They found that all students understood the presentation of the legal argument and could complete the exercises in a reasonable time. The project received positive feedback, but more concerning its graphical interface than the underlying expert system. We are used to expecting that injecting a little intelligence into the system will enhance its capabilities, but in the case of the present system, for the domain of statute law at least, it may well be that it is possible to separate the elements of the system which law tutors have responded positively to from those elements of the system which seem to restrict its applicability. In short, as long as we maintain the interface but dispense with the knowledge based aspects, then we may well be able to have more impact in presenting technological assistance for law tutors. They hope to compare two systems, one knowledge-based and one much simpler, to establish how useful an ITS is for teaching statute law.
Most educational simulations lie somewhere between a pure simulation and a tutorial-simulation.
They embed a simulation into a wider package that covers the theory, experimental practice and sometime a final assessment. A number of these packages have been produced in the Sheffield Bioscience Programs series. They have a very strong tutorial element combined with simple simulations. A typical program is Rat Blood Pressure. It covers the background to the experiment, through its setting-up to the method and taking results.