RFC 313 (rfc313) - Page 3 of 8
Computer based instruction
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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