IntroductionAuthor(s): PETER GOODYEARSource: Instructional Science, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, Special Issue: GTE: A Generic Knowledge BasedTutoring Engine (JULY 1998), p. 145Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23371436 .

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Instructional Science 26: 145,1998. 145

Introduction

The origins of this Special Issue lie in a paper which Kris van Marcke, the

Guest Editor, submitted to the journal in 1995.1 have followed the work of

Kris and his colleagues on GTE (Generic Tutoring Environment) for some

years and indeed some of my own research has taken place in and around the

fringes of the various European R&D projects which have both illuminated, and been illuminated by, the development of GTE. During this time, there has

been no single, authoritative archival source which can be used as a reference

for GTE. I asked Kris to let Instructional Science provide a home for such a

source, by modifying the article he had submitted and by agreeing to be Guest

Editor for a special issue of the journal centred on GTE and its key ideas.

This Special Issue represents the culmination of that effort. It brings

together the work of a number of leading researchers from Europe and North

America who share an interest in the processes through which computer-aided

learning resources can be more efficiently and effectively designed and imple mented. The design and implementation of such resources, for which we can

use the shorthand term 'courseware', continues to prove a major obstacle to the widespread exploitation of computer technology in support of learning. Work on courseware engineering is therefore of great practical significance, as well as a site for painstaking enquiry into the nature of computational

approaches to teaching and instruction.

The contributors to this Special Issue were asked to reflect upon the achieve

ments, assumptions and general approach of GTE; to compare and contrast

it with their own recent research, and to use this opportunity to outline some

possibilities for future research and development work. I hope you will agree that the combination of responses to this challenge has created for us a

stimulating and very valuable collection of papers on a topic which is central

to the concerns of Instructional Science.

PETER GOODYEAR

Lancaster University, U.K.

June 1997

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