In an extension of the AHA! authoring environment there is an XML-based adaptation language in which we try to express instructional and inference strategies using the following elements:
select – selecting a concept representation from a number of existing ones to be included into the final presentation.
The use of this element in the strategy will result in content adaptation.
sort – sequencing different concept representations depending on the user’s learning style, reordering them from most to least relevant.
setDefault – setting the default values for the attributes of the domain model concepts, for instance, setting the default value for the “suitability” attribute which indicates the condition when the concept becomes desirable. The defaults can take into account what the user’s learning style is and some other information about the domain model concepts.
The use of “sort” & “setDefault” elements will result in link adaptation.
action – actions are used to update the user model, for example increasing or decreasing the confidence of the system that the user has a particular preference corresponding to a learning style.
Note that this extension only involves the authoring environment. The style adaptation language is used by an extended graph author to generate normal adaptation rules, executed by the standard AHA! rule engine.