First discovery augmented reality for learning solar systems

The development of Augmented Reality (AR) systems in educational settings should be given more attention and recognition on its contribution to the evolution of education. Although this shift of pedagogical method may disrupt the traditional curriculum model, it also offers great opportunity to complement and improve the modern age education model. This paper presents an AR-based mobile application for exploring Space and Science for primary school students called the First Discovery (FD). This application supplements a traditional book that contains 10 target images for solar system and its planets, which can be scanned by the AR camera in FD application. Evaluation was carried out among primary school children, elementary educators as well as parents, which showed a highly favorable response. It is hoped that the proposed FD application is able to improve the ability of children in retaining knowledge after the AR science learning experience, to enhance information accessibility of the science learning content for children as well as to develop creative learning and the ability of children in exploring and problem solvin

Questionify gamification in education

In the education industry, lecturers are finding ways to improve students’ concentrations and grades by using smart devices to track students’ assignment or tutorial progress. One of the few possible and attractive solution is by using the gamification technique. This paper proposes an educational application called Questionify that implements the gamification elements and allow users to collect points, gain achievements, increase motivation and engagement towards students’ coursework in Software Engineering subject. Questionify is developed using C# and Java language has been evaluated using questionnaire among 24 respondents. The findings showed that the respondents believe that gamification can do better in education as compare to the traditional method of teaching the students. In the future, this gamification approach will be tested on more technical subjects such as programming and networking subjects to help students engage in a different learning approach

A Gesture-based Recognition System for Augmented Reality

With the geometrical improvement in Information Technology, current conventional input devices are becoming increasingly obsolete and lacking. Experts in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) are convinced that input devices remain the bottleneck of information acquisition specifically in when using Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Current input mechanisms are unable to compete with this trend towards naturalness and expressivity which allows users to perform natural gestures or operations and convert them as input. Hence, a more natural and intuitive input device is imperative, specifically gestural inputs that have been widely perceived by HCI experts as the next big input device. To address this gap, this project is set to develop a prototype of hand gesture recognition system based on computer vision in modeling basic human-computer interactions. The main motivation in this work is a technology that requires no outfitting of additional equipment whatsoever by the users. The gesture-based had recognition system was implemented using the Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology and was evaluated in terms of its usability and performance through five levels of testing, which are unit testing, integration testing, system testing, recognition accuracy testing, and user acceptance testing. The test results of unit, integration, system testing as well as user acceptance testing produced favorable results. In conclusion, current conventional input devices will continue to bottleneck this advancement in technology; therefore, a better alternative input technique should be looked into, in particularly, gesture-based input technique which offers user a more natural and intuitive control

The role of chatterbots in enhancing tourism: a case study of Penang tourism spots

Chatterbots have been widely used as a tool for conversational booking assistance mainly for hotels such as the Expedia. This paper extends the use of chatterbot beyond booking by presenting the proof of concept of a chatterbot expert system called the VIZARD. The proposed VIZARD is developed using an expert system shell called verbot. The core of Vertbot 5 is the natural language processing (NLP) engine based on pattern matching. The core Verbot 5 engine is responsible for finding matches to a given user input string and firing the appropriate rule. The findings from the user acceptance test concluded that majority of the respondents agreed that the VIZARD expert system stands at an unbiased state while being more aligned on supporting the usefulness of the system

Footprint: Tourism Information Search based on Mixed Reality

In the quest to provide better information seeking experience during travelling, this paper is set to design, build and trial a prototype tourism information search application based on mixed reality. This paper proposes “Footprint”, an android-based tourism information search application in a mixed reality environment, whereby it overlays tourism-related information on the image that the mobile phone camera is focused at. Using Footprint, the user would only need to point the mobile phone camera on a specific spot, and Footprint will overlay all in-formation on geo-tagged tourism objects as far as 30 meters away. User is also able to filter search information based on the data source of information (such as Google or Wiki) or based on the category (such as Food or Landmark). It is hoped that this experience would one day become a trend, as when more reality-environments will be shaped into surreal, yet virtual alternatives through Internet of Things (IoT), and there will be more ubiquitous resource ac-cess through many devices, networks, and user content

Three-Dimensional E-Learning Application for Anatomy and Physiology of Brain

Neurology is one of the most challenging areas to master among the medical students owing to the complexity of the structures and their spatial arrangement. Teaching dissection and prosecutions during the anatomy lab sessions are not necessarily effective due to large class strength. To complement teaching and learning on this subject matter, a web-based, 3D interactive e-learning application called the Brainy is proposed to help medical students and lecturers to learn and teach neurology in an efficient way. Brainy merges virtual technology with learning by breaking down the brain information into three different parts, namely the lobes of brain, parts of brain, and structures of brain. Every time a student chooses to study a part of brain, the 3D model of selected part will be complemented with brief description of anatomy, physiology and applied aspects. Thus, the student will no longer need to switch different books while studying. Brainy is thus a versatile application for students to study brain in a fun and engaging way

Presentation mining tool: from slides to mind maps

Slide presentations such as the PowerPoint presents knowledge by the subject matter expert in a linear sequence. Nonetheless, post-presentation, the knowledge is actually reconstructed differently by the learners depending on their personal understanding over the entire presentation. To enhance learning, this paper presents a presentation mining tool that is able to extract keywords and key phrases from a collection of Microsoft PowerPoint slides and generate a mind map with topics and subtopics based on the extracted keywords. The mind map produced by the system contains the main topic as the central node of the map with branches connecting main topic to subtopics. The mind map produced through automatic extraction of topic and subtopics is aimed to help learners to concentrate on the entire concept rather than following through the slides sequentially

Footprint: tourism information search based on mixed reality

In the quest to provide better information seeking experience during travelling, this paper is set to design, build and trial a prototype tourism information search application based on mixed reality. This paper proposes “Footprint”, an android-based tourism information search application in a mixed reality environment, whereby it overlays tourism-related information on the image that the mobile phone camera is focused at. Using Footprint, the user would only need to point the mobile phone camera on a specific spot, and Footprint will overlay all in-formation on geo-tagged tourism objects as far as 30 meters away. The user is also able to filter search information based on the data source of information (such as Google or Wiki) or based on the category (such as Food or Landmark). It is hoped that this experience would one day become a trend, as when more reality-environments will be shaped into surreal, yet virtual alternatives through Internet of Things (IoT), and there will be more ubiquitous resource access through many devices, networks, and user content

Development of pre-programmed operating coursebot (PO'C'DON)

Expert systems are problem-solving programs that mimic the way human expert’s reason. Expert systems have been developed by larger firms and businesses for a variety of applications. While only a few systems can be purchased, packages are available to enable those interested in developing their own. Expert systems are computer programs that use captured human knowledge to solve problems that ordinarily require human experts. They can be used by no experts as well as experts to improve problem solving capability and to provide assistance in areas such as auditing, tax, financial planning, as well as professional education. A chatterbot is a program, designed for the computer that is supposed to come off like it is a real person in a conversation. The idea of these programs is to give the user an assumption that the chatterbox is a real person, not a computer program. Current method used by UCTI is the manual way of employing marketing staff. There is no current system for this task. A new software called PO‘C’DON will be developed. PO‘C’DON is an expert system that is equipped with a knowledge base which specialises in the domain problem of courses provided by UCTI. The objective of PO‘C’DON is to solve UCTI’s problems in course information distribution. This report documents the development of the PO‘C’DON (Pre-programmed Operating Coursebot Developed Only for Novices) expert system and is based on the Expert System Life Cycle (ESLC) methodology. Outcome of this report is to produce all the required software engineering technical documentation with the prototype of the system which has been implemented in UCTI

Tracking Outfield Employees using GPS in Web Applications

This paper presents e-Track, a web-based tracking system for outfield employees in order to cater for various business activities as demanded by the business owners. Such demands may range from a simple task assignment, to employee location tracking and remote observation of the employees’ task progress. The objective of the proposed system is two-fold. First, the employees to access the application and clocks-in work. Second, a standalone web system for the employers to determine the approximate location of the staff assigned with outfield duties. The IP address recognition will ensure no buddy punching takes place. e-Track is hoped to increase efficiency among employees by saving time travelling between branches during outfield duties. In the future, e-Track will be integrated with claim and payment modules to support arrangement for outfield duties