Conference Archives - EduTec Science

Apr112024 by Sebastian GombertNo Comments

Team led by Sebastian Gombert wins one of two tracks at BEA 2024 shared task on predicting Item Difficulty and Item Response Time

Artificial Intelligence, Assessment, Award, Computational Psychometrics, Conference, Higher Education, New Pub, Workshop

For standardized exams to be fair and reliable, they must include a diverse range of question difficulties to accurately assess test taker abilities. Additionally, it's crucial to balance the time allotted per question to avoid making the test unnecessarily rushed or sluggish. The goal of this year's BEA shared task (competition) was to build systems which could predict Item Difficulty and Item Response Time for items taken from the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). EduTec member Sebastian Gombert designed systems which are able to predict both variables simultaneously. These placed first out of 43 for predicting Item Difficulty and fitfth out of 34 for predicting Item Response Time. They use modified versions of established transformer language models in a multitask setup. A corresponding system description paper titled Predicting Item…

Dec42023 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Enhancing Learning with Data-enriched Activities: Insights from the HIKOF/IMPACT Workshop at eLearning Netzwerktag 2023

Conference, Event, Feedback, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, Project, Workshop

At the 16te eLearning Netzwerktag 2023, participants had the opportunity to engage in various thought-provoking workshops. One workshop that stood out was the HIKOF/IMPACT session, where the edutec.science members from these AI projects shed light on the development of Data-enriched Learning Activities (DeLAs). This interactive workshop showcased how DeLAs offer valuable insights into students' competency development within digital learning activities. Let's delve into the details of how the HIKOF/IMPACT projects, part of the HILA research program, are revolutionizing eLearning through the implementation of DeLAs. The HIKOF/IMPACT workshop focused on exploring the concept and implementation of Data-enriched Learning Activities. Through DeLAs, educators gain unique insights into students' competency development during digital learning processes. These activities represent a powerful approach that leverages AI to analyze real-time data and provide highly informative feedback…

Dec42023 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

16th eLearning Netzwerktag: An Insightful Recap of the Fast-Paced Year

Artificial Intelligence, Assessment, Augmented Reality, Competence development, Computational Psychometrics, Computer-supported collaborative learning, Conference, Event, Feedback, Gender, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design

The annual eLearning Netzwerktag was a highly anticipated one-day event where the eLearning community of Frankfurt and the surrounding areas gathered to present the highlights of the past year to the public. On November 21, 2023, the event took place at Campus Westend, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Among the speakers, the Prof. Dr. Maren Scheffel, Prof. Dr. Franziska Matthäus , CIO of Goethe University Ulrich Schielein, Prof. Dr.Hendrik Drachsler, Director of studiumdigitale, delivered an opening speech that reflected on an incredible year, with a particular focus on the advancements in generative Artificial Intelligence applications. Hendrik Drachsler's speech highlighted the significant developments in the field of digital learning. At the previous Netzwerktag, applications like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stablediffusions, and open language models (LLMs) such as LAMA were relatively unknown to most…

Nov232023 by Atezaz AhmadNo Comments

New Pub: LAxplore: An NLP-Based Tool for Distilling Learning Analytics and Learning Design Instruments out of Scientific Publications

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Conference, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, New Pub, Open access, Publication, Technical paper

Abstract: Each year, the amount of research publications is increasing. Staying on top of the state of the art is a pressing issue. The field of Learning Analytics (LA) is no exception, with the rise of digital education systems that are used broadly these days from K12 up to Higher Education. Keeping track of the advances in LA is challenging. This is especially the case for newcomers to the field, as well as for the increasing number of LA units that consult their teachers and scholars on applying evidence-based research outcomes in their lectures. To keep an overview of the rapidly growing research findings on LA, we developed LAxplore, a tool that uses NLP to extract relevant information from the LA literature. In this article, we present the evaluation of…

Nov142023 by Atezaz AhmadNo Comments

Conference: Paper presentation at IC3K 2023

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Conference, General education, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, New Pub, Publication, Technical paper

The purpose of the IC3K is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners on the areas of Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. IC3K is composed of three co-located conferences (KDIR, KEOD and KMIS), each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas. Our paper titled "LAxplore: An NLP-Based Tool for Distilling Learning Analytics and Learning Design Instruments out of Scientific Publications" was accepted at the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval (KDIR). Atezaz Ahmad presented the paper at the conference online. ABSTRACT: Each year, the amount of research publications is increasing. Staying on top of the state of the art is a pressing issue. The field of Learning Analytics (LA) is no exception, with the rise of digital education systems that are…

Oct122023 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Reflecting on the 8th National AI in Schools Conference: Transforming Teaching and Learning

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Event, Feedback, Invited talk, Keynote, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, Project, School, Transfer Activity

The 8th National Conference on AI in Schools, held in Berlin, was a momentous event that gathered experts, policy-makers, and educators to discuss the current landscape and future prospects of AI in education. If there’s one word to describe the atmosphere at the 8th National Conference on AI in Schools, it would be “transformative“. The conference was not only setting high standards on political representatives, researchers in the field of educational & computer science, but also charged with representatives school supervisory boards, state institutes, and offices for teacher education in all 16 federal states. Overall, there was a palpable spirit of collaboration, optimism, and let”s get things done. Politicians, researchers, and practitioners were engaged and committed, staying until the very end of the event, signalling an overwhelming willingness to bring…

Sep292023 by Ioana JivetNo Comments

Conference: Demo and paper presentations at EARLI 2023

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Feedback, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Self-Regulation, Workshop

This year, the biannual EARLI conference took place between 21-26 August 2023 in Thessaloniki, Greece and EduTec member Ioana Jivet represented DIPF with two contributions. The 1.5-hour ICT demo Closing the Feedback Loop - A Moodle Plugin for (Semi-)automated Feedback introduced participants to the work of PhD student Tornike Giorgashvili, supervised by Hendrik Drachsler and Ioana Jivet, and the outcomes of the HIKOF project: LearnDashPlus, a Moodle plugin which helps teachers provide written feedback in large courses. This tool also prompts students to reflect on the feedback they received and allows teachers to explore if such feedback helps students to understand their learning behavior and improve their learning performance. Our tool is intended to work as an educational intervention and an instrument of dialogue between teachers and students and thus closing…

Sep292023 by Ioana JivetNo Comments

Workshop: 5th CARLA Workshop at ECTEL 2023

Conference, Learning Analytics, Workshop

The fifth edition of Workshop on Culturally Aware Learning Analytics (CARLA) was organised by Ioana Jivet from Goethe University and DIPF together with Maren Scheffel from Ruhr University Bochum and Olga Viberg from KTH Stockholm. During the workshop, the participants were engaged in discussions around the design of educational technologies and rated the workshop positively. The rationale behind the workshop is that learning analytics (LA) have been implemented in various countries, often at a limited scale. We have also seen that LA have been used in different ways in different countries. This makes the transfer of LA solutions from one country to another challenging, due to varying contextual, technical, and cultural factors. In this workshop, we aim to identify and discuss possible cultural differences and also similarities–the factors that have…

Sep252023 by Nina MouhammadNo Comments

Nina Mouhammad @ ECTEL 2023 Doctoral Consortium

Competence development, Conference, Higher Education

How often in the last few months did you listen to amazing presentations? And how often did you sit through rather boring ones? We have all been there, and it is probably safe to say that we would prefer more of the former and fewer of the latter. The good news is, presentation skills are not traits but skills and can therefore be trained. The challenge, however, is that training these skills requires quite some time and resources, which are often scarce in traditional educational settings. Technology-enhanced learning could fill this gap. And that is where Nina Mouhammad's PhD research, as part of the HyTea-project, is planned to contribute to. In her PhD, she will explore how technology can teach students to create presentation content that makes their presentations truly…

Sep182023 by Sebastian WollnyNo Comments

Exploring the Future of Chatbots in Education: Insights from DeGEval 2023

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Invited talk, Lifelong Learning

We're excited to share highlights from the recent DeGEval 2023 conference in Magdeburg, where our DIPF Edutec team was part of. DeGEval: A Hub for Evaluation - DeGEval, or the Society for Evaluation, is renowned for bridging academia and industry. It's dedicated to enhancing education through rigorous evaluation methods. Sebastian Wollny's Presentation - At the conference, Sebastian Wollny, alongside Claudia Zaviska from BIBB, Anne Küttel from University of Saarland, and Ricarda Schlimbach from Hochschule Heilbronn, showcased DIPF research on chatbots in vocational education. Attendees showed keen interest and shared their own experiences. Sebastian also presented findings from his literature review titled "Are We There Yet? - A Systematic Literature Review on Chatbots in Education," shedding light on the latest developments. Ricarda Schlimbach's StudyBuddy - Ricarda Schlimbach shone the spotlight on…