Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Procedural Task Training of Remote Payload Operations at NASA
James C. Ong, Steven Noneman · 2000
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) complement training simulators by providing automated instruction when it is not economical or feasible to dedicate an instructor to each student during training simulations. To lower the cost and difficulty of creating scenario-based intelligent tutoring systems for procedural task training, we developed the Task Tutor Toolkit (T 3), a generic tutoring system shell and scenario authoring tool. The Task Tutor Toolkit employs a case-based reasoning approach where the instructor creates a procedure template that specifies the range of student actions that are "correct " within each scenario. The system enables a non-programmer to specify task knowledge quickly and easily by via graphical user interface, using a "demonstrate, generalize, and annotate" paradigm, that recognizes the range of possible valid actions and infers general principles that are understood (or misunderstood) by the student when those actions are carried out. The annotated procedure template also enables the Task Tutor Toolkit to provide hints requested by the student during scenarios, such as “What do I do now? ” and “Why do I do that? ” At the end of each scenario, RPOT displays the principles correctly or incorrectly demonstrated by the student, along with explanations and background information. The Task Tutor Toolkit was designed to be modular and general so that it can be interfaced with a wide range of training simulators and support a variety of training domains. We used the Task Tutor Toolkit to create the Remote Payload Operations Tutor (RPOT), a tutoring system