1,036 research outputs found

    Intelligent Tutoring System Authoring Tools for Non-Programmers

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    An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is a software application that tries to replicate the performance of a human tutor by supporting the theory of learning by doing . ITSs have been shown to improve the performance of a student in wide range of domains. Despite their benefits, ITSs have not seen widespread use due to the complexity involved in their development. Developing an ITS from scratch requires expertise in several fields including computer science, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. In order to decrease the skill threshold required to build ITSs, several authoring tools have been developed. In this thesis, I document several contributions to the field of intelligent tutoring in the form of extensions to an existing ITS authoring tool, research studies on authoring tool paradigms and the design of authoring tools for non-programmers in two complex domains - natural language processing and 3D game environments. The Extensible Problem Specific Tutor (xPST) is an authoring tool that helps rapidly develop model-tracing like tutors on existing interfaces such as webpages. xPST\u27s language was made more expressive with the introduction of new checktypes required for answer checking in problems belonging to domains such as geometry and statistics. A web-based authoring (WAT) tool was developed for the purpose of tutor management and deployment and to promote non-programmer authoring of ITSs. The WAT was used in a comparison study between two authoring tool paradigms - GUI based and text based, in two different problem domains - statistics and geometry. User-programming of natural language processing (NLP) in ITSs is not common with authoring toolkits. Existing NLP techniques do not offer sufficient power to non-programmers and the NLP is left to expert developers or machine learning algorithms. We attempted to address this challenge by developing a domain-independent authoring tool, ConceptGrid that is intended to help non-programmers develop ITSs that perform natural language processing. ConceptGrid has been integrated into xPST. When templates created using ConceptGrid were tested, they approached the accuracy of human instructors in scoring student responses. 3D game environments belong to another domain for which authoring tools are uncommon. Authoring game-based tutors is challenging due to the inherent domain complexity and dynamic nature of the environment. We attempt to address this challenge through the design of authoring tool that is intended to help non-programmers develop game-based ITSs

    Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Military Training Simulation

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    This report is a survey of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology contributions to military training. It provides an overview of military training simulation and a review of instructional problems and challenges which can be addressed by AI. The survey includes current as well as potential applications of AI, with particular emphasis on design and system integration issues. Applications include knowledge and skills training in strategic planning and decision making, tactical warfare operations, electronics maintenance and repair, as well as computer-aided design of training systems. The report describes research contributions in the application of AI technology to the training world, and it concludes with an assessment of future research directions in this area

    A panorama of artificial and computational intelligence in games

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    This paper attempts to give a high-level overview of the field of artificial and computational intelligence (AI/CI) in games, with particular reference to how the different core research areas within this field inform and interact with each other, both actually and potentially. We identify ten main research areas within this field: NPC behavior learning, search and planning, player modeling, games as AI benchmarks, procedural content generation, computational narrative, believable agents, AI-assisted game design, general game artificial intelligence and AI in commercial games. We view and analyze the areas from three key perspectives: (1) the dominant AI method(s) used under each area; (2) the relation of each area with respect to the end (human) user; and (3) the placement of each area within a human-computer (player-game) interaction perspective. In addition, for each of these areas we consider how it could inform or interact with each of the other areas; in those cases where we find that meaningful interaction either exists or is possible, we describe the character of that interaction and provide references to published studies, if any. We believe that this paper improves understanding of the current nature of the game AI/CI research field and the interdependences between its core areas by providing a unifying overview. We also believe that the discussion of potential interactions between research areas provides a pointer to many interesting future research projects and unexplored subfields.peer-reviewe

    The Influence of Multimedia Production Knowledge on the Design Decisions of the Instructional Designer

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    This study explored the interaction of multimedia production competencies of expert and novice instructional designers on the design decisions made during the instructional design process / workflow. This multiple measures study used qualitative survey instruments to access and measure the production competencies of participants, then a design aloud protocol to capture and measure the instructional design decision-making process for those same participants. A follow-on interview after the initial design aloud session was conducted in order to triangulate and confirm any trends or findings uncovered during the earlier design aloud session. Ultimately, the objective of this study was to provide some evidence that suggests whether certain production skills are influencing instructional design decision-making. Employer influence on the instructional designer’s decision-making was also explored. Results indicated that a substantial number of instructional designers (n=30) who participated in this study were selecting media as a preliminary step in their workflow process, and were often then using analysis as a measure to confirm the early media selection. Expert instructional designers appeared to be less susceptible to the early media selection behavior, though not immune. Results indicate that one reason the expert instructional designers were less likely to adopt media as a preliminary instructional design step was that the experts conducted a more diverse set of analysis activities. Additionally, results indicated that instructional designers were often experiencing pressure to adopt media based on employer demands, and project constraints such as budget and time

    A Methodology for Requirements Analysis of AI Architecture Authoring Tools

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    Authoring embodied, highly interactive virtual agents (IVAs) for robust experiences is an extremely difficult task. Current architectures for creating those agents are so complex that it takes enormous amounts of effort to craft even short experiences, with lengthier, polished experiences (e.g., Facade, Ada and Grace) often requiring person-years of effort by expert authors. However, each architecture is challenging in vastly different ways; it is impossible to propose a universal authoring solution without being too general to provide significant leverage. Instead, we present our analysis of the System-Specific Step (SSS) in the IVA authoring process, encapsulated in the case studies of three different architectures tackling a simple scenario. The case studies revealed distinctly different behaviors by each team in their SSS, resulting in the need for different authoring solutions. We iteratively proposed and discussed each team’s SSS Components and potential authoring support strategies to identify actionable software improvements. Our expectation is that other teams can perform similar analyses of their own systems ’ SSS and make authoring improvements where they are most needed. Further, our case-study approach provides a methodology for detailed comparison of the authoring affordances of different IVA architectures, providing a lens for understanding the similarities, differences and tradeoffs between architectures

    A Discussion of Interactive Storytelling Techniques for Use in a Serious Game

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    This report addresses a collection of interactive storytelling systems to provide an overview of state-of-the-art methods of narrative management and of enabling social interaction between users and virtual agents. This is done to inform the construction of a social cues and training demonstrator (a serious game) that enables its users to improve their social behaviour. In this report, a distinction is made between strong story and strong autonomy approaches to narrative management. The former rely on central management of the narrative through drama managers, not giving their agents much freedom. Inversely, the latter focus on the autonomy of agents, without explicit top-down control over the narrative. The autonomy of such agents allows an unscripted narrative to emerge from the user's interaction with the system. The trade-off between a strict storyline and freedom of action in these approaches is called the narrative paradox. It is concluded that a strong autonomy approach can feature social behaviour of agents more easily than a strong story one, because it is inherent with this approach that its agents have more complex models. For the demonstrator, some control over the narrative is required to let its users reach given goals in the created scenarios. Therefore, our future work will focus on creating a hybrid approach that enables agents to direct the story autonomously
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