All posts by K Bax

Assessment & Feedback SIG, Events

José Luis Aznarte presents at the next Assessment & Feedback SIG

Assessment & Feedback SIG
Wednesday 6th October, 2021 (14:00 – 15:30 UK)

In this talk José Luis Aznarte will cover UNED’s experience in digitalizing the exam/assessment process during the pandemic lockdowns. Starting with a brief review of our standard assessment protocol, we will dive into the decision process during the emergency provoked by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including the rejection of invasive forms of vigilance. We will share the results of a social research into the expectations and satisfaction levels of the student community regarding the technical and social aspects of the solution finally adopted by the university.

Speaker Bio
José Luis Aznarte is an associate professor at the Department of Artificial Intelligence of the UNED university and deputy vice-chancellor for intelligent data and resources management. He graduated in Computer Science by the University of Granada (Spain) and there he obtained his PhD. He was a post-doc researcher with the Renewable Energy Research Group in the Center for Energy and Processes of the MINES ParisTech engineering school (France). He was awarded a Ramón y Cajal tenure-track grant. Nowadays he coordinates research about applications of data mining, machine learning and soft computing, especially in the framework of time series forecasting. He is involved in the development of operational solutions for personalized learning, air quality forecasting and public health. He coordinates the UNED-EMT Chair on Sustainable Mobility and Air Quality.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-244X

A recording of this session is available for OU staff here.

For an invite, or to be added to the Assessment & Feedback SIG mailing list, please contact openTEL. All are welcome!

Events, Generic, Open & Inclusive SiG, YouTube Video

Accessibility in the BBC – open & Inclusive SIG

Accessibility in the BBC, The open & Inclusive Special Interest Group
Wednesday 15th September 2021 (10:00 – 12:00)

Thank you to those who joined us for openTEL and SeGA’s open & Inclusive Special Interest Group meeting where we were joined by Jamie + Lion and Paul Bepey from the BBC, and Mathijs Lucassen from The Open University. The session was hosted by Kate Lister and Paco Iniesto.

Thank you, Kate!
Kicking off the meeting, Eileen Scanlon thanked Kate Lister for all her exceptional work within the Special Interest Group as this was Kate’s last meeting as co-host and SIG lead. Kate has been essential in growing the open & Inclusive SIG and providing interesting themes and excellent speakers. We hope she will stay in touch and attend future meetings when she can and openTEL looks forward to working with Kate in the future!

Presentations
Mathijs Lucassen gave a presentation from The Open University side: Getting BBC content into OU modules

Jamie + Lion gave a presentation on accessibility at the BBC relating to Audience Facing Digital Products and Paul Bepey gave a talk on accessibility relating to the Internal Facing side.

Jamie + Lion finished the meeting by presenting Charlie Turrell’s slides, who was unfortunately unable to attend the meeting, on the Champions Network.
More information here:
GDS/BBC Webinar: Accessibility Culture eats WCAG compliance for breakfast

Recording, Links and Slides
The Recording is available for OU Staff here: OU Staff Recording Link  

Slides: Getting BBC content into OU modules, Mathijs Lucassen.
Slides: Accessibility @ BBC, Audience Facing Digital Products Jamie + Lion
Slides: uploads to follow
GDS/BBC Webinar: Accessibility Culture eats WCAG compliance for breakfast

Podcast: Check out Jamie’s 1800 Seconds on Autism podcast.

To join the open & Inclusive mailing list please email openTEL

Events, Open & Inclusive SiG

Accessibility in the BBC

 

For the most up to date information about this event, please see the updated blog post here:https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/opentel/accessibility-in-the-bbc-open-inclusive-sig/

 

Join us for the next Open & Inclusive Special Interest Group meeting where external speakers from the BBC will be discussing accessibility. All are welcome!

 

Accessibility in the BBC: open & Inclusive SIG, Wednesday 15th September 10:00 – 12:00

Presenters will include Jamie + Lion (you can read more about Jamie + Lion here) and Charlie Turrell (bio below).

Charlie Turrell

Charlie Turrell is the manager of the BBC’s Accessibility Champions network, encouraging this group to put accessibility at the front of any product they are working on. Charlie is currently setting up an additional external champions network to provide support for all people in a similar role and those who are wanting to set up networks in their own companies.

Additionally Charlie is on the board for BBC Pride and is passionate about pushing the constant improvement of culture and diversity in her organisation

We hope you can join us.
Please email openTEL for an invite.

Events, OpenAIED SIG

openAIED SIG: 7th July

Join us online for the next openAIED Special Interest Group on Wednesday 7th July at (14:00 – 15:30) for a presentation from Josmario Albuquerque (further details below) and updates from Dr Duygu Bektik and Dr Francisco Iniesto.

Uncovering social biases in online learning: insights from bias-detection approaches applied to the OU
Josmario Albuquerque

Abstract
Online educational technologies have transformed learning and teaching processes. For instance, researchers have proposed mechanisms to improve both students’ and teachers’ experience, e.g., tools to enhance collaboration, improve student engagement, and help teachers in designing and delivering new learning resources. However, despite the benefits of such technologies, recent findings have showed that issues related to social justice like human biases and stereotypes are still present in educational settings. Researchers have also shown that such issues can diminish several aspects of learning, e.g., academic performance, students’ confidence, and reduce engagement. In this presentation, I aim to highlight what is being used to uncover group biases in learning settings and share preliminary findings of exiting computational approaches applied to the OU VLE. A sample of 2024 sentences sampled from 91 OU modules across several disciplines was extracted and used as the input for two bias-detection algorithms. While potential biases were suggested by those approaches within the modules analysed, the extent to which those biases are relevant for an educational setting is questionable. Those results and the limitations of those mechanisms will be discussed, as well as implications and directions for future research in Artificial Intelligence in Education.

Bio
Josmario Albuquerque is currently a second-year research student at the Institute of Educational Technology, Open University. His current research focuses on group bias in online learning settings, where he expects to provide a mechanism to help the identification of racial biases in learning materials. Previously, he has investigated gender stereotypes in educational technologies while completing his master’s degree at the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil. With a background in Computer Science, he has taken part in a few IT projects that include: developing an authoring tool to help tutors create customised Intelligent Tutoring Systems and improve students’ performance; and designing a video-monitoring learning analytics platform to inform tutors and school managers about the learning processes of bilingual students in a language school. Josmario’s interests include Artificial Intelligence in Education, Learning Analytics, and the general use of Computer Science to address social issues.

All are welcome. Please email openTEL for an invite or feel free to share the invite with those who would like to attend.