Ready for the Future?

The potential benefits for product development and scientific research have led many organizations to initiate programs to design collaborative distributed virtual environments. The goal of NASA's programs, Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) and Intelligent Systems (IS), is to revolutionize scientific research and engineering processes by creating a distributed collaborative environment that will enable the linking of design teams and scientists from NASA, industry, and universities in the creation and operation of aerospace systelT1S and in synthesizing their missions. The programs' broad framework also will be used for scientific research and product development in complex non-aerospace applications. The advent of intelligent agents, which enabled the learner to manipulate cognitive artifacts from several perspectives or viewpoints, led to the interactive learning systems of the 1990s. The contributions of ISE and IS can be incorporated into three categories of advanced learning environments: expert-led group learning; self-paced individual learning; and collaborative learning; which, in combination, can reduce the time and cost of learning, and sustain and increase worker competencies in engineering organizations.