Martin Ruskov

University of Milan | UNIMI · Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Mediations

LLM-based chatbots represent a significant milestone as the initial point of interaction between artificial intelligence and the general public. These chatbots offer greater flexibility compared to traditional chatbots, yet their behavior deviates notably from human interaction patterns. Current annotation schemas may not be adequately suited to ca...

Looking at how social values are represented in fairy tales can give insights about the variations in communication of values across cultures. We study how values are communicated in fairy tales from Portugal, Italy and Germany using a technique called word embedding with a compass to quantify vocabulary differences and commonalities. We study how...

In the design of the specialised software for production of bilingual word indices to Constantine of Preslav’s Didactic Gospel, we faced two major challenges. One, common to such texts, is the lexico-grammatical asymmetry between the language of the source and that of the target of the translation. The other, specific to the current work, has to do...

In this paper, we present the VAST Collaborative, Multimodal, Web Annotation Tool. It is a collaborative, web-based annotation tool built upon the Ellogon infrastructure, adapted to the content creation and annotation needs of digital cultural heritage. With the help of an annotation methodology and guidelines, the tool has been used to analyse and...

In this paper, we explore the idea of analysing the historical bias of contextual language models based on BERT by measuring their adequacy with respect to Early Modern (EME) and Modern (ME) English. In our preliminary experiments, we perform fill-in-the-blank tests with 60 masked sentences (20 EME-specific, 20 ME-specific and 20 generic) and three...

Artificial intelligence’s (AI) progress holds great promise in tackling pressing societal concerns such as health and climate. Large Language Models (LLM) and the derived chatbots, like ChatGPT, have highly improved the natural language processing capabilities of AI systems allowing them to process an unprecedented amount of unstructured data. Howe...

Collaboratively writing a narrative is a challenging task. Further complications emerge when the involved contributors do not know each other, as it commonly occurs in online crowdsourcing. The paper presents a systematic literature review of online collaborative story writing with the aim of analysing what are the different forms of user involveme...

Artificial intelligence's progress holds great promise in assisting society in addressing pressing societal issues. In particular Large Language Models (LLM) and the derived chatbots, like ChatGPT, have highly improved the natural language processing capabilities of AI systems allowing them to process an unprecedented amount of unstructured data. T...

Real-time feedback is very important, yet challenging to provide for free-text learner contributions in Technology-Enhanced Learning. We study whether a generic NLP pipeline can identify completeness features of learner ideas during security training. We apply PoS Tagging and Dependency Parsing on contextualised short texts, collected within a dedi...

Educational chatbots come with a promise of interactive and personalized learning experiences, yet their development has been limited by the restricted free interaction capabilities of available platforms and the difficulty of encoding knowledge in a suitable format. Recent advances in language learning models with zero-shot learning capabilities,...

The quality of text-to-image generation is continuously improving, yet the boundaries of its applicability are still unclear. In particular, refinement of the text input with the objective of achieving better results - commonly called prompt engineering - so far seems to have not been geared towards work with pre-existing texts. We investigate whet...

The development of bilingual dictionaries to medieval translations presents diverse difficulties. These result from two types of philological circumstances: a) the asymmetry between the source language and the target language; and b) the varying available sources of both the original and translated texts. In particular, the full critical edition of...

There is a conflict between the need for security compliance by users and the fact that commonly they cannot afford to dedicate much of their time and energy to that security. A balanced level of user engagement in security is difficult to achieve due to difference of priorities between the business perspective and the security perspective. We soug...

Learning how to cope with tasks that do not have optimal solutions is a life-long challenge. In particular when such education and training needs to be scalable, technologies are needed to support teachers and facilitators in providing the feedback and discussion necessary for quality learning. In this thesis, I conduct design-based research by fol...

We report an evaluation study for a novel learning platform, motivated by the growing need for serious game assessment methods. The method was a laboratory experiment combining evaluation methods from the fields of learning assessment and psychophysiology. 15 participants used the TARGET game platform for 25 minutes, while biosignals ECG, EDA and f...

Game-based learning has been used to teach topics in diverse domains, but it is still hard to determine when such approaches are an efficient learning technique. In this paper we focus on one open challenge – the limited understanding in the community of the types of knowledge these games help to develop. Using a taxonomy that distinguishes between...

Serious Games are recognized as one of the most promising innovative learning technologies in the short-medium term. Even if the empowerment of learning they provide is widely recognized, there are few means to trace and measure learners' performance during game sessions. This article describes a Competence Performance Analyser tool that keeps trac...

This paper reports on a case study of using rapid prototyping to develop a serious game about crime prevention. Five small-scale formative evaluations (with a total of 17 participants) were used to guide the collect user requirements and formative feedback. Early formative results are positive and provided early signals on what needs to be changed...

This paper presents an approach to integrate Threshold Concepts into a Serious Game based learning platform aimed at learning soft skills such as leadership, stakeholder involvement and negotiation. Threshold Concepts are concepts that once grasped, transform the way a learner sees a discipline, marking the difference between a novice and an expert...

In this paper we propose the fundaments of a design of an exploratory simulation of security management in a corporate environment. The model brings together theory and research findings on causes of information security risks in order to analyse diverse roles interacting through scripts. The framework is an adaptation of theoretical and empirical...

Without achieving a clear understanding of the learning domain, it is difficult to develop a successful serious game that enables users to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Thus, the first step in serious game design is to establish an understanding of the particular learning domain, usually through consultation with domain experts. Whilst gam...

This study was conducted with the purpose to explore the potential of serious games to utilize systematic learning variation. We employed a methodology that followed the learning study method, while we also introduced experimental and control groups in order to allow for more direct comparison. In this study we did not have control over the employe...

In order to save time and costs, organizations are increasingly investing in technology-enhanced learning systems to fulfil their employee training requirements. Serious games are one possible approach to technology-enhanced learning where learners play game scenarios designed to facilitate competence development as they entertain. Previous researc...

This study investigates the effects of a browser game as a motivational factor for the sharing of short written reflections. We have analysed 400 anonymous written reflections and conducted 10 interviews in order to get a deeper insight of the game experience. This is an opportunistic investigation and the authors did not have control over the game...

Purpose: To propose a Web 2.0 approach to e-learning, taking advantage of interactive media and peer pressure to attract visitors' attention to issues they haven't considered previously and to push them into developing answers from their own experience. Methodology: A stepwise approach is taken. State-of-the-art research from social psychology, con...

Purpose: Design a business game to provide hands-on training on processes, related to production management Methodology: A stepwise approach is taken. First learning goals, existing approaches and constraints are considered. As a next step a system of conceptual models is developed and finally the model is formalized to the level of detail, necessa...

Purpose – The purpose of the present paper is to propose a pattern towards filling the gap between demand for serious games on negotiations and lagging supply. A solution for dialogue-based negotiation games is described, to be defined by a human tutor and used in a virtual business environment. Design/methodology/approach – At first state-of-the-a...