Description: In an effort to support a range of social educations in the context of constantly evolving mission objectives, this proposal focuses on the creation of a framework that can be used to rapidly construct virtual training scenarios, execute those scenarios and, finally, measure the effectiveness of the training in behavior improvement. The first stage of the framework is a scenario generation tool that can be used directly by SMEs from various social and psychological domains to design situation and training materials without requiring any programming or artistic knowledge. The output from the scenario generation tool is directly imported into a 3D virtual team training engine that allows multiple players to engage in the exercise from a variety of platforms, including standalone applications, web and mobile devices. After the players have completed the scenario, an After Action Review tool generates on-the-fly, relevant, SCORM-based training material to further educate each player on areas that warrant improvement. The final piece to the framework is a clear process for evaluating the value of the training in terms of short and long term impact on behavior. This proposal acknowledges the need for a system that NASA can use long-term for creating mission relevant training situations as well as to distribute to SMEs in various disciplines for constantly new and improved training.

Benefits: The framework created under this proposal is initially targeted at creating a behavioral impact in the domains listed in the SBIR topic (e.g., cross-cultural interactions, leadership, psychological support, etc.) in the context of complex mission tasks. However, the training scenarios created for the system could be expanded to other domains within NASA. For example, it may be desirable to use the system for pure virtual training of various tasks without any social or psychological training. Additionally, outside the scope of training, the system could be used as a diagnostic tool to determine the attitudes of players. In this mode, the player¿s results could be monitored to determine the social or psychological appropriateness of his or her role in a mission.

Outside of NASA, the framework could be used by the military or emergency responders to augment their existing training systems. Given the openness of the system, it would be straightforward to create training scenarios that are relevant to those domains and to execute the evaluation process to ensure it is having a measurable behavioral impact. In the field of social and psychological academic research, the framework could be used for various studies, without requiring users in those fields to obtain assistance from software engineers and 3D modelers. In addition, the evaluation process would be attractive to such research studies for drawing conclusions on a training methodology.