Facial expression analysis in e-learning systems - the problems and feasibility

Despite increasing so called robust algorithms have been proposed, classifying facial expressions in real-time systems, especially in e-learning, is a different story and not an easy job. Some influential aspects such as machine and hardware limitation, environmental issues, and even suitable expressions (from students) categories for e-learning systems are often neglected. In this paper, we discuss extensively on these problematic yet neglected issues and study for the possible, existing methods to handle them for an e-learning system. For some special cases, we suggest for alternatives other than facial expressions analysis, which may help the system to perform better in terms of user modeling. The paper is concluded with suggestion for more advanced and feasible analysis of student's other behaviors (despite facial expressions) with the idea that no additional input device should be put on student's body, which can cause uneasy feel on them.