http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-08-11_2.txt

Lately I’ve become quite interested in the whole idea of Secondlife where you can build you own indentity in a virtual world. The interesting thing about it is that anyone can build entities within the world, such as casinos, shops, churches, online dating shops, etc. This would be a fun way to create communities of practice and virtual chat/life bots. I definately would like to beat the Turing test there…

http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-08-11.txt

Yes I’ve been busy researching many things lately, so I forgot to write that the paper for ECEL has been accepted, and the title is “Evaluation of Quality of eLearning Environments”.

We have also submitted a new paper to an IEEE journal, which is even more interesting!

http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-05-30.txt

Wow, it’s been some time since my last blog. We’ve now finished the pilot of the chatbot and we’re quite satisfied with the result, we have written a paper for publication at ECEL where the abstract has been accepted.

<p><a href="http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-04-0">http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-04-0</a></p>We have now had some people trying out the bot, but we are still running the trial with the students here at the University. I thought it would be a good idea to show an example of a live chat with one of the students. Just to give you an idea of what it can do:<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> Hello! I will be asking you a series of questions about the use of Blackboard in the Programming course at Reading University. It is important for me that you answer the questions as sincerely as you can, as we will be using the results to improve the usage of the product at the university. This will also help my creator in his research of chat, which in turn will help with my ability to talk to people. Well enough chit chat, here we go! Would you agree with this statement, the content of the discussion boards in programming are off topic?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> No<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> Did you answer like that because you have not made up you mind?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> No<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> Really! Would you agree that the discussion board on Blackboard is not easy to navigate?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> A little bit<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> I didn’t get that, could you say that in another way, please? Would you agree that the discussion board on Blackboard is not easy to navigate?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> It’s not very easy<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> I see! The discussion board on Blackboard is not easy to navigate. I’ll remember that.<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> When asked, some people claim that the content of the assignments in programming is not boring. Do you support that sentence?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> Mostly<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> The content of the assignments in programming is not boring. Is that a true statement more often than not?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> yes<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> So you agree. Would you agree with this statement, the content of the assignments in programming is challenging?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> It is challenging enough<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> It is challenging enough, so what would you say to this? Would you say that the content of the assignments in programming is challenging more often than not?<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> yes<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> I’ll remember that. This is all for this time. Thanks for your help in our research. Have a nice day.<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> and you<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> Goodbye!<br />
</p><p class="blog">test6> goodbye<br />
</p><p class="blog">TF> Adios!<br />
</p><p class="blog">

http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-03-14.txt

Now we have started the first true run with the chatbot. It is very exciting for our research, as it hopefully will provide further chat patterns to the bot, and bring more knowledge of the underlying ontologies.

http://www.oster-lundqvist.com/karsten/blog/index.php?entry=/2006-03-13.txt

The bot is soon to go on air. We are now working on getting access to the outer world through the University firewall. Once that has happened we will start having tests with it. First of we’ll try to get the first year students to talk to it. This should give us valuable feedback and experience about the versatility and “intelligence” of the bot, especially to see how we can add ontological experiences into the chatbot. This will be a major (and difficult to implement) feature of the next generation of the bot…