AutoTutor – An extension to moodle to create
learning activities with “intelligent” automatic
correction
(http://autolearn.barcelonamedia.org)
Martí Quixal
Barcelona Media
http://www.barcelonamedia.org
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Overview of the talk
• The purpose of AutoTutor
• AutoTutor‘s parts
• An invitation to collaborate with us
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Overview of the talk
• The purpose of AutoTutor
• AutoTutor‘s parts
• An invitation to collaborate with us
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What is AutoTutor?
• AutoTutor is a web-based software that has been designed
– to “easily” create (language) learning activities including intelligent
automatic feedback without the need of being a programmer
– to allow for a progressive fine-tuning and customization of
feedback messages, reducing the hours devoted by teachers to
repetitive easily predictable (language) errors
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What does “feedback” mean?
Feedback means to:
• inform whether the answer is correct or not
• if it were incorrect:
– where is the error found? (or where can the text be improved?)
– what’s the reason that makes this an error?
– how could you manage to repair it?
• offering instructions to find a solution (book page, a fragment in a text
or audio file, etc.)
• offering a correction proposal (like in Word’s spell checker)
… and being sure that the feedback message is appropriate
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What kind of feedback was AutoTutor designed for?
• Feedback on linguistic errors (focus on form)
• Feedback on content or communicative errors (focus on
content)
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What kind of linguistic errors?
Wrong tense/choice of word form
What happened to Mintel’s sales during the last three months?
The sales figures of Mintel grow.
The sales figures of Mintel grew.
Why don’t you use the past tense of the verb.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What kind of content errors?
Part of the answer is incorrect
What measure have they taken to cope with the increasing demand?
The company has reduced its staff.
The company has increased its staff.
Well, that’s not quite the answer, in fact is
right the opposite.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What kind of content errors?
Part of the answer is superfluous
What measure have they taken to cope with the increasing demand?
The clever company has increased its staff and it’s
raining in China.
The company has increased its staff.
Your answer contains the correct words and
content, but check if the words marked in
red are relevant.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Overview of the talk
• The purpose of AutoTutor
• AutoTutor‘s parts
• An invitation to collaborate with us
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

What does AutoTutor consist of?
AutoTutor consists of three distinctive pieces of software:
– A moodle extension that allows integrating teaching activities in
with an access to NLP processing software.
– A web-based graphical interface for teachers to author language
learning activities.
– A combination of algorithms that allow for the automatic creation
of NLP resources given a specific exercise.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor‘s moodle extension (I)
Fully integrated as a moodle activity
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor‘s moodle extension (II)
Keeping track of learner activity and teacher/peer inspection
Feedback to
form
Teacher
comments
Learner answer
Feedback to content
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor‘s moodle extension (III)
An interface for the learner to access automatic feedback
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor‘s moodle extension (IV)
Two other samples of automatic feedback
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor’s GUI for activity creation (I)
An interface to create activities as they will
be seen in moodle, as well as its evaluation
and correction specifications (simplified, not
trivial though).
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor’s GUI for activity creation (II)
• AutoTutor provides with a graphical interface to:
– Create AutoTutor pages that will be used to connect to automatic
correction tools from moodle
– Define the specifications of how that exercise is to be corrected
(which are the correct answers, and which are very common errors
that deserve specific attention/feedback)
– Allow for the generation of all the resources required for intelligent
automatic correction/tutoring (without being a programmer!)
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

AutoTutor’s generator of computational resources
Automatic Correction tools
• General spell and grammar checking feedback (pre-existing)
• Exercise specific feedback
– defined within the system using teacher input
– defined by teacher (through interface)
• Content-checking feedback (defined within the system using
teacher input)
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Exercise specific system-defined feedback means…
• Preposition wrong: I am interested at physics.
• Article missing: John took [Ø] car.
• Modal verb wrong: You may not cross the street at a red light.
• Quantificational expression wrong: John has few/little friends.
• Number wrong: The assignment lasts up to twenty two years.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

System-defined content-checking feedback (I)
• Blocks are missing
– Some crucial part of the solution is missing. Please check!
• Hagia Sophia is famous [Ø]. (for what?)
• Blocks are in the wrong order
– Check if the order of some information units is wrong.
• Blocks do not fit together
– Check if some information units do not fit together linguistically or
in terms of contents.
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

System-defined content-checking feedback (II)
• Words that are not part of any foreseen block
– This part of the solution does not correspond to any part of the
possible solutions stored by the system. Please check!
• Hagia Sophia is famous for its massive dome in Istanbul.*
(* The question was formulated in a way that made it unnecessary)
• ‘Something’ is wrong
– This part of the solution contains some or all of the relevant
keywords but something is missing or too much or some word form
is wrong. Please check!
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Overview of the talk
• The purpose of AutoTutor
• AutoTutor‘s parts
• An invitation to collaborate with us
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Access free and granted for the life of the server
• Project’s site
http://autolearn.barcelonamedia.org
• Moodle http://parles.upf.edu/autolearn
– Demo courses (for English):
• http://parles.upf.edu/autolearn/course/category.php?id=
19
– Course on using AutoTutor:
• Go to course “AUTOLEARN Istanbul Workshop”
– Group I: aiwg12009 (enrolment key)
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

Contact person: Martí Quixal
Email: marti.quixal@barcelonamedia.org
MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009