GIFT

Intelligent tutoring system (ITS) authoring tools are productivity applications that aid humans in developing adaptive tutors. Authoring tools have the potential to reduce the skill, resources, and effort required to produce a tutor, thereby enabling ITS authoring for individuals without programming or instructional design experience. However ITSs continue to evolve and authoring tool designs iterate to keep pace. Authoring tool design has been previously framed as a tradeoff between usability, depth, and flexibility. This current paper, however, takes a different look at the design of authoring tools, through the lens of function allocation and levels of automation. The evolution of authoring tools within the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) will be used as an example of how tasks can be allocated (and automated) between humans and software. The paper will discuss lessons learned, implications for system design, and considerations regarding human mental models of adaptive tutor authoring processes.

Ososky, S., Sottilare, R., & Brawner, K. (2017). Task Allocation and Automation Level in the Design of Intelligent Tutoring Systems Authoring Tools. In Proceedings of the International Defense & Homeland Security Simulation Workshop of the I3M Conference. Barcelona, Spain, September 2017