RE-MASTER: Refinement and Extension of MASTER

The Navy is currently experiencing reduced readiness for maintenance operations with a rising number of inexperienced maintainers and a drastic spike in Class C mishaps.  In particular, ship maintenance training represents one of the Navy’s critical readiness concerns. Many Naval maintenance subject matter experts are retiring or transitioning, taking with them their valuable domain knowledge. Several efforts are underway to utilize virtual and mixed reality technology advances to provide higher fidelity training and job support; however, these solutions lack a scientifically-grounded pedagogical model to guide design decisions and training effectiveness assessments. To partially address this need, Design Interactive, Inc. (DI) has developed Mixed reality Adaptive Scaffolding Tool for Enhancing Readiness (MASTER), a multi-component tool that combines a scientifically-grounded instructional pedagogy with the extraction of expert knowledge to create AR-based job performance aids and classroom and ship-based training. Under the Phase I effort, Refinement and Extension of MASTER (RE-MASTER), DI extended the expert knowledge extraction component (i.e., EXTRACT) to new divisions and use cases to enhance readiness across the enterprise. EXTRACT is an augmented reality (AR) based knowledge elicitation tool that collects implicit, explicit, and tacit knowledge from expert maintainers. Under the Phase I effort, EXTRACT was used with Plasma Arch Waste Destruction System (PAWDS) crew members onboard the CVN 78 to demonstrate extensibility in a novel system that has few formalized training opportunities. The proposed phase II effort will include further system hardening of the EXTRACT tool in preparation for user adoption, transition, and integration. Specifically, the current software will be refined to be optimized for the Sailor. Additional content will be “EXTRACT-ed” with new users and systems onboard the CVN 78, extending the capabilities of EXTRACT beyond MCMS and PAWDS. Iterative usability evaluations and refinements will occur alongside content capturing to ensure the tool works for all end users and to instill user interest, acceptance, and adoption from Sailors.