA), finite state machine (FSM), Statechart, etc.) represented as sides of the transparent box,but that these perspectives have common characteristics which may be represented in a metamodel. While DJRM may be an excellent vehicle for allowing requirements engineers to view requirements from a variety of perspectives, model neglects two important players in the requirements process: the user and the customer. It is proposed that a mapping is possible from the DJRM into an existing rapid prototyping tool and a pictorial system simulation tool which, when augmented by a user interface design concept layer, is capable of specifying the external behavior of an interactive system from the user's view. The level of completeness of this specification is directly dependent upon the completeness of the DJRM representation.>