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Archived Project News

Last call for applications: the 5th Annual PSLC Summer School at CMU March 29, 2009

Scholarships are still available for the 5th Annual PSLC LearnLab Summer School to be held at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

  • When: Monday, July 13, 2008 - Friday, July 17, 2008
  • Cost: $950 General Fee / $250 for Graduate Students. Many scholarships available (see application.

From the Call for Applications: “We invite applications for participation in an intensive 1-week summer school on technology-enhanced learning experiments and building intelligent tutoring systems. The summer school will provide a conceptual background and considerable hands-on experience in developing, running and analyzing technology-enhanced learning experiments.”

Come build tutors with us!

CTAT 2.5.1 Released November 24, 2008

CTAT version 2.5.1 is available for download. CTAT 2.5.1 is primarily a bug-fix release. Some significant changes are:

  • Improved hint-after-error policy
  • Millisecond timestamps in logging: both Java and Flash tutors now log timestamps for “tool” and “tutor” messages with millisecond-level precision
  • Tutor-performed steps will now use selection, action, and input from the “matcher” column of the Edit Student Input Matching dialog whenever the matcher is either the Exact matcher or the Formula matcher with an operator of “=”.
  • CommTextArea, CommTextInput background color is now more easily configurable in Flash CS3. The background color of these components defaults to white.
  • CommTextArea's “html” parameter now enables HTML rendering within the component.
  • CommShell values for correct/incorrect/hint color no longer default to black in Flash CS3.

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.5.1.

CTAT 2.5 Released September 8, 2008

CTAT version 2.5 is available for download. In addition to bug fixes, new features include:

  • Windows Vista-compatible installer
  • Support for ordering constraints in example-tracing tutors
    • Link-group editor for setting and editing ordering constraints
    • Link-group visualization in the behavior graph
  • Revamped student-input matching dialog
  • Optional steps, and support for minimum and maximum numbers of times steps should be performed.
  • Even better support for formulas

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.5.

CTAT 2.4 Released June 20, 2008

CTAT version 2.4 is available for download. New features include:

  • Improved logging from Java and Flash tutors
  • Better support for formulas
  • Three new Java widgets: DorminPicture, DorminAudioButton, and DorminDrawingPad
  • Bug fixes involving the behavior of example-tracing tutors

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.4.

Downloads temporarily offline August 27, 2008

Please contact us if you'd like to download CTAT.

Open position with CTAT: Flash research programmer April 29, 2008

We are looking for a research programmer to help our lab in the development of web-based tutoring software. The candidate's duties will include the development of computer-based tutors, using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT), maintaining and extending the Flash-based tools within CTAT, and helping to create, maintain, and extend a website with CTAT-built tutors for middle-school math.

Read the full job description and apply online

PSLC Summer School Registration is Open February 26, 2008

The PSLC Summer School is an intensive 1-week course on technology-enhanced learning experiments and building intelligent tutoring systems. The summer school will provide a conceptual background and considerable hands-on experience in developing, running and analyzing technology-enhanced learning experiments. This year's summer school will be held July 7-11, 2008 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

In the Tutor Development track, CTAT project leads and staff will be present to help you develop an intelligent tutor with CTAT:

In the tutor development track, your goal will be to implement a prototype computer-based tutor, using authoring tools developed by PSLC reseachers, such as CTAT (the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools) which supports the creation of intelligent tutoring systems, or TuTalk, which is used to develop tutorial dialogue systems that interact with students in natural language.

Participation is free. The application deadline is midnight April 2, 2008.

Read more about the PSLC Summer School and register online.

CTAT 2.3 Released November 30, 2007

CTAT version 2.3 is available for download. New features include:

  • "Start state" editing at any time
  • Formulas, a powerful new method for adding flexibility and generality to an example-tracing tutor
  • Beta release of the "Number Line" Flash component
  • Logging updates
  • Numerous bug fixes

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.3.

New version of Flash Logging Library September 14, 2007

We've released an update to the Flash Logging Library, v2.3.8. This version contains support for logging media events related to video and audio. Download the Flash Logging Library, see the updated API documentation, or read about how to use the logging library in your Flash application.

CTAT Survey - Tell us what you think! August 8, 2007

We want to know what you think of CTAT. Have you used CTAT? Was it helpful? Usable? What could we do to make it better? Tell us on our survey. (It's anonymous and only 10 questions long.)

CTAT 2.2 Released June 13, 2007

CTAT version 2.2 is available for download. New features include:

  • Capability to view logs of tutor usage in Excel.
  • Usability improvements for behavior graph editing.
  • Mass production improvements
  • Four new Flash components (CommButton, CommScore, CommTimer, and CTATPreloader)

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.2.

CTAT 2.1 Released May 11, 2007

CTAT version 2.1 is available for download. New features include:

  • Logging of both Flash and Java tutors in XML that conforms to version 4 of the tutor_message DTD.
  • Extensible 'matchers' for comparing actual student input with a production rule's prediction of student input in a cognitive tutor.
  • More nimble navigation of a behavior graph
  • Simplified default working memory structure for cognitive tutors
  • More system status messages that are displayed in the Jess console
  • Numerous bug fixes

Read more in the release notes, or download CTAT 2.1.

CTAT 2.0 (beta) Released February 06, 2007

CTAT version 2.0 (beta) is available for download. New features include a more powerful Example-tracing algorithm; reorganized program menus; separation of tutor 'type' and 'authoring mode'; behavior graph visualization with JGraph; support for showing and hiding interface elements during tutoring; and the first release of the tutoring service, a new server-client architecture that further separates the tutoring engine from the student interface, allowing for fully functional light-weight tutors.

See the release notes for more information, or download now.

CTAT 1.6.3 Released December 14, 2006

CTAT version 1.6.3 is available for download. CTAT 1.6.3 is a maintenance release that addresses bugs in CTAT 1.6.2. All users of CTAT 1.6.x are recommended to upgrade. See the release notes for more information.

PSLC Summer School 2007 Dates December 4, 2006

Next year's PSLC Summer School will be held June 18–22, 2007. We'll post a link to the 2007 application here when it becomes available. The likely application deadline is early to mid-February 2007.

CTAT 1.6.2 Released November 15, 2006

CTAT version 1.6.2 is available for download. CTAT 1.6.2 is primarily a maintenance release that addresses a number of bugs in CTAT 1.6.1. All users of CTAT 1.6.x are recommended to upgrade to 1.6.2.

CTAT version 1.6.2 also includes two new features: a modified DorminComposer Java widget that allows a student to delete answers; and support for integrating CTAT Example-tracing Tutors in Carnegie Learning 2006 curricula units. See the release notes for more information.

Summer School 2007 Pre-Announcement September 8, 2006

Over 30 participants attended this year's PSLC Summer School, a week-long course that focused on creating technology-enhanced courses and learning experiments, and on the tools used to design, implement, run, and analyze them. This November, PSLC organizers will announce the details of next year's summer school. We'll post the specifics here as they become available.

Announcing CTAT workshops August 20, 2006

The CTAT Team will be offering a series of small workshops on authoring and delivering CTAT tutors. Our first workshop will be on Thursday, August 24th, 2-4PM (Newell-Simon Hall room 1109 at CMU). The title will be Is CTAT right for me? Understanding your options for building CTAT tutors in Java and Flash.

Please let us know if you'll be attending, and mention any questions you have or topics you'd like to explore—we'll do our best to answer them at the workshop. If they're beyond the scope of Thursday's workshop, we might plan a future workshop around them.

Update: Slides from the first workshop are available here.

CTAT 1.6.1 Released July 26, 2006

CTAT version 1.6.1 is available for download.

CTAT 1.6 Released June 23, 2006

CTAT version 1.6 is available for download. New features include Jess-Flash integration for creating cognitive tutors in Flash, better support for customizing tutor behavior, improved Jess performance, tutor-performed steps, new Flash components, and Simulated Student, a machine-learning agent that facilitates authoring of Cognitive Tutors.

2nd Annual PSLC LearnLab Summer School - Last Call for Applications
May 18, 2006

An intensive, five-day course focused on creating technology-enhanced courses and learning experiments and on tools to support the design, implementation, running, and analysis of such experiments. The course is free, and will be held at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, from Monday, July 31, 2006 to Friday, August 4, 2006. The application deadline has been extended to May 26. Notification of acceptance will be given by June 2. Update: Application deadline has passed. Thanks to all that applied.

Download new papers about CTAT May 5, 2006

Two recently accepted conference papers are now available from the CTAT publications page. The first, to appear in the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2006), reports on the results of a small-scale study that examined efficiency gains in tutor development with CTAT. The second, to appear in the proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2006), details a number of recent CTAT innovations through case studies. Both papers provide overviews of the current state of the CTAT project.

Milestones in the History of Cognitive Tutors April 12, 2006

Explore two decades of research and development history on Cognitive Tutors. The timeline also provides audio clips and links to research papers.

CTAT 1.5.1 Released December 12, 2005

CTAT 1.5.1 is an interim release that fixes two bugs for unordered groups and advanced student input matching.

CTAT 1.5 Released November 3, 2005

See the release notes for download links and information on features and bug fixes.