AUTOMATING ID - THE IMPACT OF THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE BASES AND REFERENT SYSTEMS

The Generic Tutoring Environment (GTE) described by Kris Van Marcke is an exceptional instance of strong automation in courseware engineerin g. Given the applied nature of instructional design, an appraisal of G TE implies at least an assessment of its theoretical knowledge base an d its referent system. In this paper it is argued that GTE's theoretic al knowledge base focuses on teaching as a good model for any kind of instruction. This orientation along with its elaboration reduces the g eneric nature of GTE. From a slightly different perspective, i.e. a de viating knowledge base and referent system, two instances of weak auto mation are described. They are far less powerful than GTE but perhaps also a little bit broader with respect to their knowledge base. To con clude, three basic issues are mentioned that require intensive researc h: the separation of content and method; the formal description of lea rning environments, and the existing gap between research on design an d development. Given the current problems with automation it is argued that at this stage efforts to automate instructional design contribut e more to theory than to practice.