PAPER MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT FOR QURAN VERSE RECOGNITION AND INTERPRETATIONS Mobile Application Development for Quran Verse Recognition and Interpretations http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v9i1.4171 M. Alqahtani and A. Fayyoumi Al Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Abstract—Mobile learning or “m-learning” is the process of learning when learners are not at a fixed location or time and can exploit the advantage of learning opportunities using mobile technologies. Nowadays, speech recognition is being used in many mobile applications. Speech recognition helps people to interact with the device as if were they talk- ing to another person. This technology helps people to learn anything using computers by promoting self-study over extended periods of time. The objective of this study focuses on designing and developing a mobile application for the Arabic recognition of spoken Quranic verses. The applica- tion is suitable for Android-based devices. The application is called Say Quran and is available on Google Play Store. Moreover, this paper presents the results of a preliminary study to gather feedback from students regarding the devel- oped application. Index Terms—Arabic Speech Recognition, automatic speech recognition (ASR), mobile application, mobile learning, Say Quran I. INTRODUCTION Traditionally, education has been offered in classes where students can interact with teachers directly. So, the physical presence of students is very important. However, the wide distribution of computers and communication technologies has made the learning process easier. Since the arrival of mobile phones in the 1980s [1], they have been vastly used by people of all ages all over the world. Actually, the whole world is becoming mobile. As a mat- ter of fact, mobile phones are not only communication devices, but they are also portable and private equipment. Mobile technology, such as notebooks and other mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, PDAs, and tablets), constitute a type of cellular communication technology. Nowadays, mobile technologies are becoming increas- ingly ubiquitous and networked. Such technologies can have a great impact on the learning purposes as well as on other purposes. There are new possibilities that have been used in education systems as a result of technological advancement. The Internet helps students to access learn- ing resources and online courses of a broad knowledge base. Moreover, as a result of the great progress in com- puter technologies, especially in computer networks and the new mobile devices, this new learning concept has emerged. The demand for having learning resources avail- able anywhere and at any time has created the need for a new form of electronic learning called mobile learning [2]. The need for mobile applications is increasing. The mobile application industry is growing fast. According to a new market research report, the total global mobile ap- plication market is expected to be worth $25 billion by 2015, 20.5% of which will be generated by the Apple App Store [3]. Many applications have been developed for mobile platforms. Over the last few years, these applications have been the focus of technical interest, as well as market and business campaigns. One of the major application areas is educational. Moreover, within the context of Saudi Arabia the teaching of the holy Quran is a mandatory subject in many universities. Many applications exist for translating the Quran into several languages. In addition, there are applications for helping a user listen to and read the Quran, as well as search for a particular word or phrase in the text. Recently, voice recognition trends have been widely used in different mobile applications in order to offer better interaction and usability to the user. Quran verses are composed of several words of different lengths. Usual- ly, these verses are read in a continuous reading-style. Therefore, recognizing Quranic verses requires an Ara- bic continuous speech recognition algorithm. Arabic speech recognition has faced many problems and recog- nizing Quranic verses is a challenging process compared to formal Arabic speeches due to the melody and Tajweed (rules for pronunciation of Quranic verses) [4]. There are many researches explaining how to recognize Arabic speech [5], [6]. However, few researches have focused on the recognition of Quranic verses. Therefore, the objective of this study is to further de- velop an existing Android mobile application called Say Quran. This application depends on an algorithm of Google’s application programming interface (API). The following sections present the features of the developed application. Then the paper describes the usage of the application. Next is the feedback collection method that was used. Finally, we give the conclusion and future work section. II. CHALLENGES OF ARABIC SPEECH RECOGNITION In the information age, speech recognition is develop- ing as an important field of human computer interaction. The system of speech recognition is composed of two modules: the recognition engine module and the speech features extraction module. There are many researches in speech recognition including speech recognition engine technologies such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), hidden Markov model (HMM) and support vector ma- chines (SVMs) [7]. However, most researches have been on the subject of English; little research has been focused on Arabic. According to the previous studies, Arabic speech recognition has many disadvantages [6], [7]. One of the studies did not include any core Arabic recognizer iJIM ‒ Volume 9, Issue 1, 2015 19