5 research outputs found
Models and Algorithms for Understanding and Supporting Learning Goals in Information Retrieval
While search technology is widely used for learning-oriented information needs, the results provided by popular services such as Web search engines are optimized primarily for generic relevance, not effective learning outcomes. As a result, the typical information trail that a user must follow while searching to achieve a learning goal may be an inefficient one, possibly involving unnecessarily difficult content, or material that is irrelevant to actual learning progress relative to a user's existing knowledge. My work addresses these problems through multiple studies where various models and frameworks are developed and tested to support particular dimensions of search as learning. Empirical analysis of these studies through user studies demonstrate promising results and provide a solid foundation for further work.
The earliest work we focused on centered on developing a framework and algorithms to support vocabulary learning objectives in a Web document context. The proposed framework incorporates user information, topic information and effort constraints to provide a desirable combination of personalized and efficient (by word length) learning experience. Our user studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework against a strong commercial baseline's (Google search) results in both short- and long-term assessment.
While topic-specific content features (such as frequency of subtopic occurrences) naturally play a role in influencing learning outcomes, stylistic and structural features of the documents themselves may also play a role. Using such features we construct robust regression models that show strong predictive strength for multiple measures of learning outcomes. We also show early evidence that regression models trained on one dataset of search as learning can show strong test-set predictions on an independent dataset of search as learning, suggesting a certain degree of generalizability of stylistic content features.
The models developed in my work are designed to be as generalizable, scalable and efficient as possible to make it easier for practitioners in the field to improve how people use search engines for learning. Finally, we investigate how gaze-tracking and automatic question generation could be used to scale a form of active learning to arbitrary text material. Our results show promising potential for incorporating interactive learning experiences in arbitrary text documents on the Web. A major theme in these studies centers on understanding and improving how people learn when using Web search engines. We also put specific emphasis on long-term learning outcomes and demonstrate that our models and frameworks actually yield sustainable knowledge gains, both for passive and interactive learning. Taken together, these research studies provide a solid foundation for multiple promising directions in exploring search as learning.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155065/1/rmsyed_1.pd
Eye Tracking to Support eLearning
Online eLearning environments to support student learning are of
growing importance. Students are increasingly turning to online
resources for education; sometimes in place of face-to-face
tuition. Online eLearning extends teaching and learning from the
classroom to a wider audience with different needs, backgrounds,
and motivations. The one-size-fits-all approach predominately
used is not effective for catering to the needs of all students.
An area of the increasing diversity is the linguistic background
of readers. More students are reading in their non-native
language. It has previously been established that first English
language (L1) students read differently to second English
language (L2) students. One way of analysing this difference is
by tracking the eyes of readers, which is an effective way of
investigating the reading process.
In this thesis we investigate the question of whether eye
tracking can be used to make learning via reading more effective
in eLearning environments. This question is approached from two
directions; first by investigating how eye tracking can be used
to adapt to individual student’s understanding and perceptions
of text. The second approach is analysing a cohort’s reading
behaviour to provide information to the author of the text and
any related comprehension questions regarding their suitability
and difficulty.
To investigate these questions, two user studies were carried out
to collect eye gaze data from both L1 and L2 readers. The first
user study focussed on how different presentation methods of text
and related questions affected not only comprehension performance
but also reading behaviour and student perceptions of
performance. The data from this study was used to make
predictions of reading comprehension that can be used to make
eLearning environments adaptive, in addition to providing
implicit feedback about the difficulty of text and questions.
In the second study we investigate the effects of text
readability and conceptual difficulty on eye gaze, prediction of
reading comprehension, and perceptions. This study showed that
readability affected the eye gaze of L1 readers and conceptual
difficulty affected the eye gaze of L2 readers. The prediction
accuracy of comprehension was consequently increased for the L1
group by increased difficulty in readability, whereas increased
difficulty in conceptual level corresponded to increased accuracy
for the L2 group. Analysis of participants’ perceptions of
complexity revealed that readability and conceptual difficulty
interact making the two variables hard for the reader to
disentangle. Further analysis of participants’ eye gaze
revealed that both the predefined and perceived text complexity
affected eye gaze. We therefore propose using eye gaze measures
to provide feedback about the implicit reading difficulty of
texts read.
The results from both studies indicate that there is enormous
potential in using eye tracking to make learning via reading more
effective in eLearning environments. We conclude with a
discussion of how these findings can be applied to improve
reading within eLearning environments. We propose an adaptive
eLearning architecture that dynamically presents text to students
and provides information to authors to improve the quality of
texts and questions
Framing digital image credibility: image manipulation problems, perceptions and solutions
Image manipulation is subverting the credibility of photographs
as a whole. Currently there is no practical solution for
asserting the authenticity of a photograph. People express their
concern about this when asked but continue to operate in a
‘business as usual’ fashion.
While a range of digital forensic technologies has been developed
to address falsification of digital photographs, such
technologies begin with ‘sourceless’ images and conclude with
results in equivocal terms of probability, while not addressing
the meaning and content contained within the image.
It is interesting that there is extensive research into
computer-based image forgery detection, but very little research
into how we as humans perceive, or fail to perceive, these
forgeries when we view them. The survey, eye-gaze tracking
experiments and neural network analysis undertaken in this
research contribute to this limited pool of knowledge.
The research described in this thesis investigates human
perceptions of images that are manipulated and, by comparison,
images that are not manipulated. The data collected, and their
analyses, demonstrate that humans are poor at identifying that an
image has been manipulated. I consider some of the implications
of digital image manipulation, explore current approaches to
image credibility, and present a potential digital image
authentication framework that uses technology and tools that
exploit social factors such as reputation and trust to create a
framework for technologically packaging/wrapping images with
social assertions of authenticity, and surfaced metadata
information.
The thesis is organised into 6 chapters.
Chapter 1: Introduction
I briefly introduce the history of photography, highlighting its
importance as reportage, and discuss how it has changed from its
introduction in the early 19th century to today. I discuss photo
manipulation and consider how it has changed along with
photography. I describe the relevant literature on the subject of
image authentication and the use of eye gaze tracking and neural
nets in identifying the role of human vision in image
manipulation detection, and I describe my area of research within
this context.
Chapter 2: Literature review
I describe the various types of image manipulation, giving
examples, and then canvas the literature to describe the
landscape of image manipulation problems and extant solutions,
namely:
• the nature of image manipulation,
• investigations of human perceptions of image manipulation,
• eye gaze tracking and manipulated images,
• known efforts to create solutions to the problem of
preserving unadulterated photographic representations and the
meanings they hold.
Finally, I position my research activities within the context of
the literature.
Chapter 3: The research
I describe the survey and experiments I undertook to investigate
attitudes toward image manipulation, research human perceptions
of manipulated and unmanipulated images, and to trial elements of
a new wrapper-style file format that I call .msci (mobile
self-contained image), designed to address image authenticity
issues.
Methods, results and discussion for each element are presented in
both explanatory text and by presentation of papers resulting
from the experiments.
Chapter 4: Analysis of eye gaze data using classification neural
networks
I describe pattern classifying neural network analysis applied to
selected data obtained from the experiments and the insights this
analysis provided into the opaque realm of cognitive perception
as seen through the lens of eye gaze.
Chapter 5: Discussion
I synthesise and discuss the outcomes of the survey and
experiments.
I discuss the outcomes of this research, and consider the need
for a distinction between photographs and photo art. I offer a
theoretical formula within which the overall authenticity of an
image can be assessed. In addition I present a potential image
authentication framework built around the .msci file format,
designed in consideration of my investigation of the requirements
of the image manipulation problem space and the experimental work
undertaken in this research.
Chapter 6: Conclusions and future work
This thesis concludes with a summary of the outcomes of my
research, and I consider the need for future experimentation to
expand on the insights gained to date. I also note some ways
forward to develop an image authentication framework to address
the ongoing problem of image authenticity