RFC 313

RFC 313: Computer Based Instruction 🎀

Part 1 of 2 🦋

okay so the title block first, bestie 💅 Network Working Group, RFC 313, by Tom O'Sullivan from Raytheon 🧚 NIC number 9343, CBI number 1, dated March 6, 1972. It doesn't list a category or status, and it doesn't obsolete or update anything. ✨

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Okay so the vibe of this paper is the early days of Computer Based Instruction (CBI) systems 🍓 Right now, the CBI systems being built seem to go in two directions:

1. Small to medium scale, dedicated, stand alone systems (like the IBM 1130, 1500, and 1800 complexes), or medium scale systems with dedicated network implications (like TICKET), and
2. Large, centralized, dedicated systems with dedicated network implications (like PLATO).

Some people have looked at using the resources of a General Purpose Computer Network for CBI (for example, the EDUCOM efforts) 👀 but honestly, the full implications of using those resources don't seem to be well understood yet. Not by the CBI development centers at academic institutions or at the Armed Forces training or development centers, where most of the current activity happens, and not by the ARPA Network Nodes, where most of the resources are 😭

This Request For Comment has two purposes. It's giving "let's talk about this" 🫶 It aims to:

1. Ask the Network Working Group, and others, for comments on how selected classes of (and what specific) resources of a General Purpose Network might be applied to the field of Computer Based Instruction, and
2. Start a dialog between interested parties on the problems of Computer Based Instruction. This is not limited to, but does include, the uses of General Purpose Computer Network resources. 💜

The attached paper talks about some of the ways the resources of a large General Purpose Network could be applied to Computer Based Instruction systems. Responses and discussion are encouraged through the NIC system. 🌈

GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER NETWORKS AND COMPUTER BASED INSTRUCTION ✨

INTRODUCTION 🌸

A high level of Computer Based Instruction (CBI) activity exists in both the academic and armed service communities, and there's promise of a substantial amount of early development of instruction courses and instructional management facilities. The major functional areas of interest are:

1. Design and Development
2. Field Tests
3. Distribution and Operational Use
4. Evaluation and Modification

The specific computer support requirements depend on the philosophy and the reflected strategy of implementation for each of those functional areas 🧠 Design and development work may focus on overall curriculum development, or on specific training or educational goals involving a specific course. That focus affects the support requirements, like the type and size of the data base, specialized processing capabilities, and so on. Support requirements for Field Tests depend on whether they're run at a central location or are geographically distributed. This matters a lot for data collection procedures, computer support, terminal clusters, and communications. 🎀

The solutions for distribution and operational use of CBI systems and programs depend on how spread out the training activity is, meaning whether it's geographically or organizationally distributed. For Evaluation and Modification, both the level of activity and the solutions depend on the goals of the instructional process, how much the technology or specific application is changing, and how well the courses that were developed meet the needs they were made for. It's a whole thing 💅

The discussion above puts a lot of focus on the Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) part of CBI, where the computer is used directly in the instructional process for lesson presentation, tests, drill and practice, and so on. Another part of CBI is Computer Managed Instruction (CMI), where the computer is a management tool that guides the instructional process. CMI can be used together with CAI, or as a helper for guiding more traditional instructional processes. Besides helping with student selection, scheduling, and follow-up on past course performance, CMI can guide instructors by diagnosing student weaknesses, prescribing ways to strengthen student understanding, and helping redirect students. CMI can also give management evaluations of course and instructor effectiveness. CMI has parallels to the CAI resource requirements discussion, and to how those relate to the philosophy and strategy being used. 📚

With all the complicated considerations CBI involves, and how they affect resource requirements, there seem to be several areas where the resources of a large General Purpose Computer Network, like the ARPA Network, could be really useful if they're applied properly. These include:

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

Once questions of philosophy and general strategy are settled (or assumed), the hard implementation questions come up. Tradeoffs have to be made between competing approaches to the instructional strategy or model, measurement techniques, languages, hardware, and so on. It seems like network resources could be really useful both when resolving those tradeoffs and during the implementation stage. 🔥

THE NETWORK 🌐

The network itself seems useful for CBI in ways that go beyond just providing a communications base for linking terminals (individual or clustered) to processors dedicated to CBI. 💖

That linking job still matters, though. The communications network already exists, and it can be connected to efficiently from lots of parts of the country. If there were dedicated CBI systems on the network, it would make these things easier:

1. Evaluating a single system (or its several components) for adequacy, or competing systems for relative usefulness, by an interested user center, to help pick a system for a specific use;
2. Early use by a geographically isolated user center, through clustered terminals, of the full power of a major CBI center,
   • a. for a continuing period of low level use, or
   • b. building over time until total usage by the isolated center justifies installing a full CBI center of its own.

Existing network resources are also promising 🦋 Many manufacturers' systems, with their own varieties of operating system software, are available on the ARPA Network. Lots of those have a range of application software, and some support CBI and data base applications. So even without a dedicated CBI system available as a service center on the network, the network could still be used to support CBI interests, like:

1. Testing existing language and data base systems for how well they fit CBI problems.
2. Developing CBI systems or components for demonstration and/or test.
3. Testing existing courses, lessons, or lesson segments to see if they meet specified performance criteria, which avoids duplicating course development effort.
4. Developing CBI systems to run on a specific set of hardware and software resources available in the network, in anticipation of delivering a dedicated operational system.
5. Getting more flexibility in picking test sites for field tests of developed courses, and running those tests before operational hardware is delivered.
6. Formalizing hardware support and related software protocols for clustered terminals, to provide continuing service to geographically remote training activities.

Even dedicated CBI systems could benefit, since the network already has established communications and terminal support protocols. Those could cut down on the software work needed to set up contact between a large dedicated service center and clusters of user center terminals. Also, terminal types that the CBI service center machine doesn't normally support might be accommodated by accessing the network through a compatible port, then getting into the service center through established network protocols. 🧚

Terminal access to the ARPA Network could be provided in these ways:

1. Single Terminals: over common carrier facilities to the nearest compatible HOST or TIP.
2. Large Clusters: a simple single purpose TIP, or a simple mini-computer supported in the network as a far distant HOST.
3. Small clusters: either of the above two, depending on the length and intensity of expected use and the number of terminals in the cluster.

Besides these general uses of a large General Purpose Computer Network, there are several specific classes of network resources that could be useful. 🌸

CENTRALIZED DATA STORAGE 💜

Economy of scale could lower costs for smaller CBI systems if they use mass storage on larger systems through the network. If duplicate smaller systems are spread out in the field, centralized storage would multiply the savings for lessons and lesson material. But special attention would need to go to the file structure, so that look ahead techniques for lessons, lesson segments, and individual student pages can be used efficiently. ✨

For CMI data, the savings go beyond economy of scale 🙈 A single management system could be picked or built on a large service center machine, to be used by CBI systems on the network, even though the operational CBI systems run on different manufacturers' hardware. That wouldn't just cut the cost of programming and maintaining CMI systems. It would also make cross system analysis and intersystem comparison easier, even though each using system keeps its own set of files. The user of the network data reconfiguration service and data transfer protocol should make these operations feasible. 🔥

This approach to CMI would help in the early development stages of course material by making it easier to access data on past performance and norms. For geographically distributed testing, the evaluation team would get faster access to performance data. Both the distribution and modification tasks would seem cleaner, since there's only one copy of the released version to update. 🦋

If the trillion bit laser memory proposed for AMES becomes a reality, the economy of scale argument could get really dramatic 🌈

LANGUAGE PROCESSORS ✨

Okay bestie, so a large General Purpose Computer Network is literally capable of supporting machines from various manufacturers 💻. That means the network can be made up of a bunch of special purpose processors spread out geographically and organizationally, each one sitting wherever the best support exists for that process 🌍🫶.

This is so iconic because you get to select and join the best match of capabilities for a complex application 👑. You don't have to settle for a hardware/software system that's just a reasonable job in most areas of the application's needs 🙅‍♀️.

CBI is a complex application, no cap 😭. On top of a good management system and associated data base, it needs heavy text handling for lesson material 📚, table lookup and branching logic for acting on the student selected answers to multiple choice questions 🔀, a student arithmetic problem solving language for drill and practice 🧮, simulation of both physical processes (for laboratory and circuit simulation) ⚡, and simulation of decision processes (for gaming experience) 🎮. It also has a future need for natural language processors to permit evaluation of free form student responses 🧠. And there may be need for heavy statistical and arithmetic processing for course, student, and instructor evaluation 📊.

Depending on the course, different mixes of languages to support all of this will be needed 🎀. Some people believe the language for presenting course material and evaluating student response (and the associated appropriate action) may be heavily dependent on the type of course being given 🤔. As we develop a deeper understanding of the learning process, we're likely to require expansion of languages to provide new functions and perform processes not yet identified 🌱.

To provide expandability of languages, Meta-compiler techniques can be applied 🧚. Meta-compilers are in an early stage of development, but several are available on the network ✨. Besides facilitating language expansion with minimum effort while preserving the workability of code written in previous versions of the changing language, the Meta-compiler can be made to produce either compiler or program object code that will operate on several different target machines 🦋. It's giving transportable programs and, in some cases, transportable compilers too 💅. So you don't have to settle on a single manufacturer's hardware when a CBI compiler or interpreter, or a course or set of courses, is going to be used in a way that requires substantial geographic distribution 🌸. Hardware decisions can be based on the most cost-effective hardware for the combinations to be run at one time 💰.

Use of Meta-compilers lets you develop and debug new course material before the system selected for operations is delivered, even though the selected machine isn't yet represented in the large General Purpose Computer Network 📦. Field test can also proceed before the selected hardware arrives 🚚.

Experience to date with Meta-compilers shows that using their high order languages to implement compilers and interpreters results in dramatic savings in both turnaround time and the absolute cost of producing a finished language product 🤑🔥.

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DIALOGUE SUPPORT SYSTEMS 🌸

In a field developing as rapidly as CBI, and at a time when substantial implementation is about to take place, dialogue between theoreticians, developers, and users is a seriously important issue 🗣️. New tools for supporting dialogue among members of a distributed group are currently in experimental use on the ARPA network 🧪. These new techniques don't just support dialogue more rapidly than the distribution of papers, notes, and memos 📄, they can sometimes sharpen the thought process and yield a better result 🧠✨.

The application of such facilities, once they're ready, will be helpful beyond the early planning stages of projects 🗓️. After plans are set and during the development of a project, a broader group of experts can be called on to work on problems and questions as they occur 🙋‍♀️. Later, as the product is being field tested (especially if testing is distributed or separated from the evaluation group), these new tools can let the test implementors interact with each other and with evaluators in a more timely manner than a post-mortum meeting 🕰️. They resolve problems and questions as they happen, and as a side benefit they produce more complete documentation of test progress 📝.

After the tests, when the product is being used operationally, these same tools can be an excellent vehicle for tapping the ideas, suggestions, and enrichments from the more creative instructors 💡. They also make it possible to act on those ideas more rapidly than is currently possible 🏃‍♀️💨.

Meanwhile, while these tools are being developed, present ARPA Network procedures for supporting dialogue in a distributed group in more traditional ways may prove helpful 📮. The Network Information Center (NIC) supports the general ARPANET community, and it's also supporting special interest groups such as the Speech Understanding Research (SUR) group 🫡. Applying these procedures could establish a valuable link between the academic-nonprofit institutions working on CBI, the centers in the Armed Forces where development and operations are taking place, and members of the network community who have an intimate understanding of the network resources available 🔗💜.

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CONCLUSION 🎀

This paper has argued that there are resources in a large General Purpose Computer Network that can be applied to CBI with high utility 💖. The argument can be extended to suggest that large dedicated CBI systems can have greater utility to users (and in the other direction, greater use) if they're tied into a General Purpose Computer Network 🌐. That's true with respect to current network capabilities and future network developments, and in some cases it can provide backup during periods of overload or system failure 🛟.

There are certainly important CBI issues still outstanding in areas of pedagogy, strategy, curriculum development, testing, etc. 📖 As CBI systems are developed, there are also important issues of control (of the development process, of the distribution of material, and of modification of those materials) 🔐. However, these issues seem to be independent of the question of whether CBI takes advantage of the resources of a large General Purpose Network 🙌.

There are important problems to be solved on the computer side too, like better tools to handle and evaluate masses of data, language, and protocols for network utilization 🛠️.

Still, there seems to be sufficient promise in what we know of present network capabilities to warrant serious consideration by the developers of CBI of how General Purpose Networks fit in 🌈. It's also worth network people considering how their resources apply to this important large application area 👑✨.

[This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry] [into the online RFC archives by H�l�ne Morin, Viag�nie 10/99]