This report describes the current version of the Why System, a script-based Socratic tutor which uses tutoring strategies formulated as production rules. The current system is capable of carrying on a dialogue about the factors influencing rainfall by presenting different cases to the student, asking for predictions, probing for relevant factors,…

This paper is concerned with providing automatically generated online explanations to the user of a user interface or "tool" about what the interface can and cannot do, and what parameters or options are available or required with a given command. The COUSIN interface system, developed at Carnegie-Mellon, supplies a cooperative…

Model building techniques from Artifical Intelligence and Information-Processing Psychology are applied to human-computer interface tasks to evaluate existing interfaces and suggest new and better ones. The model is in the form of an augmented transition network (ATN) grammar which is built by applying grammar induction heuristics on a sequential…

This booklet describes two computer programs that were written to provide on-line aid to problem solvers. Both programs were designed for "membership" problems, or those in which there are several English sentences and implicit relationships. The task was to infer a membership structure that is compatible with all the logical constraints.…

In an attempt to overcome the lack of natural means of communication between student and computer, this thesis addresses the problem of developing a system which can understand natural language within an educational problem-solving environment. The nature of the environment imposes efficiency, habitability, self-teachability, and awareness of…

This paper describes the construction and implementation of an autoprogramming system. An autoprogrammer is an interactive computer programming system which automatically constructs computer programs from example computations executed by the user. The example calculations are done in a scratch pad fashion at a computer display, and the system…

People use a variety of plausible, but uncertain inferences to answer questions about which their knowledge is incomplete. Such inferential thinking and reasoning is being incorporated into the SCHOLAR computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system. Socratic tutorial techniques in CAI systems such as SCHOLAR are described, and examples of their…

The evolution of a self-contained test scoring terminal is presented. The rationale for the design is presented along with an evolutionary description of the requirements for the system. The sequence of software and hardware tools, which were developed in order to build the device, are also described in this report. The resulting device, which…

This report documents the theory, structure, and implementation of a performance processor (written in FORTRAN IV) that can accept performance demonstration data representing various levels of operator's skill and, under user control, analyze data to provide candidate performance measures and validation test results. The processor accepts two…

NLS-SCHOLAR is a prototype system that uses artificial intelligence techniques to teach computer-naive people how to use a powerful and complex editor. It represents a new kind of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system that integrates systematic teaching with actual practice, i.e., one which can keep the user under tutorial supervision while…

The Computerized Decision Training (CDT) system, which focuses on improving and sharpening higher order cognitive skills in judgmental decision making, incorporates an adaptive computer program which learns the student's value structure, and uses this structure to train the student in practical decision making. The application of decision models…

Four papers from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Project on Human-Computer Interfaces are presented in this report. "Evaluation and Analysis of User's Activity Organization," by Liam Bannon, Allen Cypher, Steven Greenspan, and Melissa Monty, analyzes the activities performed by users of computer systems, develops a…

This publication provides guidance for the introduction of computer software tools within agencies of the United States government or within other installations where there has been little or no prior use of software tools. From a survey of current tool usage, it is concluded that the greatest obstacles to effective use of software tools are…

A major obstacle to the effective educational use of computers is the lack of a natural means of communication between the student and the computer. This report describes a technique for generating such natural language front-ends for advanced instructional systems. It discusses: (1) the essential properties of a natural language front-end, (2)…

This article provides a tutorial introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) research for those involved in Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). The general theme is that much of the current work in AI, particularly in the areas of natural language understanding systems, rule induction, programming languages, and socratic systems, has important…