{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,7]],"date-time":"2026-06-07T20:58:31Z","timestamp":1780865911527,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/tdm\/userlicense\/1.0\/"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/legal\/tdmrep-license"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-017"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-037"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-012"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-029"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,1]],"date-time":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793491200000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-004"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100020247","name":"University of Bisha","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100020247","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["elsevier.com","sciencedirect.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Expert Systems with Applications"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,11]]},"DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,25]],"date-time":"2026-05-25T06:02:46Z","timestamp":1779688966000},"page":"132876","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/elsevier_cm_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"special_numbering":"C","title":["MCQsAgent: Towards human-level MCQs generation via collaborative multi-agent AI framework"],"prefix":"10.1016","volume":"329","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-5834-7786","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Muhammad Raheel","family":"Anwar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5735-5863","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shah","family":"Khalid","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Saied","family":"Alshahrani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5145-1907","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohammed","family":"Aldawsari","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Farman","family":"Ali","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"78","reference":[{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_sbref0001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"17","DOI":"10.58496\/BJML\/2023\/003","article-title":"Chatgpt4, DALL\u00b7e, bard, claude, BERT: Open possibilities","volume":"2023","author":"Ali","year":"2023","journal-title":"Babylonian Journal of Machine Learning"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"16","DOI":"10.58496\/MJCS\/2023\/003","article-title":"ChatGPT: Future directions and open possibilities","volume":"2023","author":"Aljanabi","year":"2023","journal-title":"Mesopotamian Journal of CyberSecurity"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0003","series-title":"A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of bloom\u2019s taxonomy of educational objectives","author":"Anderson","year":"2001"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10991","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2026.3652006","article-title":"Mcqs generation with large language models: A survey of methodologies, evolution, and open research issues","volume":"14","author":"Anwar","year":"2026","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0005","series-title":"Proceedings of the eleventh ACM conference on learning @ scale","first-page":"530-534","article-title":"Generation and assessment of multiple-choice questions from video transcripts using large language models","author":"Arif","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0006","series-title":"Standards for educational and psychological testing","year":"2014"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0007","series-title":"An introduction to multi-agent systems","author":"Balaji","year":"2010"},{"issue":"2","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1145\/3702639","article-title":"When automated assessment meets automated content generation: Examining text quality in the era of GPTs","volume":"43","author":"Bevilacqua","year":"2025","journal-title":"ACM Transactions on Information Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0009","series-title":"Adjunct proceedings of the 32nd ACM conference on user modeling, adaptation and personalization","first-page":"584-590","article-title":"Multiple-choice question generation using large language models: Methodology and educator insights","author":"Biancini","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0010","article-title":"Automatic item generation in various STEM subjects using large language model prompting","volume":"8","author":"Chan","year":"2025","journal-title":"Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"de Condorcet, M. (1785). Essai sur l\u2019application de l\u2019analyse \u00e0 la probabilit\u00e9 des d\u00e9cisions rendues \u00e0 la pluralit\u00e9 des voix. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/CBO9781139923972.002.","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9781139923972.002"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0012","first-page":"1","article-title":"Investigating legal question generation using large language models","author":"Deroy","year":"2025","journal-title":"Artificial Intelligence and Law"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0013","series-title":"2022 Second international conference on artificial intelligence and smart energy (ICAIS)","first-page":"38","article-title":"AiXAM - AI assisted online MCQ generation platform using google t5 and sense2vec","author":"Dhanya","year":"2022"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_sbref0014","series-title":"Proceedings of the first international workshop on multiple classifier systems","first-page":"1-15","article-title":"Ensemble methods in machine learning","author":"Dietterich","year":"2000"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0015","series-title":"Itextbooks@ AIED","first-page":"4","article-title":"Reading comprehension quiz generation using generative pre-trained transformers","author":"Dijkstra","year":"2022"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_sbref0016","series-title":"Item response theory for psychologists","author":"Embretson","year":"2000"},{"issue":"29","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"18223","DOI":"10.1007\/s00521-024-10076-7","article-title":"Automated multiple-choice question generation in spanish using neural language models","volume":"36","author":"de Fitero-Dominguez","year":"2024","journal-title":"Neural Computing & Applications"},{"issue":"5","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_sbref0018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"636","DOI":"10.1007\/s42979-024-02963-6","article-title":"Docimological quality analysis of LLM-generated multiple choice questions in computer science and medicine","volume":"5","author":"Gr\u00e9visse","year":"2024","journal-title":"SN Computer Science"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0019","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"102261","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2024.3420709","article-title":"Mcqgen: A large language model-driven mcq generator for personalized learning","volume":"12","author":"Hang","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0020","series-title":"Proceedings of the 15th international learning analytics and knowledge conference","first-page":"484-493","article-title":"Generating effective distractors for introductory programming challenges: LLMs vs humans","author":"Hassany","year":"2025"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0021","series-title":"2024 9th international conference on information technology and digital applications (ICITDA)","first-page":"1","article-title":"Automatic multiple choice question generation: A systematic literature review","author":"Henry","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0022","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.simpa.2025.100742","article-title":"UsmleGPT: An AI application for developing MCQs via multi-agent system","volume":"23","author":"Jiang","year":"2025","journal-title":"Software Impacts"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_sbref0023","series-title":"Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Trade-Offs","author":"Keeney","year":"1993"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0024","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2023.120022","article-title":"A novel approach to generate distractors for multiple choice questions","volume":"225","author":"Kumar","year":"2023","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"issue":"8","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0025","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1018","DOI":"10.1080\/0142159X.2024.2314723","article-title":"Case-based MCQ generator: A custom chatGPT based on published prompts in the literature for automatic item generation","volume":"46","author":"K\u0131yak","year":"2024","journal-title":"Medical Teacher"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0026","unstructured":"Lee, J., Smith, D., Woodhead, S., & Lan, A. (2024). Math multiple choice question generation via human-large language model collaboration. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2405.00864."},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0027","series-title":"Artificial intelligence in education. Posters and late breaking results, workshops and tutorials, industry and innovation tracks, practitioners, doctoral consortium and blue sky","first-page":"494","article-title":"Generating contextualized mathematics multiple-choice questions utilizing large language models","author":"Li","year":"2024"},{"issue":"1","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0028","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9","DOI":"10.1007\/s44336-024-00009-2","article-title":"A survey on LLM-based multi-agent systems: workflow, infrastructure, and challenges","volume":"1","author":"Li","year":"2024","journal-title":"Vicinagearth"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0029","unstructured":"Li, Z., Zhang, H., Han, S., Liu, S., Xie, J., Zhang, Y., Choi, Y., Zou, J., & Lu, P. (2025). In-the-flow agentic system optimization for effective planning and tool use. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2510.05592."},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0030","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, S., Zhou, Z., Liu, Y., Zhang, J., & Qian, H. (2025). Language representation favored zero-shot cross-domain cognitive diagnosis. (pp. 836-847). 10.1145\/3690624.3709281.","DOI":"10.1145\/3690624.3709281"},{"issue":"4","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0031","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.3390\/educsci13040410","article-title":"What is the impact of chatGPT on education? A rapid review of the literature","volume":"13","author":"Lo","year":"2023","journal-title":"Education Sciences"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0032","series-title":"2024\u202fIEEE International conference on knowledge graph (ICKG)","first-page":"219","article-title":"Generating multiple choice questions from scientific literature via large language models","author":"Luo","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0033","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2025.126579","article-title":"DeBERTA-att-LMCQA: A hybrid model of deBERTA and attention for legal multi-choice question answering","volume":"271","author":"Luo","year":"2025","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0034","series-title":"European conference on information retrieval","first-page":"268","article-title":"A novel multi-stage prompting approach for language agnostic mcq generation using gpt","author":"Maity","year":"2024"},{"issue":"2","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0035","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.3390\/educsci15020144","article-title":"An effectiveness study of generative artificial intelligence tools used to develop multiple-choice test items","volume":"15","author":"May","year":"2025","journal-title":"Education Sciences"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0036","series-title":"Proceedings of the 31st international conference on computational linguistics","first-page":"2246","article-title":"Automatic multiple-choice question generation and evaluation systems based on LLM: A study case with university resolutions","author":"Mucciaccia","year":"2025"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0037","series-title":"Smart learning for a sustainable society","first-page":"22","article-title":"Agees: Automatic multiple choice question (mcq) generation from extractive summary of video lectures using bertsum","author":"Muthusamy Sellamuthu","year":"2023"},{"issue":"3","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0038","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"144","DOI":"10.3390\/a18030144","article-title":"Advancing AI in higher education: A comparative study of large language model-based agents for exam question generation, improvement, and evaluation","volume":"18","author":"Nikolovski","year":"2025","journal-title":"Algorithms"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0039","series-title":"2024 International conference on electrical electronics and computing technologies (ICEECT)","first-page":"1","article-title":"Automated generation and evaluation of multiplechoice quizzes using langchain and gemini LLM","volume":"Vol. 1","author":"Pawar","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0040","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2022.118258","article-title":"End-to-end generation of multiple-choice questions using text-to-text transfer transformer models","volume":"208","author":"Rodriguez-Torrealba","year":"2022","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0041","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.58496\/MJAIH\/2024\/010","article-title":"Benchmarking generative AI: A call for establishing a comprehensive framework and a generative AIQ test","volume":"2024","author":"Sallam","year":"2024","journal-title":"Mesopotamian Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0042","series-title":"Proceedings of the 17th international natural language generation conference","first-page":"314","article-title":"Personalized cloze test generation with large language models: Streamlining MCQ development and enhancing adaptive learning","author":"Shen","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0043","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eng.2026.02.017","article-title":"Enhancing cognitive diagnosis via LLM-driven heterogeneous concept graph construction","author":"Sheng","year":"2026","journal-title":"Engineering"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0044","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"16697","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2025.3530474","article-title":"Automated generation of multiple-choice questions for computer science education using conditional generative adversarial networks","volume":"13","author":"Shoaib","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0045","series-title":"Computer science and education. computer science and technology - 18th international conference, ICCSE 2023, Proceedings","first-page":"314","article-title":"Automatic generation of multiple-choice questions for CS0 and CS1 curricula using large language models","author":"Song","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0046","series-title":"2023\u202fIEEE Frontiers in education conference (FIE)","first-page":"1","article-title":"Generating multiple choice questions for computing courses using large language models","author":"Tran","year":"2023"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0047","series-title":"Advances in information retrieval","first-page":"321","article-title":"Leaf: Multiple-choice question generation","author":"Vachev","year":"2022"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0048","series-title":"Proceedings of the 56th ACM technical symposium on computer science education Vol. 2","first-page":"1651-1652","article-title":"Generating AI literacy MCQs: A multi-agent LLM approach","author":"Wang","year":"2025"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0049","series-title":"Proceedings of the 17th international natural language generation conference","first-page":"198","article-title":"Automating true-false multiple-choice question generation and evaluation with retrieval-based accuracy differential","author":"Yu","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0050","series-title":"Proceedings of the first workshop on language models for low-resource languages","first-page":"344","article-title":"PersianMCQ-instruct: A comprehensive resource for generating multiple-choice questions in Persian","author":"Zeinalipour","year":"2025"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876_bib0051","series-title":"International conference on intelligent systems and pattern recognition","first-page":"246","article-title":"Automating turkish educational quiz generation using large language models","author":"Zeinalipour","year":"2024"}],"container-title":["Expert Systems with Applications"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/api.elsevier.com\/content\/article\/PII:S0957417426017896?httpAccept=text\/xml","content-type":"text\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/api.elsevier.com\/content\/article\/PII:S0957417426017896?httpAccept=text\/plain","content-type":"text\/plain","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,7]],"date-time":"2026-06-07T20:00:57Z","timestamp":1780862457000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S0957417426017896"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,11]]},"references-count":51,"alternative-id":["S0957417426017896"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876","relation":{},"ISSN":["0957-4174"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0957-4174","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,11]]},"assertion":[{"value":"Elsevier","name":"publisher","label":"This article is maintained by"},{"value":"MCQsAgent: Towards human-level MCQs generation via collaborative multi-agent AI framework","name":"articletitle","label":"Article Title"},{"value":"Expert Systems with Applications","name":"journaltitle","label":"Journal Title"},{"value":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132876","name":"articlelink","label":"CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version"},{"value":"article","name":"content_type","label":"Content Type"},{"value":"\u00a9 2026 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright"}],"article-number":"132876"}}