UMM Informatics Study Program Lecturer who Develops an AI-Based Alquran Learning Application. (Photo: Zaki PR) |
The development of artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems is now increasingly sophisticated and proliferating. Not wanting to be left behind by the development of the latest technology, the Informatics Study Program of the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), together with the Directorate of Research and Community Service (DPPM) of UMM, is currently developing an AI-based Alquran learning application. Interestingly, this development also involved a Dutch I.T. company, NOVO.
The head of the development team, Aminudin, S. Kom., M.C.s. He explained that the Ngaji.AI application had been made by NOVO and released on the Google Play store by the NOVO Indonesia Belajar branch. Unfortunately, the accuracy of reading the Alquran pronunciation could be improved. Therefore, NOVO partnered with UMM, The White Campus, to improve it.
"You could say the Ngaji.AI application is still in the stage of learning the basics of the Alquran. However, it is still being developed by collecting various datasets. Insyaallah, there will be a lot of improvisation up to the tahsin and tahfiz levels," said the UMM informatics lecturer.
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Furthermore, the application was developed using the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technique. This technology allows a device to recognize and understand spoken words by digitizing the terms and matching the digital signal with a specific pattern stored in a machine.
"Collecting datasets from several recordings of teachers reciting Alquran takes quite a long time. This is a challenge in the development of this application. Especially the number of learning methods to read the Alquran are also quite a lot. In addition, this application was also developed to be adaptive for all ages. We also do recordings with children's readings," explained Aminudin.
Aminudin, The lecturer, is also the Head of the Information System Division of the UMM Infocomm Bureau. He conveyed the main reason for the development of the application. According to him, Ngaji.AI aims to help people who felt that late learning the Alquran and want to study independently, primarily through pronunciation. Based on a survey that his team and NOVO conducted, more than 90% of the Muslim population in Indonesia has the initiative to learn the Alquran.
"This application was developed to be able to detect how to read the Alquran from various accents with existing A.I. capabilities. In order to get standardized application results, we also collaborated with several lecturers from the UMM Faculty of Islamic Studies (FAI)," he said.
Finally, Aminudin hopes that this application will be helpful for parents who want to teach the Alquran to their children. Also, for those who want to explore and learn to read the Alquran independently. (put/zak/wil)