Development of an online handwritten character recognition module on WWW client and its implementation in a WWW‐based intelligent tutoring system

Abstract

AbstractInterfaces for handwritten inputs are expected to be useful as means by which a student can use natural handwritten inputs in an intelligent tutoring system. Intelligent tutoring systems operating on the WWW have been developed with the input interfaces of the mouse and keyboard. The authors have developed HandChaRM‐WWW, which is a module performing handwritten character recognition on the WWW. The module is written in Java and installed on a WWW client such that no communication delay occurs during character recognition. The characters recognized are limited to numbers, operators, the equal sign, and the like, and handwritten character recognition is realized by extracting characters with high speed and high accuracy. WWW FRONTIER has been developed by implementing HandChaRM‐WWW on an intelligent CAI system which guides fractional calculations. WWW FRONTIER is a drill‐type intelligent tutoring system which responds to a student by giving a fractional adding or subtracting problem. A student can input a fractional equation on the WWW in handwritten form. A handwritten character recognition rate of 93% has been obtained in evaluation experiments, which constitutes a practical level. The architecture of HandChaRM‐WWW is considered to be effective in intelligent tutoring systems for other domains which have characters as targets of recognition. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 33(2): 12–21, 2002