Most of the prior descriptions of the important relationships in Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) projects have focused on the relationships involved in their use in classrooms, treating their presence in the classroom as a given. There has been some discussion of how intelligent tutors are developed and of how an Intelligent Tutor, once developed, can be disseminated widely, but there has been considerably less discussion of the deployment of prototype ITSs. In this paper, we present a model of the relationships involved in deploying a prototype intelligent tutoring system in order to conduct formative evaluation. We show that field technical personnel play a pivotal role in this process, serving as vital conduits for information and negotiation between ITS researchers and school personnel such as teachers and principals. This model was developed using Contextual Inquiries and interviews of project members.

11 pages

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