Contemporary e-learning as panacea for large-scale software training

Large organizations renew their core business software with some regularity, resulting in serious challenges for in-company training officers. Especially when large numbers of employees need to be trained to use updated software on short notice, traditional face-to-face training methods fall short. Contemporary e-learning is regarded a solution for such short-term and large-scale training. This paper discusses the effect of a didactically sound e-learning solution on learning to use a new version of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software package. This solution not only features generally recognized e-learning characteristics like any time, place, path, and pace, but also marks the element ‘just enough’ to emphasize that the e-learning content only covers knowledge (concepts and procedures) necessary to perform the daily professional tasks. Around 2000 healthcare workers of a mental healthcare institution were educated online to use a renewed version of an EMR software package within two months. Results (i.e., time on task, test results, and perceived effectiveness) indicate that contemporary online solutions can help large organizations to face short-term and large-scale training problems. (This paper was presented at CSEDU 2013 in Aachen, Germany; see http://www.csedu.org/?y=2013

Facilitating teacher participation in intelligent computer tutor design : tools and design methods.

This work addresses the widening gap between research in intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) and practical use of this technology by the educational community. In order to ensure that ITSs are effective, teachers must be involved in their design and evaluation. We have followed a user participatory design process to build a set of ITS knowledge acquisition tools that facilitate rapid prototyping and testing of curriculum, and are tailored for usability by teachers. The system (called KAFITS) also serves as a test-bed for experimentation with multiple tutoring strategies. The design includes novel methodologies for tutoring strategy representation (Parameterized Action Networks) and overlay student modeling (a layered student model), and incorporates considerations from instructional design theory. It also allows for considerable student control over the content and style of the information presented. Highly interactive graphics-based tools were built to facilitate design, inspection, and modification of curriculum and tutoring strategies, and to monitor the progress of the tutoring session. Evaluation of the system includes a sixteen-month case study of three educators (one being the domain expert) using the system to build a tutor for statics (forty topics representing about four hours of on-line instruction), testing the tutor on a dozen students, and using test results to iteratively improve the tutor. Detailed throughput analysis indicates that the amount of effort to build the statics tutor was, surprisingly, comparable to similar figures for building (non-intelligent) conventional computer aided instructional systems. Few ITS projects focus on educator participation and this work is the first to empirically study knowledge acquisition for ITSs. Results of the study also include: a recommended design process for building ITSs with educator participation; guidelines for training educators; recommendations for conducting knowledge acquisition sessions; and design tradeoffs for knowledge representation architectures and knowledge acquisition interfaces

Self-Explanatory Objects: An Investigation of Object-Based Help

The thesis describes an investigation of on-line help provision for computer systems that have graphical object-oriented interfaces. It concentrates on object-based help facilities and describes the development of a method for obtaining object-based help information and the identification of useful types of object-based help information. The thesis demonstrates that it is both possible and practical to obtain object-based help information from the code of an appropriately programmed main system, and it describes observational studies that showed the usefulness of some types of object-based help information. The approach that was taken involved implementing two systems in object-oriented programming styles. Both systems have graphical object-oriented interfaces' and object-based help facilities. The object-based help facilities provide information about the objects displayed by the interfaces when the display objects are indicated. The object-based help information is drawn from system objects which are coded components of the systems. This method is practical when there are one-to-one correspondences between display objects and the system objects that generate and maintain them. The term 'self-explanatory objects' denotes system objects that have been written to be used as a source of object-based help information in this way. The first system is a simple proof-of-concept prototype in the form of a noughts and crosses game. The second system, a game of strategy called Partickles, includes both object-based and menu-based help. The usage of Partickles' help facilities was investigated in a series of three successive studies conducted with a total of nineteen school students aged 12 to 18. Evidence from the studies has shown the usefulness of menu-based overviews and reference facilities, and of object-based help information that explains what display objects would do if activated in the current context. The results include suggestions for implementing help facilities based on self-explanatory objects, a set of guidelines for the provision of help in systems that have graphical object-oriented interfaces, a framework for the provision of object-based help and four types of information that can be used as a template for object-based help messages

A Shell for Intelligent Help Systems

The research reported here is part of a project aimed at the construction of an environment for building intelligent help systems. A help system supports the user in handling and mastering an information processing system. Core of this environment is a shell that contains all domain independent procedures and knowledge. A comprehensive help system not only answers questions of users, but also 'looks over their shoulders * and interrupts when appropriate. This means that a help system is equipped with a PERFORMANCE INTERPRETER, consisting of a PLAN RECOGNISER, a DIAGNOSER, and a QUESTIO