YAI4Edu: an Explanatory AI to Generate Interactive e-Books for Education

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In this article, we investigate how explanatory AI can better harness the full potential of the vast and rich library of books at our dis- posal. Based on a recent theory of explanations from Ordinary Language Philosophy that frames the process of explaining as illocutionary process of answering to questions, we have developed a new kind of interactive and adaptive e-book. Using the most recent question answering technol- ogy, our e-book automatically generates a specialized knowledge graph from a collection of books and other resources and extracts questions and answers. With this knowledge graph, the e-book generates interactive and adaptive explanations that guide readers through the materials in a pedagogically productive manner.

Science

YAI4Edu: an
Explanatory AI to
Generate
Interactive e-Books
for Education
F. Sovrano, K. Ashley, P. Brusilovsky, F. Vitali
Dipartimento di Informatica

Alma Mater – Università di Bologna

Introduction
• Most of our educational content (e.g. books) is
static: sub-optimal and time consuming for a human
reader.

• We study how to automatically enhance (static)
books making them interactive:

• reducing the sparsity of relevant information;

• increasing the explanatory power of the
medium by linking it to related books.

• We present YAI4Edu: a first prototype of
Explanatory AI to generate interactive e-books for
education.

Background Theory
• We exploit a recent theory of explanations from
Ordinary Language Philosophy

• Explaining: a process of illocutionary question
answering.

• Assumption: the goal of an educational e-book is
to explain something to the reader.

• Idea: organising the explanatory space (the space
of all possible bits of explanation) as clusters of
questions and answers is beneficial for the reader.

Background Theory
• Explaining requires question answering but it is
not equivalent to it.

• Difference between explaining and question
answering: illocution.

• Illocution: an act that involves informed and
pertinent answers not just to the main question,
but also to other (archetypal) questions of various
kinds that are relevant to the explainee.

• Archetypal Question: why, what, when, who,
how, etc.

YAI4Edu
• YAI4Edu relies on AI for: knowledge graph
extraction, question-answer extraction and
answer retrieval.

• YAI4Edu converts a book into a hyper-graph where
information can be either explored through
overviewing or searched through questioning.

• Interaction Features: word glosses (called
overviews) and a special kind of search box that
allows the reader to get answers about any English
question.

Discussion
• Hypothesis: explaining is somehow about question
answering so that the more questions a book can
answer, the more it explains.

• Expectations: The explanatory power of a book
can be improved by making it interactive in a way
that helps its readers to identify the most
important questions to be answered and to get
answers about their own questions.

• Experiment: see whether students acquire new
knowledge more deeply with interactive e-books
generated by YAI4Edu.

www.unibo.it
Speaker: Francesco Sovrano
Dipartimento di Informatica – Scienze e Ingegneria

Alma mater – Università di Bologna
Website: unibo.it/sitoweb/francesco.sovrano2

E-mail: francesco.sovrano2@unibo.it

YAI4Edu: an Explanatory AI to Generate Interactive e-Books for Education

1. YAI4Edu: an Explanatory AI to Generate Interactive e-Books for Education F. Sovrano, K. Ashley, P. Brusilovsky, F. Vitali Dipartimento di Informatica Alma Mater – Università di Bologna

2. Introduction • Most of our educational content (e.g. books) is static: sub-optimal and time consuming for a human reader. • We study how to automatically enhance (static) books making them interactive: • reducing the sparsity of relevant information; • increasing the explanatory power of the medium by linking it to related books. • We present YAI4Edu: a first prototype of Explanatory AI to generate interactive e-books for education.

3. Background Theory • We exploit a recent theory of explanations from Ordinary Language Philosophy • Explaining: a process of illocutionary question answering. • Assumption: the goal of an educational e-book is to explain something to the reader. • Idea: organising the explanatory space (the space of all possible bits of explanation) as clusters of questions and answers is beneficial for the reader.

4. Background Theory • Explaining requires question answering but it is not equivalent to it. • Difference between explaining and question answering: illocution. • Illocution: an act that involves informed and pertinent answers not just to the main question, but also to other (archetypal) questions of various kinds that are relevant to the explainee. • Archetypal Question: why, what, when, who, how, etc.

5. YAI4Edu • YAI4Edu relies on AI for: knowledge graph extraction, question-answer extraction and answer retrieval. • YAI4Edu converts a book into a hyper-graph where information can be either explored through overviewing or searched through questioning. • Interaction Features: word glosses (called overviews) and a special kind of search box that allows the reader to get answers about any English question.

6. eBook Interactive Elements

7. Exploration: Overviews

8. Exploration: QA

9. Discussion • Hypothesis: explaining is somehow about question answering so that the more questions a book can answer, the more it explains. • Expectations: The explanatory power of a book can be improved by making it interactive in a way that helps its readers to identify the most important questions to be answered and to get answers about their own questions. • Experiment: see whether students acquire new knowledge more deeply with interactive e-books generated by YAI4Edu.

10. www.unibo.it Speaker: Francesco Sovrano Dipartimento di Informatica – Scienze e Ingegneria Alma mater – Università di Bologna Website: unibo.it/sitoweb/francesco.sovrano2 E-mail: francesco.sovrano2@unibo.it

YAI4Edu: an Explanatory AI to Generate Interactive e-Books for Education

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