Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 2(1), 1-17, Jan-Mar 2004 1 Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose an agent-based personalized distance learning system for delivering appropriate studying materials to learners by judging learners’ degree of understanding.The main elements of our proposed system are the agents, which play the role of teacher. Based on the learning history they analyze the understanding degree of learners. To evaluate the proposed distance learning system, we carried out three experiments and a questionnaire investigation. The evaluation results show that by making groupings of learners, the agents can decide what kind of materials should be given to learners. Furthermore, we im- proved the system by adding new features such as mental action of color and the competition with other learners. The evaluation results show that an improved system can increase learning efficiency. Keywords: distance learning; agent-based technology; competition of learners; learner volition stimulation A Distance Learning System for Delivering Appropriate Studying Materials and Stimulating Learner Volition Leonard Barolli, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan Akio Koyama, Yamagata University, Japan INTRODUCTION During the last few years, a lot of re- search has been going on for distance learn- ing systems (Nakabayashi et al., 1997; Katayama, 1999) and many large projects such as CALAT (CALAT Project, 1998), CALsurf (2000), WebCAI (WebCAI, 1999), The University of The Air (UOA, 1984), and WIDE University (WIDE 1997; Ogawa 1999) have been established. Recently, some distance learning sys- tems, which consider a learner’s capability and understanding have been proposed (Matsumoto at al., 1999; Tamaki at al., 2000). In Matsumoto et al. (1999), an evaluation system of historical data based on learning environment supported by edu- cational software record is proposed, and reappearance and analysis are carried out for historical learning data. The analysis from the history can be performed, but in order to get the learner’s learning condi- tion, the historical data are needed. Thus, 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITJ2502 IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING