Abstract
This paper describes a research program that addresses a variety of issues and problems in training pilots to fly modern, highly sophisticated aircraft First, the paper describes two intelligent tutors developed to teach two important aspects of aviation: a tutor that teaches management of the vertical dimension of the flight management system for pilots in transition training; and a tutor that teaches expert novices, that is, certified pilots, procedures not included in their transition training. Second, both tutors extend GT-ITACS (Georgia Tech-Intelligent Tutoring Architecture for Complex Systems), a computational development environment for intelligent tutors. In general, implementing instructional material in computational form is the most difficult step in developing effective computer-based instruction; this is particularly true for intelligent tutors Computational implementation is so difficult that implementing computer-based training is often cost and time prohibitive—explaining in part the small number of tutors and the abundance of computer-based training that is little more than Power Point presentations GT-ITACS is an computational architecture that is completely file driven That is, configuring a GT-ITACS tutor for a new application requires only reformatting input files. A tutor based on GT-ITACS does not require any additional software development or ‘hard-coding.’ Both tutors described in this paper instantiate GT-ITACS, demonstrating the versatility and power of the development environment. Finally, the paper concludes by describing a method to implement distributed, computer-based training, that is, training any time, any where A description of an easily implemented method, evaluated with both tutors described in this paper, provides users access to training at the place and time of their choice.
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