High-level tools and languages for faster Intelligent Tutoring System(ITS) model development

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) hold the promise of dramatically decreasing the cost of training while also providing consistent, formalized instruction with automated trainee-assessment tools. However, the adoption of ITSs has been limited because: (1) most ITS systems are developed for specific, well defined, domains and cannot be easily adapted; and (2) they are time consuming and expensive to develop. SoarTech, together with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), seeks to address these issues through a novel approach called FACITS (Fast Authoring of Content for ITSs). Our Phase I effort emphasized areas in which we can develop or adapt cost-effective authoring tools and exploit patterns to streamline the development of intelligent tutoring systems, specifically for ill-defined domains. In Phase I, using ICTs INOTS (Immersive Naval Officer Training System) as our domain and target platform, we researched and designed a pair of authoring tools that allow content authors to more easily generate new ITS content. In phase II we propose to develop, evaluate and integrate the tools designed in Phase I of our research. We anticipate that the use of these authoring tools will result in a significant reduction in the expertise, time and cost required to develop ITS content.