A software for learning Information Theory basics with emphasis on Entropy of Spanish

TL;DR

This paper presents IT-tutor-UV, an educational software that helps users learn the basics of Information Theory through practical examples using a Spanish corpus, including source and channel coding concepts.

Contribution

The software integrates a Spanish corpus to demonstrate entropy and coding concepts, providing a practical learning tool for Information Theory education.

Findings

Entropy values of Spanish obtained with IT-tutor-UV

Comparison of entropy with previous calculations

Educational effectiveness of the software

Abstract

In this paper, a tutorial software to learn Information Theory basics in a practical way is reported. The software, called IT-tutor-UV, makes use of a modern existing Spanish corpus for the modeling of the source. Both the source and the channel coding are also included in this educational tool as part of the learning experience. Entropy values of the Spanish language obtained with the IT-tutor-UV are discussed and compared to others that were previously calculated under limited conditions.