Cooperative problem-solving systems help users design solutions themselves as opposed to having solutions designed for them. Critiquing-presenting a reasoned opinion about a user's product or action-is a major activity of a cooperative problem-solving system. Critics make the constructed artifact "talk back" to the user. Conditions under which critics are more appropriate than autonomous expert systems are discussed. Critics should be embedded in integrated design environments along with other components, such as an argumentative hypertext system, a specification component, and a catalog. Critics support learning as a by-product of problem solving. The major subprocesses of critiquing are goal acquisition, product analysis, critiquing strategies, adaptation capability, explanation and argumentation, and advisory capability. The generality of the critiquing approach is demonstrated by discussing critiquing systems developed in our group and elsewhere. Limitations of many current critics include their inability to learn about specific user goals and their intervention strategies.

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Individuals who have knowledge about virtual environments and experience with gaming environments report a higher sense of presence that indicates that they will likely benefit more from online virtual training. Future research studies could include a larger population of expeditionary medical support, and the results obtained could be used to create a model that predicts the level of presence based on the user characteristics. To maximize results and minimize costs, only those individuals who, based on their characteristics, are supposed to have a higher sense of presence and less negative effects could be selected for online simulated virtual environment training.