Structuring a Simulation Exercise Database Using STREX

When initiating a training course, an instructor is faced with the complex task of retrieving the appropriate exercises and building the relevant sequence (a teaching module) to help the trainees gradually acquire a given skill, either as individuals or as a team. Retrieval of an exercise is a complex task because most of the useful selection criteria (e.g. the teaching goals) do not explicitly appear as part of the data set that makes up the exercise. Available exercise data mainly refer to parameter values that the simulation software will further manipulate in real- time. Furthermore, lack of information about the exercise complexity level makes it difficult to arrange exercises in a structured sequence. The availability of a set of training aids that will enable a population of instructors to characterize existing exercises and further extract structured teaching modules therefore represents a significant step forward compared to today's instructional environments. This paper briefly describes STREX (STRucturing EXercise database) as a generic approach to answer this kind of instructional need. Using examples from both TRUck Simulator for Training (TRUST) and Crew Training Simulator for the LECLERC battle tank, it describes how instructors are given the possibility to add new selection criteria to the existing set (possibly dependent on the previous ones), visualize the exercise database contents using a tree-like representation and generate teaching modules according to the trainees' needs. STREX is a tool that is independent of any training domain and can be connected to any exercise creation tool; STREX software integration simply requires the importing of the exercise data into the STREX database. In order to generate a teaching module, the instructor has to define the number of exercises, set the desired selection criteria and their relative importance and finally characterize them by entering trigger values. STREX will then generate a balanced module meeting these constraints; the instructor will remain free to modify the balance of the module as well as its contents.