 dele
helps the faculty of USC's Department of Family Medicine deliver Continuing
Medical Education (CME) courses on the Web. Simulations created for the
course in diagnostic skill development will present the physician/student
with actual cases, including patient history, results of exams, lab tests,
x-rays, CT scans and other diagnostic imaging methods. By questioning
and examining the virtual "patient" and studying clinical data,
the student will be able to practice diagnostic skills. Adele will provide
feedback and a review of the student's progress, referencing diagnostic
best-practice and cost-analysis criteria. The interface for the case-based
diagnosis system was created in Java.
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trauma simulations are being developed in collaboration with the Department
of Pediatrics and Education at USC's School of Medicine. They are intended
to help students sharpen their emergency-response skills and procedures
for dealing with victims of trauma. Emergency room physicians must be
able to respond quickly to the development of sudden complications (e.g.,
the patient develops breathing problems or goes into cardiac arrest)
and the simulations are designed to prepare the student for any such
developments.
Trauma care is a collaborative activity - physicians and paramedics
work with other emergency response personnel, each of whom has a specific
role to play. The trauma simulations allow students to work together
on a case, adding this collaborative dimension to their learning experience.
The tasks each student performs are constrained by a selected role.
Adele's plan monitor includes the notion of "situations" [Marsella
et. al, 1997]. A situation is a high-level description of an "interesting
state" along with a description of steps to take in that situation.
This representation allows Adele to recognize each situation's unique
characteristics and react appropriately, with the right hints and rationales
for each action the student must take.
The trauma simulations were created using Emultek's
Rapid, an off-the-shelf simulation authoring tool. The Carte team is investigating
the use of other off-the-shelf tools for future applications
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entistry simulations are being developed with the collaboration of
two Allied Health programs at the University. The simulations are being
authored by faculty at the School of Dentistry, with the support of
faculty and staff at the Andrus Gerontology Center.
The simulation exercises in geriatric dentistry will form the basis
of Web-based courseware. Initial plans are to use the simulations to
augment an existing, on-campus course. Future plans involve the use
of the Web-based simulations for Distance Learning. Dental students
from all over the world will eventually be able to meet Adele in the
setting of a course delivered completely over the Worldwide Web.
A gallery or list
of pictures taken from the diagnostic-skills development and geriatric
dentistry simulations can be accessed here.
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Authoring Support
Adele's simulations will be authored, not by computer scientists,
but by university faculty members and other instructors. Support is
being provided for defining the course materials and for supplying Adele
with the subject matter knowledge she needs in order to provide a rich,
fully integrated learning environment.
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Relevant Publications
- Ganeshan, R., Johnson, W.L., Shaw, E., and Wood, B.P.
Tutoring Diagnostic Problem
Solving , In Proceedings of the Fifth Int'l Conf.
on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 2000
- Shaw, E., Ganeshan, R., Johnson, W.L., and Millar,
D. Building a Case for
Agent-Assisted Learning as a Catalyst for Curriculum Reform in Medical Education, In Proceedings of the Int'l Conf.
on Artificial Intelligence in Education, July, 1999
- Shaw, E., Johnson, W.L., and Ganeshan, R., Pedagogical
Agents on the Web. In Proceedings of the Third Int'l Conf. on Autonomous
Agents, pp. 283-290, May, 1999
- Johnson, W.L., Shaw, E., and Ganeshan, R., Pedagogical
Agents on the Web. ITS'98 - Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Workshop on Pedagogical Agents and Workshop on Intelligent
Tutoring Systems on the Web, August, 1998.
- Johnson, W.L. and Shaw, E., Using
Agents to Overcome Difficulties in Web-Based Courseware. AI-ED'97
Workshop on Intelligent Educational Systems on the World Wide Web,
August, 1997.
Postscript version is available here.
- Johnson, W.L., Blake, T., and Shaw, E., Automated
Management and Delivery of Distance Courseware. In Proceedings
of WebNet'96 - World Conference of the Web Society Proceedings,
October, 1996.
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Advanced Distance Education project is developing tools for the creation
of adaptive, Web-based courseware incorporating artificial intelligence.
ADE is a project of the team at the Center
for Advanced Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) at USC / ISI.
