The LEAP Authoring Tool: Supporting complex courseware authoring through reuse, rapid prototyping, and interactive visualizations

An important goal of current work in computer-based learning environments is to develop systems that combine the richness and effectiveness of an individually crafted intelligent tutoring system (ITS) with the generality and flexibility of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) authoring tool. Our effort to achieve this goal is demonstrated in the Learn, Explore and Practice (LEAP) ITS shell and its courseware development component, The LEAP Authoring Tool (LAT). The LAT was developed for use by non-programmer subject matter experts to create courseware for use in the LEAP system. In this paper we will provide a brief description of LEAP and then describe the goals, design, implementation, and evaluation of the LAT, and discuss the process we followed in the development of the LAT and some of the lessons we have learned along the way.