Dialogue based interfaces for universal access.

Conversation provides an excellent means of communication for almost all people. Consequently, a conversational interface is an excellent mechanism for allowing people to interact with systems. Conversational systems are an active research area, but a wide range of systems can be developed with current technology. More sophisticated interfaces can take considerable effort, but simple interfaces can be developed quite rapidly. This paper gives an introduction to the current state of the art of conversational systems and interfaces. It describes a methodology for developing conversational interfaces and gives an example of an interface for a state benefits web site. The paper discusses how this interface could improve access for a wide range of people, and how further development of this interface would allow a larger range of people to use the system and give them more functionality

A software development environment utilizing PAMELA

Hardware capability and efficiency has increased dramatically since the invention of the computer, while software programmer productivity and efficiency has remained at a relatively low level. A user-friendly, adaptable, integrated software development environment is needed to alleviate this problem. The environment should be designed around the Ada language and a design methodology which takes advantage of the features of the Ada language as the Process Abstraction Method for Embedded Large Applications (PAMELA)

Formal modelling and design of mobile prescription applications

Adverse drug effects are a major cause of death in the world with tens of thousand deaths occurring each year because of medication or prescription errors. Many errors involve the prescription or administration of the wrong drug or dosage by care givers to patients due to illegible handwriting, dosage mistakes, confusing drug names. With the use of mobile devices such as personal digital assistants and smart phones some of these errors could be eliminated because they allow prescription information to be captured and viewed in type rather than handwriting. This paper presents a formal modelling, and design of a prescription application to improve health care services. This could lead to costs and life savings in healthcare centres across the world especially in developing countries where treatment processes are usually paper based

Flipping Out(ward): Changing the Instructional Model for Large-Enrollment Courses

Citation: Citation: Pitts, J., Fritch, M. (2017) Flipping Out(ward): Changing the Instructional Model for Large-Enrollment Courses. Creative Instructional Design: Practical Applications for Librarians. p.227-242For years, Kansas State University Libraries taught face-to-face library instruction sessions for the general education courses, Expository Writing and Public Speaking. We called these Library Days, as they were scheduled daily over week-long periods due to the large number of sections. Expository Writing Library Days were four days of back-to-back, lecture-style sessions for around 1,100 students. It took two weeks to schedule the fifty sections of the course and the eleven librarians needed to lead the instruction and separately operate the computer for each section. The sessions needed to be organized to cover each different research paper assignment and required additional PowerPoint presentations in case the Internet crashed during a session. This was in addition to creating the instruction outlines for all the librarians to follow so each and every student saw the same material, no matter which session they attended. Each session was fifty minutes with approximately seventy students. By the end of the week, we could only hope that the students retained at least ten minutes of our material. This is how we spent a significant amount of library staff time prior to embarking on wide-scale, flipped-classroom implementation that not only transformed how we taught large-enrollment classes, but provided an avenue for improved student learning and self-service. This chapter will cover the design iterations of the online component and discuss the rapid prototyping process utilized to design and implement the program. Assessment and logistics will also be discussed, as will lessons learned and design specifications to consider when embarking on a project of this scale. In essence, we’ll describe how K-State Libraries went from flipping out during Library Days to flipping out(ward) using an effective flipped-classroom model