Computer-aided instruction is a prime candidate for expert systems applications. This paper describes an approach to the design of such system design tools so that teachers and users can formulate their own specific CAI system without needing to have “extensive programming skills to create high quality computer based educational materials.” This is the result of a paper study; no software has been designed based on these concepts, so that implementation problems are not reported in this paper.

The general model has five components which can be modified and varied according to the actual application and mode of the instruction to be given. The five parts are: (1) Teaching Administrator, (2) Student History, (3) Student Model, (4) Teaching Strategy, and (5) Teaching Generator. By appropriately constraining these five functions, Courseware Design Templates (CDTs) are developed for the specific training topic. The resulting system may just present material to the student, provide tutoring, or demonstrate a mastery of the subject (this requires an expert system). Three examples are very briefly described (too brief to do them justice, but space limits were no doubt imposed). The actual knowledge representation is to be production rules only; at least no other kind of knowledge is mentioned. Production rules are not appropriate for many kinds of knowledge representation, so this may be a limitation of the system once it is implemented. To assist the user of the system in producing a set of rules a kind of truth maintenance system is hypothesized. The concept of the student profile seems to be somewhat innovative in the way the authors propose to implement it. The student and trainer interface is also briefly discussed with the objectives of being powerful, yet user friendly. It is admitted that these are not completely compatible.

This is followed by a discussion of the design philosophy of the system. The last section then describes the need for a touch screen, menus selection, and form-filling to aid the user in the design of his or her system application.

This is an interesting paper which is easy to read. It seems to this reviewer that the ideas proposed are very ambitious. As the authors have pointed out, many of the ideas have “been successfully applied to a variety of educational and training design problems.” The marriage of these ideas with that of expert system techniques for a friendly yet powerful training system design tool will be quite an accomplishment.