Special Issue on the AMCIS 2001 Workshops: Speech Enabled Information Systems: The Next Frontier

Speech technologies are coming of age. They are applied in an increasing number of mobile, call-center, home and office settings. They challenge the established Graphical User Interface metaphor and promise to fundamentally alter the way humans conceptualize and interact with computers. This change leads to new requirements for the development of information systems. It also provides new research issues and opportunities for the academic community. In this article, the main elements of speech technologies will be presented and their applications will be discussed. The article does not focus on technical aspects of speech technologies but is concerned with the business aspects of applying such technologies. The article is based on a workshop at the Americas Conference on Information Systems 2001 in Boston

Automatic translation of formal data specifications to voice data-input applications.

This thesis introduces a complete solution for automatic translation of formal data specifications to voice data-input applications. The objective of the research is to automatically generate applications for inputting data through speech from specifications of the structure of the data. The formal data specifications are XML DTDs. A new formalization called Grammar-DTD (G-DTD) is introduced as an extended DTD that contains grammars to describe valid values of the DTD elements and attributes. G-DTDs facilitate the automatic generation of Voice XML applications that correspond to the original DTD structure. The development of the automatic application-generator included identifying constraints on the G-DTD to ensure a feasible translation, using predicate calculus to build a knowledge base of inference rules that describes the mapping procedure, and writing an algorithm for the automatic translation based on the inference rules.Dept. of Computer Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .H355. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0354. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

An Experimental Comparison of Speech and DTMF for VoiceXML-Based Expert Systems

Comparisons of DTMF and speech modalities for interacting with diverse dialogue systems for different tasks, among different user populations have led to different design recommendations for different user populations. This paper reports the results of the experimental comparison of these input modalities in a new context of VoiceXML-based diseases diagnosis expert system among a new user population - Nigerians. The results show that DTMF was more satisfying than speech for system satisfaction. Modality wise, speech was more satisfying than DTMF. Speech was also more natural than DTMF. DTMF was preferred by the majority and was more effective and efficient than speech. For diseases diagnosis expert health dialogue systems in Nigeria, DTMF is recommended for effectiveness and efficiency. It is also recommended for satisfaction. Speech is recommended for modality satisfaction while both modalities are recommended for entertainment purpose. Speech is advocated for modality naturalness. However, a platform that incorporates the two modalities will provide the benefits of the two, and allow the users varieties of choices that best suit their need

Development of iSpeak: A voice activated Relationship Management System

A constant source of frustration for subscribers of mobile telephony in Nigeria is the quality of customer care service. The ubiquitous IVR systems deployed by service providers often ends in long and winding texting of digits that terminate in calls to agents with poor CRM attitudes. Automation of most of the functions of the human agent goes a long way in mitigating this problem. This paper describes iSpeak – a system designed to reduce the human–to–human (H2H) interaction in the complaint-lodging and solution provision process to a minimal level where it is not possible to eradicate it totally by a replacement with human–to–system (H2S) interactivity. iSpeak has an inherent capacity for improving the efficiency and drastically cutting CRM cost of corporate organizations. This comes with the attendant advantage of improved business-customer relationship. Keywords – Automatic Speech Recognition, Customer Care Service, Speech-control, Customer Voice Model, Voice Print, Voice Recognition