Click to edit the title text formatBasics of Authoring TuTalk Dialogues

Pamela Jordan

University of Pittsburgh

Learning Research and Development Center

Agenda

Overview of authoring Basic authoring (GUI & sc) Authoring multi-part responses (GUI & sc) Next steps for projects

What do you have to do to create a TuTalk dialogue agent?

Write domain content in form of natural language dialogue turns (e.g. elicit or tell) Write an ideal dialogue on a topic

Write expected short answer student responses (correct, not correct)

Write subdialogues for expected student responses that are:Partially correct/incompletePartially incorrectOverly vagueOverly specificCorrect but premature

Authoring definitions – tutoring perspective

A collection of dialogues that make up an agent is called a script/scenario

A dialogue covers a goal (aka topic) One goal/topic can have alternative dialogues; an

instance of a dialogue for a goal is called a template in the authoring tool

A dialogue has one or more tutor turns called an initiation

An initiation can have an expected student response An initiation & response, or initiation with no expected

response is called a step A set of alternative phrasings for an initiation or

response is called a concept

Examples of concepts (abstract)

ask_share_appetizer [So, should we share an appetizer?] [I’d like to share an appetizer. What looks good

to you?]

skip_appetizer [I don’t want an appetizer] [Let’s skip the appetizer]

Response action: push to subdialogue for this goal

Example template for a dialogue covering a goal (abstract)

possible responses

Goal: select-appetizer

step: enthuse_about_appetizers

step: ask_share_appetizer

[agree_to_share_appetizer]

[skip_appetizer abort, ask-soup]

[unknown abort, loose-temper]

step: agree-on-appetizer

initiation

Concept to realize or recognize

Push to subdialogue for this goal

Goal name

Agenda

Overview of authoring Basic authoring (GUI & sc) Authoring multi-part responses (GUI & sc) Next steps for projects

Authoring interface

Alternatives to authoring interface

Why? not all features are available in authoring interfaceWrite xml directly (see documentation and dtd

at http://andes3.lrdc.pitt.edu/TuTalk/TuTalk.pdfWrite in special shorthand format called sc that

expands to xml

What is xml?

html is a specialized version of xml It is like “highlighting” a piece of text and annotating that

segment with extra information Xml is made up of elements and each element can have

its own attribute Ex of elements: enthuse_about_appetizers becomes: <step> <initiation>enthuse_about_appetizers</initiation> </step> Ex of attribute: <step optional=“once”> </step>

What is sc?

Uses a short-hand for the xml elements and attributes

Allows phrases to be defined inline within steps instead of offset with concept labels

Automatically moves inline phrases into concepts when translates to xml

Automatically generated concept labels are concatenations of first words of phrase (appends numbers if not a unique label)

Example sc script

Basic sc syntax

say or initiation, followed by a quoted string or a concept name, followed by optional attributes.

if or response, followed by a quoted string or a concept name, followed by optional attributes.

else or otherwise or unant[icipated], indicating XML’s unanticipated-response, followed by optional attributes.

do or subgoal, followed by a goal name. do and say can also be used as attributes, for XML’s

push and say atributes.

Uploading and testing sc

Importing xml into the authoring tool

Click to edit the title text formatDemo

Agenda

Overview of authoring Basic authoring (GUI & sc) Authoring multi-part responses (GUI & sc) Next steps for projects

Multi-part responses

Gives student credit for partial responses and seeks just what is missing:

Example:

T; What are the forces on a set of keys on top of a table?

S: gravity

T: Almost. There is another force. The keys aren’t moving so the net force must be zero. What force balances out the force due to gravity?

S: normal force

Multi-part responses

Multi-part responses in sc

g salad-and-soupsay “Do you want soup and salad?” answer soup-

or-not salad-or-not if soup-or-not do-nomatch what-about-soup if salad-or-not do-nomatch what-about-salad else say “You are not listening to me!”

Next steps

Hands-on task: try the authoring interface and the sc scripting language

Do exercise 3.3 in TuTalk Authoring Interface User’s Guide (can do sections 3.1 and 3.2 first if you prefer)

For help with sc, see section 3, in particular 3.3.1, of TuTalk dialogue system design specification (http://andes3.lrdc.pitt.edu/TuTalk/TuTalk.pdf)

Project tasks: Locate a corpus or collect sample dialogues ()