SECTION 1: Testing
1 | Has the R & D result been tested? YES |
1a | In what mode has the result been tested?
• Prototype • Pilot Application • Alpha/BETA testing |
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The pilot application of the R&D result took place in a specialized school for people with autism. The school numbers approximately 50 persons with autism, ranging from 8 to 30 years of age, but mostly children. | ||
1b. | Please describe and discuss the testing results | |
Educators believe that the variety and the quality of the content that is represented by the software are able to support the educational approach that the research team followed. Moreover, the evaluation of the results on this survey indicates that in most of the cases the system encourages the autistic person. A more interesting finding is the persuasion of the educators that the system is able not only to provide but also to motivate social activities among the autistic persons and collaboration in term of groups. In addition, the level of creativity is increasing in most of the cases. |
SECTION 2: Current Stage of Development
2a | To what extent does the development team have technical resources for supporting the production of a new product? (Researchers, human resources, hardware, etc |
Since 1990, The Lab of Medical Informatics (LOMI) at AUTH has evolved into one of the major research and development centres in the field of Medical Informatics and Biomedical Engineering both in the Greek and European arena. LOMI has been very active in the fields of biomedical processing of brain and heart signals, medical database development, modelling of brain and cardiac electrophysiological processes, and telematics in health-care.
Relevant experience also includes: Home care pilot studies, vital parameters human based identification, decision support systems and data mining, Software Agents, medical image processing, Physiological measurements (hypoxia, alertness), Physiological Computing and Interactive Interfaces(evaluation methodologies, emotional intelligence, affective computing), affective and assistive technologies for the disabled and the elderly, as well as, e-learning, collaborative learning and content sharing in medical education. LOMI has participated in a number of European projects from ESPRIT II and FP5 IST for health as well as FP6 IST. The lab has also participated in the e-Ten (e-health) projects and has been the subcontractor for numerous other projects and organisations. Last but not least, numerous e-learning on health projects have been successfully completed by the lab team members (CrossborderHealth/INTERREG CBC and IntraMEDnet/INTERREG ARCHIMED,WideMEDnet/INTERREG ARCHIMED), as well as a project (AFFECTION) on affective computing and emotional understanding, in collaboration with The RIKEN Brain Science Institute of Japan. The Lab acts as a leading organization in Continuing Medical Education and is now coordinating an eContentPlus project on Multi-type Content Repurposing and Sharing in Medical Education (mEducator) and an ICT PSP project on Ambient Assisted Living, Long Lasting Memories (LLM). |
2b | What are the technical issues that need to be tackled for full deployment, if needed? |
There are no technical issues to be tackled for full deployment. |
2c | What additional technical resources are needed for the production of this new product? |
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2d | Overall assessment of the current stage of technical development. |
The product, based on various interaction procedures, enhances the educational process of autistic children. It is considered technically as fairly mature and constitutes a stable working environment which has undergone testing through a pilot study. |
SECTION 3: Deployment
3a | Define the demands for large scale production in terms of |
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no materials | |
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a general purpose PC and Internet | |
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minimum staff effort |
SECTION 4: Overall Assessment
1 | This new system has been proven to be well designed and effective for people – especially children – with Autism. The results indicate that the system is designed to be user – friendly and easy-learning, rendering it a powerful tool for the educators and parents of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. |
KEYWORDS QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT (0-5)
Please put X as appropriate. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Adequacy of testing activity undertaken so far | X | ||||
Adequacy and availability of technical resources of the development team | X | ||||
Current development stage | X | ||||
Overall technical feasibility | X |