Virtual Medic (vMedic) is a single-player and multi-player training system that uses game-engine based simulation and state-of-the-art instructional development technology to support a trainee’s need to master a variety of competencies and to apply them in unique situations. The simulation immerses trainee into scenario driven events intended to teach and evaluate a trainee’s knowledge regarding the essential tactics, techniques and procedures required to successfully perform as an Army Combat Medic and Combat Lifesaver (CLS). Those key tasks include the ability to assess casualties, perform triage, provide initial treatment, and prepare a casualty for evacuation under battlefield conditions.

The Emergency Management Staff Trainer is a multi-player simulation-based exercise system geared toward emergency response professionals. EMST provides scenarios, exercises, and other capabilities that support the structure of the National Incident Management System (NIMS), including both individual and team training for the fifteen FEMA Emergency Support Functions (ESFs). EMST is an all-hazards trainer, with a range of scenarios including natural disasters, terrorist attacks, pandemic, and civil unrest. Each EMST exercise scenario presents an unfolding situation through email, news videos, website articles, simulated phone calls, meetings, maps, images, and other injects, and requires the participant to take action to respond to or mitigate the situation.

EMST is web-based and requires no software installation; participants simply log in through any available web browser and proceed through an exercise. Scenarios within EMST are scalable and can provide role-specific training for a single person, a team, or multiple agencies working together in any domain where communication, collaboration, workflow, processes and procedures are critical. EMST also incorporates an After Action Review capability and automatically assesses how well each participant handles each situation, which results in a full readiness assessment. Although EMST is broad in scope, scenarios can be tailored to specifically address the complex requirements associated with the disaster medical response community. These tailored scenarios will enable a disaster response team to achieve particular readiness levels over a variety of mission types. Readiness levels can be achieved individually, as a team, and as an organization.

NATO’s Allied Command Transformation is investigating technologies that could be used to augment or replace existing methods for education and training of NATO staff. In order to facilitate this need, ECS has been tasked with developing a series of Virtual Worlds for NATO-ACT within the Nexus Virtual World platform. In support of both Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean and NATO’s anti-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa, the next technology demonstration is focused on Maritime Interdiction Operations.

First, the trainees will learn the MIO material using courseware and live instruction in a virtual classroom. They will then participate in an immersive team-based mission to board and search a suspect merchant shipping vessel. Trainees will be tasked with crew control and identification, as well as searching the vessel for weapons, IED components, other contraband or suspect cargo. The trainees score will be tracked, challenging them to prove that they met the training objectives. This advanced learning technology will help teams better prepare for the live training at the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Center (NMIOTC).

The Virtual Medical Simulation Training Center (VMSTC) is contained within US Nexus, a 3D, immersive, avatar-based Virtual World platform developed through cooperation from multiple government agencies to improve and augment their existing instructional technologies and capabilities. This collaboration allows individuals and groups to meet online for a variety of class activities, including lectures, discussions, case studies, projects, papers, exams, study groups and labs. These 3D Communities supplement traditional training methods by providing contextual 3D environments where Warfighters can work together to practice and understand the concepts that are being taught.

The VMSTC provides an instructorless, “adaptive learning” capability that delivers tailored learning content to each student based on learning styles, student motivation, and skill levels. After logging into the VMSTC, students proceed into a registration area of a virtual school that houses classrooms, an auditorium, a lane training area, and courtyard for informal learning experiences. The student registers at a VMSTC by taking a learning style and skills assessment that determines the most suitable learning content, such as didactic, video, or interactive gaming content. As a student progresses through content, skills assessments determine whether or not they can continue to progress through the levels of the curriculum. Additionally, the assessment determines whether or not the content tailored to meet the student’s needs should be adapted in response to their performance. This “tailoring” continues during the students’ progression through the content, which can occur 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and at their own pace. The students also have access to other students that are also in world at the VMSTC for informal learning opportunities and collaboration.

The US Nexus is a Virtual World platform being developed through cooperation from different government agencies to improve and augment their existing instructional technologies and capabilities. Virtual Worlds consist of 3D environments where students, experts, educators, and leaders can interact through representations of themselves called avatars.  Each customizable avatar is part of a learner-focused 3D social network where individuals interact with others through different types of virtual worlds, virtual classrooms, social networks, and communities of practice. This interconnected system incorporates a comprehensive knowledge network and numerous tools to help capture, tag and store knowledge content and other information from a variety of sources. The collaborative technologies within the Nexus Platform allow public and private communication between individuals and groups to give user’s access to a blended curriculum.  The curriculum uses virtual, avatar-based environments to provide both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities that employ various types of content that augment traditional methods of training.

The Nexus Virtual Worlds platform delivers collaborative 3D environments and applications that integrate with an organization’s existing technology infrastructure using common architectures, interfaces and specifications.  This transcends the traditional boundaries of proprietary systems by providing a comprehensive environment for integrating new technology, tools and information and enables Nexus to reach large numbers of people quickly, allow for the rapid tailoring of scenarios, and provides simulated experiences that transfer into critical thinking skills and high levels of performance.

The MMA consists of two games available for a student to play, both of which can be played individually or as a group initiated by an instructor. The Knowledge Challenge game presents students with a multiple choice question and possible answers based on the CLS and 68W curriculum. The Casualty Challenge game presents students with different scenarios that are based on the CLS curriculum. The scenarios present a 2-Dimensional casualty, some background information, and 3 possible interventions available to the student for treating the casualty. The Casualty Challenge game tests student comprehension of course materials by allowing them to select treatment interventions and forcing students to make choices from initial assessment of the casualty through filling out the Field Medical Card. Immediate feedback is provided to confirm correct actions and to notify a student when they have selected incorrect actions. Multiple correct decision paths are allowed since in real medical emergencies, there are often multiple treatments or interventions that result in acceptable care. Students are timed and scored based on performance when playing both games while an instructor can either post a Leaderboard to motivate a group to improve performance. The instructor may also run reports that provide them detailed analysis regarding students’ performance.

The MMA was developed as a platform independent web application and targets mobile platforms such as the iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, and Android smart phones as well as desktop PCs. While the MMA capability allows students to continue to learn during downtime, it also easily lends itself as a sustainment training capability available outside of the classroom, making training accessible anywhere, anytime. Whether in the classroom, or prior to mission deployment, the MMA will help future soldiers to be better prepared for medical emergencies.

The Computer Based Corpsmen Training System is an immersive, first person Medic trainer that presents learners with interactive 3D Serious Games for learning and practicing battlefield medicine. Commonly known as CBCTS, this system builds upon the US Army’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care Simulation, and its goal is to instruct Marine Corps and  Navy  Corpsman.

The CBCTS involves the creation of mission-driven scenarios to present learners with synthetic “casualties” generated from realistic visual, behavioral, and physiological models. Medics are expected to keep the injured warfighter alive and get them evacuated safely out of harms way. The corpsman trainee takes on the first person view of a corpsman attached to a Marine squad in Afghanistan. During the mission teammates are wounded and the corpsman must balance triage, treatment, and safety to successfully keep his people alive and prepare them for evacuation. The CBCTS implements skill building exercises that involve triage, treatment planning, safety, evacuation information, and trauma management. At the same time, the CBCTS requires an interaction with other members of your team so as to successfully complete each mission. Within each mission, every casualty can survive with the correct treatment applied within the critical period of time. If the player fails to assess injuries correctly or spends too much time treating one casualty, others casualties may die.

After each scenario, learners are presented with an After Action Review that analyzes and evaluates their decision-making skills. The AAR evaluates every critical measure of treatment on a casualty and provides an explanation of a learner’s performance and an assessment of that performance.  In this way, constructive and monitored progress can be measured.

The CBCTS can be implemented into a program of instruction in many different ways. Its Serious Gaming vignettes can be used to supplement live instruction, it can be blended with other instructional systems to provide synchronous or asynchronous learning opportunities, or can be used as the cornerstone of a stand-alone, online capability. In all cases, the CBCTS will help increase learner engagement, improve training efficiency and create an unparalleled return on investment for all government customers.

AAI Corporation is funding ECS to develop and deploy a prototype applicaton that consist of SCORM conformant, web-based courseware and immersive 3D simulations. This application combines advanced interactive training techniques to provide the knowledge, skills, and practice necessary to support the responsibilities and tasks required for maintenance and operations of the Shadow UAV. It also has the capability to generate in-depth instruction and feedback that automatically addresses different levels of student proficiency within the range of complex training objectives. Courseware content and simulations developed as part of this effort will be deployed through a Learning Management System and will also be embedded into the system to allow true anytime, anywhere training.

The Joint ADL Co-Laboratory, in cooperation with the US Navy, is funding the development of the Simulations for Integrated Learning Environments (SIMILE™) project. This project is focused on development of an assessment data model and associated authoring tools that are capable of capturing complex assessment data across multiple learning and training systems.

One key component of this effort is to implement, test and evaluate this technology as it is integrated into training environments that use different game/simulation engines and/or address different training domains. Specifically, the project will integrate assessment capabilities into a live simulation through the One Tactical Engagement Simulation System and with multiple virtual simulations using the Gamebryo and Delta3D game engines to ensure that training objectives are being met by the learner.

The Civil Support Team mission is to support civil authorities at a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosives (CBRNE) incident site by identifying CBRNE agents/substances, assessing current and projected consequences, advising on response measures and assisting with requests for additional support. CSTs are a critical component of the response plans for any large scale disasters.

The CSTT builds upon traditional methods of WMD training to deliver complex information to a diverse, geographically dispersed audience in a short period of time. It also provides an opportunity to provide practical, hands-on experience in situations that can not easily be practiced safely using real scenarios while ensuring the essential skills are sustained once they are attained by an individual or team. CST training management is an integral component of this trainer that ensures each CST is proficient and ready to operate in response to large scale disasters.