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ASL STEM Wiki: Dataset and Benchmark for Interpreting STEM Articles

Project Overview

The document discusses the application of generative AI in education, particularly focusing on the ASL STEM Wiki, a resource designed to enhance STEM education for Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. By providing a parallel corpus of STEM-related Wikipedia articles in both English and American Sign Language (ASL), this initiative seeks to overcome the accessibility challenges faced by DHH learners. The dataset includes 254 articles interpreted into ASL, featuring over 300 hours of video created by certified interpreters. Key applications of this resource involve automatic sign suggestion, fingerspelling detection, and the exploration of sign variation, which collectively facilitate a richer and more inclusive learning experience. The findings indicate that the ASL STEM Wiki significantly addresses the lack of standardized ASL resources in STEM education, thereby promoting equitable access and understanding in these subjects for DHH students. Overall, the integration of generative AI in this educational context showcases its potential to transform learning environments, making them more accessible and tailored to diverse learners' needs.

Key Applications

ASL Interpretation Enhancement

Context: This application serves as an educational resource for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students in STEM disciplines. It includes automatic sign suggestion, detection and alignment of fingerspelling, and analysis of ASL translations influenced by English syntax to enhance understanding of technical vocabulary and concepts.

Implementation: AI models are employed to detect fingerspelling in ASL videos, suggest appropriate ASL signs based on context, and identify translationese effects in ASL interpretations. These models align fingerspelling instances with corresponding English words to facilitate better understanding.

Outcomes: Improves ASL interpretation quality, enhances comprehension of technical vocabulary in ASL, facilitates better understanding of STEM concepts, and promotes the use of standardized ASL terminology.

Challenges: Challenges include limited standardization of ASL signs for technical terms, high variability of fingerspelled signs, complexities in accurately identifying translationese, and differences in English-ASL syntax.

Implementation Barriers

Technical barrier

The lack of standardized ASL signs for many STEM concepts leads to inconsistencies in interpretation. Additionally, limited annotated data for fingerspelling detection and alignment hampers model training.

Proposed Solutions: Develop systems to detect and suggest appropriate ASL signs based on context and audience. Expand dataset size through additional data collection and annotations, and consider data augmentation techniques.

Educational barrier

Deaf students often rely on fingerspelling due to a lack of established ASL signs, which can hinder understanding.

Proposed Solutions: Training interpreters more effectively on ASL terminology and improving educational resources in ASL.

Project Team

Kayo Yin

Researcher

Chinmay Singh

Researcher

Fyodor O. Minakov

Researcher

Vanessa Milan

Researcher

Hal Daumé III

Researcher

Cyril Zhang

Researcher

Alex X. Lu

Researcher

Danielle Bragg

Researcher

Contact Information

For information about the paper, please contact the authors.

Authors: Kayo Yin, Chinmay Singh, Fyodor O. Minakov, Vanessa Milan, Hal Daumé III, Cyril Zhang, Alex X. Lu, Danielle Bragg

Source Publication: View Original PaperLink opens in a new window

Project Contact: Dr. Jianhua Yang

LLM Model Version: gpt-4o-mini-2024-07-18

Analysis Provider: Openai

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