An adaptable and personalized framework for top-N course recommendations in online learning

Abstract

In recent years, the proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms on a global scale has been remarkable. Learners can now meet their learning demands with the help of MOOC. However, learners might not understand the course material well if they have access to a lot of information due to their inadequate expertise and cognitive ability. Personalized Recommender Systems (RSs), a cutting-edge technology, can assist in addressing this issue. It greatly increases resource acquisition through personalized availability for various people of all ages. Intelligent learning methods, such as machine learning and Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be used in RS challenges. However, machine learning needs supervised data and classical RL is not suitable for multi-task recommendations in online learning platforms. To address these challenges, the proposed framework integrates a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and multi-agent approach. This adaptive system personalizes the learning experience by considering key factors such as learner sentiments, learning style, preferences, competency, and adaptive difficulty levels. We formulate the interactive RS problem using a DRL-based Actor-Critic model named DRR, treating recommendations as a sequential decision-making process. The DRR enables the system to provide top-N course recommendations and personalized learning paths, enriching the student's experience. Extensive experiments on a MOOC dataset such as the 100 K Coursera course review validate the proposed DRR model, demonstrating its superiority over baseline models in major evaluation metrics for long-term recommendations. The outcomes of this research contribute to the field of e-learning technology, guiding the design and implementation of course RSs, to facilitate personalized and relevant recommendations for online learning students.

Keywords: Deep reinforcement learning; MOOC; Online learning; Recommender system; Reinforcement learning; e-learning.

Figure 1

Student-agent interaction for top-N course RS.

Figure 2

A proposed adaptable and personalized framework for top-N course recommendations in online learning.

Figure 3

Distribution of Coursera course review into five ratings; rate 5 has a total of 79,173 ratings;4 (18,054); 3 (5071); 1 (2469) and 2 (2251).

Figure 4

Distribution of token counts in review lengths.

Figure 5

Evaluation index HR (%) for each model with the top (N = 5, 10, 15, 20).

Figure 6

Evaluation index NDCG (%) for each model with top (N = 5, 10, 15, 20).

Figure 7

Evaluation index recall (%) for each model with a top (N = 5, 10, 15, 20).

Figure 8

Evaluation index precision (%) for each model with the top (N = 5, 10, 15, 20).