Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and Effective Practices

Diana Pérez-Marín received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2007, and her degree in Computer Science by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2002. She is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Computing Languages and Systems I of the Computer Science Faculty of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain. Her PhD has been published in 2010 by VDM Verlag and it is available with ISBN 978-3639207200. She has published more than 40 papers in international journals such as Journal of Educational Technology and Society, or Computers and Education, and participated in eight national and international research projects. She has been awarded a prize to their novelty of the teaching possibilities of Internet in 2007 and as project leader in 2008. In 2010, she organized the First International Workshop on Adaptation and Personalization in E-B/Learning using Pedagogic Conversational Agents (APLeC) together with Dr. Ismael Pascual-Nieto and Dr. Susan Bull, collocated with the international conference User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP). Currently, she is also co-editor of a Special Issue on Automatic Free-text Evaluation in the International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning (IJCEELL) to be published by Indescience at the end of 2010. She is member of the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AI-ED) Society, LEMORE, LITE, and ADIE.

Ismael Pascual-Nieto is Doctor in Computer Science and Telecommunications by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid since 2009, and Computer Engineer by the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid since 2005. He has been a researcher at the Computer Science Department at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and at the ADENU Artificial Intelligence group at UNED in Spain. He has published numerous papers in journals, international, and national conferences, and participated in several international projects. He has been awarded a prize to the novelty of the teaching possibilities of Internet in 2007 and as an enterprising in 2008. In 2010, he organized together with Dr. Diana Pérez-Marín and Dr. Susan Bull the First International Workshop on Adaptation and Personalization in E-B/Learning using Pedagogic Conversational Agents (APLeC) collocated with the international conference User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP).