ESE 608 - Knowledge Based Systems
Spring Semester,  Tuesdays 4:30-7:30 PM, it will focus on:

DESIGN OF INTELLIGENT AND ANIMATED SOFTWARE AGENTS
This course will begin with an introduction to virtual reality personas and web-based agents, including their usage to assist, train, and entertain people wherever digital interfaces exist (on the web, in e-commerce, in games, in kitchen appliances, on your dashboard, etc.). What makes an agent rational? emotionally appealing? entertaining? We will explore mathematical theories of rationality and behavior, including those from cognitive, behavioral, and decision science. We will then progress into human behavior literature, personality and individual differences studies, and intelligent and emotive agent designs. We will examine various types of agents such as web shopping agents, emotive agents, personal support agents, chatterbots, mobile agents, virtual reality personas, game-based adversaries, pedagogical agent coaches, and multi-agent societies. Finally, students will learn principles about animation, simulated social interaction, speech generation, knowledge representation, agent planning and reasoning, agent communication languages, testing of the use of agent based systems, and methodologies/toolbenches for engineering of systems of intelligent and emotive agents.

Syllabus
 

This course looks at the information systems phenomena that are revolutionizing organizations (e.g., clicks & mortar shopping, net-centric value chains, telemedicine, emergent communities, online democracy, etc.). To be effective in this milieu, organizations must do more than just push new information technology. They need to determine how to harness the new technology to manage complexity and to maximize stakeholder value. Processes need to be systematically analyzed and redesigned all along the value chain from supplies and procurement to electronic storefronts and customer support, from campaign headquarters to voter booth, etc. This course examines design principles, task and information process modeling and analysis methodologies, and a range of underlying information technologies (e.g., webserver design, transaction processing, warehousing, datamining/knowledge management, bots and agents, XML, security, information theory/complexity, and more) that will help the modern organization or community to maximize its strategic objectives. We also examine failure case studies and derive lessons learned.

Syllabus 
Degree concentration