Skip to main content

Development of an Amazon Alexa App for a University Online Search

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing the Learner and Teacher Experience (HCII 2022)

Abstract

Today, our homes become smarter and smarter. We started to interact with our home with Intelligent Personal Assistants, like Amazon Alexa. In this paper we want to present and give a review on the Alexa skill developed for an online search for resources like rooms, courses, and persons. The goal is to provide the users an easy-to-use way to ask for information like phone numbers, e-mail addresses, room details, … and the Alexa Skill should provide this information also in an easy understandable way. We will describe how we solved to formulate suitable search queries from spoken Alexa commands and how we presented them to the user accordingly. Other obstacles like the presentation of the search results, due to the limited context and prioritization for individual search results, to the user will be discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Weiss, M., Ebner, M., Ebner, M.: Speech-based learning with amazon alexa. In: Bastiaens, T. (ed.) Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning, pp. 156–163. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), United States (2021). Accessed 27 July 2021, https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/219651/

  2. Bilic, L., Ebner, M., Ebner, M.: A voice-enabled game based learning application using amazon’s echo with alexa voice service: a game regarding geographic facts about Austria and Europe. Int. J. Interact. Mob. Technol. (iJIM) 14(3), 226–232 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Schoegler, P., Ebner, M., Ebner, M.: The use of alexa for mass education. In: Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning, pp. 721–730. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), The Netherlands (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Viken, A.: The history of personal digital assistants 1980–2000. Agile Mob. 10 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hauswald, J., et al.: Sirius: an open end-to-end voice and vision personal assistant and its implications for future warehouse scale computers. ACM SIGPLAN Notices 50, 223–238 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1145/2775054.2694347

  6. Bitkom e.V und Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz. Künstliche Intelligenz. https://www.dfki.de/fileadmin/user/5Fupload/import/9744/5F171012-KI-Gipfelpapier-online.pdf, Accessed 30 Oct 2021

  7. Russell, S.J., Norvig, P.: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 4 edn. Pearson (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Amazon. Unsere Geschichte: Was aus einer Garagen-Idee werden kann? (2020). https://www.aboutamazon.de/%C3%BCber-amazon/unsere-geschichte-was-aus-einer-garagen-idee-werden-kann, Accessed 20 Oct 2021

  9. Strohbach, T.: Amazon Alexa: 28 unterschiedliche Stimmen in 9 Sprachen verfügbar (2018). https://www.amazon-watchblog.de/technik/1475-amazon-alexa-9-sprachen-28-stimmen.html, Accessed 15 Nov 2021

  10. Canbek, N.G., Mutlu, M.: On the track of artificial intelligence: learning with intelligent personal assistants. Int. J. Hum. Sci. 13, 592 (2016). https://doi.org/10.14687/ijhs.v13i1.3549

  11. Amazon. Amazon Alexa Voice AI|Alexa Developer Official Site (2021). https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/ask-overviews/what-is-the-alexa-skills-kit.html, Accessed 15 Nov 2021

  12. Haase, P., et al.: Alexa, Ask Wikidata! voice interaction with knowledge graphs using amazon alexa. In: SEMWEB (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Oberoi, A.: The rise of voice user interface (VUI) (2020). https://insights.daffodilsw.com/blog/the-rise-of-voice-user-interface-vui, Accessed 28 Oct 2021

  14. Hunt, N.: Voice input: the interface problem - UX Collective (2018). https://uxdesign.cc/voice-input-the-interface-problem-1700be45ec18, Accessed 15 Nov 2021

  15. Redaktion, D.B.: Deutsche Bahn Skill auf Amazon Alexa: Reiseauskunft per Sprachsteuerung jetzt noch flexibler (2021). https://inside.bahn.de/amazon-alexa/, Accessed 02 Nov 2021

  16. Martin, M., Kühne, F.: Spotify: Test|Kosten|Unterstützte Geräte im Überblick|NETZWELT (2021). https://www.netzwelt.de/spotify/testbericht.html, Accessed 02 Nov 2021

  17. Martin, A.: Wikinator: Amazon.de. https://www.amazon.de/Alexander-Martin-Wikinator/dp/B07LFFHYLM, Accessed 03 Nov 2021

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Markus Ebner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Rupitz, J., Ebner, M., Ebner, M. (2022). Development of an Amazon Alexa App for a University Online Search. In: Zaphiris, P., Ioannou, A. (eds) Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing the Learner and Teacher Experience. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13328. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05657-4_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05657-4_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-05656-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-05657-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics