What the Logs Can Tell You: Mediation to Implement Feedback in Training

The problem addre_ed by Mediation to Implement Feedback in Training (MIFT) is to customize the feedback from training ex_ by exploiting knowledge about the training scenario, training objectives, and specific student/teacher needs. We achieve this by inserting an intelligent mediation layer into the information flow from observations collected during training exercises to the display and user interface. Knowledge about training objectives, scenarios, and tasks is maintained in the mediating layer. A designer constraint is that domain experts must be able to extend mediators by adding domain-specific knowledge that supports additional aggregations, abstractions, and views of the results of training exercises. The MIFT mediation concept is intended to be integrated with existing military training exercise management tools and reduce the cost of developing and maintaining separate feedback and evaluation tools for every training simulator and every set of customer needs. The MIFT Architecture is designed as a set of independently reusable components which interact with each other through standardized formalisms such as the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML). 1 Mediation applied to military exercise management The initialapplicationof MIFT isthe ExerciseAnalysisand Feedback phase of military exercise management as schematically shown in Figure 1. More precisely, the focus is on simulation-based army training exercises [1]. MIFT handles some of the information flows involved in training exercise management. The intent of MIFT is to supplement the flow of information from simulations to evaluation and review and complete a feedback loop by supplying information to plan and tailor future training