News

Over the past few years, OnTask has been used by academics at UTS to create rule-based messages to personalise feedback and tailor communication to every student in their subject. What is their experience with using this novel personalised messaging tool, and how do they feel about the impact of their personalised communication with students? CIC interviewed a few academics to find out their perspective. OnTask is a tool that draws on learning analytics for personalising feedback. A key feature...
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CIC contributes to new reports on the state of the art of Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in Education Australia is fortunate to have some of the leading researchers in Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in Education,some of them being founders of these fields. Over the last year, CIC’s senior researchers Kirsty Kitto and Simon Buckingham Shum have been working with colleagues across the country on a series of research articles, documenting the state of play, and the ...
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UTS Emeritus Prof. David Boud, the internationally leading researcher on learning in higher education, has joined the Researcher Professional Learning Analytics project as PhD co-supervisor to Yuveena Gopalan David Boud is Emeritus Professor at UTS. He has been involved in research and teaching development in adult, higher and professional education for over 40 years and has contributed extensively to the literature. He is one of the highest cited researchers in the world in the field of higher...
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We need ways to bring students and educators into informed, extended deliberation about the ethics of EdTech powered by Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. CIC adopted a novel community consultation process using the principles and methods of Deliberative Democracy to consult with the UTS community... What principles should govern UTS’ use of analytics and artificial intelligence to improve teaching and learning for all, while minimising the possibility of harmful outcomes?  This w...
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CIC provides UTS with both thought leadership and hard evidence about Learning Analytics. So it’s no surprise that the team will present multiple times at the premier international forum next month... Universities risk implementing data/analytics strategies that make little impact on real practice, if they don’t work closely with the academics, tutors and students who are expected to use those new tools. This human-centred design approach is one of CIC’s hallmarks, so running through our work...
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We need new ways to describe students’ readiness for university. Joining an exciting initiative led by the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion, CIC has helped hundreds of high school students from some of the toughest economic areas in Sydney, who are now about to start at UTS. The U@Uni Academy is a pioneering initiative led by the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion, to expand the pathways into a UTS education. U@Uni Academy is an alternate, non-ATAR entry pathway to stu...
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Students need timely and personalised feedback to know how to improve, as well as to build a sense of belonging that fosters motivation. But how is this possible with large enrolment numbers and when all, or a significant amount, of learning is online? Automated Feedback broadly refers to software’s ability to process data about student activity and convert this into feedback messages. There are many approaches to this, involving both learning analytics, and for more advanced analysis of the da...
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CIC's long term work with Cherie Lucas (School of Pharmacy) was the focus of a workshop last week at the 13th International Conference on Life Long Learning in Pharmacy, joint with Efi Mantzourani (Cardiff U.) sharing what we have been learning about the effective use of AcaWriter's automated feedback to support reflective writing. Full details below, including the slides. Lucas, C., Buckingham Shum, S. & Mantzourani, E. (2021). The Art of Reflection: Provisions and Companions in our Profes...
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CIC front-end developer Joseph Jung isn’t just a user interface coding whizz: he also just received his PhD! Joseph Jung is currently working at CIC as a front-end developer on the TRACK project. He has multiple roles at CIC including User Experience design and user interface development. But before joining CIC he was completing his PhD at the University of Sydney, on improving the usefulness and usability of a mobile app for “food journaling”. His key research contributions were to define Lock...
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As some of you may know, TRACK is a suite of web apps to help students, academics, course designers and working professionals understand how skills, studying and careers intersect. Here’s the latest news on this exciting project! Some UTS students know what they want to be, but don’t know what they need to study to get to their goal. Others know what they’re interested in or good at but can’t quite work out how to link subject choices to potential career outcomes. TRACK can help students to mak...
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