SmartEDU
Smart assistant for generating educational questions and presentations
Challenge
The general use of new technologies has been changing education and training systems, resulting in significant changes to the way knowledge is transmitted, monitored and evaluated. However, it was mostly to the Knowledge Transmitters (KT) - teachers, trainers - that the new educational paradigm has been demanding the greater changes, starting with the mechanisms for displaying content. In this context, one of the biggest changes verified, went through the general use of multimedia content, namely Presentation Slides. Although the construction of this type of materials is a demanding and time-consuming task, we haven’t found any commercial solution that supports the automatic generation of its contents.
On the other hand, the application of questions continues, even today, to be seen as an excellent method for knowledge retention and evaluation. However, as in the context of creating Presentation Slides, the formulation of questions, regardless of its type (multiple choice, open-ended, or other), this a time-consuming task to prepare. In this context, although some solutions have emerged that automate the creation of questions from texts, most of these solutions only support the English language, and do not integrate with systems such as QLMS (quizz-based learning management systems).
Solution
The project aims to respond to these challenges, through the R&D of a solution that, through Natural Language Processing, automates the creation of content for presentation slides and automates the creation of questions from educational texts, in English and Portuguese. It is intended that the solution will increase the efficiency of this type of processes, reducing the time spent on preparing content.
In order to guarantee the usability of the solution and the quality of the results obtained, the solution will be tested in two different pilots, with the participation of real users.
Objectives, Activities and Results expected / achieved
Objectives and expected results:
• Research and develop mechanisms for the Automatic Generation of Presentation Slides to support teachers and trainers in the construction of multimedia presentations based on educational texts;
• Research and develop Automatic Question Generation mechanisms dedicated to speeding up the question creation process, aimed at reinforcing and evaluating the retention of knowledge in an educational and training context;
• Evaluate, through application in real context, the quality of results and the usability of the developed solution.
Project Reference
CENTRO-01-0247-FEDER-072620Funding
Intervention Region
Center (100%) of PortugalTotal Investment
405.102,25IPN Investment
140.054,02Total Eligible
400.518,92IPN Eligible
136.845,69EC Funding – Total
FEDER - 294.176,55EC Funding – IPN
FEDER - 102.634,26Duration
25 MonthsStart Date
2021-06-01End Date
2023-06-30Approval Date
2021-03-26Consortium
Mindflow - Desenvolvimento pessoal e organizacional LdaInstituto Pedro Nunes
Universidade de Coimbra
Keywords
Education;Questions;
Presentations;
Natural language processing;
Automation;
Artificial intelligence;
Computational learning.
