Click to edit the title text format Basics 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/incomplete  Partially incorrect  Overly vague  Overly specific  Correct 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 interface  Write xml directly (see documentation and dtd at  Write 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: enthuse_about_appetizers Ex of attribute:

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 format Demo

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-soup say “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 ( Project tasks: Locate a corpus or collect sample dialogues ()