This proposal describes the Career Development Plan for Dr. Manuel A. Pdrez-Quifiones. The goal is to further develop the Human-Computer Interaction research and education at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagilez Campus (UPRM), and to foster the development of a software industry in Puerto Rico for the creation of K-12 educational software. The proposed research will create algorithms, tools, and methodologies to capture and use dialogue-context in graphical user interfaces, and to allow for portability of this context across desktop and PDAs. The educational career plans include the development of K-12 educational software for schools in Puerto Rico.
The research plan includes:
Definition of a taxonomy of factors that affect dialogue-context. The taxonomy will include examples on how these factors can be used in the design of context-based interaction.
Design and implementation of algorithms to track dialogue-context in a graphical user interface. These algorithms will be based on existing algorithms on natural language interfaces, but will be modified as appropriate to allow dialogue context to be portable between different interface styles.
Design and evaluation of new interaction methods that use dialogue-context. Usability studies will be used to assess the effectiveness of dialogue-context in educational programs.
The educational plan includes a project to help develop educational software for K-12, as well as other related activities:
Participate with the industrial sector to help stimulate the development of a local software industry for K-12 software. Partnership with Oracle Caribbean and Quantum Business Engineering, Inc. is already in place to help develop educational software for Puerto Rico schools. Results from the research effort will be incorporated into the software developed for the educational initiative.
Increase collaboration with other educators in Puerto Rico through the organization of local symposiums to discuss the specific needs for our students as related with educational software.
Revision and creation of new courses for undergraduate and graduate students in the area of user interfaces, mobile computing and educational software. Continued collaboration in PreEngineering Program, and Industrial Affiliates Program at UPRM, and in other professional organizations.
The Career Plan herein proposed is an extension and integration of previous experiences Dr. Pdrez-Quifiones has had as researcher in national laboratories, professor and instructor at several academic institutions, and developer of several shareware software titles for educational uses.
