CACTUS: automated tutorial course generation for software applications

ABSTRACT

Novice users often face many difficulties in mastering current highly interactive systems. In this paper we describe CACTUS, an interactive system used to develop tutorial courses for software applications. CACTUS tutorial courses provide more adequate and more dynamical explanations than currently existing teaching components, since they are task-oriented and provide just-in-time context-dependant explanations. These tutors are also able to follow-up the user activity and act according to what they perform. CACTUS is an environment that uses the model-based design technology. In particular, CACTUS uses declarative hierarchical task-models to derive guidance instructions. Additionally, CACTUS releases tutorial course designers from part of the intensive workload of developing tutor programs as these guidance components are currently developed. This system helps to generate application tutorial courses based on a metaphor that represents the contents of the courses as if they were textbooks, so that learning an application is assimilated to reading a book on certain subject and performing some activities.

REFERENCES

• 1: Alfonseca, M., Garcia, F., de Lara, J., and Moriyon, R. "Generacibn Autom&tica de Entornos de Simulaci6n con Interfaces Inteligentes", Revista de Ensefianza y Tecnologia, ADIE, no 10. December 1998.
• 2: Contreras, J. and Saiz, F. "A Framework for the Automatic Generation of Software Tutoring". In Proceedings CADUI'96, Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces, Eurographics, Belgium, June 1996.
• 3: Contreras, J. "A Framework for the Automatic Generation of Software Tutoring". Phd. Thesis, Universite RenbDescartes, Paris, 1998.
• 4: Allen Cypher , Daniel C. Halbert , David Kurlander , Henry Lieberman , David Maulsby , Brad A. Myers , Alan Turransky, Watch what I do: programming by demonstration, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993
• 5: F. García , J. Contreras , Pilar Rodríguez , Roberto Moriyón, Help Generation for Task Based Applications with HATS, Proceedings of the IFIP TC2/TC13 WG2.7/WG13.4 Seventh Working Conference on Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction, p.149-167, September 14-18, 1998
• 6: Garcia, F., Rodriguez, P., Contreras, J., and Moriyon, R. "Gestion de Tareas de Usuario en ATOMS". IV Jornadas de Tecnologia de Objetos, JJOO'98, Bilbao (Spain), October 1998.
• 7: Garcia, F., "Towards the Generation of Tutorial Courses for Applications". 5th ERCIM Conference on User-Interfaces for All. Dagstuhl (Germany), November 1999.
• 8: Garcia, F. and Moriybn, R.: "A Framework for Distributed Task Management". In Third Argentine Symposium on Object Orientation, AS00'99, September 1999.
• 9: John T. Maxwell , Ronald M. Kaplan, The interface between phrasal and functional constraints, Computational Linguistics, v.19 n.4, p.571-590, December 1993
• 10: Roberto Moriyon , Pedro Szekely , Robert Neches, Automatic generation of help from interface design models, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: celebrating interdependence, p.225-231, April 24-28, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/191666.191751]
• 11: Brad A. Myers , Richard G. McDaniel , Robert C. Miller , Alan S. Ferrency , Andrew Faulring , Bruce D. Kyle , Andrew Mickish , Alex Klimovitski , Patrick Doane, The Amulet Environment: New Models for Effective User Interface Software Development, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.23 n.6, p.347-365, June 1997 [doi>10.1109/32.601073]
• 12: Palanque, A., Bastide, R. and Dourte, L.: "Contextual Help for Free with Formal Dialog Design". In 5th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Orlando, Florida, USA. 8-13 August 1993.
• 13: S. Pangoli , F. Paternó, Automatic generation of task-oriented help, Proceedings of the 8th annual ACM symposium on User interface and software technology, p.181-187, November 15-17, 1995, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/215585.215971]
• 14: Angel R. Puerta, A Model-Based Interface Development Environment, IEEE Software, v.14 n.4, p.40-47, July 1997 [doi>10.1109/52.595902]
• 15: Puerta, A.R. "Supporting User-Centered Design of Adaptive User Interfaces Via Interface Models". First Annual Workshop On Real-Time Intelligent User Interfaces For Decision Support And Information Visualization, San Francisco, January 1998.
• 16: Rodriguez, P., Garcia, F., Contreras, J. and Moriyon, R. "Parsing Techniques for User-Task Recognition". 5th International Workshop on Advances in Functional Modeling of Complex Technical Systems, Paris (France), July 1997.
• 17: Piyawadee Sukaviriya , James D. Foley, Coupling a UI framework with automatic generation of context-sensitive animated help, Proceedings of the 3rd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.152-166, October 03-05, 1990, Snowbird, Utah, United States [doi>10.1145/97924.97942]
• 18: Pedro Szekely , Ping Luo , Robert Neches, Beyond interface builders: model-based interface tools, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.383-390, April 24-29, 1993, Amsterdam, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/169059.169305]
• 19: Pedro A. Szekely , Piyawadee Noi Sukaviriya , Pablo Castells , Jeyakumar Muthukumarasamy , Ewald Salcher, Declarative interface models for user interface construction tools: the MASTERMIND approach, Proceedings of the IFIP TC2/WG2.7 Working Conference on Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction, p.120-150, August 01, 1995

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

General Terms:
Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
programming by demonstration, tutorial course generation, user-task models