Date post: | 19-Dec-2015 |
Category: |
Documents |
View: | 216 times |
Download: | 2 times |
Supporting Multilingual Paths Supporting Multilingual Paths
on the WWWon the WWW
Unmil P. Karadkar, Luis Francisco-Revilla,
Richard Furuta, Frank M. Shipman III, Avital Arora
Texas A&M University
Walden’s Paths – Project OverviewWalden’s Paths – Project Overview
• Facilitates inclusion of Web-based information in the K-12 curriculum
• Most information on the Web is not suitable for use in classroom education
• Information needs to be contextualized – To suit the curricular goals– To highlight focal points for students– To present issues of interest
• Paths are annotated lists of Web pages
Walden’s Paths – Project OverviewWalden’s Paths – Project Overview
WWW Host
Web Page
Internet BackboneA Path
Walden’s Paths ServerWalden’s Paths Server
• List of Paths
• Path Summaries
• Links to author directories
Walden’s Paths ServerWalden’s Paths Server
• Annotation Frame
• Control Frame
• Content Frame– not controlled by the
Path Author– Following links– Caching of pages for
performance
Walden’s Paths ServerWalden’s Paths Server
• Off-Path traversal– Single click return to
path
• Guided exploratory learning environment
Catering to a Global AudienceCatering to a Global Audience
• Need to support Paths in different languages– Schools that teach more than one languages
• Need to support parallel versions of Paths– Widening the viewer-base– Paths as an aid in learning foreign languages
• Support for multiple fonts and parallel widgets
• Support for authoring multilingual Paths
• Users need not download any font faces• Microsoft (Web Embedding Fonts Tool)• BitStream (WebFont Wizard)
The ArchitectureThe ArchitectureServer Setup
Reader Setup
Author Setup
Remote Web-site
L1
P1 P2 Pn
L2 L2 L1 L3 L4
Published Paths
Fonts
Path Server
HTTP Server
Language Selector
Control Widgets
Save/Load Paths
PathAuthor
Local Paths
Publish Paths
Path Publisher
Author
Browser
Browser
Reader
Interface (PathAuthor)Interface (PathAuthor)
• Authoring in various languages and scripts– English– Spanish– Hindi
• Path and page information
• Master Paths
Interface (PathPublisher)Interface (PathPublisher)
• CGI Application
• Authors upload Paths to a Web-accessible location
• Currently available in English only
• Separation of Paths by language
Interface (Path Server)Interface (Path Server)
• Multilingual Interface
• Paths can be viewed by language
Interface – Interface – A page on the PathA page on the Path
• Page is available in the language of the Path
Interface – Interface – Another Page on the PathAnother Page on the Path
• Page is not available in Spanish
• Page from the default language (English) is displayed
IssuesIssues
• Technology– Nascent
• Minimal support and buggy products
– Server-specific• Installed Web fonts must specify valid servers for access
• Each Walden’s Paths server must create fonts
– Platform dependency (Windows)– Font availability
• The server must have access to the font used by the Web page
• Information– Most information is available in English– Use of Web-based translators yields unsatisfactory results
Future WorkFuture Work
• Support for collaborative authoring– Creating paths in multiple languages when an author
doesn’t know all of them
• Internationalization of Walden’s Paths
• User modeling and Personalization
• User evaluation of the multilingual Paths– Path authoring– Browsing