Towards an Integrated Development Environment for Context-Aware User Interfaces

The emergence of mobile computing devices brings along the fact that users interact with computers in various environments. The user interface of a mobile system can be affected by environmental context. Several approaches succeed in providing architectures and frameworks to support the building and reuse of software components considering context information. Taking into account context information in designing the interaction of a system, however, has not yet been extensively investigated. In this paper we will discuss an Integrated Development Environment, DynaMo-AID, we are developing to support the design, prototyping, evaluation and deployment of context-aware interactive systems

The Virtual Tutor: Combining Conversational Agents with Learning Analytics to support Formative Assessment in Online Collaborative Learning

The objective of this design science research project is to combine Learning Analytics data with a conversational agent communication interface, the Virtual Tutor, which is able to support formative assessment for educators and learners in online collaborative learning (OCL) environments. The main benefit for educators is providing user-adaptable Learning Analytics data requests to fit the information needs for formative assessment. Learners receive semi-automated feedback on their platform activity in form of reports, which shall trigger self-reflection processes. By extracting requirements from the potential users and deriving design principles, a conversational agent is implemented and evaluated in an online collaborative learning course. The results indicate that the Virtual Tutor reduces the task load of educators, supports formative assessment and gives scaffolded guidance to the learners by reflecting their performance, thus triggering self-reflection processes. This research provides a first step towards data supported (semi-)automated feedback systems for formative assessment in OCL courses

Content warehouses

Nowadays, content management systems are an established technology. Based on the experiences from several application scenarios we discuss the points of contact between content management systems and other disciplines of information systems engineering like data warehouses, data mining, and data integration. We derive a system architecture called "content warehouse" that integrates these technologies and defines a more general and more sophisticated view on content management. As an example, a system for the collection, maintenance, and evaluation of biological content like survey data or multimedia resources is shown as a case study

A FORMAL REPRESENTATION OF MECHANICAL FUNCTIONS TO SUPPORT PHYSICS-BASED COMPUTATIONAL REASONING IN EARLY MECHANICAL DESIGN

The lack of computational support to the conceptual phase of mechanical engineering design is well recognized. Function-based modeling and thinking is widely recommended in design texts as useful means for describing design concepts and using them in tasks such as solution search, problem decomposition, and design archival. Graph-based function structure models that describe a product as a network of transformative actions of material, energy, and information, are discussed as a potential tool for this purpose, but in the current state of the art, function structures are not formalized as a computational representation. Consequently, no computer tool exists with which a designer can construct grammatically controlled function structure models, explore design ideas by model editing, and perform automated reasoning on the model against the laws of nature to draw analytical inferences on the design. This research presents, verifies, and validates a formal representation of mechanical functions that supports consistent computer-aided modeling of early design and reasoning on those models based on two universal principles of physics: (1) conservation and (2) irreversibility. The representation is complete in three layers. The first layer--the Conservation Layer--is defined with nine entities, five relations, five attributes, and 33 grammar rules that together formalize the construction of function structure graphs and support conservation-based qualitative validation of design concepts. The second layer--the Irreversibility Layer--includes three additional attributes that support both conservation-based and irreversibility-based reasoning at qualitative and quantitative levels. The third layer--the Semantic Layer--is an extension of the previous two, where a vocabulary of nine verbs that describe mechanical devices and physical principles as functions is proposed. This layer supports feature-based modeling and semantic reasoning of function structures. The internal consistency of the representation is verified by logical examination and ontological consistency checking using Protégé-OWL. The coverage of the verbs is examined by constructing descriptive function structure models of a variety of existing physical principles and devices. The research is validated by incorporating the representation in a software tool using an object-oriented language and graphic user-interface, and by using the tool to construct models and demonstrate conservation-based and irreversibility-based reasoning

Second CLIPS Conference Proceedings, volume 1

Topics covered at the 2nd CLIPS Conference held at the Johnson Space Center, September 23-25, 1991 are given. Topics include rule groupings, fault detection using expert systems, decision making using expert systems, knowledge representation, computer aided design and debugging expert systems

Task models as basis for requirements engineering and software execution

ABSTRACT In this paper we discuss an approach linking GUI specifications to abstract dialog models. Both specifications are based on task models describing behavioral features. It will be shown how first prototypes of interactive systems, which are generated from user interface models, can help to capture requirements. Users can interactively play with prototypes. Tool support is also provided for co-operative work of different users, which starts with abstract canonical prototypes that can evolve to concrete GUI specifications