The MYCIN expert system (Shortliffe 1976) is a knowledge based system that gives advise on the diagnosis of bacterial infections. MYCIN’s knowledge base is used as the foundation of a tutorial system called GUIDON.
In GUIDON a learner plays the role of MYCIN by asking questions and drawing conclusions. GUIDON checks the learners actions against those that MYCIN would have taken. It only intervenes if the learner’s actions are sub optimal or when the learner asks for help.
The system embodies an expert system for both the expert and tutoring modules and a simple overlay student model is used. The teaching strategy of GUIDON is driven by about 200 tutorial or T-rules which are coded independently of MYCIN’s domain knowledge.
GUIDON had a number of implementation problems such as ineffective teaching strategies and very limited learner interaction. It did however, play an important role in the development of AI techniques in intelligent computer based learning.
Authored by Serengul Smith
E-mail to:
serengul1@mdx.ac.uk
School of Computing Science Middlesex University
Revised: September 1998