Volume 1 of the study reports a work effort to define and give guidelines for the acquisition of cost-effective alternative continuing education (CE) systems to prevent the technological obsolescence of Air Force military scientific and engineering officer personnel. A detailed background survey of the problem was conducted using questionnaires, personal interviews, and literature searches. Various requirements for the updating of technological knowledge and skills were defined. Current CE programs within universities, industry, and government agencies, both civilian and military, are reviewed and compared. Literature on the characteristics, causes, and results of technological obsolescence are reviewed, and guidelines for the development of an obsolescence scale are presented. An evaluation of alternate methods of CE is presented. An "ideal future system" of individualized automated CE, suing student-computer interactive consoles, is developed. Three alternative systems, presently deployable, are developed and described. Motivational subsystems to promote the effectiveness of both the alternative systems and the current Air Force CE system are developed. The data and specifications for the acquisition and test of each of the alternative systems are presented. (NTIS)