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Route: This research topic can be taken by essay-route or project-route student.
NOTE: for project-route students, a simple usability analysis will need to be done to assess how users perceived the usability of the plugin with a small group of test users (12 to 15 users).
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This project is a follow-up to an existing 5-Component Chatbot research (you can review the short video at
https://youtu.be/1HETR44cv34 to get some basic idea).
The collaborative workspace is a web-based system that developers and users can access it and assemble and download their chatbot with their browser. The download chabot will be a zip file that contains all the chosen python scripts as well as shell scripts (for Linux) and .bat scripts (for Windows) to execute and run the chatbot at users/developers' computer. The zip file will also include a readme file to teach users how they can setup and running the chatbot as a cron job on Linux or a service on Windows.
Users/Developers can
- Register an account with real/fake email address (unique account) — to protect privacy, an account has fake email address will not be able to reset its password if the users/developers forget. Any new account wll be in "unverified" status.
- Sign into the collaborative workspace.
After they sign in, the can use a hamburger menu to run functions to
- Verify their account by asking the system to send the registered email an activation link — when they received the link and click the link, the system can confirm that they can access the registered email and the system can update the registered account status as "verified".
- Change their registered email address — that means they will need to sign in the system next time with their updated email address and their account's verified status will be changed back to "unverified".
- Create a chatbot project — by default, like Microsoft Word, the system will automatically create a new chatbot project for the users/developers when they sign in — but they can save a work-in-progress one and choose to open a new one.
- Save a chatbot project (could be presented on the workspace, too) — including the property values the users/developers have entered for the chatbot project as well as the chosen puzzles from each component type.
- Check the chatbot projects they have created — similar to open existing documents or projects function in Microsoft Word or Visual Code — and they can click to load/open an existing one.
Once they sign in, they can see the workspace that has
- Component Panel, has five tabs for different component types and users/developers can click and switch between tabs; has puzzle pieces that each piece represents a .py script file.
- Workplace Panel, has two tabs — one for design stage and another one for code review — in the center of the browser screen and the users/developers can click a puzzle piece in the component panel or in design stage tab and switch to code review tab to check the code.
- Property Page Panel, presents properties that a chatbot project has and users/developers can choose to enter/update or use default values; automatically load and show required properties when a component puzzle piece is dragged and dropped onto the design stage.
- A big Build & Download button, the system will generate shell .sh scripts (for Linux) and .bat scripts (for Windows) that can execute and stop the chatbot on users/developers' computer with the chosen .py scripts; pack the chosen .py script with the .sh and .bat files into an zip file; then start the file download process when users/developers click it.
If the users/developers sign in a "verified" account, then they can further
- See extra upload button in Component Panel.
- Upload a .py for selected component type with a self-chosen and defined human readable name and explanable text — so others can easily understand what exactly a component puzzle piece is when they move their mouse cursor over the puzzle piece — to function improvement and sharing purpose.
Sincerely,
Maiga Chang
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Pronouns: he/him/his
IEEE Senior Member
Full Professor & Associate Dean, Research & Innovation, Faculty of Science and Technology, Athabasca University, Canada
Honorary Chair Professor, Multidisciplinary Academic Research Center, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan (2023~2024)
IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor on AI and Chatbot (2023~2025)
Distinguished Researcher Award 2022, Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education (APSCE)
Vice President, International Association on Smart Learning Environments
Editors-in-Chief, ET&S (SSCI)
Editor-in-Chief, IJDET (ESCI)
Editor-in-Chief, Bulletin of TCLT (ESCI)
