Interactive Whiteboard Research Articles

Assessing the Effects of a Collaborative Problem-based Learning and Peer Assessment Method on Junior Secondary Students Learning Approaches in Mathematics Using Interactive Online Whiteboards during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Assessing the Effects of a Collaborative Problem-based Learning and Peer Assessment Method on Junior Secondary Students Learning Approaches in Mathematics Using Interactive Online Whiteboards during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Best Practices for Using Online Interactive Whiteboards

Best Practices for Using Online Interactive Whiteboards

Використання інформаційних технологій у процесі викладання іноземних мов у закладах вищої освіти в умовах дистанційного навчання

The article describes the role of information technology in ensuring effective teaching of foreign languages in higher education institutions, especially in the context of distance learning. The author focuses on the impact of information technology on the efficiency of the learning process and the performance of learners. The importance of video conferencing systems for conducting virtual classes and communicating with native speakers is highlighted, as it contributes to the improvement of foreign language proficiency. The advantages and disadvantages of interactive whiteboards in foreign language classes are presented. The role of online courses and web platforms in creating a virtual learning environment that facilitates convenient access to educational materials, interaction with teachers, and communication among students is highlighted. Special attention is given to the application of interactive programs and multimedia resources to stimulate interactivity and engage learners in active learning activities. The advantages and disadvantages of these resources are analyzed. The author emphasizes the importance of ensuring quality access to information technology for the effective application by teachers and learners. It is determined that the application of information technology in teaching foreign languages in higher education institutions in the context of distance learning can significantly improve the efficiency of learning and provide access to education for a wide audience of learners.

An Evaluation Study of an Electronic Whiteboard System for Nursing Care in the Emergence Unit

The main objective of this research is to evaluate a task and alert management system denominated SHAVI (SHAred VIew), developed to be used by the Nursing team of the Emergency Unit of a University Hospital located in southern Brazil. The system was developed as a resource for managing patients clinical data and warning signs of clinical deterioration during urgency and emergency care. The research is characterized as exploratory and descriptive, with data collection carried out in the field with 21 participants, including students and professionals working in the emergency sector, through the application of a questionnaire consisting of 48 questions. The usability and user acceptance of the tool was mainly verified based on Nielsen's Usability Heuristics and the Technology Acceptance Model. The evaluation and user participation contributes to identify problems and make corrections before putting the system into use, contributing to its adoption and acceptance.The evaluation reveled that the system has great potential for use and can be considered a safety mechanism for monitoring patients in the emergence unit, but to be adopted, needs to be integrated with other systems used in the Hospital and to train first-time users.

FEATURES OF THE PROFESSIONAL VOCALIST TRAINING IN THE CONDITIONS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

We study the use of information technologies in the course of vocalist training under the conditions of distance learning. It is noted that the aim of all educational services is to create a unified educational environment with the association of teachers and students. Attention is paid to the fact that distance learning in music education facilitates the learning process, provides quick access to information, and encourages the vocalist to prepare and engage in creative activities in the classroom and independently.
 The article analyzes the platforms for conducting online classes and organizing video and audio conferences at music education institutions in Ukraine, which, in particular, are used by teachers during vocal classes at the Department of Music of the Yuri Fedkovych National University of Chernivtsi. The method of using them is described in the example of such platforms as Zoom, Schoology, and Google Drive.
 We consider information technologies of vocalist training in distance learning conditions. They can be divided into online (real-time data exchange) and offline (storage and transmission of information on any electronic device of the addressee, for example, e-mail, video lecture recordings - Gmail, iCloud Mail, I.UA, UKR.NET, Outlook.com, Yahoo! Mail, Zoho Mail, AIM Mail, Inbox.com, ProtonMail, etc.). Offline technologies are effective for organizing consultations, conducting routine monitoring, and checking homework.
 It is noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of war by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine have changed the educational process in music education institutions – classes have largely moved from classrooms to online forms. In particular, the most common form of distance learning is a video conferencing platform that provides online communication in the classroom, screen demonstration with sound, video, and audio communication between vocalists and teachers, recordings of the video conference, interactive whiteboard, and administration. The purpose of online services is to provide communication and feedback to all participants in the educational process. The following services and applications are available for collective calls and conferences: Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, Google Hangouts, Moodle, Discord, Skype, Viber, Telegram, etc.
 It is established that a high level of information competence of a teacher ensures the effective use of information technologies in the course of vocalist training. Therefore, it is a necessary prerequisite for further improvement of their professional competence and one of the most important indicators of the success of activities. It determines the prospect of further research.

The features of game mechanics use in teaching computer science for the development of creative thinking of students

Problem statement. One of the priority tasks of modern society is the creation of conditions conducive to the upbringing and development of a creative personality. The computer science course has a didactic potential in terms of the formation of initiative, independence, imagination, the ability to set and solve problems. The presented study aimed at substantiating the effectiveness of game mechanics use in teaching computer science to solve the problem associated with the need to develop the creative thinking of students. Methodology . The mechanics “Achievement,” “Reckoning on trust,” “Fun once - always fun,” “User progress” are implemented with game elements and methods in the study of theoretical computer science. Resources of digital services (interactive whiteboards, random selection generators) are used for gamification. The base of the experiment is a secondary school with in-depth study of individual subjects in the Stulovo village (Slobodskoy district, Kirov region). The study covered 74 students of the seventh grade (64% - girls and 36% - boys). The average age of the respondents is 13 years. Statistical processing of the results was performed using Pearson's chi-squared test. Results. During the game, students study theoretical material, solve a system of creative and non-standard tasks on the topic “Measurement of information.” For each game mechanic, a goal, tasks, sets of rules and restrictions are defined. Statistically significant differences in the qualitative changes that have taken place in the system according to the levels of development of creative thinking are identified. Conclusion . The features of the presented version of the application of game mechanics in teaching computer science in terms of the development of creative thinking are described: taking into account the age characteristics of students when formulating message texts, inclusion of digital services, combination of oral and written speech with interaction on a computer network.

A Virtual Reality Whiteboard System for Remote Collaboration Using Natural Handwriting

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the significance of remote collaboration. This study proposes a virtual reality (VR) whiteboard system that enables remote collaboration among multiple participants using natural handwriting. In total, three experiments were conducted to investigate, respectively, collaboration efficiency, user experience, and system delay. First, we compared the collaboration efficiency of the traditional whiteboard, the electronic whiteboard, and the proposed virtual reality whiteboard in a series of controlled experiments. It was discovered that the VR whiteboard significantly improves collaboration efficiency in comparison to the mouse-based electronic whiteboard and is comparable to the traditional whiteboard. Second, we assessed the user experience with a survey scale (questionnaires). The subsequent results demonstrate that the VR whiteboard provides a superior user experience in terms of efficiency, usability, etc., compared to the traditional whiteboard. We also measured an end-to-end latency of approximately 115 milliseconds, which is sufficient for remote collaboration.

The Impact of Using Interactive Whiteboard on Developing the Grammatical Competence of Iraqi EFL Learners

تعليم القواعد هو العنصر الأكثر تركيزًا في تدريس اللغة لطلاب اللغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية ويمكن استخدامه كوسيلة لتحسين تعلم اللغة الأجنبية. يرفع من فهم الطلاب للأفكار الرئيسية في النص ، ويستكشف بنية النص ؛ يبدو أنه ضروري للاستخدام الجيد للغة. أظهرت الأبحاث أنه يتم اقتراح أنواع مختلفة من استراتيجيات التدريس لتحسين القدرة على تعلم القواعد النحوية. تم اعتماد السبورة التفاعلية في الدراسة الحالية كأداة تعليمية يمكن استخدامها لتسهيل التعلم التواصلي والهادف. لذلك ، تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى التحقيق في تأثير استخدام السبورة التفاعلية في تدريس القواعد على تطوير الكفاءة النحوية لمتعلمي اللغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية في العراق. تنص الفرضية الصفرية على أنه لا يوجد فرق ذو دلالة إحصائية بين متوسط ​​درجات الطلاب الذين يدرسون الهياكل النحوية باستخدام السبورة التفاعلية وتلك الخاصة بالطلاب الذين يدرسون هذه الهياكل باستخدام الطريقة التي أوصى بها كتاب المعلم. مجتمع الدراسة الحالية هم طالبات الصف الخامس الاعدادي (الفرع العلمي) في بغداد خلال العام الدراسي 2016-2017. عينة الدراسة ضمت 83 طالبا. تتكون المجموعة التجريبية من 42 طالبة بينما المجموعة الضابطة تتكون من 41. تم اختيار هاتين المجموعتين عشوائياً من مدرسة بغداد الاعدادية للبنات في بغداد. يتم معادلة مواضيع كلتا المجموعتين في مستوى تعليم والديهم ، وأعمارهم ، وإنجازهم في اللغة الإنجليزية في امتحان منتصف العام ، ودرجاتهم في الاختبار التمهيدي ، بالإضافة إلى بعض العوامل الخارجية. لتحقيق هدف الدراسة ، يتم إجراء تجربة باستخدام تصميم مجموعة ضابطة للاختبار القبلي غير المكافئ. يتم تدريس هذه المجموعات نفس المادة التي تحتوي على ثلاث وحدات من الكتاب المدرسي اللغة الإنجليزية للعراق الخامس الإعدادية (الوحدات 5 و 6 و 7) باستثناء السبورة التفاعلية التي يتم تقديمها للمجموعة التجريبية فقط. قامت الباحثة نفسها بتدريس المجموعتين.

ПІДГОТОВКА МАЙБУТНІХ УЧИТЕЛІВ ПОЧАТКОВОЇ ОСВІТИ ДО ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ ІНТЕРАКТИВНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ В ОСВІТНЬОМУ ПРОЦЕСІ

The article is devoted to the use of interactive technologies by future teachers of primary education in educational institutions. The essence of interactive learning, which is carried out by forms of activity, when all participants of the educational process interact with each other, exchange information, solve problems together, evaluate the actions of participants, is revealed. It was determined that interactive technologies in education have great potential for improving the quality and efficiency of education. The concept of an interactive complex, which includes a computer, special software, a projector and an interactive whiteboard, is considered, and the method of its use is described. But the use of interactive technologies is not limited to the use of interactive complexes. For independent work, students use various interactive programs that allow learning the material in a playful, easy and interesting way. It is clarified that with the help of software training tools that simulate non-computer interactive methods, which include case technologies, role-playing and business games, as well as virtual laboratories, virtual tours, virtual excursions are successfully used in the educational process thanks to the use of modern multimedia tools. The stages of training classes using multimedia equipment are highlighted. It becomes obvious that by using interactive programs in the educational process, the teacher will have the opportunity to implement various teaching methods; significantly reduce the volume of material by using demonstration modeling; use the computer as a simulator; monitor the level of knowledge acquisition; to ensure more effective, controlled and managed independent work; it will be easier to overcome psycho-emotional barriers due to a certain anonymity of contact with the computer. It has been proven that the use of interactive technologies in the educational process of a higher education institution will contribute to the improvement of the quality of methodical training of the future teacher of primary education, the deepening of knowledge, abilities and skills, the increase of motivation and the encouragement of independent search, the expansion of one's horizons and the development of oneself as an individual. Key words: interactive whiteboard, information technologies, interactive learning tools, multimedia tools, technologies of the educational process.

The effect of using the digital (smart) whiteboard on the achievement and retention of the first intermediate grade students in geography

تهدف الدراسة الحالية إلى التعرف: 1- أثر استعمال السبورة الرقمية(الذكية) ، في تحصيل طلاب الصف الأول المتوسط في مادة الجغرافية . 2- اثر استعمال السبورة الرقمية(الذكية) ، في استبقاء المعلومات الجغرافية لدى طلاب الصف الاول المتوسط . ومن أجل تحقيق هدفا البحث صيغت الفرضيتان الصفريتان الآتيتان: 1- لا توجد فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية عند مستوى (0،05) بين متوسط درجات التحصيل الجغرافي لدى طلاب المجموعة التجريبية الذين يدرسون المادة وفق استعمال السبورة الرقمية (الذكية) ، ومتوسط درجات التحصيل الجغرافي لدى طلاب المجموعة الضابطة الذين يدرسون وفق الطريقة الاعتيادية . 2- لاتوجد فروق ذات دلالة احصائية عند مستوى (0،05) بين متوسط درجات استبقاء الطلاب في المجموعة التجريبية الذين يدرسون وفق استعمال السبورة الرقمية (الذكية) ومتوسط درجات استبقاء الطلاب في المجموعة الضابطة الذين يدرسون وفق الطريقة الاعتيادية . أقتصر البحث الحالي على: 1- حدود بشرية:- طلاب المدارس المتوسطة والثانوية (الحكومية) النهارية فقط. 2- حدود مكانية:- مركز محافظة بغداد 3- حدود علمية:- المادة العلمية ضمن محتوى كتاب الاجتماعيات المقرر تدريسه من قبل وزارة التربية جمهورية العراق . 4- حدود زمنية للعام الدراسي 2017- 2018. أعتمد الباحث تصميماً تجريبياً ذا ضبط جزئي ولمجموعتين، إحداهما تجريبية والأخرى ضابطة، وقد اختيرت متوسطة العلم قصديا عينة للبحث الحالي، وشعبة (أ) لتمثل المجموعة التجريبية البالغ عدد طلابها (30) طالباً، وشعبة (ج) لتمثل المجموعة الضابطة البالغ عدد طلابها (30) طالباً، وبعد استبعاد الطلاب الراسبين في كل شعبة أصبح العدد النهائي لعينة البحث (56) طالبا، وكافأ الباحث إحصائياً بين طلاب مجموعتي البحث في بعض المتغيرات التي يمكن أن تؤثر في نتائج التجربة، وهذه المتغيرات هي: (العمر الزمني محسوباً بالشهور، التحصيل الدراسي السابق في مادة الجغرافية ، اختبار الذكاء (رافن). وحدد الباحث المادة العلمية وصاغ الاهداف السلوكية لكل المحتوى العلمي الذي شملتة التجربة وتم اعداد الخطط التدريسية كما أعد الباحث اختبارا للتحصيل تم التحقق من صدقه وبلغ معامل ثباته بطريقة التجزئة النصفية (81،0) وتم تصحيحه باستعمال معادلة سبيرمان براون فبلغ (0،85) وضم هذا الاختبار(30) فقرة من نوع الاختيار من متعدد، لكل فقرة أربعة بدائل إحداها صحيحة والأخريات خاطئة ، بدأت التجربة يوم الأحد الموافق 2/10/2017 وانتهت يوم الثلاثاء الموافق 2/1/ 2018 درّس الباحث بنفسه مجموعتي البحث وبعد انتهائها طُبق اختبار التحصيل البعدي والاستبقاء على طلاب مجموعتي البحث بفارق زمني مدته اسبوعين، ولتحليل البيانات استعمل الباحث الوسائل الإحصائية الآتية: الاختبار التائي (T-test) لعينتين مستقلتين و مربع كاي و معامل ارتباط بيرسون و معادلة سبيرمان براون و معادلة صعوبة الفقرة و معادلة تمييز الفقرة و معادلة فاعلية البدائل الخاطئة ، وبعد تحليل البيانات إحصائيا توصل الباحث إلى الآتي: تفوق طلاب المجموعة التجريبية على طلاب المجموعة الضابطة في اختبار التحصيل البعدي وفي ضوء نتائج البحث أوصى الباحث باستعمال السبورة الرقمية(الذكية) في تدريس مادة الجغرافية للصف الاول المتوسط، لما لها من اثر ايجابي في مساعدة الطلاب على التحصيل وأقترح إجراء دراسات مماثلة للدراسة الحالية على مراحل ومواد دراسية أخرى وفي متغيرات تابعة أخرى .

Extended reality as a means to enhance public health education.

Technology has transformed the classroom and learning environments. From electronic whiteboards to tablet computers, educators now have access to a multitude of tools that enhance the learning experience. Educational technologies that rely on extended reality (XR) such as augmented and virtual reality are being used, or suggested for use, in various settings and often focus on technical fields such as medicine, dentistry, and aviation. Here, we propose that XR can be used in public health education to better prepare both undergraduate and graduate trainees for real world, complex public health scenarios that require public engagement, investigative skills, and critical decision making. Several opportunities for XR use are outlined that provide perspective on how XR can supplement traditional classroom instruction methods by providing an immersive, participatory training environment. XR offers an opportunity for public health students to gain confidence, have repeated simulated exposures in a safe and equitable environment, and build competency in critical functions they will likely perform as future public health professionals.

A Study on Contemporary Techniques in Teaching and Learning Process

The modern teaching techniques are use of technology based study like LCD projector, Computers or Laptops with Wi-Fi Connection, Interactive Whiteboards. Due to Covid pandemic the entire teaching faculty had participated in online education system. In this study the researcher wants to highlight various contemporary teaching methods, which aren't only technology based but also user friendly. Hence there's need that all educational institution have to change their traditional setup to modern one.

“We can make our words powerful”: students’ perspectives about using Talk Factory, a classroom technology to support exploratory talk

ABSTRACT Previous research suggests that students can use exploratory talk to support their thinking and learning. However, students’ own perspectives on such talk, and whether/how they value it, are rarely sought. Thirty 12-year-olds and their teacher used Talk Factory on an interactive whiteboard and iPads to support exploratory talk in English lessons twice/week for five weeks. Four focal students took photographs and chose words that described their feelings; their responses were discussed in two interviews together with their experiences of the lessons. These students were video recorded whilst presenting their experiences and opinions to the class. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified four themes: how students adopted exploratory talk, challenges they faced, ownership of their discussions, and the value of mobilising their ideas. The students described feeling more empowered, more engaged, and how they valued the exploration of difference.

Visual Management (VM) supporting collaborative practices in infrastructure engineering design

Managing the design of complex engineering systems requires an organisational structure and an information system to support collaboration among all stakeholders. Technological developments in information management have the potential to facilitate interactions across physical boundaries, even more during the Covid-19 pandemic. Visual Management (VM) is an information management strategy, as well as a means for communication between individuals, supporting collaborative work. However, there is a lack of effective understanding of how digital VM can support infrastructure engineering design. The adoption of digital collaborative VM in the context addressed is new, under rapid evolution, and there is limited understanding of how the users embrace VM while interacting with it. The aim of the paper is to explore the adoption of VM, focusing on digital whiteboards, to support collaborative practices in design processes. The ongoing investigation is carried out in collaboration with an infrastructure design and consultancy company, and follows the action research approach. The VM effectiveness was investigated by analysing the whiteboards applicability to diverse functions and comparing digital and manual implementations. Initial findings include understanding digital whiteboards as a means for collaboration among individuals with different perceptions to establish a common point of view, as it allows the information to be transferred across time and space, identifies abnormalities, and supports problem-solving. By creating a common ground, it has the potential to support complex and emergent interactions in the collaborative space.

Effect of Interactive White Board on Students’ Achievement at Early Grade Level

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Interactive Board on the learning and achievement of students. Students and teachers generally perceive interactive White Boards (IWBs) as a positive addition to the classroom learning environment. While there is support for a link between IWBs and students’ motivation toward learning, the relationship between IWBs, students learning, and achievement is still unanswered. Choosing the experimental research approach, this study compared two groups of preschool students. The researcher used a random sampling technique and divided the sample into two groups through a random assignment on the base of the pre-test and called them “Group A” as the Control Group and “Group B” as the Experimental or treatment Group. In “Group A” the researcher did not use IWBs while in “Group B” the researcher herself, used Interactive White Board to teach the subject of English grade Nursery. The results found revealed that the use of an Interactive Whiteboard significantly affected the student’s knowledge at the preschool level as compared to the traditional teaching method. The study recommends the utilization of digital learning through Interactive White Board.

Exploring enactments of the big screen and the small screen in a Norwegian early childhood education and care setting

While much has been written about how to implement digital tools for learning and play in early childhood education and care, using a sociomaterial perspective this article seeks to explore what types of activities can be the outcome of appropriating different digital tools, and who or what defines these activities. Employing a sociomaterial perspective traditionally means a move from seeing the world merely as socially constructed to including the material artefacts in the construction of that world. However, herein there is a danger of overemphasizing what things do to humans and forgetting what humans do in the relationship. Through a sociomaterial lens, digital tools, children and adults all equally exist – but do they exist equally? In the case of digital tools in early childhood education and care, it is not merely a case of how digital tools are inscribed that defines what these activities may look like. Rather, it is necessary to account for how these activities are enacted by adults and/or children as free play or as part of a more institutionalized agenda, in addition to the objects themselves. Drawing on actor-network theory and using video ethnographic data from an early childhood education and care facility that has a strong information and communications technology profile, the focus is on how the digital tools, tablets and interactive whiteboards are enacted as different types of activities depending on the actors in the assemblage. Nuancing between different types of digital tools, as well as being sensitive to how both human and non-human actors influence an activity, can be useful for researchers and practitioners alike.

Is virtual reality the solution? A comparison between 3D and 2D creative sketching tools in the early design process

Creativity is key in the early phases of innovation processes. With the rapid evolution of technologies, designers now have access to various tools to support this activity. Virtual reality (VR) takes over multiple domains, especially during conception. However, is VR really facilitating creativity in the initial ideation phases? We compare two sketching modalities through dedicated creativity support tools (CSTs): one in VR and one on a 2D interactive whiteboard. We propose a two-part creativity task (divergent and convergent thinking) for two groups of 30 participants each. We record user experience, creative experience, and creative performance. Our results show that VR is more stimulating, attractive, and engaging. We also observe a better level of creativity for the participants using the VR CST. Our results indicate that VR is an effective and relevant tool to boost creativity and that this effect might carry over to following creative tasks.

HUMAN PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHERS’ USAGE OF INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS

Çalışmanın amacı öğretmenlerin etkileşimli tahta kullanımlarının iyileştirmesine yönelik İnsan Performans Teknolojileri (İPT) çözümlerinin geliştirilmesi ve değerlendirilmesidir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda etkileşimli tahta kullanımına engel olan faktörler (bilgi, olanak ve motivasyon vb.) belirlenerek, bu faktörlerin ortadan kaldırılmalarını sağlayacak müdahaleler tasarlanmış ve uygulanmıştır. Çalışmada Gelişimsel Araştırma yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Çalışma grubunda bir devlet okulunda görev yapan beş farklı branş öğretmeni bulunmaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında veriler gözlem ve yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formları kullanılarak elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler betimsel analiz ve içerik analizi yöntemleriyle analiz edilerek, yüzde ve frekansları sunulmuştur. Uygulama öncesinde ve sonrasında öğretmenlerin etkileşimli tahta kullanım düzeylerinin belirlenmesine yönelik gözlem ve görüşmeler gerçekleştirilmiştir. Müdahaleler sonrasında öğretmenlerin derslerde etkileşimli tahta kullanımına yönelik algılarında iyileşme görülmüştür. Müdahale sonrası öğretmenlerin etkileşimli tahta kullanım sürelerinde önemli bir artış görülürken elde edilen en önemli sonuçlardan biri ise etkileşimli tahta kullanım niteliğinin yani tahtanın ders içeresindeki kullanım yeri ve amacının değişim göstermesi olmuştur. Öğretmenler etkileşimli tahtaların sunuş ve gösteri özelliklerini daha fazla kullanmaya başlarken tahta kullanımları derslerin sunuş kısımlarında yoğunlaşmıştır.

Prospective Peer Review for Hypo-Fractionated Treatments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose/Objective(s)One of the measures taken in our department to minimize the risk of infection during the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic was to reduce the number of treatment fractions for appropriate disease sites. In this work we sought to assess peer-review grades for such hypofractionated cases during daily pre-dosimetric treatment planning multidisciplinary reviews as part of our ongoing quality control program.Materials/MethodsIn our multi-center radiation medicine department, prospective video-conferenced reviews are conducted daily on all cases requiring a new treatment plan by a multidisciplinary team using an in-house electronic whiteboard linked with our oncology-information systems. Each case is allocated a grade of A, B or C on the treatment directive and contours to respectively proceed with, suggest minor revisions, or to require major revisions prior to dosimetric treatment planning. The database was queried for the years 2017 through 2021 to assess trends of grades assigned for hypofractionated plans for comparison with those for conventional and SBRT plans for the same anatomic sites, for both pre-COVID (2017-2019) and COVID (2020-2021) years.ResultsOf the 7179 plans generated during this period for 11 anatomic sites, 980 were hypofractionated, 4823 were conventionally fractionated, and 1376 were SBRT plans with overall grade breakdown as follows: A: 69.9%, B: 30.0%, C: 0.1%. The fraction of B grades for conventional, hypofractionated and SBRT cases respectively were: Bladder (51.4%, 34.3%, -), Bone (10.5%, 13.0%, 35.7%), Brain (29.3%, 28.1%, 30.2%), Breast (20.9%, 19.8%, 100.0%), Endometrium (45.6%, 0.0%, -), Lung (30.1%, 26.7%, 34.3%), Pancreas (44.0%, 16.7%, 41.6%), Pelvis (29.0%, 100.0%, -), Prostate (33.5%, 24.5%, 36.4%), Rectum (40.9%, 21.9%, -), Skin (34.9%, 33.3%, -). For most sites, hypofractionated cases had lower fractions of B-grades and higher fractions of A grades compared with conventional or SBRT cases. The differences overall were not statistically significant (Mann-Whitney non-parametric test, p-value>0.05). Differences in grade fractions were minor in COVID versus non-COVID years. The only statistically significant differences noted in time trends were between hypofractionated cases versus SBRT cases for the bone sites (p-value 0.04).ConclusionReducing the fractionation regimens for appropriate anatomic sites during the COVID-19 pandemic yielded no major differences in prospective peer-review assessments compared with conventional or SBRT assessments. Peer review enabled continued resilience during the pandemic ensuring continuity of the quality of care.

BOARD-AI: A goal-aware modeling interface for systems engineering, combining machine learning and plan recognition

Paper and pens remain the most commonly used tools by systems engineers to capture system models. They improve productivity and foster collaboration and creativity as the users do not need to conform to formal notations commonly present in Computer-Aided Systems Engineering (CASE) tools for system modeling. However, digitizing models sketched on a whiteboard into CASE tools remains a difficult and error-prone activity that requires the knowledge of tool experts. Over the past decade, switching from symbolic reasoning to machine learning has been the natural choice in many domains to improve the performance of software applications. The field of natural sketching and online recognition is no exception to the rule and most of the existing sketch recognizers rely on pre-trained sets of symbols to increase the confidence in the outcome of the recognizers. However, that performance improvement comes at the cost of trust. The lack of trust directly stems from the lack of explainability of the outcomes of the neural networks, which hinders its acceptance by systems engineering teams. A solution shall not only combine the performance and robustness but shall also earn unreserved support and trust from human users. While most of the works in the literature tip the scale in favor of performance, there is a need to better include studies on human perception into the equation to restore balance. This study presents an approach and a Human-machine interface for natural sketching that allows engineers to capture system models using interactive whiteboards. The approach combines techniques from symbolic AI and machine learning to improve performance while not compromising explainability. The key concept of the approach is to use a trained neural network to separate, upstream from the global recognition process, handwritten text from geometrical symbols, and to use the suitable technique (OCR or automated planning) to recognize text and symbols individually. Key advantages of the approach are that it does not resort to any other interaction modalities (e.g., virtual keyboards) to annotate model elements with textual properties and that the explainability of the outcomes of the modeling assistant is preserved. A user experiment validates the usability of the interface.