Development and Deployment of VoiceXML-Based Banking Applications

In recent times, the financial sector has become one of the most vibrant sectors of the Nigerian economy with about twenty five banks after the bank consolidation / merger exercise. This sector presents huge business investments in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is also plausible to say that the sector today is the largest body of ICT services and products users. It is no gainsaying the fact that so many Nigerians now carry mobile phones across the different parts of the country. However, applications that provide voice access to real-time banking transactions from anywhere, anytime via telephone are still at their very low stage of adoption across the Nigerian banking and financial sector. A versatile speech-enabled mobile banking application has been developed using VXML, PHP, Apache and MySQL. The developed application provides real-time access to banking services, thus improving corporate bottom-line and Quality of Service (QoS) for customer satisfaction

Template-driven teacher modelling approach : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Science at Massey University, Palmerston North

This thesis describes the Template-driven Teacher Modeling Approach, the initial implementation of the template server and the formative evaluation on the prototype. The initiative of Template-driven teacher modeling is to integrate the template server and intelligent teacher models in Web-based education systems for course authoring. There are a number of key components in the proposed system: user interface, template server and content repository. The Template-Driven Teacher Modeling (TDTM) architecture supports the course authoring by providing higher degree of control over the generation of presentation. The collection of accumulated templates in the template repository for a teacher or a group of teachers are selected as the inputs for the inference mechanism in teacher's model to calculate the best representation of the teaching strategy, and then predict teacher intention when he or she interacts with the system. Moreover, the presentation templates are kept to support the re-use of the on-line content at the level of individual screens with the help of Template Server

Lessons learned in the development of the STOL intelligent tutoring system

Lessons learned during the development of the NASA Systems Test and Operations Language (STOL) Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), being developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are presented. The purpose of the intelligent tutor is to train STOL users by adapting tutoring based on inferred student strengths and weaknesses. This system has been under development for over one year and numerous lessons learned have emerged. These observations are presented in three sections, as follows. The first section addresses the methodology employed in the development of the STOL ITS and briefly presents the ITS architecture. The second presents lessons learned, in the areas of: intelligent tutor development; documentation and reporting; cost and schedule control; and tools and shells effectiveness. The third section presents recommendations which may be considered by other ITS developers, addressing: access, use and selection of subject matter experts; steps involved in ITS development; use of ITS interface design prototypes as part of knowledge engineering; and tools and shells effectiveness

Systems Theory in Special Education

In this review I looked at 22 articles that explored two of the primary interventional perspectives used when addressing the needs of exceptional students. A number of the articles elucidate the present prevalence of student based practices in U.S. schools, administration, and legislation. The body of the literature surveys how family centered interventions can be, and are used, to better serve students by integrating the needs and concerns of the family, as well as those of the student. The review was concluded with a discussion of the importance of finding a balance between the current legislative trend which emphasizes a student's needs based on an annual standards driven success model, versus a model which emphasizes the development of the whole child at home, and in the school, during all educational and developmental stages

Virtual reality in the service of user participation in architecture

The issue of user participation in the processes of building and urban design is enjoying renewed attention following its relative neglect over the last 20 years due, in large measure, to significant advances in emerging information technologies, particularly multimedia, virtual reality and internet technologies. This paper re-established the theoretical framework for participatory design evolved in the late sixties and early seventies as part of the movement towards a more explicit design methodology and attempts an explanation of why the concept failed to gain commitment from the architectural and urban design professionals. The paper then gives an account of two significant developments in the evolution of the application of information technologies with which the authors have been engaged. These are: i. a responsive and interactive interface to wholly immersive and realistic virtual reality representations of proposed buildings and urban neighbourhoods. ii. an intuitive and platform-independent VR modelling environment allowing collaborative evolution of the scheme from within the virtual world. The impact of these IT developments is demonstrated in the context of the design of a leisure facility for a community of users with physical impairment

Collaborative learning: a connected community approach

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning development can be viewed as an evolutionary. This collaborative and active group learning provides the foundation for what can be collectively called connectivist ‘Learning Communities’. In this setting a primary feature of a ‘Learning Community’ is one that carries a responsibility to promote one another’s learning. This paper will outline a developmental collaborative learning approach and describe a supporting software environment, known as the Salford Personal Development Environment (SPDE), that has been developed and implemented to assist in delivering collaborative learning for post graduate and other provision. This is done against a background of much research evidence that group based activity can enhance learning. These findings cover many approaches to group based learning and over a significant period of time. This paper reports on work-in-progress and the features of the environment that are designed to help promote individual and group or community learning that have been influenced by the broad base of research findings in this area