Silvia Mirri | Università di Bologna (original) (raw)
Papers by Silvia Mirri
Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A) - W4A '09, 2009
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding devel... more ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding development principle. From its beginning, ATutor was created to fill a need for an accessible network-based Learning Management System (LMS) [2] [3].
Journal of e- …, Jan 1, 2009
Abstract The «Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway» slogan is frequently associated to e-learning with the a... more Abstract The «Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway» slogan is frequently associated to e-learning with the aim to emphasize the wide access offered by on-line education to students. Our aim is to extend the reach of this sentence to content authors as well. Our idea is to produce tools to simplify drastically the task of creating, updating and publishing content for e-learning courses, and to allow them to produce learning objects of extremely high technical sophistication directly from off-the-shelf desktop application. Thus we introduce ISA-BeL, a ...
Open Source Mobile Learning: Mobile Linux …, Jan 1, 2011
The explosive growth of Internet services and the widespread diffusion of mobile devices are offe... more The explosive growth of Internet services and the widespread diffusion of mobile devices are offering ubiquitous and time-independent access to a huge amount of online resources. In particular, educational experiences on non-conventional contexts have been made ...
Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2012
Web accessibility evaluations are typically done by means of sessments. Metrics about accessibili... more Web accessibility evaluations are typically done by means of sessments. Metrics about accessibility are devoted to quantify accessibility level or accessibility barriers, providing numerical synthesis from such evaluations. It is worth noting that, while automatic tools usually return binary values (meant as the presence or the absence of an error), human assessment in manual evaluations are subjective and can get values from a continuous range.
The proceedings of the 13th …, Jan 1, 2011
Abstract Once we assumed that Web accessibility is a right, we implicitly state the necessity of ... more Abstract Once we assumed that Web accessibility is a right, we implicitly state the necessity of a governance of it. Beyond any regulation, institutions must provide themselves with suitable tools to control and support accessibility on typically large scale scenarios of ...
Transactions on edutainment V, Jan 1, 2011
Standards are typically conceived as a means of inclusion, where the term inclusion can refer eit... more Standards are typically conceived as a means of inclusion, where the term inclusion can refer either to an economic scenario or a social one. They represent a pattern, a paradigm, or an archetype to be wrapped around some kind of reality. Standards related to the ...
Journal of Access …, Jan 1, 2009
It is a common belief that the problem of extracting learners' profiles to be used f... more It is a common belief that the problem of extracting learners' profiles to be used for delivering custom learning experiences is a closed case. Yet, practical solutions do not completely cope with the complex issue of capturing all the features of users, especially those of ...
Distributed agent-based retrieval …, Jan 1, 2006
On the Design of a Transcoding Component for a Dynamic Adaptation of Multimedia Resources Enrico ... more On the Design of a Transcoding Component for a Dynamic Adaptation of Multimedia Resources Enrico Lodolo, Fabrizio Marcolini, Silvia Mirri∗ Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica-Universita di Bologna Viale Risorgimento, 2-40126 Bologna, Italia ∗ ...
Proceedings of the International Cross- …, Jan 1, 2011
The opportunity of effectively tailoring Web resources presentation -depending on each single use... more The opportunity of effectively tailoring Web resources presentation -depending on each single user needs and preferences -represents a challenge and a necessity for accessibility and inclusion. On the Web, customizing means transcoding content according to some user and/or device (contextual) settings. Such a profiling refers to devices constraints, user habits, skills, different needs (or tastes) about interaction, in order to drive all the necessary procedures for content (re)shaping. The usual set up that users provide for assistive tools such as screen readers or speech-to-text applications, is a common practice (and a typical example) for a subjective, better enjoyment of resources.
The 3rd IEEE International …, Jan 1, 2007
The vision of e-learning is evolving at an impressive pace. Providing quality and copious e-learn... more The vision of e-learning is evolving at an impressive pace. Providing quality and copious e-learning experiences may play a vital role for disadvantaged people who face special problems or needs, such as physical disabilities, for example. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may hence become a key factor enabling individuals with different access needs to be re-engaged back into the society, through education. To magnify the benefits for humans with diverse capabilities, as well as to enhance social inclusion, mobile and distributed e-technologies are further emerging as an effective means suitable to adapt to human users with varying characteristics, under heterogeneous context conditions. With all this in view, in this paper, we present the key issues of a distributed elearning system developed to deliver accessible, customized and multimedia learning experiences to learners with different skills. The main innovation of our work amounts to the fact that, to decrease the risk of excluding individuals with particular access capabilities, our system manipulates Learning Objects (LOs) which are dynamically adapted, based on the specific needs of nontypical learners and on the barriers that they can encounter in the environment. Alongside an operational description of the content adaptation process we have devised, we report insightful results from a real-world case study.
WSEAS Transactions on …, Jan 1, 2006
As a consequence of the increasing mobile and multimodal devices diffusion, on-line gaming is mor... more As a consequence of the increasing mobile and multimodal devices diffusion, on-line gaming is more and more often considered as a dimension of an anytime, anywhere and anyone spaces. Providing accessible games is one of game industry and academic research purposes, in order to comply with the anyone issue in spite of disability. Such an issue assumes a crucial aspect when people with disabilities participate in a multi-player game. Players with disabilities access the game by using assistive technologies with alternative interfaces, which require more operational time than the standard ones, so as to become a new barrier to the participation. Gamers with mobile devices have to face a similar situation, by playing over unreliable networks, promoting the anywhere issue. Typically, small mobile devices impose the use of unconventional interfaces and such a context can compromise the chance of each player to justly take part in the game. We have developed a system that takes advantage of intelligent agents in supporting inclusive playability, even if disadvantaged gaming conditions occur.
Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2010
The Italian regulations about Web content accessibility impose HTML 4.01 strict, XHTML 1.0 strict... more The Italian regulations about Web content accessibility impose HTML 4.01 strict, XHTML 1.0 strict or superior grammar validity. Such markup constraints are complied by a low percentage of Public Institution sites. In order to include the largest amount of not strict DTD sites on a synthetic, realistic representation of accessibility degree, this paper presents an experimental approach to set up parameters for making validity measures uniform, despite they are taken from evaluating different grammars. The proposed method allows for effectiveness in computing and storing information which otherwise will be quite unfeasible. Finally, the generalization of such an approach is shown to be suited for markup quality evaluations, beyond explicit law requirements.
Multimedia Tools and …, Jan 1, 2011
... present a prototype which supports the capture of digital and voice comments over segments of... more ... present a prototype which supports the capture of digital and voice comments over segments of video (allowing multimodal annotations) and produces a ... presented in [15] and [2]) are really interesting and stimulating, but also in these cases collaborative aspects have ...
Proceedings of the 2009 …, Jan 1, 2009
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding devel... more ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding development principle. From its beginning, ATutor was created to fill a need for an accessible network-based Learning Management System (LMS) [2] [3].
… , 2008. ICALT'08. …, Jan 1, 2008
Technical challenges for non-experts in creating content for e-learning are not trivial. Many mor... more Technical challenges for non-experts in creating content for e-learning are not trivial. Many more issues raise when that content is required to be universal, usable and accessible. The high-quality of the output, however, seems to be still indissoluble from the high-complexity of the authoring processes. This paper proposes a novel approach to lighten the burden to authors, and to make them produce sophisticated learning objects with little effort. We also describe ISA-WebLob, an authoring platform which takes that approach to implementation.
… , 2009. CCNC 2009. …, Jan 1, 2009
Abstract Multimedia and Web 2.0 can meet up. Despite the success they have obtained in last year... more Abstract Multimedia and Web 2.0 can meet up. Despite the success they have obtained in last years, these two domains present some important limitations. In particular, current Web 2.0 based technologies, such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, commonly resort to sequential ...
… , 2006. CCNC 2006. …, Jan 1, 2006
The increasing availability of network connectivity and the simultaneous improvement in hardware ... more The increasing availability of network connectivity and the simultaneous improvement in hardware miniaturization are promoting the growth of mobile entertainment. Consumers wandering about the city desire to participate in multi-player games through applications that should guarantee high playability standards. In this way, the concept of mobility has entered the field of gaming, bringing also new related problems. In this sense, mobility enhances the unreliability of the wireless/wired networked scenario through handovers, transmission errors and temporary link outages. Furthermore, the entertainment industry and the scientific community are researching methods to successfully run the two sides of a networked game, re-synchronizing them when players come back within the coverage range. In this context, we have developed a participatory framework that is able to handle the communication on the two sides when network faults occur, while maintaining at a higher level of abstraction the playability for all gamers and guaranteeing interactivity, coherence and fairness.
Proceedings of the 2009 …, Jan 1, 2009
How far are the Web sites from accessibility? Such a question implies a measure and, before, metr... more How far are the Web sites from accessibility? Such a question implies a measure and, before, metrics or a set of metrics to quantitatively describe distances or closeness to one or more aspects of inclusion. Quantitative evaluations can effectively guide the improvement of sites quality and of skills which are necessary along the content authoring process. This paper details the hypothesized metrics and measures on the Vamolà project, which has been issued to integrate a monitor and a validator of the Web accessibility, according to the Italian Law. On Vamolà, the validation tool output can be effectively used in defining metrics inside the monitor application.
New Review of …, Jan 1, 2008
Web 2.0 has definitively twisted roles and rules within processes leading to the final online res... more Web 2.0 has definitively twisted roles and rules within processes leading to the final online resources we all can enjoy on the Internet. Producers and consumers of Web contents merged into prosumers, dialectically sharing their knowledge, their experiences, as well as their ...
Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A) - W4A '09, 2009
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding devel... more ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding development principle. From its beginning, ATutor was created to fill a need for an accessible network-based Learning Management System (LMS) [2] [3].
Journal of e- …, Jan 1, 2009
Abstract The «Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway» slogan is frequently associated to e-learning with the a... more Abstract The «Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway» slogan is frequently associated to e-learning with the aim to emphasize the wide access offered by on-line education to students. Our aim is to extend the reach of this sentence to content authors as well. Our idea is to produce tools to simplify drastically the task of creating, updating and publishing content for e-learning courses, and to allow them to produce learning objects of extremely high technical sophistication directly from off-the-shelf desktop application. Thus we introduce ISA-BeL, a ...
Open Source Mobile Learning: Mobile Linux …, Jan 1, 2011
The explosive growth of Internet services and the widespread diffusion of mobile devices are offe... more The explosive growth of Internet services and the widespread diffusion of mobile devices are offering ubiquitous and time-independent access to a huge amount of online resources. In particular, educational experiences on non-conventional contexts have been made ...
Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2012
Web accessibility evaluations are typically done by means of sessments. Metrics about accessibili... more Web accessibility evaluations are typically done by means of sessments. Metrics about accessibility are devoted to quantify accessibility level or accessibility barriers, providing numerical synthesis from such evaluations. It is worth noting that, while automatic tools usually return binary values (meant as the presence or the absence of an error), human assessment in manual evaluations are subjective and can get values from a continuous range.
The proceedings of the 13th …, Jan 1, 2011
Abstract Once we assumed that Web accessibility is a right, we implicitly state the necessity of ... more Abstract Once we assumed that Web accessibility is a right, we implicitly state the necessity of a governance of it. Beyond any regulation, institutions must provide themselves with suitable tools to control and support accessibility on typically large scale scenarios of ...
Transactions on edutainment V, Jan 1, 2011
Standards are typically conceived as a means of inclusion, where the term inclusion can refer eit... more Standards are typically conceived as a means of inclusion, where the term inclusion can refer either to an economic scenario or a social one. They represent a pattern, a paradigm, or an archetype to be wrapped around some kind of reality. Standards related to the ...
Journal of Access …, Jan 1, 2009
It is a common belief that the problem of extracting learners' profiles to be used f... more It is a common belief that the problem of extracting learners' profiles to be used for delivering custom learning experiences is a closed case. Yet, practical solutions do not completely cope with the complex issue of capturing all the features of users, especially those of ...
Distributed agent-based retrieval …, Jan 1, 2006
On the Design of a Transcoding Component for a Dynamic Adaptation of Multimedia Resources Enrico ... more On the Design of a Transcoding Component for a Dynamic Adaptation of Multimedia Resources Enrico Lodolo, Fabrizio Marcolini, Silvia Mirri∗ Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica-Universita di Bologna Viale Risorgimento, 2-40126 Bologna, Italia ∗ ...
Proceedings of the International Cross- …, Jan 1, 2011
The opportunity of effectively tailoring Web resources presentation -depending on each single use... more The opportunity of effectively tailoring Web resources presentation -depending on each single user needs and preferences -represents a challenge and a necessity for accessibility and inclusion. On the Web, customizing means transcoding content according to some user and/or device (contextual) settings. Such a profiling refers to devices constraints, user habits, skills, different needs (or tastes) about interaction, in order to drive all the necessary procedures for content (re)shaping. The usual set up that users provide for assistive tools such as screen readers or speech-to-text applications, is a common practice (and a typical example) for a subjective, better enjoyment of resources.
The 3rd IEEE International …, Jan 1, 2007
The vision of e-learning is evolving at an impressive pace. Providing quality and copious e-learn... more The vision of e-learning is evolving at an impressive pace. Providing quality and copious e-learning experiences may play a vital role for disadvantaged people who face special problems or needs, such as physical disabilities, for example. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may hence become a key factor enabling individuals with different access needs to be re-engaged back into the society, through education. To magnify the benefits for humans with diverse capabilities, as well as to enhance social inclusion, mobile and distributed e-technologies are further emerging as an effective means suitable to adapt to human users with varying characteristics, under heterogeneous context conditions. With all this in view, in this paper, we present the key issues of a distributed elearning system developed to deliver accessible, customized and multimedia learning experiences to learners with different skills. The main innovation of our work amounts to the fact that, to decrease the risk of excluding individuals with particular access capabilities, our system manipulates Learning Objects (LOs) which are dynamically adapted, based on the specific needs of nontypical learners and on the barriers that they can encounter in the environment. Alongside an operational description of the content adaptation process we have devised, we report insightful results from a real-world case study.
WSEAS Transactions on …, Jan 1, 2006
As a consequence of the increasing mobile and multimodal devices diffusion, on-line gaming is mor... more As a consequence of the increasing mobile and multimodal devices diffusion, on-line gaming is more and more often considered as a dimension of an anytime, anywhere and anyone spaces. Providing accessible games is one of game industry and academic research purposes, in order to comply with the anyone issue in spite of disability. Such an issue assumes a crucial aspect when people with disabilities participate in a multi-player game. Players with disabilities access the game by using assistive technologies with alternative interfaces, which require more operational time than the standard ones, so as to become a new barrier to the participation. Gamers with mobile devices have to face a similar situation, by playing over unreliable networks, promoting the anywhere issue. Typically, small mobile devices impose the use of unconventional interfaces and such a context can compromise the chance of each player to justly take part in the game. We have developed a system that takes advantage of intelligent agents in supporting inclusive playability, even if disadvantaged gaming conditions occur.
Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2010
The Italian regulations about Web content accessibility impose HTML 4.01 strict, XHTML 1.0 strict... more The Italian regulations about Web content accessibility impose HTML 4.01 strict, XHTML 1.0 strict or superior grammar validity. Such markup constraints are complied by a low percentage of Public Institution sites. In order to include the largest amount of not strict DTD sites on a synthetic, realistic representation of accessibility degree, this paper presents an experimental approach to set up parameters for making validity measures uniform, despite they are taken from evaluating different grammars. The proposed method allows for effectiveness in computing and storing information which otherwise will be quite unfeasible. Finally, the generalization of such an approach is shown to be suited for markup quality evaluations, beyond explicit law requirements.
Multimedia Tools and …, Jan 1, 2011
... present a prototype which supports the capture of digital and voice comments over segments of... more ... present a prototype which supports the capture of digital and voice comments over segments of video (allowing multimodal annotations) and produces a ... presented in [15] and [2]) are really interesting and stimulating, but also in these cases collaborative aspects have ...
Proceedings of the 2009 …, Jan 1, 2009
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding devel... more ATutor is an Open Source Web-based learning environment that has accessibility as a guiding development principle. From its beginning, ATutor was created to fill a need for an accessible network-based Learning Management System (LMS) [2] [3].
… , 2008. ICALT'08. …, Jan 1, 2008
Technical challenges for non-experts in creating content for e-learning are not trivial. Many mor... more Technical challenges for non-experts in creating content for e-learning are not trivial. Many more issues raise when that content is required to be universal, usable and accessible. The high-quality of the output, however, seems to be still indissoluble from the high-complexity of the authoring processes. This paper proposes a novel approach to lighten the burden to authors, and to make them produce sophisticated learning objects with little effort. We also describe ISA-WebLob, an authoring platform which takes that approach to implementation.
… , 2009. CCNC 2009. …, Jan 1, 2009
Abstract Multimedia and Web 2.0 can meet up. Despite the success they have obtained in last year... more Abstract Multimedia and Web 2.0 can meet up. Despite the success they have obtained in last years, these two domains present some important limitations. In particular, current Web 2.0 based technologies, such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, commonly resort to sequential ...
… , 2006. CCNC 2006. …, Jan 1, 2006
The increasing availability of network connectivity and the simultaneous improvement in hardware ... more The increasing availability of network connectivity and the simultaneous improvement in hardware miniaturization are promoting the growth of mobile entertainment. Consumers wandering about the city desire to participate in multi-player games through applications that should guarantee high playability standards. In this way, the concept of mobility has entered the field of gaming, bringing also new related problems. In this sense, mobility enhances the unreliability of the wireless/wired networked scenario through handovers, transmission errors and temporary link outages. Furthermore, the entertainment industry and the scientific community are researching methods to successfully run the two sides of a networked game, re-synchronizing them when players come back within the coverage range. In this context, we have developed a participatory framework that is able to handle the communication on the two sides when network faults occur, while maintaining at a higher level of abstraction the playability for all gamers and guaranteeing interactivity, coherence and fairness.
Proceedings of the 2009 …, Jan 1, 2009
How far are the Web sites from accessibility? Such a question implies a measure and, before, metr... more How far are the Web sites from accessibility? Such a question implies a measure and, before, metrics or a set of metrics to quantitatively describe distances or closeness to one or more aspects of inclusion. Quantitative evaluations can effectively guide the improvement of sites quality and of skills which are necessary along the content authoring process. This paper details the hypothesized metrics and measures on the Vamolà project, which has been issued to integrate a monitor and a validator of the Web accessibility, according to the Italian Law. On Vamolà, the validation tool output can be effectively used in defining metrics inside the monitor application.
New Review of …, Jan 1, 2008
Web 2.0 has definitively twisted roles and rules within processes leading to the final online res... more Web 2.0 has definitively twisted roles and rules within processes leading to the final online resources we all can enjoy on the Internet. Producers and consumers of Web contents merged into prosumers, dialectically sharing their knowledge, their experiences, as well as their ...