School of Information Science

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An Academic Resource Centre in the University of Malawi: It’s Need and a Plan for Its Development, Together With Prototype Databases
(Addis Ababa University, 1993-06) Duncan Vote; Neelameghan A. (Professor)
The Academic Resource Centro (ARC) discussed in this thesis is an information facility designed to provide information support for the efficient and effective performance of the statutory and public service functions of the University of Malawi and its associated institutions and organizations including related government departments, pastorals, research centers etc. It is conceived as an information center forming an integral part of the university college and institutions associated with higher learning and research in Malawi. The ARC will utilize viable information technology in conjunction with manual methods. Pr-planning studies undertaken include: a review of trends in information technology (IT), a survey of a accessibility to IT in \ Malawi, an assessment of the existing information support systems of the University of Malawi and their inadequacies in relation to the information and data needs of the variety of users of the academic and research community and the related government and para statal organizations . Based on the findings, plans to develop the ARC and steps to implement the plans are proposed. The ARC is conceived as a networking of -viiinformation systems within the university and the associated institutions as well as of appropriate institutions in the country and abroad. The ARC plan outlines the requirements in terms of manpower, systems design and implementation. Libraries and information centers which could participate in the ARC network are mentioned. A set of integrated databases consisting of : bibliographic records; information on . \ curriculum development, academic prospectus etc; profiles of experts and institutions; of databases and information systems; of ongoing projects and researches in the university of Malawi, Government and other selected research institutions, is presented as prototypes for the databases to be developed at the ARC. Data entry guidelines are also provided. Training facilities for IT personnel are not adequate in the country and it has led to under utilization of equipment and heavy reliance on vendor service support for the systems. Some suggestions are made in overcoming this problem. Introduction of IT in libraries, documentation and information centres in the country is slowly gaining ground and currently is largely being applied in special -viiilibraries and to a certain extent in academic libraries as well. However, IT applications to generate information products and services is currently limited to word processing and in-house bibliographic database management. Emerging its, such as CD-ROM, networking and desktop publishing, are yet to be widely used in Malawi. The need for developing national databases to capture and disseminate information generated in the country is emphasized.
An Academic Resource Centre in the University of Malawi: It’s Need and a Plan for its Development, Together with Prototype Databases.
(Addis Ababa University, 1993-05) Duncan, Vote; Neelameghan, A. (Prof.)
The Academic Resource Centre (ARC) discussed in this thesis is an information facility designed to provide information support for the efficient and effective performance of the statutory and public service functions of the University of Malawi and its associated institutions and organizations including related government departments, parastatals, research centres etc. It is conceived as an information centre forming an i ntegral part of the university college and institutions associated with higher learning and research in Malawi. The ARC will utilize viable information technology in conjunction with manual methods. Pre-planning studies undertaken include: a review of trends in information technology (IT), a survey of accessibility to IT in Malawi, an assessment of the existing information support systems of the University of Malawi and their inadequacies in relation to the information and data needs of the variety of users of the academic and research community and the related government and parastatal organizations. Based on the findings, plans to develop the ARC and steps to implement the plans are proposed. The ARC is conceived as a networking of i nformat ion systems wi thi n t he university and the associated institutions as · well as of appropriate institutions in the country and abroad. The ARC plan outlines the requirements in terms of manpower, systems design and implementation. Libraries and information centres which could participate in the ARC network are mentioned. A set of integrated databases consisting of: bibliographic records; information on curriculum development, academic prospectus etc; profiles of experts and institutions; of databases and information systems; of ongoing projects and researches in the University of Malawi, Government and other selected research institutions, databases to is be presented developed as prototypes for the at the ARC. Data entry guideliness are also provided .Training fa c ilities for IT personnel are not adequate in the country and it has led to underutilization of equipment and heavy reliance on vendor service support for the systems. Some suggestions are made in overcoming this problem. Introduction of IT in libraries, documentation and information centres in the country is slowly gaining ground and currently is largely being applied in special libraries and to a certain extent i n academic libraries as well. However, IT applications to generate information products and services is currently limited to word processing and in-house bibliographic database management. Emerging Its, such as CD-ROM, networking and desktop publishing, are yet to be widely used in Malawi. The need for developing national databases to capture and disseminate information generated in the country is emphasized.
Acceptance and Use of E-Library Services in Ethiopian Universities: The Case of Addis Ababa and Adama Universities
(Addis Ababa University, 2010-07) Ali, Abinew; Beshah, Tibebe (PhD)
The introduction of new information and communication technologies in libraries during the last two decades has altogether changed the concepts of libraries where library patrons need not necessarily go to the library physically since the library services and resources are no longer confined to the walls of the physical library. However, for these e-library services to be utilized effectively and efficiently, library end users must accept and use them. This study was mainly conducted to empirically investigate the determinants of elibrary end users acceptance and use in academic libraries within Ethiopian context. The study had applied the SO-UTAUT technology acceptance model which is appropriate in a library context. Cross sectional survey research method was used to capture the data. Questionnaire survey was employed to collect data from both Adama University and Addis Ababa University postgraduate students and academic staffs. SPSS and PLS graph beta testing software were used to analyze the data. Hence, Descriptive statistics and Structural Equation Modeling techniques using PLS were applied for analysis. The study found out performance expectancy as a major determinant factor which demonstrated the most significant contribution (36.2%) on behavioral intention to use elibrary services. Moreover, behavioral intention has shown to be the core determinant factor (40.2% contribution) for the actual usage behavior. Awareness has demonstrated a significant moderating effect on relevancy and facilitating condition constructs. The SO-UTAUT model has been proved to be valid in Ethiopian context, since it can explain 22.2% of the variance on behavioral intention, 29.9% of the variance on behavioral usage and 52.2% of the variance on expected benefits of e-library services in the users’ acceptance and use behaviors of the services.
Accounting Information Support System with Particular Reference to Agency for the Administration of Rented Houses
(Addis Ababa University, 1995-06) Geda, Tessema; Tadesse, Taye (PhD)
The management process can be defined as the process of planning, organizing, staffing and cont r olling . The performance of a business can be measured on how well these func tions are being carried out. The main thing to be made is that better quality information which helps management in the process of managing a business. Accounting information, in this regard , plays a great role in: 1) Planning, because reporting information on past periods helps t he user to make predictions about future events . 2) Controlling , because budgets and standards are set, and performances are measured against these budgets and standards . 3) Decision making , because the reporting of possible outcomes based on alternative input allows the decision makers to select the best alternatives. The accounting function also acts as an over all control device for external consti cuent s such as external auditors , Inland Revenue Administra t ion and Other Government bodies . The result of the study reveals that accounting system of A. A. R.H. currently used is not capable of supporting t he management in r elation to investment and economic policy. Therefore , this thesis aims to furnish in prototype computer based accounting information to different level ofmanagers and to interested external users. The proposed computer-based accounting system for the accounting information system of A. A.R.H. emanates from the fact that : a) The existing semi-automated accounting system of A.A .R. H. has not been presented in a suitable form to help management. b) The traditional batch oriented processing of accounting creates a delay to provide timely information. Thus, using the database approach attempts have been made to design prototype accounting information system to be suitable for management in a timely fashi on . The thesis holds Accounting Concept, six chapters, t he Exist i ng the Int roduction part, Accounting Sy stem of A.A . R.H., the Proposed Accou~ t i n g System, System Operation and Implementation Plan and lastly Conclusion and Recommendations .
Accounting Information Support System with Particular Reference to Agency for The Administration of Rented Houses (A.A.R.H)
(Addis Ababa University, 1995-06) Geda, Tesema; Tadesse, Taye (PhD); Chowdhury, G.G. (PhD)
The management process can be defined as the process of planning, organizing, staffing and controlling. The performance of a business can be measured on how well these functions are being carried out . The main thing to be made is that better quality information which helps management in the process of managing a business. Accounting information, in this regard , plays a great role in: 1) Planning , because reporting information on past periods helps the user to make predictions about future events. 2) Controlling, because budgets and standards are set, and performances are measured against these budgets and standards. 3) Decision making, because the reporting of possible outcomes based on alternative input allows the decision makers to select the best alternatives . The accounting function also acts as an over all control device for external constituents such as external auditors , Inland Revenue Administration and Other Government bodies . The result of the study reveals that accounting system of A.A . R. H. currently used is not capable of supporting the management in relation to investment and economic policy. Therefore , this thesis aims to furnish in prototype computer based accounting information to different level of managers and to interested external users. The proposed computer-based accounting system for the accounting information system of A.A.R.H. emanates from the fact that: a) The existing semi-automated accounting system of A.A.R.H. has not been presented in a suitable form to help management. b) The traditional batch oriented processing of accounting creates a delay to provide timely information. Thus, using the database approach attempts have been made to design prototype accounting information system to be suitable for management in a timely fashion. The thesis holds six chapters, the Introduction part, Accounting Concept , the Existing Accounting System of A.A.R.H. , the Proposed Accounting System, System Operation and Implementation Plan and lastly Conclusion and Recommendations.
Adaptive E-Learning Design By Artificial Neural Network Techniques: A Case of Ethiopian Higher Learning Institution
(Addis Ababa University, 2010-06) Beyene, Melkamu; Lamnew, Workshet (PhD)
An e-learning system is expected to recognize the different learner characteristics, the complex learning process that can be influenced by learner characteristics such as previous knowledge, learning styles, background, etc. The system is also expected to analyze students need to use learning material and an order of presentation that depends upon their own characteristics and needs. More adaptivity is expected from e-learning systems since students need to be considered independent. The purpose of this study is to investigate and demonstrate the possibility of developing Adaptive e-learning model for Ethiopian higher learning institutions learners. In this research, an experiment was made to build a learner model for an adaptive e-learning model. Firstly, Information independent of the course like learner goals and background and experiences as well as domain dependent data like prior knowledge about the course and learner expectations from the course were assessed. Secondly, an experimental learning styles predictive model is built through neural network data mining modeling technique. From the analysis of the assessment in this study, Ethiopian higher learning institutions learners’ students have varying learning goals, learner background and experiences, preferences, learning styles as well as prior knowledge about the course and their expectations from the course. The learning style predictive model is experimented by neural network data mining technique from student learning style questionnaire that received from 1296 respondents. Fourteen variables were selected from the twenty variables for each model. From the total dataset, 80%, 10% and 10% of the data is used for training, validating and testing purpose respectively. Neural network model is built which can correctly classify 93.07%, 92.30%, 96.15% and 94.61% of the validation set for visual-auditory, sequential-global, activist-reflective, sensitive-intuitive and learning styles respectively. Lastly, an adaptive e-learning model prototype was designed.
Adoption and Challenges of Mobile Banking [Hello-Cash] System in Ethiopia: The Case of Cooperative Bank of Oromiya
(Addis Ababa University, 2017-06-07) Bayana Kumsa, Ebisa; Jemaneh, Ato Getachew
The incorporation of information system into an organization for the purpose of getting competitive advantage, easing workload, providing intangible (soft) work place and coping up with technological advancement has became an indispensable for organizations. Due to these many companies (for example banks) are getting advantage of information communication technology implementation like Mobile banking, Internet banking, ATM, etc. Accordingly Ethiopian commercial banks have implemented mobile banking system into their service system. However, with increased demand of users and technological advancements, the adoption of the mobile banking system has some challenges. This thesis aims to examine adoption of mobile banking system in the Ethiopia focusing on Cooperative bank of Oromiya with respect to the challenges which can influence the bank from taking advantage and expected benefits of mobile banking system derived by adopting the system. The study was conducted based on technology acceptance model (TAM) and innovative diffusion theory (IDT). Both qualitative and quantitative (mixed) research approach was used to answer the research questions that emerge through the review of existing literature and the context of the mobile banking system in Ethiopia and statistically analyzed data obtained from the survey questionnaire. The result of the study indicated that, drivers of mobile banking adoption are relative advantage, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The study also identified the major challenges Ethiopian banking industry faces in the adoption of mobile banking system which are perceived risks, trust reliability, lack of legal frame and government support, lack of ICT infrastructure, electricity and telecommunications. The study suggests a series of measures which could be taken by the bank and government to address various challenges identified in the study. These measures were establishing a clear set of legal frame work on the use of technology in banking industry, supporting banking industry by investing on ICT, etc
Adoption Of E-Commerce Framework For Ethiopian Banks
(Addis Ababa University, 2017-06-08) Tefera Tekle, Emishaw; Mulugeta (PhD), Wondwossen
E-commerce, a relatively new concept for Ethiopian market, is giving competitive advantages across the globe in both developed and developing countries. This study is about adopting ecommerce framework for Ethiopian banks. The study has used technology organization environment (TOE) technology adoption model to identify the factors for e-commerce framework adoption for Ethiopian banks. It has also contextualized a questionnaire developed by Elizabeth and J. Michael (2004), in their research done for developing an e-commerce adoption model for developed countries Small and Medium Businesses. Following the survey results additional factors of e-commerce adoption are included on the TOE framework. Compatibility of the tailored e-commerce framework and external pressure are included as external factor of adoption to the existing TOE framework. Organizational support, organizational readiness, ease of use, usefulness, entrepreneurial orientation and perception of decision makers are also included as internal/organizational factors for e-commerce adoption. The survey responses are also used to perform strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis on each of the factors of e-commerce adoption. Based on the results a tailored e-commerce framework is proposed to suite the Ethiopian banks working environment by amending the national interoperability infrastructure–EthSwitch to interoperate among the member banks and the e-commerce application, 3-Domian secure (issuer, acquirer and interoperability), is interfaced with the merchant plug in at the merchant web site and rearranging the existing modules of the framework. As a result, the tailored e-commerce framework that is “close-controlled and close-boundary” will resolve the issues of e-commerce fraud, security related issues, settlement related issues, legislation and policy related issues. Other researchers will use the proposed framework as a startup to further study cross boarder e-commerce implementation in Ethiopia by widening the operating environment to accept major international standard cards such as the Visa and MasterCard
Adoption of Electronic Medical Records among Health Professionals at Public Hospitals in Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau, Ethiopia
(Addis Ababa University, 2012-12) Gebremariam Semere; Lamenew Workshet (PhD); Deyassa Negussie (PhD)
INTRODUCTION: Wellness and health are central to live of all people of age group. Incorporating information communication like Electronic Medical Records on the health care industries is mandatory for the better improvement of patient care and safety, integrated research, for effective planning, monitoring and evaluation of disease etc. Electronic Medical Record implementation in public hospitals in Addis Ababa is on the infant stage not more than three years since its inception. Even though There is discrepancy in adoption among health professionals and is not utilized as needed due to different factors ,most of the public hospitals have implemented it. So identifying the factors which affect the adoption will help to apply proactive measure and correction so as to increase the adoption of EMR among health professionals whom are working at the public hospitals. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at identifying the factors that affect the Behavioral Intention and usage behavior of Electronic Medical Record and determine the utilization status among health professionals working in public hospital in Addis Ababa City Administration health Bureau. METHOD: A Cross-sectional survey was carried out among health professionals working at public hospitals in Addis Ababa using modified theory of unified acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model. Four hundred eight health professionals who had training on EMR were interviewed at the five public hospitals. RESULTS: The utilization of EMR among health professions working at the public hospitals was 51.7%. Performance expectancy, Effort expectancy, social influence were factors influencing the behavioral intention of health professionals to adopt EMR and Behavioral intention was also significant influencing factor on actual usage behavior. Facilitating condition remains insignificant on the actual usage behavior of EMR among health professionals. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: The utilization rate of EMR was 51.7%: Having no experience, misunderstanding on the relative advantage, perceiving complexity of the system, inadequate support of the top managers, low behavioral intent were factors associated with the behavioral intention and actual usage of EMR. This study indicates that the necessity of integrating health management information system with the daily health care activities and development of health information policy that can scale the utilization rate.
Adoption Of Information And Communication Technology In Public Administration In Oromia Region: The Case Of Bereh And Sendafa Woredas
(Addis Ababa University, 2017-06-05) Asefa, Girma; Lessa (PhD), Lemma
Information Communication Technology (ICT) has become a significant tool to facilitate human activity that has made contributing to the countries’ on economy and social welfare. As extant literature reveal, the application of ICTs in the public administrations is basically affected by the organizations context, technological context and environmental context factors. Purpose of this study was to identify the challenges and contextual factors that drive information and communication technology adoption in Bereh and Sendafa Woredas public administrations. To achieve objective a qualitative and quantitative approaches were conducted with a survey that focused on ICT uses, its challenges and contextual factor that drive ICT in the public administrations. The quantitative survey study was conducted on 230 respondents on both Woredas and the qualitative key informant interview. The data from both sources were combined and analyzed to get a view of the current situation. The findings show that the public administrations are mainly hindered by a group of challenges related to strategy design on ICT tools challenges for instances infrastructural, standard Internet connectivity design issues and the forces that drive the ICT adoption also ICT awareness creation among the top managers. Possible actions for management intervention are also forwarded based on the key findings
Afaan Oromo Morphological Analysis a Hybrid Approach
(Addis Ababa University, 2021-12-13) Genna, Kedir; Meshesha, Million (PhD)
This study provides relatively detailed information on developing Afaan Oromo morphological analysis system. Morphological analyzer decomposes words into its components called morphemes and annotates those morphemes with grammatical information. Although the module uses machine-learning approach on morphological analysis, it used rule-based approach to segments words into its small components, morphemes. The developed prototype focused on inflectional forms of nominals (nouns and adjectives) and verbs since the two words classes are mostly the ones that undergo inflection, they determine the inflectional characteristics of the language. The protype was developed using python programming and Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The Viterbi algorithm is used to encode the HMM model. Then, the prototype was trained and tested using representative data. A corpus of size 4,320 nouns and 3,780 verbs are used to train the HMM model. Then the performance of the analyser was tested using 480 nouns and 420 verbs. Generally, the accuracy of the analyzer for nouns and verbs is 84.6 % and 82.9% respectively. The result of the experiment was quite satisfactory, which can be improved by incorporating simple grammatical constraints and contextual information (including information encoded in tonal system) to minimize the ambiguities, words root database to reduce errors during morphemes identification and additional data to emphasis the initial probability of the model. The key limitations in this effort are limited funding opportunities, scarcity gold standard and balanced annotated data sets and inherently multiple sources of ambiguity of the language at different levels.
Afaan Oromo Text Retrieval System
(Addis Ababa University, 2012-06) Gutema, Gezehagn; Meshesha, Million(PhD)
This study is mainly intended to make possible retrieval of Afan Oromo text documents by applying techniques of modern information retrieval system. Information retrieval is a mechanism that enables finding relevant information material of unstructured nature that satisfies information need of user from large collection. Afaan Oromo text retrieval developed in this study has indexing and searching parts. Vector Space Model of information retrieval system was used to guide searching for relevant document from Oromiffa text corpus. The model is selected since Vector space model is the widely used classic model of information retrieval system. The index file structure used is inverted index file structure. For this study text document corpus is prepared by the researcher encompassing different news article and experiment is made by using 9(nine) different user information need queries. Various techniques of text pre-processing including tokenization, normalization, stop word removal and stemming are used for both document indexing and query text. The experiment shows that the performance is on the average 0.575(57.5%) precision and 0.6264(62.64%) recall. The challenging tasks in the study are handling synonymy and polysemy, inability of the stemmer algorithm to all word variants, and ambiguity of words in the language. The performance the system can be increased if stemming algorithm is improved, standard test corpus is used, and thesaurus is used to handle polysemy and synonymy words in the language.
Afaan Oromo –Amharic Cross Lingual Information Retrieval: Acorpus Based Approach
(Addis Ababa University, 2013-06) Nigussie, Eyob; Dereje, Teferi (PhD)
Ethiopia is a multi lingual country with over 80 distinct languages, and with a population size of more than 73.9 million as authorities estimated on the basis of the 2007 census (Bloor, 1995). In multilingual countries like Ethiopia it‟s not uncommon to see language barriers while seeking information in language other than ones mother tongue. Afaan Oromo (also known as „Oromiffa‟) is one of the languages that are widely used and spoken in Ethiopia by the Oromo people which account up to 36.7% of the total population (Commission, 2008). Currently Afaan Oromo is an official language of Oromia regional state. On the other hand, the current official language of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is Amharic. However, there are people who are not fluent enough to create Amharic query terms but need Amharic documents for different reasons. An IR system capable of breaking language barrier in retrieval of information would clearly be helpful for such a user. This study is therefore aimed at designing and developing a corpus based Afaan Oromo–Amharic cross lingual information retrieval system so as to enable Afaan Oromo speakers to retrieve Amharic information using Afaan Oromo queries. The approach selected to be followed in the study is corpus based, particularly parallel corpus. For this study parallel documents including news articles, bible, legal documents and proclamations from customs authority were used. The system is tested with 50 queries and 50 randomly selected documents. Two experiments were conducted, the first one by allowing only one possible translation to each Afaan Oromo query term and the second by allowing all possible translations. The retrieval effectiveness of the system is measured using recall and precision for both monolingual and bilingual runs. Accordingly, the first experiment returned a maximum average precision of 0.81 and 0.45 for monolingual (Afaan Oromo queries) and bilingual (translated Amharic queries) run. The result of the second experiment showed better result of recall and precision than the first experiment. The result obtained in the second experiment is a maximum average precision of 0.60 for the bilingual run and the result for the monolingual run remained the same. From these results, it can be concluded that, cross lingual information retrieval for two local languages namely Afaan Oromo and Amharic could be developed and the performance of the retrieval system could be increased with use of larger and clean corpora. Key Words: Afaan Oromo-Amharic Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval, Information Retrieval, Afaan Oromo, Amharic
Afaan Oromo-English Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (Clir): A Corpus Based Approach
(Addis Ababa University, 2011-06) Bekele, Daniel; Teferi, Dereje (PhD)
The goal of Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) is to provide users with access to information that is in a different language from their queries. It has the ability to issue a query in one language and retrieve documents in another. This is achieved by designing a system where a query in one language can be compared with documents in another. Afaan Oromo is one of the major languages that are widely spoken and used in Ethiopia. Despite the fact that Afaan Oromo has a large number of speakers, little effort has been put in conducting researches which aim at making English documents available to Afaan Oromo speakers. This study is, therefore, an attempt to develop Afaan Oromo-English CLIR system which enables Afaan Oromo native speakers to access and retrieve the vast online information sources that are available in English by writing queries using their own (native) language. In this study, the development of a corpus-based CLIR system which makes use of wordbased query translation for Afaan Oromo-English language pairs and evaluation of the system on a corpus of test documents and queries prepared for this purpose is described. This approach requires the availability of parallel documents hence such documents are collected from Bible chapters, legal and some available religious documents. Evaluation of the system is conducted by both monolingual and bilingual retrievals. In the monolingual run, the Afaan Oromo queries are given to the system and Afaan Oromo documents are retrieved while in the bilingual run the Afaan Oromo queries are given to the system after being translated into English to retrieve English documents. For the bilingual run translation of Afaan Oromo queries into their English equivalent is done by using bilingual dictionary constructed from the collected parallel corpora. The performance of the system was measured by recall and precision. In the first phase of the experimentation, the maximum average precision value of 0.421and 0.304 are obtained for the Afaan Oromo and English documents respectively. The second phase of experimentation performs slightly better than the first. Maximum average precision value of 0.468 and 0.316 are obtained for the Afaan Oromo and English documents respectively. Therefore, with the use of large and cleaned parallel Afaan Oromo-English document collections, it is possible to develop CLIR for the language pairs.
Afaan Oromo-English Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (CLIR): a Corpus Based Approach
(Addis Ababa University, 2011-06) Bekele, Daneal; Teferi, Dereje(PhD)
The goal of Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) is to provide users with access to information that is in a different language from their queries. It has the ability to issue a query in one language and retrieve documents in another. This is achieved by designing a system where a query in one language can be compared with documents in another. Afaan Oromo is one of the major languages that are widely spoken and used in Ethiopia. Despite the fact that Afaan Oromo has a large number of speakers, little effort has been put in conducting researches which aim at making English documents available to Afaan Oromo speakers. This study is, therefore, an attempt to develop Afaan Oromo-English CLIR system which enables Afaan Oromo native speakers to access and retrieve the vast online information sources that are available in English by writing queries using their own (native) language. In this study, the development of a corpus-based CLIR system which makes use of wordbased query translation for Afaan Oromo-English language pairs and evaluation of the system on a corpus of test documents and queries prepared for this purpose is described. This approach requires the availability of parallel documents hence such documents are collected from Bible chapters, legal and some available religious documents. Evaluation of the system is conducted by both monolingual and bilingual retrievals. In the monolingual run, the Afaan Oromo queries are given to the system and Afaan Oromo documents are retrieved while in the bilingual run the Afaan Oromo queries are given to the system after being translated into English to retrieve English documents. For the bilingual run translation of Afaan Oromo queries into their English equivalent is done by using bilingual dictionary constructed from the collected parallel corpora. The performance of the system was measured by recall and precision. In the first phase of the experimentation, the maximum average precision value of 0.421and 0.304 are obtained for the Afaan Oromo and English documents respectively. The second phase of experimentation performs slightly better than the first. Maximum average precision value of 0.468 and 0.316 are obtained for the Afaan Oromo and English documents respectively. Therefore, with the use of large and cleaned parallel Afaan Oromo-English document collections, it is possible to develop CLIR for the language pairs.
Afan Oromo news text summarizer
(Addis Ababa University, 2012-06) Debele, Girma; Yifiru, Martha (PhD)
Information overload is a global problem that requires solution. Automatic text summarization is one of the natural language processing technologies that have got researchers focus to help information users. It is a computer program that summarizes a text. A summarizer removes redundant information from the input text and produces a shorter non-redundant output text. In this study, a generic automatic text summarizer for Afan Oromo news text has been developed based upon the Open Text Summarizer (OTS). OTS summarizes texts in English, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Esperanto and other languages. For this master’s thesis most of the work done is customizing the OTS code so that it can make use of the Afan Oromo lexicons and work for the Afan Oromo language. The summarizer basically uses the combinations of term frequency and sentence position methods with language specific lexicons in order to identify the most important sentence for extractive summary. In this study we have developed three methods for Afan Oromo news text summarization and tested their performance both objectively and subjectively. These three summarizers are: M1 that uses term frequency and position methods without Afan Oromo stemmer and other lexicons (synonyms and abbreviations), M2 is a summarizer with combination of term frequency and position methods with Afan Oromo stemmer and language specific lexicons (synonyms and abbreviations) and M3 is with improved position method and term frequency as well as the stemmer and language specific lexicons (synonyms and abbreviations). The performance of the summarizers was measured based on subjective as well as objective evaluation methods. The result of objective evaluation shows that the three summarizers: M1, M2 and M3 registered f-measure values of 34%, 47% and 81% respectively i.e. M3 outperformed the two summarizers ( M1 and M2 ) by 47% and 34 % . Moreover, the subjective evaluation result shows that the three summarizers’ (M1, M2 and M3) performances with informativeness, linguistic quality and coherence and structure are: (34.37 %, 37%, and 62.5%), (59.37%, 60% and 65%) and (21.87%, 28.12% and 75%) respectively as it is judged by human evaluators. In both subjective and objective evaluation, the results are consistent. Summarizer M3 that uses the combination of term frequency and improved position methods outperform other summarizers followed by M2.
Agricultural Information Network For Ethiopia : Need, Functions and Implementation Strategy
(Addis Ababa University, 1992-06) Kebede, Gashaw; Neelameghan, A. (Prof.)
The relevance and viability of cooperative approach by forming a network of existing information service units in the country to address commonly faced shortcomings in agricultural information provision was assessed and discussed. A review of literature on various aspects of information ne tworking was made mainly to draw up a general framework and basic pri nciples essential to asse ss viability, to determine possible and viable areas of cooperation and to establish the particular type of net work required. A preliminary survey on problems, resource capability and attitude to networking on the existing information service units in Ethi opia using questionnaire supported by selected interview was conducted. The results revealed shortages in information sources, skilled personnel, and equipment and facility; and cumbersome organizational structures are widespread. standardization and bibliographic control tools are also a bsent. Local publications are neglected areas. Financial resource limitations are major problems. The information services provided are limited to reading and lending services by large. All these are constraints in the improvements . of the services immedi tely. staff will i ngness to appr oach , the" existing problems cooperatively was high. Also surveyed with a different questionnaire were agricult ural information users of the surveyed information service units so as to assess their reaction to and opinions about the available servi ces which t he ne t wor k could t ake into cons i de r ation as i t s ultimate goal. Al t hough at present books are t he most used, journals and loca l pUblica t ions are rep o r ted t o be in great demand. Liter ature s e a r ch, phot ocopying, doc ument delivery are a lso requi red. The ma jority are dissati s f i ed with their in forma t ion servi ce units beca us e their information ne eds are not met. However, many seem to appreciate a cooper ative approach to the ser vices although at present many are less frequent us ers of other similar information units in the country. Taking into consideration what is affordable by the existing units on the one hand and the need to addr ess t he pressing problems on the other, feasi ble areas for a network were identified ,namely, establishing union c atalogues of holdings and list of local publications, limited interl ibr ary loan, t raining and standardization with focus on laying the g r ound for further wider cooperation leading towar ds meeting the expressed as well as generally r equired needs of users and to assist the services achieve better standards of service and r esource base. Recommendations are made to initiate the network and make it operational.
Agricultural Information Network For Ethiopia : Needs, Functions and Implementation Strategy
(Addis Ababa University, 1992-06) Kebede, Gashaw; Lancaster, F.W.Prof.
The relevance e and viability of cooperative approach by forming a network of existing information service units in the country to address commonly faced shortcomings in agricultural information provision was assessed and discussed. A review of literature on various aspects of information networking was made mainly to draw up a general framework and basic principles essential to assess viability, to determine possible and viable areas of cooperation and to establish the particular type of network required. A preliminary survey on problems, resource capability and attitude to networking on the existing information service units in Ethiopia using questionnaire supported by selected interview was conducted. The results revealed shortages in information sources, skilled personnel, and equipment organizational structures are and facility; and cumbersome widespread. Standardization and bibliographic control tools are also absent. Local publications are neglected areas. Financial resource limitations are major problems. The information services provided are limited to reading and lending services by large. All these are constraints in the improvements of the services immediately. Staff willingness to approach the existing problems cooperatively was high. Also surveyed with a different questionnaire were agricultural information users of the surveyed information service units so as to assess their reaction to and opinions about the available services which the network could take into consideration as its ultimate goal. Although at present books a re the most used, journals and local publications are reported to be in great demand. Literature search, photocopying, document delivery are also required. The majority are dissatisfied with their information service units because their information needs are not met. However, many seem to appreciate a cooperative approach to the services although at present many are less frequent users of other similar information units in the country. Taking into consideration what is affordable by the existing units on the one hand and the need to address the pressing problems on the other, feasible areas for a network were identified ,namely, establishing union catalogues of holdings and list of local publications, limited inter library loan, training and standardization with focus on laying the ground for further wider cooperation leading towards meeting the expressed as well as generally required needs of achieve better standards users and of service to assist the services and resource base. Recommendations are made to initiate the network and make it operational.
Amharic - English cross-lingual information retrieval (Cllr): A corpus based approach
(Addis Ababa University, 2009-08) Tesfaye Aynalem; Abebe Ermias (Ato)
Amharic is the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. On the other hand, English serves as medium of instruction and communication in educational centers, working language in governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Ethiopia. Thus, experimenting on the applicability of a cross language information retrieval system for Amharic-English that can break the language barrier is important. This research is conducted to break the language barrier that users face in obtaining and using documents prepared in Amharic and English. Amharic is the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. On the other hand, English serves as medium of instruction and communication in educational centers, working language in governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Ethiopia. Thus, experimenting on the applicability of a cross language information retrieval system for Amharic-English that can break the language barrier is important. This research is conducted to break the language barrier that users face in obtaining and using documents prepared in Amharic and English. The method that is employed to conduct the experimentation is a corpus-based approach. This approach requires availability of a large volume of parallel documents prepared in Amharic and English. The documents that were collected to conduct this research are news articles and legal items.The performance of the system was measured by precision and recall. At the first phase of the experimentation, precision values were very low - the highest being 0.2 and 0.3 for Amharic and English respectively. This was due to the index term list which could not fully represent the documents used for the experimentation. The process of indexing removed important terms from index list which resulted in lack of documents to be retrieved for most of the queries. Thus, the index list was modified, i.e., all the terms which occur in the corpus with the exception of stop words were used. This showed the increase in precision values - the highest being 0.36 and 0.33 for Amharic and English documents respectively. Therefore, with the use of sufficiently large and cleaned parallel Amharic-English document collection, it is possible to develop a cross language information retrieval for the language pairs.
Amharic Character Recognition System for Printed Real-Life Documents
(Addis Ababa University, 2010-06) Teshager, Abay; Mulugeta, Wondwossen (PhD)
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an area of research and development where a system is made to recognize characters from printed documents. Cultural considerations and enormous flood of printed documents motivated the development of OCR across the world. Unlike other scripts, OCR development for Amharic Characters has been started in 1997 at SISA (School of Information Studies for Africa). Some developments have been made in recognizing various types of machine-printed, typewritten and handwritten Amharic documents. However, Amharic character recognition is still an area that requires the contribution of many research works. There is a need to enhance its performance on real-life documents such as the ‘Addis Zemen’ Amharic newspaper, the Bible, the ‘Federal Negarit Gazeta’ and the fiction ‘Fiker Eskemekabir’, which have a number of artifacts (mode of writing, condition of the input page, printing process, quality of paper, presence of extraneous markings, resolution and quality of scanning etc.) that affect the performance of the recognizer. One such area, OCR technology has been investigated more for real-life Amharic degraded documents. For the recognition to be successful, robust techniques in detecting and removing various noise types are investigated and validated. During experimentation of the applicability of algorithms and approaches for the problem at hand, MATLAB Image processing Toolbox and neural network classifier on MATLAB Neural Network Toolbox is used. The wiener adaptive filtering method for noise removal, Otsu global thresholdingmethod for binarizing the digitized image, linear interpolation techniques for normalization and hit-and-miss morphological analysis for thinning are found to work very well for the problem of interest. In due course, the performance of the line segmenter is found to be 100%. The rate of segmentation for basic and labialized characters turns out to be 98.28% and 100% respectively for training character sets, 98.55% and 100% respectively for testing character sets. For classifying the features generated, an artificial neural network approach is implemented. The neural network is trained with eight samples taken from real-life documents. The performance of the developed system is tested with documents taken from real-life documents. Accordingly, an average recognition rate of 96.87% for the test sets from the training sets and 11.40% recognition rate is observed for the new test sets. The segmentation algorithm used in the current study worked reasonably for basic and labialized characters. But it fails to segment special character |v|, punctuations and numbers. In general, observation of the test results show that the performance of the system is greatly affected by the similarity of the shape of Amharic characters and effect of the application of noise removal for cleaning highly degraded document images. Such challenges require to further explore an invariant to shape feature extraction techniques and advanced noise detection and removal algorithms. Based on the results, further research areas are also recommended.

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