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…

Requirements for a desirable authoring system are reviewed and a proposal for an interrogative authoring system presented. (Author)

Proposes extensions to PASCAL that provide for programing man-computer dialogues. An interactive dialogue application program is viewed as a sequence of frames and separate computational steps. PASCAL extensions allow the description of the items of information in each frame and the inclusion of behavior rules specifying the interactive dialogue.…

Paper describes a method of analysing information based on theories about the way in which human beings tackle this problem. (Author)

Some of the major results of future goals of an automatic program synthesis project are described in the two papers that comprise this document. The first paper gives a detailed algorithm for synthesizing a computer program from a trace of its behavior. Since the algorithm involves a search, the length of time required to do the synthesis of…

The performance capabilities of the best computer chess programs are compared with their human counterparts with emphasis being placed on machine behavior limits. (Author)

Past problems encountered in the use of computers are discussed. They include: (1) computing and data storage costs; (2) machine speed and capacity limitations; and (3) the limited number of languages and Input/Output devices available to facilitate man/machine communication. The improvements in all of these areas are explained. The problems which…

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…

The need for and development of computer programs using natural or native tongue languages are discussed. Two programs which attempt to use English Script Applier Mechanism (SAM) and Semantic Information Retrieval (SIR) are described. (MK)

The potentialities of specialized languages, in comparison to those of other types of specialized systems, are discussed. The point is made that these languages have been invented by information processing professionals in order to assist the problem-solving activities of computer users by providing them with appropriate interfaces to the…

A system of computer-assisted data analysis (CADA) was developed at the University of Iowa to handle the mechanical, arithmetical and computational tasks associated with Bayesian statistical analysis. The original programs were subsequently expanded and a CADA monitor constructed to aid their use; a search was then undertaken to find a means of…

Test-site evaluation of the Instructor's Computer Utility/Programing Language of Interactive Teaching (ICU/PLANIT) was conducted. Goals included: 1) analysis of the operation of ICU/PLANIT; 2) development of two PLANIT. Modifications were made in a distrubuted version, cost analyses were in man hours and quantities of machine resources consumed,…

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…

A proposed student model consisting of a set of programs to represent the student's knowledge state. Teaching proceeds after a comparative evaluation of student and teacher programs, and learning is represented by direct modification of the student model. The advantages of an explicit procedural model are illustrated by considering a program which…

The Multilingual Interpreter (MI), a language processor capable of executing more than one language, is being used at Western Washington State College to enhance interactive computing for computer-assisted instructional (CAI) users. The MI's two major functions are, first, that of scanning and translating a source language into internal…