Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

Virtual pedagogical model: development scenarios

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Brief History of Prompt: Leveraging Language Models. (Through Advanced Prompting)

This paper presents a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of prompt engineering and generation in the field of natural language processing (NLP). Starting from the early language models and information retrieval systems, we trace the key developments that have shaped prompt engineering over the years. The introduction of attention mechanisms in 2015 revolutionized language understanding, leading to advancements in controllability and context-awareness. Subsequent breakthroughs in reinforcement learning techniques further enhanced prompt engineering, addressing issues like exposure bias and biases in generated text. We examine the significant contributions in 2018 and 2019, focusing on fine-tuning strategies, control codes, and template-based generation. The paper also discusses the growing importance of fairness, human-AI collaboration, and low-resource adaptation. In 2020 and 2021, contextual prompting and transfer learning gained prominence, while 2022 and 2023 witnessed the emergence of advanced techniques like unsupervised pre-training and novel reward shaping. Throughout the paper, we reference specific research studies that exemplify the impact of various developments on prompt engineering. The journey of prompt engineering continues, with ethical considerations being paramount for the responsible and inclusive future of AI systems

Towards Personalised Home Care Systems

Home care is increasingly seen as a promising alternative to traditional care services. Programming home care systems remains a significant challenge considering the potentially large scale of deployment, the differences between individual care needs, and the progressive nature of ageing. In this paper, we present ongoing work on programming home care systems to support personalisation, adaptability over time, and dependability. A policy-based approach is used to build such systems. We present the technical details of our approach, including a policy language for home care and the corresponding system architecture. Policy examples are used to illustrate how the approach supports personalisation of home care services

Multimodal Assessment in Action: What We Really Value in New Media Texts

As the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing illustrates, writing teachers at all educational levels can no longer ignore multimodality and the challenges that come with incorporating multimodal writing—texts composed using a combination of sound, images, video, etc.—into the classroom (NCTE, Framework). A chief struggle most writing teachers face is how to evaluate the multimodal texts their students produce, texts that are inherently diverse. In answer to the calls of scholars such as Yancey, Herrington, and Moran for research exploring multimodal assessment in situated classroom practice, my dissertation examines what K-16 writing teachers are and should be valuing in multimodal compositions and why. By investigating what practitioners and theorists value in new media texts, we can better align our multimodal assessment theories and practices to support effective instruction and assessment of multimodal writing. My study brings together theory and practice to provide guidance for writing teachers to navigate the challenges of multimodal assessment. My findings culminate in a multimodal assessment heuristic based in “design” that allows for the evaluation of not only the product, but also the situated composing practices of writers (Purdy). First inspired by my analysis of the multimodal assessment scholarship, then validated by both my analysis of the assignment sheets and interviews, my design-based assessment model provides a flexible, theoretically-grounded approach to multimodal assessment that reflects what this study suggests writing teacher-scholars most value in their students’ new media texts. My design-based multimodal assessment model integrates the three primary theoretical orientations that most influence multimodal assessment: multiliteracies/multimodality, rhetoric and composition, and new media. It forefronts the importance of valuing students’ situated composing processes and highlights multimodality’s goal of developing writer’s metacognitive awareness and sense of agency. A design-based approach to multimodal assessment emphasizes materially aware composing practices that introduce students to new composing technologies and the principles of graphic design, while not overemphasizing the technology itself. And it places rhetorical savvy as the primary objective. Finally, a design-based approach to multimodal assessment helps break down the dichotomy between print-based and digital texts, pushing writing teachers to embrace the notion that all texts are multimodal

From Page to Program: A Study of Stakeholders in Multimodal First-Year Composition Curriculum and Program Design

Much of the writing we do today, whether for class, work, or personal engagement, relies on some form of media. Whether a computer to draft assignments, or smartphones to post on social media, technology has solidified its presence within our everyday writing experiences. Over the past two decades, as media has asserted its role in spaces outside of the classroom, its intersection with education, and composition classrooms specifically, has become more pronounced. These intersections have required that writing scholars, teachers, and writing program administrators (WPAs) remain attentive to the changing shape and modalities of composition. Responses to this include a wealth of research on the impact of changing composing technologies, as well as shared Outcomes Statements and position papers that offer guidelines for how administrators and teachers might incorporate multimodality into their writing curricula and classrooms. While these statements offer the language of objectives and outcomes, what they don’t support is the practical reality of making multimodality happen. What is a WPA to do? My dissertation is a qualitative study of first-year composition curriculum and writing program design at five public research universities that argues for targeted engagement with key stakeholders to develop inclusive, multimodal curricula. My findings suggest that there are three primary stakeholders that WPAs must engage to enact multimodal curricula: undergraduate students, first-year composition teachers, institutional administrators. I present a model for engaging with each level of stakeholder that is adaptable across institutional contexts based on my findings. This model illustrates how WPAs might embrace multimodal curricula to support writing instruction for the twenty-first century across various stakeholder levels. I analyze the factors that enable or inhibit multimodal curricular design, and argue for WPAs to consider how remediation assignments better position students for multimodal transfer; to assess if and how their training programs intentionally reflect their programmatic curricular goals; and lastly, to mobilize their institutional mission statements to access resources and support

Adaptable multimodal interfaces in pervasive environments

M1-4: Emerging Consumer TechnologiesInternational audienceIn the context of pervasive environments, multimodal interaction plays a pivotal role because multimodality provides flexibility and naturalness for interaction. The challenge of multimodal interfaces in pervasive environments is then to build reliable and autonomic processing systems able to analyze and understand multiple interaction modalities and reconfigure itself in real-time. Addressing this issue, we have developed an autonomic framework called DynaMo (Dynamic multiMOdality) for the development and runtime management of multimodal interaction in pervasive environments. DynaMo is composed by a specification language dedicated to the multimodality domain and a runtime machine that instantiates these specifications. In this paper, we present the overall architecture of our solution DynaMo that is based on partial interaction models, and how these models are completed at runtime to build multimodal interfaces adapted to the local execution environment

Scoping analytical usability evaluation methods: A case study

Analytical usability evaluation methods (UEMs) can complement empirical evaluation of systems: for example, they can often be used earlier in design and can provide accounts of why users might experience difficulties, as well as what those difficulties are. However, their properties and value are only partially understood. One way to improve our understanding is by detailed comparisons using a single interface or system as a target for evaluation, but we need to look deeper than simple problem counts: we need to consider what kinds of accounts each UEM offers, and why. Here, we report on a detailed comparison of eight analytical UEMs. These eight methods were applied to it robotic arm interface, and the findings were systematically compared against video data of the arm ill use. The usability issues that were identified could be grouped into five categories: system design, user misconceptions, conceptual fit between user and system, physical issues, and contextual ones. Other possible categories such as User experience did not emerge in this particular study. With the exception of Heuristic Evaluation, which supported a range of insights, each analytical method was found to focus attention on just one or two categories of issues. Two of the three "home-grown" methods (Evaluating Multimodal Usability and Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits) were found to occupy particular niches in the space, whereas the third (Programmable User Modeling) did not. This approach has identified commonalities and contrasts between methods and provided accounts of why a particular method yielded the insights it did. Rather than considering measures such as problem count or thoroughness, this approach has yielded insights into the scope of each method

On the Development of Adaptive and User-Centred Interactive Multimodal Interfaces

Multimodal systems have attained increased attention in recent years, which has made possible important improvements in the technologies for recognition, processing, and generation of multimodal information. However, there are still many issues related to multimodality which are not clear, for example, the principles that make it possible to resemble human-human multimodal communication. This chapter focuses on some of the most important challenges that researchers have recently envisioned for future multimodal interfaces. It also describes current efforts to develop intelligent, adaptive, proactive, portable and affective multimodal interfaces