Harnessing simulations in the service of education: the Interact Simulation Environment

Abstract The failure of simulations to make headway in computer-aided education (CAE) is attributed to their high development costs and apparent lack of cost-effectiveness, and to the high levels of teacher involvement required for their effective use as learning tools. An environment in which a simulation can be fully integrated into a distributed hypermedia system, it is argued, provides the capability of overcoming both problems, thus promoting the widespread use of simulations in CAE. Such an environment has been developed within the Interact Project. The architecture of this environment is described, as is the manner in which it permits the treatment of simulations as a form of expression which can be combined flexibly with other media by an individual lecturer. The resource-based approach to simulation development is argued to avoid ‘not invented here’ syndrome, and, as a consequence, increase the cost-effectiveness of simulations.