The effectiveness of automatic text summarization in mobile learning contexts

Guangbing Yang, Nian Shing Chen, Kinshuk, Erkki Sutinen, Terry Anderson, Dunwei Wen

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

    48 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Mobile learning benefits from the unique merits of mobile devices and mobile technology to give learners capability to access information anywhere and anytime. However, mobile learning also has many challenges, especially in the processing and delivery of learning content. With the aim of making the learning content suitable for the mobile environment, this study investigates automatic text summarization to provide a tool set that reduces the quantity of textual content for mobile learning support. Text summarization is used to condense texts into the most important ideas. However, reducing the amount of content transmitted may negatively impact the meaning conveyed within. Although many solutions of text summarization have been applied by intelligent tutoring systems for learning support, few of them have been quantitatively investigated for learning achievements of learners, especially in mobile learning context. This study focuses on a methodology for investigating the effectiveness of automatic text summarization used in mobile learning context. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed summarization approach is able to generate summaries effectively, and those generated summaries are perceived as helpful to support mobile learning. The findings of this work indicate that properly summarized learning content is not only able to satisfy learning achievements, but also able to align content size with the unique characteristics and affordances of mobile devices.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)233-243
    Number of pages11
    JournalComputers and Education
    Volume68
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Architectures for educational technology system
    • Human-computer interface
    • Interactive learning environments
    • Teaching/learning strategies

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The effectiveness of automatic text summarization in mobile learning contexts'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this