SBIR Phase I: Software application for conversion of text-heavy documents into interactive diagram-based documents

这个SBIR第一阶段项目解决了许多学习者在学校、大学和工作场所面临的阅读和学习困难。该项目的目标是构建一个Web应用程序，帮助个人和组织将文本繁重的文档(如在线教科书、手册和课程)转换为基于图表的交互式文档。最大的潜在好处将是那些在学习长段落文本方面有困难的学生--包括视觉学习者、英语学习者和有阅读困难或ADHD的学生。该应用程序的用户将是教育内容的消费者(学生和在线学习者)和内容创建者(作者、出版商、备考公司和企业培训部门)。这项拟议研究的理论基础来自于一些研究，这些研究表明，图形管理器在包括科学、工程、人文和社会研究在内的广泛学科中都有学习益处。这项提案将通过帮助增加高中、大学和中等以上职业课程的毕业生人数，并通过改善雇主培训和再培训计划的学习成果来满足不断变化的商业需求，从而支持国家对熟练劳动力的需求。预计商业影响将是强大的，为税收创造收入并创造就业机会。该项目的技术创新是一种方法，它提供了一系列明确的步骤，将复杂的基于文本的文档半自动转换为基于图表的交互式文档。用于构建Web应用程序的知识领域包括教学设计、信息可视化、文本挖掘和自然语言处理。要解决的主要技术障碍是从源文档准确识别和提取内容，使用交互式可视化技术显示内容，以及将转换器与公司的查看器和创作工具(使用HTML5、CSS3和JavaScript构建)原型集成。该方法降低转换过程中涉及的风险的一种方法是将文本挖掘步骤(风险相对较低)与自然语言处理步骤(风险相对较高)分开。如果成功，该转换器将大大减少个人和组织将现有教育内容转换为更便于不同学习者访问的文档的时间和成本。这项提议的范围仅限于转换作为开放教育资源提供的数字教科书。今后的研究将以这一方法为基础，转换其他类型的文件(如手册和在线课程)和文件格式。

This SBIR Phase I project addresses reading and learning difficulties faced by many learners in school, college, and the workplace. The goal of the project is to build a web application that helps individuals and organizations convert text-heavy documents (such as online textbooks, manuals, and courses) into interactive diagram-based documents. The greatest potential benefit will be for students who have difficulty learning from long paragraphs of text ?including visual learners, English Language Learners, and students with dyslexia or ADHD. The users of the app will be consumers of educational content (students and online learners) and content creators (authors, publishers, test prep companies, and corporate training departments). The theoretical foundation of this proposed research comes from studies that show the learning benefits of graphic organizers in a wide range of disciplines, including science, engineering, humanities, and social studies. This proposal will support the nation's need for a skilled workforce by helping to increase the number of students who graduate from high school, college, and post-secondary vocational programs and by improving the learning outcomes for employer training and retraining programs to meet changing business needs. The commercial impact is expected to be strong, generating income for tax revenue and creating jobs. The technical innovation of the project is a methodology that provides a well-defined sequence of steps for semi-automatic conversion of complex text-based documents to interactive diagram-based documents. Fields of knowledge to be drawn upon to build the web application include instructional design, information visualization, text mining, and natural language processing. The major technical hurdles to be addressed are accurate identification and extraction of content from a source document, displaying the content using interactive visualization techniques, and integration of the converter with the Company's prototypes of a viewer and an authoring tool (built using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript). One way that the methodology lowers the risks involved in the conversion process is to separate the text-mining steps (relatively low risk) from the natural language processing steps (relatively high risk). If successful, the converter will dramatically reduce the time and cost for individuals and organizations to convert existing educational content into documents that are more accessible for diverse learners. The scope of this proposal is limited to the conversion of digital textbooks that are available as open educational resources. Future research will build on this methodology to convert other types of documents (e.g. manuals and online courses) and file formats.