SAFARI: An Environment for Creating Tutoring Systems in Industrial Training.

industrial formation requires specific tools and architecture. The Safari project aims at developing various architectures with diffe rent levels of complexity and also a methodology. Creating tutoring systems remains difficult for various reasons : t he different components of their architecture are not stabilized, the structure and type of knowledge to be used are of different granularity and complex to handle, they require mult iple expertise which is difficult to integrate. However, the utility of tutoring systems having more or less intellige nt capabilities is obvious. Most of intelligent tutoring systems have been experimented in aca demic domains such as mathematics, physics, programming. But do we lack of teacher s in such domains ? Is it crucial for improving the present training in universities or colle ges ? On the other hand, there is a global market competition in the industry, skills are ra pidly evolving (sometimes in complexity) with new technical environment and specialized knowledge, and e mployees must acquire new functions and know-hows in limited time. The need of training tools for this context is high. Experimenting and developi ng th s category of tools appears different from the prototypes developed for acade mi courses. Scale of implementation, nature of problems, type of knowledge and expecte d functionalities are different. This is why we have specialized our research on indus trial formation with "Safari". Safari is a project under the auspices of Synergie, a programme spons ored by the Ministry of Technology and Science of the Governement of Québec. The main objectives of Synergie are (1) to enhance cooperative research and development between univ rsities and industry, (2) to accelerate the product development cycle, (3) to faci litate the transfer of knowledge between research establishments and the industry, and (4) to educ ate highly qualified professionals in the domain. Safari involves four Québec univers ities, two private enterprises and a government agency. The industrial partners are Virt ual P ototypes Inc., providing a software package VAPS, and Novasys Inc. VAPS (Virtual Appl ications Prototyping System) is a high-quality commercial interface-building and s imulation system, used in many areas (such as airline cockpit design). The Safari team includes seven professors as researchers on a part-time basis : C. Frasson (project leader), G. Gauthier, I. Gecsei, G. Imbeau, M. Kaltenbach, S. Lajoie, B. Lefebvre; about 20 M.Sc and Ph.D students, two full-time programmers and two engineers from the industrial participants. The implementation time frame spans 4 years (1993-96). Building reasonable tutoring components The main objective of Safari is to develop a methodology and an environment for the creation of tutoring systems to be used in professional formation . The focus is on teaching mostly procedural knowledge concerning the operation of devices such as medica l instrumentation, consumer appliances and aeronautical instruments. The basic idea is to add a tutoring component on the top of device models (microworlds) built in VAPS . This permits to use models written in VAPS, instead of real devices, for training and exercising. Thus the expensive machinery can be left for its actual purpose and damages from incorrect manipulations during learning can be prevent ed. Safari can be seen as a value-adding component attached to the VAPS package, ma king it into an integrated toolkit for the creation of device models together with a c orresponding computerized training course on how to operate the device. Since a large base of VAPS device models are already available, these can be conveniently used to validate the Safari approach. In order to remain within the bounds of practicality, we limi ted a priori this class to devices which have the following characteristics: they permit to define set of clearly distinguishable interaction pr ocedures (e.g. through control panels, switches). the device functions are decomposable into a number of well-defined tasks, each task corresponding to a meaningful operation in terms of the device’s main purpose . This excludes very complex equipments such as nuclear reactors (although pa rts of it may be covered), and devices whose operation involves hard to enumerate, "l ook-and-feel" actions such as handling certain manufacturing machines, or performing sur gery. Tutoring systems created in the Safari environment will be capable of : tutoring workers in an enterprise (factory, hospital) through real tasks recreated on device models using the VAPS software, constructing models of individual users , reflecting the user’s reasoning style and state of knowledge, dispensing individualized tutoring based on the user model, diagnosing the actions of a student when asked to perform a task on the vi sual model, and composing an entire curriculum for teaching to operate the device, ta king into account the learner’s expertise and style of learning. Some distinguishing features of Safari are that : it involves contractual cooperation between the industrial and universit y par ners who are committed to a binding schedule including the development of a commercially v ble product, the proposed methodology is applicable to a large class of devices, not only to a single device type, it is based on an existing software package VAPS, and it enhances learning by using multiple representations of knowledge, and by encouraging the student to pass between them. We do not aim at deeply intelligent tutoring; this would be somewhat unrea listic, given the limited success and the problems such systems have even withi narrow application domains. Instead, Safari provides a combination of some exis ting tutoring tools, enabling to build easily and rapidly a tutoring system for a given device. A realistic training progression Throughout the project time frame we use the following functional paradigm . In Safari, tutoring functions (modes) are based on the observation that the natural cycle in which most people acquire a given skill is by first observing someone’s demonstration of the skill, then freely experimenting with the device in question (given the availability of the device, and that such experimenting is not hazardous), then ex cuting precise tasks (assignments) in terms of the device functionalities under the guidance of an expert, and finally by communicating the learned skill to another person. In our approach this translates into four distinct tutoring modes : demonstration, free exploration, coaching and critiquing. These modes are presented to the user through an interface which is essentially the same for all modes, and whic h d splays two major windows: the "Device" window showing the simulated device, and the "Pla n" window showing an abstract representation of a task called task graph. In this arrangement the learning process involves two related views of the learning space, enc ouraging the learner to develop his knowledge simultaneously on the concrete and abstract level. Thi s met od has its origins in the "PIF" approach to tutoring, described in (Frasson, C . & al, 1992). PIF supports three interrelated "worlds" (i.e. levels of representat io ): the Physical, I ntentional and Functional. In Safari we retained the P and I worlds, corresponding to the Device and Plan windows. In demonstration mode, the student can observe the execution of various tasks applicable to the device, somewhat like with a VCR based demonstr ation. However, in Safari the demonstration is based on the VAPS model, executing automat ically task graph (TG) which had been edited by a human expert. A demonstration scenario is a TG augmented by hypermedia comments and explanations attached to certain points of the trace. The student can navigate in the scenario by stopping, repeating, jumping to an arbitrary point (i.e. by clicking on an action in the TG), and by asking for hypermedia explanations. However, he cannot interact directly with the simulated device, only with the scenar io. As the demonstration progresses, actions in the TG are highlighted along wit h the corresponding simulated manipulations of the device (such as operating the controls). The purpose of exploration mode is to permit direct interaction with the microworld (simulated device). Here the student is allowed to freely experim ent with the device, to observe the consequences of his actions in a realistic environment, but without the inconveniences of experimenting with the real device (Fath, J. L., M itchell, C. M., Govindraj, T., 1990). The system may attempt to determine (or guess) which task the learner is trying to execute; in this case the TG of this task is graduall y displayed in the task window. Exploration can also be done within the context of a given task; then the student is allowed to manipulate both windows, with automatic highlighting in both windows. In coaching mode the student is asked by the system to perform a given task or to solve a given problem scenario (=sequence of tasks) by interacting only wi th the Device window. Initially the correct TG is hidden; it is gradually reveale d as the learner’s solution is being built. The process is supervised by a coaching component, essentially a alyzing the difference between the correct solution(s) from the knowledge base and the student’s construction, and generating appropriate coaching interventions. The fourth tutoring mode is critiquing, where the student has to prove his knowledge by constructing a solution (in the form of a TG) for a given problem. The learner can "experiment" in the device window as in exploration mode, and build the solut ion in the task window. In this way he is encouraged to pass frequently between alternat iv representations in the two windows; in other words, the student has to prove not only that he can correctly execute a task, but also that he understands (to a certain degree, of course) what he is doing. By request