Classification fusion combines multiple classifications of data into a single classification solution of greater accuracy.
Feature extraction aims to reduce the computational cost of feature measurement, increase classifier efficiency, and allow
greater classification accuracy based on the process of deriving new features from the original features. This paper represents
an approach for classifying students in order to predict their final grades based on features extracted from logged data in
an educational web-based system. A combination of multiple classifiers leads to a significant improvement in classification
performance. By weighing feature vectors representing feature importance using a Genetic Algorithm (GA) we can optimize the
prediction accuracy and obtain a marked improvement over raw classification. We further show that when the number of features
is few, feature weighting and transformation into a new space works efficiently compared to the feature subset selection.
This approach is easily adaptable to different types of courses, different population sizes, and allows for different features
to be analyzed.
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under ITR 0085921.