Rosalee Wolfe

Bringing the introductory computer graphics course into the 21st century

Abstract The field of computer graphics has matured greatly since the formal statement of the introductory undergraduate course for computer science majors was created for ACM/IEEE Curriculum 91, and introductory courses need to reflect the substantive changes in the discipline. Recent discussions with graphics educators and a syllabus survey have found six trends in recent course offerings. Further discussions at GVE 99 identified similar trends as well as an important enduring topic. Perhaps these findings will evolve into a basis upon which people can develop courses that fit their local needs as well as reflecting the changing field.

Issues and strategies for integrating HCI in masters level MIS and e-commerce programs

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is an important knowledge component for graduate management information systems (MIS) and E-commerce (EC) programs. HCI topics, such as user-centered design and usability testing, have begun to receive increasing attention in MIS/ EC curricula because of their importance in the development of Web-based solutions. This paper discusses issues and approaches for integrating HCI topics into masters level MIS/EC programs. Research on HCI topics related to MIS provides a theoretical foundation for student learning. By bridging research with these curricula, researchers are challenged to examine how HCI approaches can improve user acceptance of new systems. A case study illustrates how HCI topics can be taught as a stand-alone course or incorporated in existing MIS/EC courses. Drawing from the case study, the paper also addresses pedagogical challenges regarding student skill sets, learning outcomes, innovative pedagogies, tools and technology, and HCI issues for advanced IS/EC topics.

Education: a syllabus survey: examining the state of current practice in introductory computer graphics courses

This column is the second in a series revisiting the introductory computer graphics course for undergraduate computer science majors. It has been 10 years since the last formal discussions resulted in a list of topics for Curriculum 91[1]. Given the great changes that have occurred in computer graphics during that time, the SIGGRAPH Education Committee is reexamining this issue.At SIGGRAPH 98, several computer graphics educators met to compare syllabi and as a result of the discussion that ensued, decided to solicit syllabi from educators at a variety of institutions across the country. Scott Grissom, Lew Hitchner, Bill Jones, Susan Reiser and I collected syllabi from 23 educators. For a list of the instructors who contributed syllabi, please see the Education column in the last issue of Computer Graphics[2]. Of the 23 collected, two were strictly for graduate students and one was primarily an image-processing course. This column examines the remaining 20 syllabi.

Evaluating Alternatives for Better Deaf Accessibility to Selected Web-Based Multimedia

The proliferation of video and audio media on the Internet has created a distinct disadvantage for deaf Internet users. Despite technological and legislative milestones in recent decades in making television and movies more accessible, there has been less progress with online access. A major obstacle to providing captions for Internet media is the high cost of captioning and transcribing services. This paper reports on two studies that focused on multimedia accessibility for Internet users who were born deaf or became deaf at an early age. An initial study attempted to identify priorities for deaf accessibility improvement. A total of 20 deaf and hard-of-hearing participants were interviewed via videophone about their Internet usage and the issues that were the most frustrating. The most common theme was concern over a lack of accessibility for online news. In the second study, a total of 95 deaf and hard-of-hearing participants evaluated different caption styles, some of which were generated through automatic speech recognition. Results from the second study confirm that captioning online videos makes the Internet more accessible to the deaf users, even when the captions are automatically generated. However color-coded captions used to highlight confidence levels were found neither to be beneficial nor detrimental; yet when asked directly about the benefit of color-coding, participants strongly favored the concept.

Open GL: agent of change or sign of the times?

Although curriculum is a recurring theme of conversation in the hallways at conferences involving graphics and education, Curriculum 91[1] marks the most recent formal discussion regarding the topics in an introductory computer graphics course, and it was published in February 1991, nearly nine years ago. Nine years represents a significant percentage of the discipline’s life span. Further, Steve Cunningham, author of the computer graphics course that appears in Curriculum 91, points out that although the document was published in 1991, it reflects accepted practice from the late 1980s. So in fact it has been ten years or even longer since substantive discussions on this topic have taken place. Much has changed in that time.

An interface for transcribing American Sign Language

Background. Deafness is not only a barrier of sound but also a barrier of language. American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language used by members of the North American Deaf community and is the third or fourth most widely used language in the United States [Ster96]. While ASL shares some vocabulary with English, there is no simple word-for-word translation. Research in linguistics shows that ASL’s concise and elegant syntax differs radically from English grammar [Klim79][Vall93]. Because of the differences in the two languages, most native ASL signers read English at the third or fourth grade level [Holt94]. This is why closed captioning on television is a good first effort at making spoken English more accessible to the deaf population, but does not represent a completely satisfactory solution.

Combining emotion and facial nonmanual signals in synthesized american sign language

Translating from English to American Sign Language (ASL) requires an avatar to display synthesized ASL. Essential to the language are nonmanual signals that appear on the face. Previous avatars were hampered by an inability to portray emotion and facial nonmanual signals that occur at the same time. A new animation system addresses this challenge. Animations produced by the new system were tested with 40 members of the Deaf community in the United States. For each animation, participants were able to identify both nonmanual signals and emotional states. Co-occurring question nonmanuals and affect information were distinguishable, which is particularly striking because the two processes can move an avatars brows in opposing directions.

Synthesizing the finger alphabet of Swiss German Sign Language and evaluating the comprehensibility of the resulting animations

This paper reports on work in synthesizing the finger alphabet of Swiss German Sign Language (Deutschschweizerische Gebardensprache, DSGS) asafirst step towards afingerspelling learning tool for this language. Sign language synthesis is an instance of automatic sign language processing, which in turn forms part of natural language processing (NLP). The contribution of this paper is twofold: Firstly, the process of creating a set of hand postures and transitions for the DSGS finger alphabet is explained, and secondly, the results of a study assessing the comprehensibility of the resulting animations are reported. The comprehension rate of the signing avatar was highly satisfactory at 90.06%.

Fostering Better Deaf/Hearing Communication through a Novel Mobile App for Fingerspelling

Fingerspelling is a critical communication of sign language used not only by deaf children but also by parents, teachers and interpreters who support them. The recognition of fingerspelling is particularly difficult for sign language learners and support software for practice is particularly limited due to the fluid and natural way that signers will spell with their hands. Any software tool that helps people practice reading fingerspelling must be natural enough to represent the fluidity of this motion while at the same time being flexible enough to spell any list of words in the target language in any order.

Visual analysis: adding breadth to a computer graphics course

Visual Analysis adds breadth to a computer graphics course by teaching students to compare and contrast the visual effects of rendering algorithms. Using slides to teach visual analysis minimizes the amount of required lecture time, and the interactive tool TERA facilitates further study outside of class. Visual analysis enhances depth as well as breadth of knowledge, because students become familiar with an algorithms visual effect before they implement it.