Simulations are designed to provide warfighters with realistic practice. Simulator-based training, on the other hand must provide measured practice plus feedback. Doing so yields efficient and effective training. However, it is often difficult and time-consuming to construct and configure a simulation environment to provide measures and feedback. Creating performance measures may involve a lengthy cycle of measure specification, implementation of the measure in software, testing in the environment, and then repetition of the cycle to correct residual errors. Configuration of performance measures to tailor specific feedback to the trainee is no simpler; in fact, it is often skipped altogether. A simulation environment may rely on a set of more-or-less permanently configured performance measures intended to apply to everyone. Culling the output is left to overburdened trainers and their staff.

Ongoing projects for the U.S. Navy are focused on developing technology to provide capabilities to define new measures and assessments rapidly and then to configure them for specific training missions. We do this using simple visual tools that leverage a Human Performance Measurement Language. HPML is understandable to instructors and systems, and it also supports automated dialogues with other automated programs within a simulator environment. In this paper, we define HPML and associated tools, and we discuss its potential to achieve a significant increase in training productivity and, ultimately, warfighter readiness.