Separating the simulation component from a tutoring component seems like a good idea, perhaps obvious in retrospect. Is that all there is to V-CTC?
No, a mere separation would not ensure reusability. Steps toward a standardized means of connecting the simulations and tutoring components further facilitate the integration, but even that is not enough: that is similar to providing a standard kind of phone jack. Standard protocols for communicating event information and more importantly knowledge between simulations and tutoring systems are required. Tutors and simulations model different kinds of things. Simulations model physical systems; tutors model teaching behavior and cognitive learning systems. One models things, the other models thinking. There is overlap in that the tutor must be able to track the important events that occur in the simulation and be able to talk about them. It must know about the domain objects, but in a different way than the simulation does. V-CTC uses an ontology to provide a means of integrating the knowledge that the simulation has about its domain concepts and the tutor has about its tutorial concepts
