Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are still limited in their use because they require a complex and time-consuming development process. The authors of this paper present an empirical study that leads to the conception of WEAR, a Web-based ITS authoring tool for Algebra-related domains, then briefly describe the system. The study was aimed at synthesizing a set of design guidelines for both the authoring and the learning environment by investigating several aspects concerning the attitude and behavior of students and instructors in such an environment.

Two groups of high school students from a physical course and an economics course, and two groups of teachers with four to ten years experience in teaching at schools were involved in the study. Teachers were asked to classify students’ mistakes when solving problems, to evaluate the features proposed by the authoring tool, and to develop learning material using the WEAR system.

The main contribution of this paper is the analysis of the experiment performed, and the proposed set of ITS design guidelines that can be applied to other authoring tools as well. The guidelines are aimed at speeding up the design process, and at better modeling both the student and the instructor. The paper is written in a clear style and is well organized. It is a paper that should be read by any researcher involved in the development of such tools. There is one aspect not covered enough, namely references and comparison with some significant ITSs, such as student modeling and the Adele agent in Ganeshan et al. [1].