A Machine Learning Approach to the Classification of Dialogue Utterances

The purpose of this paper is to present a method for automatic classification of dialogue utterances and the results of applying that method to a corpus. Superficial features of a set of training utterances (which we will call cues) are taken as the basis for finding relevant utterance classes and for extracting rules for assigning these classes to new utterances. Each cue is assumed to partially contribute to the communicative function of an utterance. Instead of relying on subjective judgments for the tasks of finding classes and rules, we opt for using machine learning techniques to guarantee objectivity.Comment: 12 pages, using nemlap.sty, harvard.sty and agsm.bst, to appear in Proceedings of NeMLaP-2, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turke

Web Environments for Group-Based Project Work in Higher Education

We discuss problems confronting the use of group-based project work as an instructional strategy in higher education and describe two courses in which course-specific World Wide Web (Web) environments have evolved over a series of course sequences and are used both as tool environments for group-process support and as the product environment of the project work itself. In particular we describe the use of specific Web-embedded shared workspace, communication-management and evaluation tools and their contribution to the management and educational value of group-based project work. The integration of instructional principles and strategies with the Web-based tools is also of particular importance. The 1996-97 versions of the courses analysed in this article can be found at http://www.to.utwente.nl/ism/ism1-96/home.htm for the first-year course in educational media design, and at www.edu.cs.utwente.nl/~aitnlpbg/, for the first-year course in applications of information technology. Both courses, at the University of Twente, use group-based project work as a major organizational form, but integrate all aspects of the courses within cohesive Web environments

Web Environments for Group-Based Project Work in Higher Education

We discuss problems confronting the use of group-based project work as an instructional strategy in higher education and describe two courses in which course-specific World Wide Web (Web) environments have evolved over a series of course sequences and are used both as tool environments for group-process support and as the product environment of the project work itself. In particular we describe the use of specific Web-embedded shared workspace, communication-management and evaluation tools and their contribution to the management and educational value of group-based project work. The integration of instructional principles and strategies with the Web-based tools is also of particular importance. The 1996-97 versions of the courses analysed in this article can be found at http://www.to.utwente.nl/ism/ism1-96/home.htm for the first-year course in educational media design, and at www.edu.cs.utwente.nl/~aitnlpbg/, for the first-year course in applications of information technology. Both courses, at the University of Twente, use group-based project work as a major organizational form, but integrate all aspects of the courses within cohesive Web environments

The web as process tool and product environment for group-based project work in higher education

This paper discusses problems confronting the use of group-based project work as an instructional strategy in higher education, and describes two technical courses (i.e., courses in online learning and applications of business information technology) at the University of Twente (Netherlands) in which course-specific World Wide Web environments are used both as tools for group-process support and as the product environment of the project work. The focus is on Web-embedded shared workspace, communication management, evaluation tools, and their contribution to the management of group-based project work. It is argued the both pedagogical and technical strategies are needed for efficient and effective support of group-based project work in higher education. A table highlights particular strengths of the courses in relation to persistent problems in the educational deployment of group-based project work

Finding Classes of Dialogue Utterances with Kohonen Networks

In this paper, we present Kohonen Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOMs) as a method for automatically finding classes of dialogue utterances on the basis of superficial utterance features, in particular for dialogues found in the Schisma corpus. Furthermore, we discuss some ways for determining the quality of a certain utterance classification. We propose to use supervised classification to gain more insight in the results of the unsupervised generation of Kohonen Maps. 1 Introduction In this paper, we will present Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) (Kohonen 1995) as a method for automatically finding a classification of dialogue utterances, based on superficial features of these utterances. The features are selected on the basis of their potential contribution to the communicative function of utterances. The context of the research reported on in this paper is the Schisma project (van der Hoeven, Andernach & van de Burgt 1995). It is focused on designing a natural language interface f..

Building Dialogue Systems that Sell Abstract Building Dialogue Systems that Sell

This paper addresses the application of dialogue management techniques in a buyer-seller situation. In particular, we will describe the techniques used in the SCHISMA system, a system that provides the caller with information on theatre performances, and optionally "sells " the caller one or more tickets for a given performance.