RADIX: Rapid Authoring of Demonstrations for Infantry eXperience

The changing tactics of asymmetric threats present an ongoing need to disseminate lessons learned from the battlefield to a wide audience of personnel. Interactive virtual environments have been shown to be effective for team training, and distributed game-based architectures contribute an added benefit of wide accessibility. However, conveying new knowledge with interactive training most often requires effective instructional demonstrations. Based on our Phase I investigation on (1) the effectiveness of demonstrations, (2) the gaming technologies that can be brought to bear, and (3) a set of practical demonstration case studies, we propose to build RADIX: Rapid Authoring of Demonstrations for Infantry Experience. With the help of role players, this toolset will enable instructors and SMEs to create effective demonstrations rapidly through the use of situated avatars in a massively multiplayer virtual world. The products of the toolset are demonstrations that will be viewable as (1) digital media, (2) student-driven demonstration, and (3) instructor-led distributed presentation. The toolset’s ability to produce effective demonstrations which are simple to author will be proven through the use of our expert psychologist Eduardo Salas.