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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NASA AWARDS CONTRACT TO STOTTLER HENKE TO DEVELOP
INTELLIGENT TASK TRAINING SOFTWARE

 Intelligent tutoring software will augment NASA training simulations
by providing individualized, instructional feedback    

SAN MATEO, CA, Mar. 30, 1997 – Stottler Henke Associates, Inc. today announced the award of a two year $600,000 Phase II contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop intelligent training software to teach procedural tasks.  The new software will interface with training simulation systems at NASA to monitor the student’s actions, detect correct and incorrect actions, assess the student’s understanding of principles based on those actions, and provide the student with instructional feedback. 

 Simulation-based intelligent tutoring systems provide powerful learning environments which enable students to “learn by doing”.  At NASA, astronauts, ground support engineers, scientists, and other personnel must learn  many procedures, along with related scientific, device, and mission operations principles.  To help NASA develop tutoring systems more quickly, intuitively, and cost-effectively, Stottler Henke will develop an intelligent authoring tool that enables the instructor to demonstrate a correct way of carrying out the procedure by using the simulation system.  The authoring tool will record this demonstration as a sequence of actions which the instructor can generalize to recognize other valid sequences of actions.  The instructor will also be able to specify other actions which are incorrect when carried out under certain conditions.

Stottler Henke will also develop an intelligent tutoring system which will monitor the student’s actions, compare those actions with the generalized patterns defined by the intelligent authoring tool, detect correct and incorrect actions, and identify principles the student appears to understand or not understand.  The system will be designed for compatibility with multiple NASA simulation systems, so that only modest customization is needed to support each new simulation.

“Demonstration and Generalization is an intuitive way for instructors to specify patterns of correct and incorrect actions and their associated principles,” says Richard Stottler, president of Stottler Henke.  “By simplifying the process of authoring task-oriented scenarios, this new authoring technology will enable intelligent tutoring systems to be developed much more cost-effectively,” continues Stottler.

Founded in 1988, Stottler Henke Associates, Inc. applies artificial intelligence and other advanced software technologies to solve problems that defy solution using traditional approaches. The company delivers intelligent software solutions for education and training, planning and scheduling, knowledge management and discovery, decision support, and software development. Stottler Henke’s clients include manufacturers, retailers, educational media companies and government agencies.   Web: https://www.stottlerhenke.com.