From Desktop to Cloud: Collaborative Authoring for Intelligent Tutoring

Authoring of computer-based instruction employing intelligent tutoring (IT) presents many challenges. Chief among them is that for non-trivial domains, the knowledge and skills required to author maximally effective instruction often do not reside in a single individual. More often the best outcome is achieved by collaboration among some combination of instructional designers, subject matter experts, psychologists, traditional educators, and in some cases, software engineers. To meet this challenge, well designed collaborative authoring systems are needed. Cloud computing technologies, such as Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), offer new possibilities for the construction of distributed authoring systems. In this paper we discuss several high-level design considerations for developing collaborative IT authoring systems, focusing on extending the capabilities of the existing Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT).