5 March 2008

"I want to tell you a joke. Are you ready?" - STANDUP joke generator goes to Parliament

The STANDUP project, a collaboration between Dundee, Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities, has been shortlisted together with five other national assistive technology (AT) research projects as being representative of "the most innovative and exciting AT product and prototype development being carried out in the UK" by the Foundation of Assistive Technology. The researchers have been invited to showcase STANDUP at the Parliamentary launch of the new assistive technology initiative "ATcare Design and Development Centre" in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 5th March 2008.

Due to open in the autumn of 2008, the ATcare Centre will bridge the gap between university research and developing this research for the market. ATcare has been awarded a grant of £2.35 million by the London Development Agency to develop a London-based national centre of excellence in assistive technology.

The STANDUP project - "System To Augment Non-speakers’ Dialogue Using Puns" - has created software which allows children to generate novel puns. These puns are not pre-stored, but are created by the software, using dictionaries and information about words, plus simple rules about the structure of puns. The system was developed with the help of teachers, therapists and adults who use speech generating devices. It lasted three-years and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and was supported by the disability organisation,Capability Scotland.

STANDUP has been evaluated with nine young people at Capability Scotland’s Corseford School near Glasgow. The young people, who used the system over a ten-week period, regaled their peers, staff, family and neighbours with jokes such as: "What do you call a spicy missile? A hot shot!" Their joy and enthusiasm at entertaining others was inspirational. The children’s use of STANDUP also had a beneficial impact on their use of their own communication systems as they were all more eager to communicate generally.

Dr Graeme Ritchie, at the Department of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen, said: "The STANDUP software makes simple puns by looking for suitable patterns in the words and phrases which are available to it. In this project, the computer acts as a helper to the child, by letting them browse through joke forms, and try out words and phrases. " Dr Annalu Waller, at Dundee University’s School of Computing, added: "Many people who use communication aids tend to be passive communicators, responding to questions with one or two word answers. This research shows the importance of providing individuals with novel language. It has been wonderful to see young people with complex communication needs taking ownership of puns and using them to take control of communication."

The STANDUP software is available for FREE from our website: http://standup.computing.dundee.ac.uk. It is a fully accessible (via mouse, touch screen or one switch scanning) and allows individual customisation for different users (word level, access complexity, symbol support).

For further information, please contact:
Dr Annalu Waller
School of Computing
University of Dundee
Tel: 01382 388223
Mob: 07962427483

Dr Graeme Ritchie
Department of
Computing Science
University of Aberdeen
Tel: 0 1224 27 2383

Dr Helen Pain
School of Informatics
University of Edinburgh
Tel: 0131 650 8485

Emails: awaller@computing.dundee.ac.uk; g.ritchie@abdn.ac.uk; helen@inf.ed.ac.uk.

Web: http://standup.computing.dundee.ac.uk

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk