RFC 313 (rfc313) - Page 3 of 8

Computer based instruction

RFC 313                Computer Based Instruction             March 1972


   weaknesses, prescriptions for strengthening student understanding,
   and guidance in the redirection of students.  In addition, CMI can
   provide management with evaluations of course and instructor
   effectiveness.  CMI has corollaries to the discussion of CAI resource
   requirements and their relation to the philosophy and related
   strategy employed.

   Bearing in mind the effects on resource requirements of the complex
   considerations involved in CBI, there seem to be several areas in
   which the resources of a large General Purpose Computer Network, such
   as the ARPA Network, could be of high utility if properly applied.
   These include:

      1.)  The Network itself
      2.)  Centralized Data Storage
      3.)  Language processors
      4.)  Dialogue Support Systems

   As questions of philosophy and general strategy are resolved, or
   assumed, the hard questions of implementation come into play.
   Tradeoffs between competing approaches of the instructional strategy
   or model, techniques of measurement, languages, hardware, etc., must
   be made.  It appears that both in resolving the tradeoffs, and in the
   implementation stage, network resources could prove to have high
   utility.

THE NETWORK

   The network itself seems to have utility for CBI that goes beyond the
   function of providing a communications base for linking terminal(s)
   (individual or clustered) to processors dedicated to CBI.

   The latter function, however, is important.  The communications
   network exists, and can be tied into efficiently from many parts of
   the country.  If there were dedicated CBI systems on the network, it
   would facilitate:

      1.)  Evaluation of a single system (or its several components) for
      adequacy, or of competing systems for relative utility, by an
      interested user center, to assist in the selection of a system for
      a specific use;

      2.)  Early use by a geographically isolated user center, through
      use of clustered terminals, of the full power of a major CBI
      center,






O'Sullivan