Thank you for joining in, Adam. I think I'll leave outputting mathematics
for now. Perhaps you could start a new topic on that later? I'd also like
to think about outputting functions from our anonymous wiki (aka
"wikilambda"), which I'll come onto here.
I definitely agree about reading-comprehension qustions. For now, I
encourage everyone who is not already familiar with it to check out
https://www.deepl.com/translator. It does work on a tablet, but I found it
a bit fiddly to interact with. What it allows you to do is play with its
translation, choosing alternative words etc, and it reworks the rest of the
translation as you go along.
When it comes to Q&A mode, that brings us back to Charles's difficult
problem of re-use. (This seems to be missing here, but it's in
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/abstract-wikipedia/
2020-July/000233.html.) It also brings us back to "Reasoning over
ontologies" (
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/abstract-wikipedia/20
20-July/000206.html). Reuse is never easy, and "all the facts in all the
languages at all levels" is rather a broad scope... So I certainly accept
the wisdom of Charles's suggestion of a pilot project. I started with a
single quiz question: "What is the atomic number of oxygen?". For many
Wikipedias, if not most, the article on oxygen gives you the answer in the
first sentence or two.
But we don't just want the answer, we want a quiz! Equally, maybe we don't
just want the question and the answer, we want some wrong answers and some
tips. We begin with a multiple choice question, as above. "What is the
atomic number of oxygen? Is it (a) "Z"; (b) "O"; (c) 16; (d) 6; (e) 8;
(f)
....
The first thing to notice is that the wrong answers are not fictitious;
they are values you will find in Wikidata Item Q629 (well, "Z" is nearby,
in the label of the atomic number property, but no more clues!) and we can
explore this further by choosing a wrong answer and provoking a response
(a) "No, "Z" is the symbol for "atomic number", not the value for
oxygen.
(b) That's not oxygen's atomic number, that's its symbol.
(c) Oxygen is in group 16 on the periodic table. See if you can find it
there.
(d) Well, oxygen is the sixth element in period 2...
(e) That's right! Try choosing a wrong answer, just for fun...
So we have a small number of somewhat connected facts to explore. Any of
them can be turned into a question, which can pull in facts connected to
that, like other elements in group 16 or period 2. This is enabled by the
"quiZiverse" function that can turn a Wikidata Statement into a related set
of statements, for any one of which a new related set can be produced. In
an interactive context, choosing the option displays the text and could
call the function again with the chosen statement in place of the original.
Or the function is embedded in a link, so that, for example, clicking
"group 16" calls the function withQ104567 as well as Q629, extending the
quiz.
If used to set a quiz, the teacher can suppress some answers and add
alternatives, tailoring the quiZiverse to the students' level and the
material to cover. It is here that we need to see how to capture the
teacher's thinking, the rationale for changing the "focused ontology". Was
it too advanced or too simple? Difficult to understand? Irrelevant? More
interesting connection to something else... and so on. That sort of
metadata can then be used to guide future quiZiverse instantiations, with
target values for a range of dimensions, such as "reading comprehension".
Best regards,
Al.
On Sunday, 2 August 2020, <abstract-wikipedia-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Send Abstract-Wikipedia mailing list submissions to
abstract-wikipedia(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/abstract-wikipedia
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
abstract-wikipedia-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
abstract-wikipedia-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Abstract-Wikipedia digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Comprehension questions (Adam Sobieski)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2020 01:15:10 +0000
From: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski(a)hotmail.com>
To: "General public mailing list for the discussion of Abstract
Wikipedia (aka Wikilambda)" <abstract-wikipedia(a)lists.wiki
media.org>
Subject: Re: [Abstract-wikipedia] Comprehension questions
Message-ID:
<CH2PR12MB41844F0AF42F5A53024C82D5C54C0(a)CH2PR12MB4184.namprd
12.prod.outlook.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Educational technology is also interesting here.
Generating reading comprehension questions while generating natural
language articles is an interesting topic. I think that the matter would be
one of refining the set of possible questions and selecting the best
questions for a particular reader in a particular context. One might also
find interesting the topics of intelligent tutoring systems [1] and
automatic item generation [2].
We can view the automatic generation of encyclopedia articles in response
to search engine queries as a type of Q&A system. Articles and their
related content hyperlinks sections could be generated in search result
contexts, contexts which include the question(s) that users asked a search
engine to find the content. Articles, when produced with this search engine
referrer information, could, in addition to highlighting relevant content,
recommend follow-up questions for readers to select in a related content
section, each follow-up question a hyperlink to another article (resembling
a hypertext-based dialogue system). Hopefully, these related content
hyperlink sections (perhaps resembling a recommender system) would entice
readers to further self-directed learning.
I would like to also indicate that we should explore outputting
mathematics when automatically generating encyclopedia articles. For
wikitext, this could involve outputting LaTeX for MathJax to process.
Best regards,
Adam
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_tutoring_system
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Item_Generation
From: Grounder UK<mailto:grounderuk@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 12:32 PM
To: abstract-wikipedia@lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:abstract-wikip
edia(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Abstract-wikipedia] Comprehension questions
Thanks, Charles.
I can certainly see the possibility of many interesting use cases there.
True or false questions would be an interesting game for our
natural-language renderers to play, for example. Given an inferred
statement supposed to be true, negate it. Test-setters might be expected to
correct errors of fact or expression, but that's up to them. It would be
interesting to monitor which statements they preferred to choose as True
and which as False, in any event.
Questions of the form: "choose the best answer from the following" could
also be a win-win if our renderers face difficulties selecting or
expressing some combination of facts.
Then there is the grading of information. Questions chosen for more basic
tests might be supposed to be more generally relevant than those chosen for
more advanced tests, which might feed back into the emphasis in the general
Wikipedia article (now complete with a slider bar for the reader's current
and/or target level of understanding, as well as competence in the
language).
And finally, renderer, given the pedagogue's valuable input into what is
an appropriate statement of fact here, please turn it into questions in
many languages!
Loving it...
Thank you again, Charles
Best regards,
Al.
Today's Topics:
1. Re: How to store wikitext along the structured content?
(Grounder UK)
2. Re: Comprehension questions (Charles Matthews)