Integrated Multi-Agent-Based eLearning System as a Strategy to Promote Access to Higher Education in Africa

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors present the integrated multi-agent-based eLearning system as a strategy to promote access to higher education in Africa. The integrated multi-agent eLearning system breaks through the traditional barriers of time, location, and the cost of delivering educational content. The power of the Internet in an educational context has always been that it simplifies access to content and contact with the experts. An agent-oriented methodology is used in this chapter to demonstrate how multi-agents can help to design an eLearning system. This integrated multi-agent-based eLearning system brings in merits of portability, convenience, collaboration, instant response, and multi-literacies, and provides solutions in cases where expertise is distributed all over Africa. Given the rising population in Africa and scarcity of qualified professors in higher education, the best strategy is to implement the designed eLearning system to help support the learning processes in higher education institutions.