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CALRG Conference 2023: Programme

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We’re delighted to share the provisional schedule and abstracts for this year’s 46th CALRG conference. The conference will take place online and is open to all.

If you are external to The Open University (UK) then please email us for links to join the conference sessions.

This post was last updated on 26 June 2023.

The 46th Computers and Learning Research Group Annual Conference

All times shown are in BST (GMT+1) 

Tuesday 27 June 2023: Doctoral Consortium 

  • 14.00: Faculty members’ teaching practices in developing inclusive pedagogy: from theory to action (Ana Castellano Beltrán, Universidad de Sevilla)
  • 14.30: Can geospatial technologies reduce the transactional distance in open and distance learning? (Kamran Mir, Allama Iqbal, OU Islamabad)
  • 15.00-15.15: Comfort break
  • 15.15: Negotiating the competing demands of home, work and learning through improved self-efficacy in CPD for healthcare professionals (Helen Darlaston, OU UK)
  • 15.45: Predicting drop-out in Toastmasters (Selina Griffin, OU UK)
  • 16.15: Close

Session abstracts: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/CALRG/calrg-conference-27-june-2023/

Wednesday 28 June 2023: OpenTEL SIG launch, Openness & Inclusion 

  • 13.30: Welcome (Eileen Scanlon, OU UK)
  • 13.40: OpenTEL SIG launch (Bart Rienties, Gerald Evans, Mark Williams and Natasha Huckle, OU UK)
  • 14.45: Comfort break
  • 15.00: Open Education Research: Celebrating 10 years of the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) (Rob Farrow, Martin Weller, Beck Pitt and Carina Bossu, OU UK)
  • 15.30: A call for open science to become inclusive science (Garron Hillaire, AERDF)
  • 16.00: Deep viewpoints: Using citizen curation to address the museum participation gap (Paul Mullholland, OU UK)
  • 16.30: Close

Session abstracts: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/CALRG/calrg-conference-28-june-2023/

Thursday 29 June 2023: Professional Development, Capacity Building & Supporting Learners 

  • 09.30: Digital Education for Universities: Capacity building for impact and nationwide change in Kenya (Denise Whitelock, Fereshte Goshtasbpour, Beck Pitt, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Cross and Olivier Biard, OU UK) 
  • 10.00: Introduction to Virtual Exchange and its benefits: a case study from the OU’s Online Confucius Institute (Mirjam Hauck, Qian Kan, Ligao Wu and Doris Hermann-Ostrowski, OU UK) 
  • 10.30: Comfort break
  • 10.45: Online professional development across European institutions and borders (Bart Rienties, OU UK)
  • 11.15: Energy digitisation and learning: who is interested and what do people want to learn about? (Irina Rets, Denise Whitelock, Leigh-Anne Perryman and Chris Edwards, OU UK)
  • 11.45: Lunch break
  • 13.30: Understanding student experience feedback of ethnic minority students with learning analytics (Thomas Ullman and Chris Edwards, OU UK)
  • 14.00: “It offers me a future, when I don’t have anything”: Perspectives from students from refugee backgrounds associated with the Open Futures Sanctuary Programme at the OU (Koula Charitonos, Neil Graffin, Marie Gillespie, Lidia Dancu, Ahmad Al-Rashid, Olwyn O’Malley, Shannon Martin, Fidele Mutwarasibo, Mahlea Babjak and Colin Wilding, OU UK)
  • 14.30: Comfort break
  • 14.45: The Complex Trajectories project (Chris Edwards, Bart Rienties, Simon Cross and Mark Gaved, OU UK)
  • 15.15: Creating emotionally supportive learning environments when undertaking assessed, online, group activities (Jake Hilliard, OU UK)
  • 15.45: Examining OU student satisfaction and barriers to taking remote online exams (Maria Aristeidou, Simon Cross, Carlton Wood and Klaus-Dieter Rossade, OU UK)
  • 16.15: Close

Session abstracts: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/CALRG/calrg-conference-29-june-2023/

Friday 30 June 2023: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Extended Reality (XR) and Learning Analytics 

  • 09.15: Solving Year 1 programming problems with AI assistants (Michel Wermelinger, OU UK)
  • 09.45: iSpot & AI: Integrating FASTCAT-Cloud and PI@ntNET-API in the Cos4Cloud framework (Citizen Science & AI Group: Chris Valentine, Mike Dodd, Janice Ansine, Stefan Rueger, Advaith Siddharthan, Damian Dadswell, OU UK)
  • 10.15: Comfort break
  • 10.30: Open XR Studios: What could immersive learning do for us? (Tyrrell Golding and Trevor Collins, OU UK)
  • 11.00: The potential of generative AI in education (John Domingue and AI module team, OU UK)
  • 11.30: Comfort break
  • 11.45: Open Skills Academy (OU Wales) (Rhys Daniels, OU Wales) 
  • 12.15: Ethical use of predictive learning analytics in distance education (Christothea Herodotou, Anna Gillespie and Irina Rets, OU UK) 
  • 12.45: Closing remarks and conference ends 

Session abstracts: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/CALRG/calrg-conference-30-june-2023/

Contacts and further information

The CALRG Conference 2023 organising team is: Hannah Clarkson, Fereshte Goshtasbpour, Kylie Matthews, Beck Pitt, Eileen Scanlon and the IET-Research team.

CALRG Conference 2023: Call for Papers

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46th Computers and Learning Research Group Annual (Online) Conference: Call for Papers

** Submission deadline 24 May 2023 **

 We invite submissions for the 46th annual conference of the Computers and Learning Research Group (CALRG), to be held during 28, 29 and 30 June 2023. The conference will be held online, is open to all and free of charge.

CALRG is based in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET), The Open University (UK) and is one of the UK‘s leading research groups on the use of technologies in education. CALRG’s annual conference provides a forum for members, as well as other researchers and practitioners in the field, to present their work. We particularly encourage research students to submit proposals for the doctoral consortium and participate in the conference.

We invite proposals for our 2023 conference on a broad range of topics, including:

  • Hybrid learning
  • AI, ChatGPT and education
  • Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)
  • Accessible online learning
  • Mobile learning
  • Effective designing for learning and learner experiences
  • Citizen science and public engagement
  • Learning analytics
  • Openness in education
  • Game-based learning
  • Professional learning
  • Widening access and participation in education with technology

 Submission Types

Type 1: Full presentation

Full presentations are designed for work that is mature or in the final stages of analysis.

To help showcase IET’s current work, we anticipate that all academic research projects will submit a proposal, where possible. We also welcome submissions from projects in openTEL, the wider university and beyond.

Full presentations will be allotted approx. 25-30 minutes, including 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Abstracts should be 250-300 words.

Type 2: Doctoral consortium

The CALRG conference’s doctoral consortium provides a supportive environment for PhD and EdD candidates to showcase their work. The doctoral consortium will feature a panel of experienced experts to provide guidance and encouragement.

Doctoral consortium sessions are allocated 30 minutes total. Presenters can decide how best to use the time and the ratio of feedback to presentation. Abstracts should be 250-300 words.

Type 3: Innovative / Wildcard

If you have a session idea that doesn’t fit into the full presentation or doctoral consortium format, we welcome your proposal! Abstracts should be 250-300 words.

Submission Guidance

  • Accepted abstracts for all submission types will be made available online.
  • With presenter permission, we will record conference sessions and release edited versions of these on IET’s YouTube channel.
  • The deadline for abstract submission is 12.00 noon (BST) on Wednesday 24 May 2023.
  • Submit your abstract to CALRG.
  • Following review, we will be in touch during w/c 5 June 2023 regarding your submission outcome.

Contacts and further information

The CALRG Conference 2023 organising team is: Hannah Clarkson, Fereshte Goshtasbpour, Kylie Matthews, Beck Pitt, Eileen Scanlon and the IET-Research team.