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Interactive videos have been applied to various areas due to their engagement potential and efficiency improvement of information communication. However, creating interactive videos can be challenging because of a lack of novice-oriented guidance in current platforms, and the logic-building process when authoring interactive videos. To address these challenges, we obtained insights from four creativity support tool designers, proposed a series of hierarchical interactive video structures based on existing narrative structures, and presented the HierVid system. The system is designed as a Template-Module-Unit Mode-based hierarchical authoring platform grounded on three design requirements, and we conducted two user studies to evaluate HierVid. The results showed that novice users could get started to use and understand the functions easily, and the system allowed users to use and explore freely, with an enhanced efficiency compared to the bilibili platform. In conclusion, our research and design of HierVid offer guidance and support for novice users, making interactive video authoring quicker and more accessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a visual map to display the path and the location of the required books in a library is one of most expected service for patrons. The service generally relies on the construction and maintenance of a massive number of wireless sensors in order to achieve the coverage of the indoor positioning signal in a library. However, the main concern that impedes the implementation of this service by the general population is due to the immense costs of the hardware and maintenance which is required to run such a service. Therefore, the goals of this study are to: (1) develop an editable graphically displayed book-searching system (GDBSS) that allows librarians to establish a book-searching service, which implements a graphical display and is based on an online public access catalog (OPAC) system, without using additional hardware. (2) Examine whether the established service can effectively enhance the efficiency of the users' book-searching process. A library's geographic information system prototype was created by incorporating an existing OPAC system in the investigated library. To complete this task a total of 40 library patrons were selected at random to participate in the service test and also to take part in a follow-up interview. The following findings were obtained from the service test: (1) the GDBSS which was built by the proposed authoring system significantly improved the efficiency of the users' book-searching process, compared with the conventional book-searching methods which are currently in use by the library that was tested. (2) The participants' frequency of visiting the library did not correlate significantly with the efficiency of finding the required books when using the proposed service. (3) The participants not only perceived the proposed visualization service positively, but also considered the short text description of a targeted item's location, a feature offered by the service, to be highly useful information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious game development involves a multidisciplinary team of teachers and computer scientists. But the difference in computer competencies between the team members is a recurring difficulty in this collaboration. Authoring tools, which provide interfaces adapted to users' competencies, are promising solutions to overcome this difficulty. However, existing authoring tools are either limited in their functionalities (not powerful) or too complex for noncomputer scientists (not usable). A comprehensive set of design principles to address this limitation does not yet exist. The objective of this research was to define a set of design principles for the development of powerful and usable authoring tools. To achieve this objective, we first defined a set of design principles. We then developed an authoring tool corresponding to these principles. Finally, we carried out test uses of that tool through the development of twelve serious games. Results show that this authoring tool enabled the development of a wide variety of serious games (powerful) by teams with heterogeneous computer skills (usable). Design principles defined in this research integrate and extend previous works. They allow to overcome the dilemma between the power and usability of authoring tools. This could unlock new possibilities for collaborative approaches in serious games developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious game development involves a multidisciplinary team of teachers and computer scientists. But the difference in computer competencies between the team members is a recurring difficulty in this collaboration. Authoring tools, which provide interfaces adapted to users' competencies, are promising solutions to overcome this difficulty. However, existing authoring tools are either limited in their functionalities (not powerful) or too complex for non-computer scientists (not usable). A comprehensive set of design principles to address this limitation does not yet exist. The objective of this research was to define a set of design principles for the development of powerful and usable authoring tools. To achieve this objective, we first defined a set of design principles. We then developed an authoring tool corresponding to these principles. Finally, we carried out test uses of that tool through the development of twelve serious games. Results show that this authoring tool enabled the development of a wide variety of serious games (powerful) by teams with heterogeneous computer skills (usable). Design principles defined in this research integrate and extend previous works. They allow to overcome the dilemma between the power and usability of authoring tools. This could unlock new possibilities for collaborative approaches in serious games developments.

Online learning has been growing continuously in the last decade, accelerated by the pandemic Coronavirus, in order to offer learners new possibilities for learning and to guarantee pedagogical continuity. But some aspects, including the learning assessment, are still in development and require profound changes to meet the demands of the 21st century. However, by taking advantage of artificial intelligence techniques and new learning theories, it would be possible to create an assessment system in accordance with the active learning approach. This paper illustrates the models, algorithms and design used to create a formative and summative assessment system that will be mobilized to evaluate learner's knowledge, skills and competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification has been widely applied on modern education. Most of them are used to stimulate learning motivation and improve learning efficiency for students. A successful game-based learning content depends on both an adaptive educational activity planning and a high-quality game design. In educational activity planning, the 5E learning cycle model presents a framework for constructive learning theories and is effectively used in education sciences. Thus, in this study, a proposed collaborative educational gamification authoring system, CeGAS, is recommended to teachers to realize their game-based learning/teaching planning activities based on the 5E learning cycle model. Using the CeGAS, rich experienced teachers could easily plan and conduct their educational activities without considering the complexity and difficulty of game implementation. As each experienced teacher follows the steps of the 5E learning cycle in the proposed script editing system, including engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation, an available and exclusive game-based learning content with the 5E learning strategy will be developed. We are looking forward to achieving the goals of educational gamification with the educational game authoring system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to design an authoring system of robots and IoT-based toys for creating a scenario-based interactive learning environment for young English as a Foreign Language learners. This study adopts a design-based research approach to investigate the pedagogical needs, the critical features and usability of such a authoring system. Twelve adult participants, including EFL teachers, parents, non-technical, and technical professionals, voluntarily participated in this study to co-develop and evaluated the authoring system through iterations of needs collection, system design, system testing and refinements. An authoring system, consisting of IoT-based toys, a robot and a script editor, was finally developed taking four cycles of iterative improvements in 18 weeks. Eleven pedagogical needs concerning children's language and cognitive development, better children-robot interaction and practical issues were identified. The modifications made across different versions of the authoring system were presented in detail. The results also show that the issues of effectiveness, robustness and efficiency were the most frequently identified, and that the system had achieved good usability after four rounds of design and refinements. Design principles and guidelines also merged as a result providing insights into the effective design of Robot Assisted Language Learning in particular and Technology-Enhanced Language Learning in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of blogs in teaching and learning has emerged as a useful educational technology resource. Hence, this study’s main objective is to investigate the students’ perceptions and information-sharing patterns in learning computer science education through blogging. Eighteen samples were chosen purposively in this study. The study collected both quantitative and qualitative data using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and students’ blogs transcripts. The results revealed the positive outcomes of students’ perceptions of blog aspects, such as writing, reading, and making comments. In terms of information-sharing patterns, student frequencies in writing and sharing information through blogging were high when they were given tasks or activities that would be evaluated by an instructor. This showed that instructors play an important role in motivating students to be actively involved in blogging. Rewards or marks also need to be given as an encouragement to students for them to continuously and actively use blogs for learning purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The proposed system specifically targets applications related to 360° multimedia content in virtual reality. Overall, this platform supports the generation of multiple interesting experiences or multimedia contents from a single 360° video, an easy to use authoring system for the 360° content providers, the efficient transferring of the generated 360° experiences to the prospective viewers in virtual reality, and enabling the viewers to share their personal experiences of the 360° multimedia content in virtual reality with the other viewers. We propose a novel authoring and viewing system for generating multiple experiences with a single 360° video and efficiently transferring these experiences to the user. An immersive video contains much more interesting information within the 360° environment than normal videos. There can be multiple interesting areas within a 360° frame at the same time. Due to the narrow field of view in virtual reality head-mounted displays, a user can only view a limited area of a 360° video. Hence, our system is aimed at generating multiple experiences based on interesting information in different regions of a 360° video and efficient transferring of these experiences to prospective users. The proposed system generates experiences by using two approaches: (1) Recording of the user's experience when the user watches a panoramic video using a virtual reality head-mounted display, and (2) tracking of an arbitrary interesting object in a 360° video selected by the user. For tracking of an arbitrary interesting object, we have developed a pipeline around an existing simple object tracker to adapt it for 360° videos. This tracking algorithm was performed in real time on a CPU with high precision. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no such existing system that can generate a variety of different experiences from a single 360° video and enable the viewer to watch one 360° visual content from various interesting perspectives in immersive virtual reality. Furthermore, we have provided an adaptive focus assistance technique for efficient transferring of the generated experiences to other users in virtual reality. In this study, technical evaluation of the system along with a detailed user study has been performed to assess the system's application. Findings from evaluation of the system showed that a single 360° multimedia content has the capability of generating multiple experiences and transfers among users. Moreover, sharing of the 360° experiences enabled viewers to watch multiple interesting contents with less effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of Virtual Reality (RV) technologies in prototype design and process revision has contributed to multiple industry areas. Nonetheless, the development of VR systems for engineering is a complex task, as it involves specialized teams handling low-level code development. Given these problems, the goal of this study is presenting a methodology for designing VR, through an Authoring System based on Computer-Aided Design (CAD). The presented methodology provides an easy integration of electric power substation floor plans and Virtual Reality software (VRS), as well as three-dimensional and symbol modeling conventions. Centralized software architecture was developed, composed of the CAD Editor, input manager and VRS. The methodology was evaluated through a case study applied to the conception (elaboration) of electric power substations (EPS) as part of a Research and Development (R&D) project for training and field assets supervision. The results demonstrated visual precision and high integrity in elaboration of a VR environment from the CAD floor plan. This work also presents a comparative analysis between manual conception and the Authoring System.

Typical reports on past disasters contain valuable lessons that can help us improve our preparedness and response strategies and operations, especially with the help of modern analysis, simulation and visualization tools. However, disaster historical records are typically written in natural language for human consumption. They sometimes contain inconsistent data and information, which take time and effort to uncover. Extracting from the reports for further analysis by tools is almost impossible. DiSRC (Disaster Scenario and Record Capture) system is being designed as a solution of these problems. The system contains a cloud-based authoring system together with Disaster Record Capture Tools (DiReCT) running on mobile devices. Targeted users of DiReCT are government agents who are responsible for contributing data to be included in disasters records and volunteers trained by the responsible agencies. They can use DiReCT to capture observation data on the dynamics and effects of the disaster on places and people in machine readable form. The quality of the captured observation data is controlled and assured by both the capturing tools in real-time and by tools in the cloud. The authoring system can assist authors to write reports on the disaster based on the captured data and information. Disaster records produced with the help of DiSRC system can be read and processed by search, analysis, simulation and visualization tools for purposes such as developing better response strategies, providing decision support during emergencies, post-disaster analysis, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel authoring and viewing system for generating multiple experiences with a single 360° video and efficiently transferring these experiences to the user. An immersive video contains much more interesting information within the 360° environment than normal videos. There can be multiple interesting areas within a 360° frame at the same time. Due to the narrow field of view in virtual reality head-mounted displays, a user can only view a limited area of a 360° video. Hence, our system is aimed at generating multiple experiences based on interesting information in different regions of a 360° video and efficient transferring of these experiences to prospective users. The proposed system generates experiences by using two approaches: (1) Recording of the user’s experience when the user watches a panoramic video using a virtual reality head-mounted display, and (2) tracking of an arbitrary interesting object in a 360° video selected by the user. For tracking of an arbitrary interesting object, we have developed a pipeline around an existing simple object tracker to adapt it for 360° videos. This tracking algorithm was performed in real time on a CPU with high precision. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no such existing system that can generate a variety of different experiences from a single 360° video and enable the viewer to watch one 360° visual content from various interesting perspectives in immersive virtual reality. Furthermore, we have provided an adaptive focus assistance technique for efficient transferring of the generated experiences to other users in virtual reality. In this study, technical evaluation of the system along with a detailed user study has been performed to assess the system’s application. Findings from evaluation of the system showed that a single 360° multimedia content has the capability of generating multiple experiences and transfers among users. Moreover, sharing of the 360° experiences enabled viewers to watch multiple interesting contents with less effort.

EnThe paper discusses the production of an interactive map (both for desktop and for mobile) aiming to support the promotion of the cultural heritage, using an authoring system. At present, the tools feature 13 heritage sites across the County of Tirana, which are supported by text and photographs supplied by IMK - Instituti i Monumenteve te Kultures ‘Gani Strazimiri’ (Institute for Cultural Monuments) within the project ‘S.O.S. – Squiperia Open Source’, funded by the Apulia Region. We include experience of developing the tools as a possible benefit to other developers in the cultural sector.ItL'articolo illustra la produzione di una mappa interattiva (per sistemi 'desktop' e 'mobile') finalizzata a dare supporto alla promozione del patrimonio culturale, realizzata mediante un sistema autore. Attualmente il sistema gestisce 13 siti di interesse culturale collocati nel distretto di Tirana in Albania, con testi e fotografie fornite da IMK - Instituti i Monumenteve te Kultures 'Gani Strazimiri' (Istituto per i Monumenti della Cultura) nell'ambito del progetto 'S.O.S. - Squiperia Open Source', finanziato dalla Regione Puglia. La descrizione del sistema può essere utile agli sviluppatori che operano nel settore culturale.

IT L’ingente patrimonio culturale italiano affronta oggi le conseguenze di strategie di promozione obsolete e di un insufficiente uso delle ICT, ma soprattutto di una errata percezione del suo significato nella vita delle comunità. I caratteri stessi del c.d. ‘Museo Italia’(un patrimonio di beni ‘minori’ fortemente diffuso sul territorio accanto ai più noti beni monumentali) richiedono notevoli cambiamenti nei progetti di promozione sia nel senso di un trasferimento alla scala locale dei processi, sia nella identificazione e modellazione dell’utenza potenziale. Sul piano operativo ciò implica il ricorso a strumenti tecnologici semplici e fortemente interattivi, incentrati sui bisogni di informazione dell’utente medio, potenziale visitatore. L’articolo illustra il sistema sviluppato da ITC-CNR (Bari) nell’ambito del progetto 'Smart Cities’ per la città di Siracusa, basato su procedure e software che semplificano la pubblicazione di informazione georeferenziata.ENThe huge cultural heritage of Italy is facing the consequences of obsolete promotion strategies and of an under exploitation of ICTs, but above all of a wrong perception of its significance in communities’ life. The inherent characters of the so-called ‘Museum Italy’ (a wealth of ‘minor’ assets, diffused on the territory, together with the more famous monuments) demand substantial modifications in promotion projects, in terms of both a downscaling of processes and of identification and modelling of potential users’ behaviour. On the operational level, this requires the elaboration of simple and highly interactive technological tools, focused on the ‘average’ user’s information needs, or potential visitor. The article presents the system developed by ITC-CNR (Bari) within the ‘Smart Cities’ project for the city of Siracusa (Sicily), based on software and procedures aimed at simplifying the publication of georeferenced information.

This paper proposes a maze terrain authoring system with which a user can automatically calculate various and complex maze patterns to compose maze terrains in an easier and more intuitive structure. Using the maze terrain information calculated by using the proposed authoring system, a 3D maze terrain is generated quickly and effectively, and through this, the user’s visual realism in an immersive virtual reality is increased to provide a new presence. The proposed maze terrain authoring system consists of three core functions: a function that automatically generates a grid maze of various sizes and patterns based on a maze generation algorithm; a function that calculates a circular maze in an intuitive structure; and a function that transforms a sketch-based maze by using an image-processing algorithm. Through the authoring system consisting of these functions, various maze terrains from uniform mazes to irregular mazes can be generated effectively. This study produces maze terrains of various concepts directly by using maze information calculated through the authoring system. In addition, through experiments, this study analyzes the efficiency in an immersive virtual reality and the presence through visual realism. In this process, the suitability of the authoring system is also analyzed in combination with a survey.