The Learning Federation


	Instructional Design: Using Games and Simulations in Learning Discovering how people learn, how experts organize information, and the skills of effective learners.

	Question Generation and Answer Systems How to take advantage of the benefits offered by emerging technologies to facilitate inquiry and build profiles of learner’s interests, capabilities and learning styles.

	Learner Modeling and Assessment What learner characteristics to measure, when to measure and how to use the information.

	Building Simulations and Synthetic Environments How to build simulations that reflect current understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics that permit exploration-based pedagogy

	Integration Tools for Building and Maintaining Advanced Learning Systems A plan to develop engineering strategies for using learning system tools to build learning systems.

Question generation is understood to play a central role in learning because it both reflects and promotes active learning and construction of knowledge. A key challenge to researchers and practitioners alike is to find ways to facilitate inquiry by taking advantage of the benefits offered by emerging technologies. Further exploration is needed in the realm of intuitive interfaces that allow the learner to use spoken language, or coach the learner on how to ask questions, tools to enable answers to learners questions – including linking learners to real people, as well as the creation of intelligent systems that ask the learner questions or present problems that require major attention and conversation.

This component roadmap provides:

An assessment of the R&D needs
Identification of key research questions and technical requirements
A detailed chronology of R&D activities over the next 3-10 years
Long-term goals and shorter-term benchmarks

Download the complete Question Generation and Answering Systems component roadmap to learn more about the detailed R&D tasks related to these research questions.