Authoring Shell for Case-Based Instruction

Use of 3D content can be a very effective tool for developing cognitive readiness, providing information visualization and interactive physical simulation capabilities across a broad range of subject areas. However, there is still a lack of designexperience and dedicated authoring tools allowing course instructors to seamlessly integrate and reuse this type of 3D content in today's education and training applications. soVoz's approach to developing encapsulated 3D components not only can providethese capabilities, but simplifies the 3D development process as well, thereby allowing domain experts to directly author 3D content without the assistance of professional artists, animators and programmers. Phase I of the project will investigate thefeasibility of developing reusable 3D content for Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) environments that is conformant with the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). This will be accomplished by integrating existing soVoz behavioral animationtechnology with a scaleable, open standards-based, runtime 3D framework known as ANIMA. A set of functional requirements and design specifications for SCORM-compliant, 3D component interfaces and authoring tools will be developed, and a mobile robotplatform simulated for testing and evaluating reusable 3D learning content created with the authoring tools and execution framework developed during the Phase II work. Successful completion of the project will result in an authoring system and runtimeframework that allows easy creation of 3D Shareable Content Objects (SCOs) for ADL systems and virtual environments using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) graphical models and animations. This toolset would be intended for educators and other contentcreators and would have application across a wide range of industries, including: education, training, industrial design, maintenance, entertainment and information technology. Specific applications of the toolset include: preparation of instructionalmaterials (i.e. visualization and physical simulations) for equipment use, assembly and maintenance tasks; computer generated force (CGF) development, training and simulation; creation of online repositories of 3D learning objects organized based onsubject matter; and educational computer games.