Intelligent Editor for Authoring Educational Materials in Mathematics e-Learning Systems

E-learning systems for mathematics, such as STACK, Maple T.A., and MATH ON WEB that are able to assess answers using mathematical expressions, have been used for mathematics education at universities. The means for inputting mathematical expressions using current interfaces in these mathematics e-Learning systems are cumbersome not only for students entering their answers, but also for teachers authoring educational materials. In most editing software, teachers need to enter mathematical expressions according to LaTeX-style or computer algebra system-style. This exerts a heavy toll on teachers who have never used these systems. For general use of these systems, it is important to improve the means for entering mathematical expressions. In this study, we developed an intelligent editor for authoring educational materials in mathematics e-Learning systems by implementing a mathematical input interface, named MathTOUCH. This interface allows users to enter the desired mathematical expressions through predictive conversion that converts obscure linear strings presented in a colloquial-style into suitable formats. The results of our previous investigation show that MathTOUCH allows higher level of performance than the standard interfaces. Therefore, the proposed editor is expected to overcome the problem of inputting mathematical expressions in e-learning systems for mathematics education.