SBIR Phase I: Developing a web-based authoring framework for online animated interactive university-level content via curated crowdsourcing

SBIR 第一阶段：通过策划众包为在线动画互动大学级内容开发基于网络的创作框架

• 批准号: 1315094
• 负责人: Smita Bakshi
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Zyante Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1315094&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Developing; web; based

This SBIR project's innovation is a unique web-based authoring framework for creating animated interactive web content that replaces university-level STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) textbooks in traditional or online courses. The confluence of HTML5, cloud services, and ubiquitous portable devices enables widespread use of web-native content having engaging effective activities for students including animations, interactive simulators including mini-games, and self-assessments. Such content is difficult to develop/maintain in traditional publishing paradigms involving a small author/editor core team. A wiki-style crowdsourced approach, with oversight by an author/editor core team, is more scalable but web-based authoring tools support only limited content types like text or drawings. The project's intellectual merit lies in developing a novel web-based authoring tool for creating HTML5 code for animations, including a novel automated synthesis of the code from abstract restricted-form English-sentence specifications inspired by experiences in developing state-of-the-art automated circuit synthesis techniques. The merit also lies in a new repository of parameterized interactive simulations with potentially wide applicability in STEM fields. Results will include the initial tool and repository, plus use by instructors and graduate students from several universities to demonstrate crowdsourcing feasibility. The broader/commercial impact of this project includes catalyzing a new partnering approach between a publisher and universities, striking a new balance between core-team authored content and crowdsourcing. A core author/editor team creates initial content and outlines needs, requiring less upfront investment, and the community adopts the content and contributes items under the core team's curation. Curated crowdsourced content can dramatically improve content and reduce creation/maintenance costs. The approach can expand to curated crowdsourced homeworks, automated grading, online help tools, quizzing services, student performance analysis, and more, unleashing synergy among universities to build common tools that benefit the community, a necessity made manifest due to drastic reductions in university budgets. The project's initial focus on computer science lower-division topics may yield company revenues of $5M in textbooks within a few years and $10M considering expanded services shifted from university to company, for CS alone, and $40M-$50M for multiple STEM disciplines. The addressable market for lower division STEM is $1B textbooks and $2B expanded services. The project's approach provides a practical strategy, with individual instructors initially adopting the content as a textbook replacement for campus-based or online classes, followed by possible expanded service arrangements made with departments/universities.

这个SBIR项目的创新是一个独特的基于Web的创作框架，用于创建动画交互式Web内容，取代传统或在线课程中的大学级STEM（科学，技术，工程，数学）教科书。HTML5、云服务和无处不在的便携式设备的融合使网络原生内容的广泛使用成为可能，这些内容为学生提供了有效的活动，包括动画、包括迷你游戏在内的交互式模拟器和自我评估。这样的内容在涉及小的作者/编辑核心团队的传统出版范式中难以开发/维护。维基风格的众包方法，由作者/编辑核心团队监督，更具可扩展性，但基于Web的创作工具只支持有限的内容类型，如文本或绘图。该项目的智力价值在于开发一种新的基于Web的创作工具，用于创建HTML5动画代码，包括一种新的自动合成代码，该代码来自抽象的限制形式的英语句子规范，灵感来自开发最先进的自动电路合成技术的经验。其优点还在于一个新的参数化交互式模拟库，在STEM领域具有潜在的广泛适用性。成果将包括初始工具和储存库，以及来自几所大学的教师和研究生的使用，以证明众包的可行性。 该项目的更广泛/商业影响包括促进出版商和大学之间的新合作方式，在核心团队创作的内容和众包之间取得新的平衡。核心作者/编辑团队创建初始内容并概述需求，需要较少的前期投资，社区在核心团队的策展下采用内容并贡献项目。精心策划的众包内容可以显著改善内容并降低创建/维护成本。这种方法可以扩展到策划的众包作业，自动评分，在线帮助工具，测验服务，学生成绩分析等，释放大学之间的协同作用，以建立有利于社区的通用工具，由于大学预算的大幅减少，这一必要性变得明显。该项目最初的重点是计算机科学较低的部门主题，可能会在几年内产生500万美元的教科书收入，考虑到从大学到公司的扩展服务，仅CS就可以产生1000万美元的收入，多个STEM学科的收入为4000万至5000万美元。较低部门STEM的潜在市场是10亿美元的教科书和20亿美元的扩展服务。该项目的方法提供了一个切实可行的战略，个别教员首先采用这些内容，作为校园或网上课程的教科书替代品，然后可能与各部门/大学作出扩大服务安排。