Romanian Journal of
Human - Computer InteractionVol.6, No.4, 2013
ISSN 1843-4460
Contents
An empirical study of the determinants factors and gender differences in the acceptance of e-learning technology.
Alexandru Balog
291 - 306 Touch the Exchange: Efficient distribution of information in education using interactive kiosks.
Alexandra Negoescu, Cristian Mihăescu, Ilya Shmorgun, Mihai Mocanu
307 - 322 Software Model with Potential for Development of Strategy Games.
Constantin Nandra, Dorian Gorgan
323 - 338 Textual Complexity Assessment of Primary School French Manuals.
Lucia Larise Stavarache, Mihai Dascalu, Stefan Trausan-Matu, Philippe Dessus
339 - 356 Criminal Detection – An aplication for Criminal Identification.
Ana-Teodora Petrea, Adrian Iftene
357 - 376
Abstracts
An empirical study of the determinants factors and gender differences in the acceptance of e-learning technology
Alexandru Balog
National Institute for Research and Devlopment in Informatics – ICI Bucharest
Bd. Mareşal Averescu, Nr. 8-10, 011455, Bucureşti
E-mail: alexb@ici.ro
Abstract. The UTAUT model (Venkatesh et. al., 2003) was tested in different domains and contexts of use. In the interpretation and comparison of results from different studies is important to assess whether the model and the constructs are perceived in the same way by individuals in different groups. In this article is tested a reduced version of the UTAUT in the context of e-learning using data collected from 220 students (128 women, 92 men). In order to test model invariance and explore gender differences in the acceptance of technology is applied multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). The results show that the model and the constructs are invariant in the two groups of students in the context of e-learning in Romania.
Keywords: e-learning technology acceptance, UTAUT, gender differences, invariance measurement analysis, MGCFA.
Cite this paper as:
Balog, A. An empirical study of the determinants factors and gender differences in the acceptance of e-learning technology. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator 6(4), 291-306. 2013.
Touch the Exchange: Efficient distribution of information in education using interactive kiosks
Alexandra Negoescu1, Cristian Mihăescu1, Ilya Shmorgun2, Mihai Mocanu1
1Universitatea din Craiova, Facultatea de Automatica, Calculatoare şi Electronica, Craiova
Blvd. Decebal nr. 107, Craiova, România
E-mail: alexandra.negoescu@yahoo.com; {mihaescu, mocanu.mihai} @software.ucv.ro
2Institute of Informatics, Tallinn
Narva Rd. 29, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia
E-mail: ilja.shmorgun@tlu.ee
Abstract. Depending on the size and functionality, kiosks have become an outstanding way for improving customer service and gaining users’ loyalty. In the educational domain most of the available kiosks contain just general knowledge about the university in question or information about campus and local buildings. In addition, the majority of kiosks available in universities don't have support for touch or multi-touch, most probably due to the high prices involved. We proposed to design and build our own version of an interactive touch- kiosk using up-to-date technologies that best fit the current needs of TallinnUniversity. Our aim was to design and implement an interface that should be completely dedicated and self-contained, thus minimizing user awareness of operating system components or software and hardware infrastructure. Moreover, we proposed the usage of technologies such as Windows 8 operating system and infrared-based touch-screens. Touch the Exchange is a digital environment running on a touch-screen kiosk that provides essential support for persons interested in international exchange possibilities. The aim of the project is to encourage local students and university staff members to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. This paper presents a description of the hardware and software technologies used within the project, as well as the reason why these specific implementation decisions have been chosen. Also, special attention is also given to the design process of the interface, its evaluation and testing and to the manner in which human-computer communication is facilitated. The whole process: the initial design concept, evaluation of the needed components, modelling, certification and construction of the prototype as well as its production are outlined in this article. The result, an attractive, modern and user-friendly system that ensures direct access to information can serve as a model for the educational institutions interesed in developing similar devices with minimum costs.
Keywords: Interaction design; user experience; touch; multi-touch; wrapper; kiosk, usability, graphic interface.
Cite this paper as:
Negoescu, A., Mihaescu, C., Shmorgun, I., Mocanu, M. Touch the Exchange: Efficient distribution of information in education using interactive kiosks. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator 6(4), 307-322, 2013.
Software Model with Potential for Development of Strategy Games
Constantin Nandra, Dorian Gorgan
Computer science Department, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Str. Memorandumului nr. 2, Cluj-Napoca
E-mail: cosmin_nandra@yahoo.com, dorian.gorgan@utcluj.ro
Abstract. The purpose of this article is to present and propose a software model which could lie at the base of the development of strategy games and, in general, of all kinds of interactive applications which involve the simulation of interactions between a set of entities and some given environment. The model in question consists of a set of software components that define the architecture and several other sets of interchangeable components which can be used directly in the development of potential interactive graphical applications. This model could offer an alternative way of software interaction to that based on the invocation of functionality, which is typical to using software libraries. This alternative way would offer to the user the ability to build applications as aggregates made from existing components. In this article, we will emphasize the strong points of this kind of design approach (flexibility, extensibility, modularity), and provide proof of the benefits derived from using it in the process of interactive graphical application development such as the computer games.
Keywords: software library, modular design, reusable components, alternative interaction.
Cite this paper as:
Nandra, C., Gorgan, D. Software Model with Potential for Development of Strategy Games. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator 6(4), 323-338, 2013.
Textual Complexity Assessment of Primary School French Manuals
Lucia Larise Stavarache1, Mihai Dascalu2, Stefan Trausan-Matu1,2, Philippe Dessus3
1Facultatea de Automatică şi Calculatoare, Universitatea Politehnica din Bucureşti
Splaiul Independenţei 313, Bucureşti 060042, Bucureşti
E-mail: larise.stavarache@ro.ibm.com, mihai.dascalu@cs.pub.ro, stefan.trausan@cs.pub.ro2Institutul de Cercetări în Inteligenţă Artificială
Calea 13 Septembrie nr. 13, Bucureşti, România3Laboratoire de Sciences de l’Education, Université Pierre-Mendès France
F-38040 Grenoble CEDEX 9, Franţa
E-mail: philippe.dessus@upmf-grenoble.fr
Abstract. One of the most challenging tasks in natural language processing is related to the evaluation of textual complexity and of cohesion. Thus, automatic analyzers represent a special interest for their ability of predicting textual complexity having as basis: syntactic, sematic, morphological and lexical factors. Nevertheless, the elements used for evaluating textual complexity are tightly connected to scope and context. For this reason a purely technical analysis based only on individual metrics, without taking into account the constraints of psychology, human model, age and motivation is insufficient in order to make a proper prediction. Additionally, there are third party aspects which are correlated with the analysis of complexity like: stages of acquisition, fluency or accuracy. To resume, textual complexity metrics represent important indicators which help to better understand online texts, publications, books, papers or other forms of written textual representations.
Keywords: textual complexity analysis, complexity metrics, groups and concept classes.
Cite this paper as:
Stavarache, L.L., Dascalu, M., Trausan-Matu, S., Dessus, P. Textual Complexity Assessment of Primary School French Manuals. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator 6(4), 339-356, 2013.
Criminal Detection – An aplication for Criminal Identification
Ana-Teodora Petrea, Adrian Iftene
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Faculty of Computer Science
16 General Berthelot, 700483, Iasi, Romania
E-mail: {ana.petrea, adiftene}@info.uaic.ro
Abstract: This paper aims to help people who want to quickly identify a potential criminal, based on information that we have available at a given moment. The system uses as input information from unstructured text that can come from sources such as newspapers, minutes of the scene, witness statements, etc. and it uses computational linguistics techniques to extract relevant information to identify the criminal. The textual processing presented in this paper, enables (1) extracting entity names (so you can get a group of suspects or the location where the crime happened), (2) identify relationships between words, to extract knowledge (thus, it can obtain physical characteristics of criminals, crime type or weapon type used) and identify the roles (thus, it can identify victims, villains or witnesses). The application also allows the creation of a robot portrait of the criminal, can associate pictures or the robot portrait to a person considered by the application and can display on a map the location of the event. We believe that the application could be used in a real environment in the various institutions, where the processing of these types of texts is currently performed manually, primarily by employees.
Keywords: Computational Linguistic, Internet Surveillance, Forensic Linguistics.
Cite this paper as:
Petrea, A.T., Iftene, A. Criminal Detection – An aplication for Criminal Identification. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator 6(4), 357-376, 2013.