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Learning from students. On the design and usability of an e-dictionary of mathematical graph theory
(2022)
We created a prototype of an electronic dictionary for the mathematical domain of graph theory. We evaluate our prototype and compare its effectiveness in task-based tests with that of Wikipedia. Our dictionary is based on a corpus; the terms and their definitions were automatically extracted and annotated by experts (cf. Kruse/Heid 2020). The dictionary is bilingual, covering German and English; it gives equivalents, definitions and semantically related terms. For the implementation of the dictionary, we used LexO (Bellandi et al. 2017). The target group of the dictionary are students of mathematics who attend lectures in German and work with English resources. We carried out tests to understand which items the students search for when they work on graph-theoretical tasks. We ran the same test twice, with comparable student groups, either allowing Wikipedia as an information source or our dictionary. The dictionary seems to be especially helpful for students who already have a vague idea of a term because they can use the resource to check if their idea is right.
This paper describes the results of an empirical investigation carried out within the project Lessico Multilingue dei Beni Culturali (LBC), whose aim is to create a multilingual online dictionary of the lexicon of the Italian artistic heritage. The dictionary, whose lexicographic process has already started, is intended for linguists and specialist translators as well as for professionals in the tourism sector and students of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The investigation conducted through a questionnaire submitted to undergraduate students at the University of Milan and at the University of Florence has a double aim: to research the habits in the use of lexicographic tools by possible users of the dictionary (Italian Learners of German Language), and to identify preferences regarding macro-, medio- and microstructural features of the future LBC-dictionary to realize a user-friendly tool. After a brief introduction on the state of the art of the survey in the field of Dictionary Users Studies, the article describes the questionnaire and the results obtained from the pilot study. A summary and a discussion on the future developments of the project conclude the work.
What makes a good online dictionary? Empirical insights from an interdisciplinary research project
(2011)
This paper presents empirical fmdings from two online surveys on the use of online dictionaries, in which more than 1,000 participants took part. The aim of these studies was to clarify general questions of online dictionary use (e.g. which electronic devices are used for online dictionaries or different types of usage situations) and to identify different demands regarding the use of online dictionaries. We will present some important results ofthis ongoing research project by focusing on the latter. Our analyses show that neither knowledge of the participants’ (scientific or academic) background, nor the language Version of the online survey (German vs. English) allow any significant conclusions to be drawn about the participant’s individual user demands. Subgroup analyses only reveal noteworthy differences when the groups are clustered statistically. Taken together, our fmdings shed light on the general lexicographical request both for the development of a user-adaptive interface and the incorporation of multimedia elements to make online dictionaries more user-friendly and innovative.
Compared with printed dictionaries, online dictionaries provide a number of unique possibilities for the presentation and processing of lexicographical information. However, in Müller-Spitzer/Koplenig/Töpel (2011) we show that – on average - users tend to rate the special characteristics of online dictionaries (e.g. multimedia, adaptability) as (partly) unimportant. This result conflicts somewhat with the lexicographical request both for the development of a user-adaptive interface and the incorporation of multimedia elements. This contribution seeks to explain this discrepancy, by arguing that when potential users are fully informed about the benefits of possible innovative features of online dictionaries, they will come to judge these characteristics to be more useful than users that do not have this kind of information. This argument is supported by empirical evidence presented in this paper.