This paper proposes a method for estimating the acquisition status of students’ graph comprehension ability based on their descriptive answer text. Applying the three-level of graph comprehension theory, we designed a method to categorize students’ graph comprehension ability into three levels. The categorization is based on two metrics: 1) degree-a statistic of co-occurrence networks measuring of variety, and 2) level of graph comprehension-frequency of use of words indicating degree adverbs and words indicating trends. We then designed an “expression-development map” based on these quantities and classified students’ graph comprehension abilities according to which of the four quadrants they belonged to. To confirm the validity of the designed it, we applied the map to surveyed descriptive answer text for nine types of graph generated by elementary, junior/senior high school, and university students. The results showed that the descriptions became more sophisticated as students progressed through educational stages, indicating the validity of the map.

In this study, we propose an e-portfolio system for analyzing and managing educational data from Institute of National Colleges of Technology and Nagaoka University of Technology. We detail the e-portfolio system introduced at Nagaoka University of Technology; in particular, we formulated specifications for each department of Nagaoka University of Technology. Next we designed a display screen based on these specifications, focusing on two key functions. First, the personal information display function searches for and displays information about the students matching the specified. Second, the statistical information display func- tion displays the outcome of statistical analysis and a graphical representation of student information. In this paper, we show each of these display screens. In the future, we will integrate actual data into the system and start formal operation.

Open Source Software (OSS) is software whose source code that is open to the public through the Internet. Currently, OSS is widely used in many aspects of IT society. Because OSS development is community based, unlike commercial software, the lack of good documentation or the maintenance of manuals is one of the main problems of using OSS. Due to its rapid development, OSS manuals become easily obsolete. Moreover, the installation or the usage varies depending on the operating system. To solve the documentation problems, Murakami et al. proposed a method of automatically generating a web manual for installing an OSS by editing the log information recorded during the installation process. Unfortunately, the web manual generated by this system was not suitable for wide use in learning management systems. Therefore, this paper extends the sys- tem by Murakami et al. to one with the ability to deliver an automatically generated Web manual on an e-learning management system, modify the content of the manual, and skip unnecessary information in the learning process.

It has been recognized that the design of similarity measures to compare multiple motion-capture (mocap) data streams is one of the major tasks in human motion analysis [Müller et al. 2008]. The information of similarity is utilized for many applications such as the retrieval of mocap data streams.

An expert recommendation system using concept-based relevance discernment is proposed. This system processes the description of a technical topic as input and then finds engineers who have a high level of expertise in that area. The technique employed is an extended vector space model that locates both technical topics and engineers in the same multi-dimensional space, and then calculates their relevance. This system can also retrieve engineers or documents that are related to afield matching a given engineer's technical interests. Such a system can be expected to play the role of a person's professional network, and be a valuable tool for knowledge management among several organizations.