About Japanese Online Exercises'; } else if ($program == "KanaChart") { echo 'About KanaChart'; } else if ($program == "KanaQuiz") { echo 'About KanaQuiz'; } else if ($program == "VerbQuiz") { echo 'About Verb Form Quiz'; } else if ($program == "VerbRules") { echo 'About Verb Rules'; } else if ($program == "KanjiQuiz") { echo 'About KanjiQuiz'; } else if ($program == "AudioFiles") { echo 'About Audio Files'; } ?>

The work on the Japanese Online Exercises at Amherst College has been done over an extended period of time and by a variety of people. More recently the programs have been give an consistent look and and grouped together into a single structure.

The overall design and coordination of these programs has been done by Prof. Wako Tawa of the Department of Asian Languages and Civiizations. Questions regarding the content or pedalogical design should be directed to her.

The work of bringing all the pieces together into one coherent whole was done by Paul Chapin of Academic Technology Services in the Information Technology department. Technical questions should be directed to him. The overall look and feel were borrowed from the original KanaQuiz program that was created by students working for the IT department.

The KanaChart (v1.0) function was created by Paul Chapin during the summer of 2007. Along with the basic look and feel, the script also borrows the approach to handling sound files original used in KanaQuiz.

The QuickTime videos showing brush stroke order are courtesy of Mr. Satoru Shinagawa of the University of Hawai'i system and Masayoshi Kanai.

The brush icon is from Silk Icons. It has been slightly modified.

The Verb Form Quiz - originally called "Japanese Tutor" - has been around in various forms for some time. Originally started as a stand along C program, work was continued as a Java program. While neither of these programs were successful, it did result in the defining of what the quiz should look and the preparation of much of the text, graphics and sound. During this period work was done by a number of individuals.

In 2002 the program was rewritten by Paul Chapin using Authorware. This version was used for several years.

In 2007 the program was again rewritten (version 3) by Paul Chapin as a web application using Javascript and php.

The development of this software was supported by the Culpepper Foundation and a Faculty Research Grant from Amherst College.

The Verb Rules section was originally designed as a part of the Verb Form Quiz. It was separated out during the 2007 rewrite and consolidation. Much of the text and examples were rewritten by Prof. Wako Tawa at that time. For more information, see the credits for the Verb Form Quiz.

The KanaQuiz program was originally written during the summer of 2004 by Nicholas Doty and Brooks Paige, students working for the Computer Center's summer intern program. The basic design, both visually and the underlying program structure, has served as the template for most of what's come later.

During 2007 Paul Chapin added the recognition and pronunciation practices.

The Kanji Quiz was written during the summer of 2005 by Nicholas Doty and Qingsi Zhu, two students working as Computer Center summer interns. Since Nick had previous worked on the design on the Kana Quiz program, he was able to maintain a fairly consistent feel between the two program.

The kanji are presented in the order used by Prof. Wako Tawa and the Japanese language program at Amherst College.

This program was written in 2009 by Paul Chapin. The sound file handling was lifted from earlier programs dating back to KanaQuiz.

Most of the data entry, which was most of the work, was done by Michael Stein (Amherst class of 2012) and Liam Haynes.