Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator

Number 1, 2008

1-24
eLearning Applications based on 3D Graphics Annotation Techniques

Authors: Dorian Gorgan, Teodor Stefanut, Madalina Veres, Istvan Gabos

Abstract

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Number of views: 348

The graphics annotation in user interfaces, instead of classical radio buttons, check boxes and other controls, supports new interaction techniques that provide the user possibilities for free form presentation, highlighting user’s creativity, practical ability, and artistic imagination. The graphics annotation performed directly on the 3D object’s surface requires the development of new drawing algorithms, annotation models, and interaction techniques. The research experiments in eTrace eLearning Environment the model and techniques for graphics annotation supporting the automatic evaluation in the context of eLearning lessons. The paper describes shortly solutions for the steps through which the teacher describes the annotation related constraints, recording the annotation specifications in the lesson’s model, achievement of student’s annotation, knowledge quantification, and final mark computation. This paper details mainly the first step of the constraint description. The paper proposes new research directions concerning with knowledge evaluation approaches instead of the common multiple choice questions.

25-38
Finding flow: some implications for the utilization of new technologies

Authors: Ana Maria Marhan

Abstract

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Number of views: 367

As computers and internet are becoming an increasingly prominent presence in our daily life, a stronger need to better understand the behavior of persons using these technologies emerges as well. During the recent years, the psychological concept of flow has been providing the theoretical and methodological framework for several research studies on user experience in web navigation, e-commerce, electronic gaming or e-learning, among others. It was Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi who, back in the 70s, proposed flow as a coined term describing the psychological state experienced by a person fully immersed in an activity that is performed with a maximum efficiency, producing satisfaction, and an overall positive emotional state. Among other benefits of experiencing flow in daily or professional activities, as well as in interacting with new technology, the studies undertaken by now have been repeatedly emphasizing: a better learning efficiency, intensifying the exploratory behavior, positive emotional experience, feeling of control, but also impact on users’ interaction patters, for instance by increasing the number of revisiting of the same website. The phenomena described above will be discussed in this article, with the specific aim to provide an analysis of the main components of flow experience, of the relationships among them, as well as of their potential to inform the design of user interaction with the new technologies.

39-56
Usability evaluation of a learning scenario for Biology implemented onto an augmented reality platform

Authors: Costin Pribeanu, Dragoş Daniel Iordache, Alexandru Balog

Abstract

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Number of views: 347

The combination between real and virtual in the augmented reality systems requires suitable interaction techniques that need to be tested with users in order to avoid usability problems. Formative evaluation aims at finding usability problems as early as possible and is useful to the development of interactive systems featuring novel interaction techniques. This paper presents an approach to the formative evaluation of a Biology scenario developed onto an educational augmented reality platform. The evaluation has been done during a summer school and afterwards. Two methods have been used: usability inspection and user testing. The basic idea of our approach was to conduct user testing twice. In this respect, the scenario has been tested with a small number of users during the summer school in order to get a fast feedback from students having good Biology knowledge. The testing has been repeated in different conditions and with a larger number of representative users. During and after each experiment, quantitative and qualitative measures have been collected by using a usability questionnaire and a log file analysis. In this paper we describe the experiments, we present the methods used and we comparatively analyze the results.

57-72
Paronym Generation Algorithms for Malapropism Correction

Authors: Costin-Gabriel Chiru, Stefan Trausan-Matu, Traian Rebedea

Abstract

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Number of views: 447

The Web pages have been intensively used lately for automatic or semiautomatic extraction of useful information. Because of the open nature of the Web, the texts that have no spelling errors are very rare exceptions. One of the most wide-spread errors in Internet texts is the malapropism. Thus, malapropism detection and correction algorithms have been investigated. The detection algorithms are based on text cohesion while the correction algorithms use precompiled paronyms dictionaries. Therefore, it is very important to identify efficient algorithms for generating paronyms. In the present paper, we make an overview presentation of the paronyms and of the methods that can be used in order to build a paronyms dictionary. A presentation of the main errors that can lead to malapropism is also provided and the way these errors can be corrected using a paronyms dictionary is suggested.

73-84
Approaches in Automatic Usability Evaluation. Comparative Study

Authors: Adriana-Mihaela Guran, Grigoreta-Sofia Cojocar

Abstract

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Number of views: 317

Usability testing is a growing field with more and more companies getting aware of the importance of assuring a good usability of their products. Specialists conduct the tests and they use various kinds of tools to help them gather and analyze data. Some of the activities involved in the usability evaluation process can be automated, providing a great help to the usability specialists. This paper aims at presenting three approaches for automatic usability evaluation, together with a comparative study. The proposed approaches are related to the automatic gathering and analyzing interaction data. Usually, data from the interaction between the user and the system is acquired using logging, which involves code instrumentation. In this paper, two alternative approaches are presented that avoid code instrumentation: the use of Aspect Oriented Programming and the use of accessibility APIs. The first approach is integrated in an agent based architecture having the goal of automatic usability evaluation also. The two approaches are compared based on development and metrics computation complexity criteria.