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<Paper uid="W05-0105">
  <Title>Web-based Interfaces for Natural Language Processing Tools</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="30" end_page="30" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Lessons learned
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> * PHP is easier to work with than Java Server Pages and CGI scripts; * requiring users to paste input into text boxes is superior to allowing user to upload files (for security reasons and because it is easier to control the character encoding used); * getting debugging information back to the student is very important; * security is an issue since one is allowing users to initiate computationally intensive processes; * it is still possible for students to claim the interface does not work for them (even though we used no client-side scripting).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> * Peer learning is less likely than in a lab setting; however, we provided a web forum and this seems to alleviated the problem somewhat.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="30" end_page="30" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Summary
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> At the University of Iowa, many students, who want to learn about natural language processing, do not have the requisite Unix and programming skills to do labs using command line interfaces. In addition, our lab machines run MSWindows, the instructors do not administer the machines, and there are restrictive lab hours. Thus, until recently assignments consisted of pencil-and-paper problems. We have built web-based interfaces to a number of NLP modules that allow students to use, modify, and learn.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>