Automated Creation of Multi-Media Training Material

Creation, modification and deployment of multi-media training material for Navy tactical systems is currently a highly labor-intensive process. The authors of training material must first review technical systems manuals and training source material such as pictures of electromechanical parts or display screens used by Navy operational personnel. Once the material has been created, it is often in a static form that is difficult to deploy or modify. For example, it may exist in paper format or as an electronic word processing document and may require manual editing and formatting to make the training available via websites, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or video format to make it widely available and more useable. Partly as a result of the above difficulties, interactive elements and proper remediation are not highly leveraged. Much of the manual work done to create training material can be eliminated. The task of training authors and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) needed to turn training source material into lessons and to verify their accuracy could be made considerably easier and more productive if they were given more powerful tools and more automated processes. The proposed program will provide the tools to automate the creation of Navy training material. At the conclusion of Phase II we will deliver to the US Navy a complete hardware software system to automate Navy training.