Second International Workshop on Collaboration and Gaming (CoGames 2014)

Second International Workshop on Collaboration and Gaming (CoGames 2014)

Call for Papers and Participation

As part of The 2014 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2014)  

http://cts2014.cisedu.info

May 19-23, 2014

The Commons Hotel

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

In Cooperation with ACM, IEEE, and IFIP (Pending)

Submission Deadline: December 30, 2013

Submissions could be for full papers, short papers, poster papers, or posters


SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES
Development of video games is by definition a multi disciplinary process involving several professions, ranging from artists to engineers.  The AAA game titles produced today require rather large teams with a high level of competence (technology, programming, networks, architecture, etc.), creativity and skills.  Compared to traditional software development, game development is characterized by rapid changes of hardware, high performance requirements, and software requirements that are unstable and hard to predict.  Video games are also used for other purposes than pure entertainment, e.g., for education, training, exercising, and simulation.

In the current trends, game developers are focusing more and more on games where players must collaborate to achieve goals in the game.  Collaborative games introduce challenges for game developers to handle technical issues, performance issues, network issues, distributed environments, sharing of information, and heterogeneous networks and devices.  Further, collaborative games open new areas and applications for games to be used for new purposes that can benefit from more than just fun. Creation of these "serious collaborative games" adds additional challenges including matching of content and game activity and modeling of player proficiencies.  As players expect that games can be played anywhere, the integration of mobile gaming, hand-held and online-gaming on smartphones, consoles and tablets is becoming ever more important.  This integration introduces new challenges and leads to new opportunities.

This Workshop on Collaboration and Gaming - held as part of the 2014 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2014) - will focus on the area of collaboration and gaming, with emphasis on new game concepts, new technologies, evaluations, usage areas and games prototypes.  Special attention is dedicated to serious games, in particular for learning.  The aim is to have a dedicated track that fosters closer interactions among researchers, industry and users communities, providing an opportunity for them to meet and discuss their ideas.  We invite original contributions from researchers in academia and computer industry on these emerging and important areas of information technology.  Papers should contribute to an advancement over the state of the art, preferentially providing empirical results from new tools/systems and/or user studies.

CoGames Topics of Interest include (but are not limited to): • Collaborative games, game technology and game frameworks • Collaborative serious games • Platforms for collaborative games • Usability of collaborative games • Mobile collaborative games and game frameworks • Quality of service in collaborative games • Online collaborative games • Computational and artificial intelligence to support collaborative gaming • User profiling and performance assessment in collaborative games • Modelling of users and interactions • Learning and Adaptation in collaborative games • Reliability and availability in collaborative games • Real-time issues (e.g., networking, computation) in collaborative games • Integration and interoperability in collaborative games • Pervasive/ubiquitous collaborative games • New software engineering tools and methods for designing collaborative games • Requirement engineering of collaborative games • Design and software a!
rchitecture of collaborative games • Data mining in collaborative games • Database support for collaborative games • Testing and prototyping of collaborative games • Context-aware gaming • Privacy and Security in collaborative games • Repository and content management of collaborative games • Tools (authoring, assessment, etc.) and sub-systems for collaborative games • Human-Computer Interaction (devices, methodologies and tools) to support collaboration • Serious games aimed at supporting collaboration • Animation and Virtual Reality in game design • Learning and Adaptation in Collaborative Games • Human, social and psychological aspects of games • Business modelling and economic aspects of collaborative games

PAPER SUBMISSION
You are invited to submit original and unpublished research works on above and other topics related to collaboration technologies and systems in games and gaming.  Submitted papers must not have been published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.  Submission should include a cover page with authors' names, affiliation addresses, fax numbers, phone numbers, and email addresses.  Please, indicate clearly the corresponding author and include up to 6 keywords from the above list of topics and an abstract of no more than 400 words.  The full manuscript should be at most 8 pages using the two-column IEEE format.  Additional pages will be charged additional fee.  Short papers (up to 4 pages), poster papers and posters (please refer to  http://cts2014.cisedu.info/home/posters   for the posters submission details) will also be accepted for submission.  Please include page numbers on all preliminary submissions to make it easier for reviewers to provide helpful comments.

Submit a PDF copy of your full manuscript via the Workshop submission Web page at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cogames2014.    If the submission is for a short paper, a poster paper, or a poster, please indicate that on the manuscript as well.

Only PDF files will be accepted, uploaded to the Workshop link above.  Each paper will receive a minimum of three reviews.  Papers will be selected based on their relevance, contribution to advance the state if the art, originality, technical value and clarity of presentation.  Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted.  Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their papers will be registered and presented at the workshop.

Accepted papers will be published in the Conference proceedings.  Instructions for final manuscript format and requirements will be posted on the CTS 2014 Conference web site.  It is our intent to have the proceedings formally published in hard and soft copies and be available at the time of the conference.  The proceedings is projected to be included in the IEEE Digital Library and indexed in major indexing services accordingly.

If you have any questions about paper submission or the workshop, please contact the workshop organizers.

http://cts2014.cisedu.info/2-conference/workshops/workshop-18-cogames

IMPORTANT DATES
Paper Submissions: --------------------------------------- December 30, 2013 Acceptance Notification: --------------------------------- January 21, 2014 Camera Ready Papers and Registration Due: ---------  February 21, 2014 Conference Dates:  ---------------------------------------  May 19 - 23, 2014


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
Francesco Bellotti
   ELIOS Lab - DITEN
   University of Genoa, Via Opera Pia 11/a, 16145 Genoa, Italy
   Phone: + 39-010-3532227
   Fax:     + 39-010-3532795
   Skype:  f.bellotti
   Email:   franz@elios.unige.it

Kristen DiCerbo
     Pearson
     Center for Digital Experience and Analytics, 400 Center Ridge Drive, Austin, TX 78753, USA
     Voice:  +
     Fax:     +
     Email: kristen.dicerbo@pearson.com

C. Shaun Longstreet
      Center for Teaching and Learning
      Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
      Voice: +1 (414) 288-0263
      Fax:    +
      Email:  shaun.longstreet@marquette.edu, cslongstreet@gmail.com                                               

International Program Committee*:
All submitted papers will be reviewed by the workshop technical program committee members following similar criteria used in CTS 2014. • Aida Azadegan, University of the West of Scotland (UWS), U.K.
• Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge, University of Bremen, Germany • Riccardo Berta, University of Genoa, Italy • Rafael Bidarra, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands • Maira Carvalho, DITEN, University of Genoa, Italy • Brent Cowan, University of Ontario, Canada * • Alessandro De Gloria, University of Genoa, Italy • Giusy Fiucci, ORT, Paris, France • Casper Harteveld, Northeastern University, MA, USA • Andrew Hogue,  University of Ontario, Canada * • Sebastian Kelle, Stuttgart Media University, Germany • Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen, Germany • Theo Lim, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, U.K.
• Michael Kickmaier-Rust, Technical University of Graz, Austria • Pablo Moreno Ger, University Complutense Madrid, Spain • Michela Mortara, CNR IMATI, Genoa, Italy • Magda Popescu, National Defence University "Carol I", Romania * • Margarida Romero, ESADE Barcelona, Spain • Ioana Stanescu, Advanced Distributed Learning,  Romania


For information or questions about Conference's paper submission, tutorials, posters, workshops, special sessions, exhibits, demos, panels and forums organization, doctoral colloquium, and any other information about the conference location, registration, paper formatting, etc., please consult the Conference's web site at URL: http://cts2014.cisedu.info/home   or contact one of the Conference's organizers or Co-Chairs.

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Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK) DATA CHALLENGE 2014

 

LAK DATA CHALLENGE 2014

http://lak.linkededucation.org

collocated with Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2014

The LAK Dataset (http://lak.linkededucation.org/) provides access to
structured metadata from research publications in the field of learning
analytics. Beyond merely publishing the data, we are actively
encouraging its innovative use and exploitation as part of a public LAK
Data Challenge sponsored by the European Project LinkedUp
(http://linkedup-project.eu<http://linkedup-project.eu/>), co-located with the Learning Analytics &
Knowledge Conference 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana (US) in
March 2014.


IMPORTANT DATES
---------------

- 20th January, 2014: submission deadline
- 3rd February, 2014: notification deadline
- 24-28 March, 2014: LAK2014 Conference.


CHALLENGE OBJECTIVE
-------------------
What do analytics on learning analytics tell us? How can we make sense
of this emerging fieldís historical roots, current state, and future
trends, based on how its members report and debate their research?
Challenge submissions should exploit the LAK Dataset for a meaningful
purpose. This may include submissions which cover one or more of the
following, non-exclusive list of topics:

- Analysis & assessment of the emerging LAK community in terms of
topics, people, citations or connections with other fields
- Innovative applications to explore, navigate and visualise the dataset
(and/or its correlation with other datasets)
- Usage of the dataset as part of recommender systems
- Analysis of the evolution of the LAK discipline
- Improvement and enrichment of the LAK Dataset


SUBMISSION FORMAT
-----------------
Each submission should be accompanied by a 2-4 page paper (ACM format,
see http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) that
contains at least:

- an abstract of the submission
- motivation: which purposes does your system or dataset serve?
- description of your dataset (e.g. if the LAK data is combined with
other datasets), system or demo
- a link to your dataset and/or system or demo

Please use the EasyChair submission form
(https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lakdatachallenge2014) for
all submissions.


EVALUATION
----------
There will be a light review by members of the challenge committee to
pre-select submissions for presentation. During the LAK conference and
based on the presentations, the challenge winner(s) will be identified
based on votes by the audience and the committee.


PUBLICATION, PRESENTATION & AWARDS
----------------------------------
Accepted submissions will be published in online proceedings and
presented during an interactive LAK Data workshop collocated with the
LAK 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana (US). The three best papers
of each workshop will be invited to a Special Issue in the Journal for
Learning Analytics. In addition, there will be awards for the winning
submissions with very cool prizes (further details to be announced)!


CHALLENGE COMMITTEE
-------------------

- Mathieu D'Aquin (The Open University, United Kingdom)
- Stefan Dietze (L3S Research Center, Germany)
- Hendrik Drachsler (Open Universiteit Nederland, Netherlands)
- Eelco Herder (L3S Research Center, Germany)
- Davide Taibi (Institute for Educational Technologies CNR, Italy)


CONTACT
--------
lakdatachallenge2014@easychair.org<mailto:lakdatachallenge2014@easychair.org>

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Learning Analytics in Formal and Informal Learning

The table below is a synopsis of my recent paper "Community Analytics - Challenges and Oportunties". In the paper, I try to motivate that current learning analytics in formal learning approaches are limited in applications of recorded data because they are already biased by the learning analytics environment. In informal learning, in particular in community-regulated learning, because of the eco-system like community-regulated learning environments and the dynamic nature of learning activities, learning goals and learning communities more data mining and recommender technologies can be applied. So, informal learning is more interesting for computer scientists than formal learning :-)
So, what are highlights of new opportunities for learning analytics in informal learning. First, since we have no formal teacher or instructor role and expertise in a community of learners is a highly dynamic concept, we need to identify experts in a learning community. Experts may be good candidates for mentors, advisers or teachers in an informal learning community. Newcomers (learners) in a community may appreciate an indication about the expertise of persons in the community. For sure, these algorithms must be robust enough to survive attacks of trolls and other misbehaving persons. Second, if we have the concept of a learning community, it may be an important questions for learners which community one should join. For example, if I am an intermediate learner of Spanish, I would not like a learner community where the majority are beginners (unless I want to become an immediate expert :-) But, as a learner I would not learn enough, since I know too much already. I would also not like to join a very advanced learner group, because I do not know enough to learn effectively. In formal learning this is often addressed as a competence level of a course. In informal learning we need to extent current expert recommender systems to community recommender systems. If we have communities,  we may want to join forces with other learners to exchange knowledge about learning tools, goals etc. But how to find such communities in the Web? Here, (overlapping) community detection algorithms may help to find other communities with similar profiles.With methods of social network analysis, communities can be found and knowledge can be co-created and thus scaled in communities of practice.

	Formal Learning	Learning Analytics	Community-regulated Learning	Community Learning Analytics
Environment	LMS	EDM/VA	CIS/ROLE	DM/VA/SNA/ Role Mining
Tools	Fixed	LMS Specific	Ecosystem	Tool Recommender
Activities	Fixed	Content Recommender	Dynamic	Content Recommender/ Expert Recommender
Goals	Fixed	Progress	Dynamic	Progress / Goal Mining / Refinement
Communities	Fixed	Not applicable	Dynamic	(Overlapping) Community Detection
Use Cases	Courses	Learning Paths	Peer Production / Scaffolding	Semantic Networks of Learners / Annotations

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ACIS Invited Talk ICWL 2013 - Community Learning Analytics - Challenges and Opportunities

I was invited to give a presentation on "Community Learning Analytics" at the ICWL 2013 in Kenting, Taiwan. I developed the concept of community learning analytics recently to distinguish it from learning analytics. While mainstream learning analytics is targeting at formal learning and learning management systems, community learning analytics is trying to understand informal learning at the workplace from a community of practice perspective. From a perspective of European projects this presentation is connecting results from the ROLE project with challenges from the Learning Layers project which started recently. As usual, the slides are available from slideshare.

Community Learning Analytics - Challenges and Opportunities - ICWL 2013 Invited Talk from Ralf Klamma

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4th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK 2014)

First Call for Papers

LAK 2014

The 4th International Conference 

on Learning Analytics & Knowledge

24-28 March 2014, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

http://lakconference.org

Conference theme: Intersection of learning analytics research, theory and
practice The International Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference is now
in its fourth year! LAK 14 will keep up the momentum generated in the earlier
meetings as we continue to define who we are as a community and how our
research can inform the important decisions facing education today. We are
experiencing conditions that create a "perfect storm" for making analytics
vitally important for supporting learning in our information age. Not only do
we know more about the basic processes involved in learning, the explosion of
online technology platforms and services provide new opportunities for learning
and generate new forms of data about those processes. Coupled with increasing
societal demands to make learning more accessible and effective for all, we
need scholarly research to ensure that advances in learning technologies and
practices benefit society as a whole. Advances in analytics, data mining and
data visualization promise a way forward for making sense of the massive
amounts of data available so that we can thoughtfully inform learners,
educators, and policy makers.  The location for the conference this year,
Indianapolis, is called "The City at the Crossroads of America."  Accordingly,
the theme for LAK 14 focuses on the crossroads, or intersection, of basic
research on learning, learning theory, and educational practice. We invite
papers that address at least one of these foci, but especially encourage
submissions that demonstrate how they fit together in ways that make our work
relevant to improving learning for people of all ages, leverage the
technologies available to today's learners, and scalable within the many places
where learning occurs. To accomplish these goals, we seek theoretically
motivated papers that utilize analytics to provide direction for understanding
and supporting learning.

TOPICS

LAK 2014 is seeking contributions in a wide variety of topics. The overarching
topic is how data can be used to improve any aspect of a learning
experience. As a guidance, the conference will consider any of the following
topics (authors are strongly encouraged to read the instructions on the
conference web site): Analytic approaches, methods, and tools for sense-making
in learning analytics.  Theories and theoretical concepts for understanding
learning.  Measures of learning, change and Success.  Learning activities,
applications, and interventions.  Issues in learning analytics such as ethics,
cultural transitions, capacity building, etc.  These topics can be studied in a
variety of learning scenarios whether: formal or informal; face-to-face,
blended, or online settings. Proposals are welcome from any various application
domains be it primary and secondary schools, higher education, corporate
workplace or learning in governmental, military, health or commercial
situations. Focus may be on distance or graduate education, mobile and
ubiquitous learning, online communities, to name a few.

SUBMISSION TYPES AND FORMAT

The conference accepts the following type of submissions:
  - Full papers: 10 pages.
  - Short papers: 5 pages.
  - Panel proposals: 4 pages plus 2 separated pages with information about the
    confirmed panelists.
  - Workshop proposals: 2 pages.
  - Tutorial proposals: 2 pages (will not be included in the proceedings).
  - Tool demonstrations: 2 pages.
  - Posters: 2 pages.

All documents must follow the ACM Proceedings Format. Please check the
conference website for detailed author instructions for each type of
submission. Submissions will be received and processed with EasyChair. The
conference proceedings will include all accepted conference submissions except
tutorial proposals and workshop papers.  The conference will also include a
doctoral consortium, the details of which will be available soon.

BEST PAPER AWARD

The three full papers that obtain the highest scores from the reviewers will be
"nominees for the best paper award".  A committee composed by the program
chairs of the current and past edition of the conference will choose the "best
paper award" among the nominees. Both the nominees and the best paper award
will be reflected in the proceedings.

RELEVANT DATES

  - 21 October 2013: Deadline for full/short papers, panel proposals, workshop
    proposals, tutorial proposals, demonstrations and posters (no extension
    will be considered).
  - 11 November 2013: Notification of acceptance for workshop and tutorial
    proposals.
  - 16 December 2013: Notification of acceptance for full/short papers, panel
    proposals, demonstrations and posters.
  - 3 February 2014: Final version of accepted papers due.
  - 24-28 March 2014: Conference.

CONFERENCE ORGANIZER

Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) - http://www.solaresearch.org

General Chairs

  - Matthew Pistilli, Purdue University, IN, USA
  - James Willis, Purdue University, IN, USA
  - Drew Koch, John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate
    Education, NC, USA
  - Kimberly Arnold, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA

Program Chairs

  - Stephanie Teasley, University of Michigan, MI, USA
  - Abelardo Pardo, The University of Sydney, Australia

Workshops and Tutorials Chairs

  - Kalina Yacef, The University of Sydney, Australia
  - Hendrik Drachsler, Center for Learning Sciences and Technologies, Open
    University Netherlands

Demonstrations and Posters Chairs

  - Zach Pardos, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, USA
  - Anna de Liddo, The Open University, UK

Social Media Chair

  - Sean Goggins, Drexel University

Webmaser Chair

  - Krista Galyen, University of Missouri, MO, USA

Publicity Chairs

  - Jenni Swenson, Lake Superior College, MN, USA
  - Tricia Leggett, Zane State College, OH, USA

Local Chair

  - James Willis, Purdue University, IN, USA

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EC-TEL Workshop - Teaching Analytics (IWTA 2013)

Call for Papers

3^rd International Workshop on Teaching Analytics (IWTA)

http://www.next-tell.eu/teachinganalytics/iwta-2013b/

at

EC-TEL 2013 (http://www.ec-tel.eu/)

Wednesday, 18-September-2012

Paphos, Cyprus

Purpose

The core problem that this workshop series on “Teaching Analytics” addresses is that in comparison with most other professionals that work in dynamically changing environments, teachers do not get the information they need for decision making in a timely fashion and in a meaningful and actionable format. Teaching Analytics is conceived as a subfield of learning analytics that focuses on the design, development, evaluation, and education of visual analytics methods and tools for teachers in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational settings. Furthermore, diagnostic data can be collected and needs to be displayed in real-time during a classroom activity or of smaller groups. Teachers’ professional practices with visual analytics methods and tools are a central concern of teaching analytics. Teaching analytics methods and tools aim to develop innovative solutions to assist and augment teachers’ dynamic diagnostic decision-making in the classrooms of the 21st century. An example usage scenario (but not limited to) is the use of teaching analytics methods and tools in high-performance classrooms that are characterized by 1:1 computing, high cognitive density, and big data.

Building on the NEXT-TELL project, the first international workshop on teaching analytics (TAPTA-2012) held at EC-TEL 2012 (http://www.next-tell.eu/tapta/) and the second workshop held at LAK-2013 (http://www.next-tell.eu/iwta-2013/), this workshop explores pedagogical and research approaches to studying teachers’ use of visual analytical techniques and tools. This workshop’s ambitious objective is to jumpstart a new learning analytics research stream on teaching analytics by bringing together learning scientists in different sub-fields such as CSCL, ITS, EDM, researchers in Visual Analytics, and data scientists working with “Big Data” in public institutions and private enterprises. In addition to researchers, we are also targeting teachers at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education to be involved as co-designers and discussants.

Topics

For the third workshop, we specifically seek position papers on pedagogical and research approaches to educating and investigating teachers’ needs and use of visual analytical techniques and tools. Other topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

·         Historical and contemporary practices in notations, representations, and  visualizations of classroom activities and student learning

·         Theories and methods for designing and evaluating new notations, representations, and visualizations for teaching analytics

·         Cognitive dimensions of notations for learning and teaching purposes

·         Visual analytics for activity tracking

·         Visual analytics for knowledge tracking

·         Visual analytics for formative vs. summative evaluations

·         Visual analytics for technology enhanced formative assessment

·         Engendering  teachers’ professional vision in high-performance classrooms

·         Synthesis of visual analytics oriented theory and practice in the Learning Sciences, e-Learning, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), Educational Data Mining, and Learning Analytics.

·         Technical architectures and technological infrastructure for teaching analytics

·         Instrumentation of classrooms and ecosystems for learning and teaching

·         Critical perspectives on teaching analytics

Please note workshop submissions should be concerned with teachers’ use of visual analytics methods and tools in some shape or form. No requirements are placed on contexts such as high-performance classrooms or big data volumes or real-time decision-making

Author Guidelines:

• Length & Format: A position paper of maximum six pages formatted using the Springer LNCS template without the Springer Copyright text. http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0
• Relevance and Substance: Ideally, the position paper should address methods for educating and/or researching teachers’ use of visual analytics tools or a topic relevant to the workshop theme on teaching analytics.

Submission Guidelines:

·         Please submit your position paper no later than 15-July-2013 by email to iwta@next-tell.eu 

Important Dates

• Submission of Position Papers: 15-July-2013
• Author Notifications:  01-August-2013
• Final Versions for Accepted Papers: 31-August-2013
• Workshop Date: Wednesday, 18-September-2012

Proceedings

Accepted papers will be made available to all via this site and published online as a volume of the CEUR series of workshop proceedings.

·         1^st International Workshop on Teaching Analytics

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-894/ 

·         2^nd International Workshop on Teaching Analytics

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-985/

Workshop Co-Chairs

• Ravi Vatrapu, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Peter Reimann, University of Sydney, Australia
• Susan Bull, University of Birmingham, UK
• Andreas Breiter, University of Bremen, Germany

Program Committee

·    Charoula Angeli, University of Cyprus, Cyprus

·    Geneviève Gauthier, University of Alberta, Canada

·    Sean P. Goggins, Drexel Univerity, USA

·    Ulrich Hoppe, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

·    Jelte de Jongh, University of London, UK

·    Anouschka van Leeuwen, Univeristy of Leuven, Belgium

·    Paul Libbrecht, Martin Luther University of Halle, Germany

·    Anna Mavroudi, University of Cyprus, Cyprus

·    Carlos Monroy, Rice University, USA

·    Kostas Pantazos, Copenhagen  Business School, Denmark

·    Philip Uys, Charles Sturt University, Australia

·    Barbara Wasson, University of Bergen, Norway

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ACIS presentation - From Micro to Macro - Analyzing Activity in the ROLE Sandbox

My colleague Dominik Renzel from the  ACIS group at RWTH Aachen University presented our paper "From Micro to Macro - Analyzing Activity in the ROLE Sandbox" at the ACM LAK 2013 conference in Leuven, Belgium.

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ACIS presentation - A Dynamic Topic Model of Learning Analytics Research

Michael Derntl from the ACIS group at RWTH Aachen University gave a presentation at the ACM LAK 2013 Data Challenge Track. The proceedings are published online by SunSITE CEUR. The D-VITA tool is also online.

A Dynamic Topic Model of Learning Analytics Research from Michael Derntl

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Special Theme on Learning Analytics in the Bulletin of TCLT

Call For Articles – BULLETIN OF THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON LEARNING TECHNOLOGY (ISSN 2306-0212) http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/bulletin
publication of IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technology (TCLT)

* Special Theme: Learning Analytics
* Deadline for submission: March 30, 2013.


The Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology (former
Learning Technology Newsletter) aims at publishing and disseminating current
research about new and emerging learning technologies as well as their
design, usage, application, and evaluation in different contexts of
technology enhanced learning.

The special theme of this issue will focus on learning analytics, including
(but not limited to) research on theory and practical uses of learning
analytics; learning analytics algorithms and tools as well as their
evaluations; concepts and applications of learning analytics in formal,
informal and non-formal educational settings; the visualization of results
from learning analytics for students and teachers; the design,
implementation and evaluations of learning analytics techniques; and case
studies and exploratory studies on how to use learning analytics to
facilitated learning and teaching.

Articles that are not in the area of the special theme are most welcome as
well and will be published in the regular article section. The Bulletin of
the Technical Committee on Learning Technology invites short articles, case
studies, and project reports for the April issue. This issue will be
published in Volume 15, Issue 2 (April, 2013).


** The bulletin is of non-refereed nature though the articles will be
selected and edited by the Editors. **


Submission procedure:

1. Authors have to follow the IEEE author guidelines when preparing their
articles (please see http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/authors-guidelines for
further information)

2. The articles in the bulletin are limited to 4 pages. Over-length articles
will not be published.

3. The manuscripts should be either in Word or RTF format. Any figures used
in the contributions would be required separately in a graphic format (gif
or jpeg). The figures should also be embedded in the text at appropriate
places.

4. Please send the manuscripts by email to karagian@uth.gr and
sabineg@athabascau.ca (Subject: Bulletin of TCLT Submission).

5. In the email, please state clearly that the manuscript is original
material that has not been published, and is not being considered for
publication elsewhere.

For further information please see http://www.ieeetclt.org/content/bulletin.

Best regards,
Sabine Graf
Charalampos Karagiannidis
(Editors of the Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology)

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Journal of Learning Analytics

Journal of Learning Analytics

ISSN 1929-7750 (online)

Homepage: http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/JLA

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/jla_editorial

Contact:  jla.editorial@gmail.com

Submission deadline (inaugural issue): April 30, 2013

Overview

Journal of Learning Analytics is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal, disseminating the highest quality research in the field. The journal is the official publication of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR). With an international Editorial Board comprising leading scholars, it is the first journal dedicated to research into the challenges of collecting, analysing and reporting data with the specific intent to improve learning and teaching practice. “Learning” is broadly defined across a range of contexts, including informal learning on the internet, formal academic study in institutions (primary/secondary/tertiary), and workplace learning.

The journal seeks to connect researchers and developers with practitioners, creating and disseminating new tools and techniques, studying transformations, and providing ongoing evaluation and critique of the conceptual, technical, and practical outcomes. The interdisciplinary focus of the journal recognizes that computational, pedagogical, institutional, policy and social domains must be brought into dialogue with each other to ensure that interventions and organizational systems serve the needs of all stakeholders. The journal seeks to bring into dialogue the intersection of the fields of Education, Computation and Sensemaking.

Journal of Learning Analytics welcomes papers that either describe original research or offer a review of the state of the art in a particular area. The journal also welcomes practice-focused papers that detail Learning Analytics applications in real-world settings, provided that they offer innovative insights for advancing the field (see the About section).

Focus and Scope

The following topics are indicative of the journal’s scope:

Education

-Connections between learning analytics and the learning sciences

-Personalization and adaptation in the learning process

-Educational research methods

-Learner modeling

-The study of emotion, flow, and affective data

Computation

-Social network analysis

-Web science, the Semantic Web, and linked data

-Data mining and machine learning techniques

-Natural language processing and text mining

-Recommendation engines

Sensemaking

-Visualization and user experience

-Data and multimedia literacy

-Decision-support

-Organizational dynamics

-Ethical issues

Research Papers

Journal of Learning Analytics welcomes papers that either describe original research or offer a review of the state of the art in a particular area of learning analytics. No submission, or substantially overlapping submission, be published or be under review elsewhere.  Submissions that extend previously published conference papers are welcome provided that the journal submission has sufficiently been extended (at least 25-30% of new contribution).

The Reflective Practitioner Section

This section of the Journal of Learning Analytics is peer-reviewed and  covers the application of learning analytics across a diversity of contexts. This section spotlights trends and practices; provides new insights and ideas; and analyzes the implications of learning analytics. This section is not intended as an avenue for publication of research articles.

Editors

-Shane Dawson, University of South Australia, Australia

-Dragan Gasevic, Athabasca University, Canada

-Phillip Long, University of Queensland, Australia

Editor of the Reflective Practitioner Section

-John Campbell, West Virginia University, USA

Associate Editors

-George Bradford, University of West Georgia, United States

-Phillip Dawson, Monash University, Australia

-Hendrik Drachsler, Open University of the Netherlands, Netherlands

-Rebecca Ferguson, Open University, United Kingdom

-Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British Columbia, Canada

-Nancy Law, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

-Leah Macfadyen, University of British Columbia, Canada

-Negin Mirriahi, University of New South Wales, Australia

-Abelardo Pardo, The University of Sydney, Australia

-Rob Phillips, Murdoch University, Australia

-Matthew Pistilli, Purdue University, United States

-Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan, National Institute of Education, Singapore

-Alyssa Wise, Simon Fraser University, Canada

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LAK 2013 Workshop - Learning Object Analytics for Collections, Repositories and Federations (LACRO 2013)

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

Workshop on Learning Objects Analytics for Collections, Repositories and Federations 

(LACRO 2013)

Leuven, Belgium, 9 April 2013

http://www.ieru.org/lacro/2013/

Organised jointly with the 

International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference 2013, taking place in Leuven, between April 8 and April 12, 2013. (LAK 2013)

http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/

AIM & TOPICS

A large number of curated digital collections containing learning resources of a various kind has emerged in the last year. These include referatories containing descriptions for resources in the Web (as MERLOT), aggregated collections (as Organic.Edunet), concrete initiatives as Khan Academy, repositories hosting and versioning modular content (as Connexions) and meta-aggregators (as Globe and Learning Registry). Also, OpenCourseware and other OER initiatives have contributed to making this ecosystem of resources richer. Very interesting insights can be extracted when studying the usage and social data that are produced within the learning collections, repositories and federations. At the same time, concerns for the quality and sustainability of these collections have been raised, which has lead to research on quality measurement and metrics.

The Workshop (http://www.ieru.org/lacro/2013/) aims to bring studies and demonstrations for any kind of analysis done on learning resource collections, from an interdisciplinary perspective. We consider digital collections not as merely IT deployments but as social systems with contributors, owners, evaluators and users forming patterns of interactions on top of portals or through search systems embedded in other learning technology components. This is in coherence of considering these social systems under a Web Science approach (http://webscience.org/).

Topics include but are not limited to:
* Requirements for the collection of analytics in Learning Repositories and Federations

* Frameworks for the aggregation and sharing Learning Object (LO) Analytics
* Metrics regarding LO analytics focused but not limited to social data, language, size, quality, growth, history and cultural awareness
* Approaches to address big data problems in collecting analytics in Learning Repositories and Federations
* Browsing and visualization tools for LO analytics
* Transfer of successful algorithms and systems from other application areas
* Innovative services and systems for learners and curators based on LO analytics
* Models for the representation of LO analytics
* Data mining methods to extract of meaningful information from data collected regarding LOs
* Experiences from actual implementation of LO analytics in collections, repositories and federations

IMPORTANT DATES

15 February 2013: Submissions
28 February 2013: Notifications
15 March 2013: Camera-ready of accepted papers
9 April 2013: LACRO Workshop in Leuven

SUBMISSIONS
The Workshop accepts a variety of submission types:
* Full papers: 10 pages
* Short papers: 5 pages
* System/service demos: 2 pages
* Tutorials: 2 pages
* Learning Analytics Data sets: 2 pages (and if possible, data set file/URL)

Papers should be original and not previously submitted to other venues.
Submission will be available through the EasyChair submission system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lacro2013
If you haven't an EasyChair account yet, you'll be asked to create it before you can access the LACRO'13 page.


PUBLICATION

Workshop proceedings will be published in a seperate volume by a publisher
that will be announced soon.

CO-CHAIRS
* Miguel-Angel Sicilia, University of Alcala (Spain)
* Xavier Ochoa, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, (Ecuador)
* Giannis Stoitsis, Agro-Know Technologies (Greece)
* Joris Klerkx, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)


ABOUT LAK 2013
The International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference, now in its third year, is a venue for reporting and advancing research at the nexus of two emerging societal phenomena. First we are witnessing the rapid expansion of the use of technologies in supporting learning, not only in established institutional contexts and platforms, but also in the emerging landscape of free, open, social learning online. Second, the unprecedented availability of data that learners generate in the process of accessing learning materials, interacting with educators and peers, and creating new content in these technological settings, coupled with advances in analytics and data mining, knowledge modeling and representation and open data offer great potential for research into how learning takes place in socio-technical settings and the development of new forms of analytics that can inform learners and educators. Learning Analytics research brings these technical, pedagogical, and social domains into dialogue with each other to ensure that interventions and organizational systems serve the needs of all stakeholders.

See http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/ for details
.

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Third International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK13) - Poster, Informal Demonstration, Doctoral Consortium, and Workshop Participation

Call for Secondary Submissions and Participation:

LAK13: Third International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge

8-12 April, Leuven, Belgium

http://lakconference.org 

Poster, Informal Demonstration, Doctoral Consortium, and Workshop Participation  

Submissions due *** January 31, 2013 *** 

The International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference, now in its third year, is a venue for reporting research at the nexus of two emerging societal phenomena. First we are witnessing the rapid expansion of the use of technologies to support learning, not only in established institutional contexts and platforms, but also in the emerging landscape of free, open, social learning online. Second, the unprecedented availability of data that learners generate in the process of accessing learning materials, interacting with educators and peers, and creating new content in these technological settings, coupled with advances in analytics and data mining, knowledge modeling and representation and open data offer great potential for research into how learning takes place in socio-technical settings and the development of new forms of analytics that can inform learners and educators. Learning Analytics research brings these technical, pedagogical, and social domains into dialogue with each other to ensure that interventions and organizational systems serve the needs of all stakeholders. 

Papers have already been submitted and reviewed: the accepted list is at 

http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/accepted-papers/

Submissions for Poster, Doctoral Consortium, and Workshop Participation are due January 31, 2013. Please see below for submission details and further information on the conference theme and topics. 

Registration is now open: 

http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/registration/

OPEN SUBMISSION FORMATS

-- Posters

Posters are suitable for describing late-breaking results or for engaging conference participants in discussion of preliminary ideas or findings. Submit a 1-line title, the name(s) of the presenter(s), and an abstract limited to 100 words suitable for printing in the conference guide. This should be followed with up to two pages (for our review, not to be published) describing the concept or results to be presented, the expected interactions with conference participants, and the poster format that will support these interactions. (If available, a high-resolution image of the poster provided as the second page can fulfill this requirement, and is preferred. Easily visible graphics and large brief texts are encouraged rather than small text.) Submit to https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak2013

-- Informal Demonstrations

A space (table top surface) and designated times for informal demonstrations of relevant software will be provided at the conference. Submit one page that includes a 1-line title, name of presenter, and an abstract limited to 100 words suitable for printing in the conference guide. This should be followed with up to two pages (for our review, not to be published) describing the software to be demonstrated, and the expected interactions with conference participants. Demonstrators should be prepared to interact with several conference participants at a time in an interactive and not excessively scripted manner. Submit to https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak2013

-- Doctoral Consortium

A one-day consortium is being organized for doctoral students who are about to defend or have recently defended their proposals. Participating students will have the opportunity to present their proposed research to reputable faculty in learning analytics and obtain valuable advice. Other professional development and social networking activities will be included. Please see http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/dc/ for submission information. 

-- Workshop Participation

LAK workshops will provide conference participants with opportunities to interact intensively on a topic of shared interest. Workshop calls for participation are being distributed by workshop organizers. January 31st is the uniform date for priority submissions for participation in workshops, although workshops may accept later submissions on a space-available basis. Workshop organizers will specify submission requirements. Please see http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/workshops/ for descriptions of workshops and submission requirements. 

-- Tutorial Participation 

LAK will also offer tutorials on selected topics, described at http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/workshops/. No submission is required, other than registration at http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/registration/. 

------------------------------

GENERAL CONFERENCE INFORMATION

THEME: Dialectics in Learning Analytics 

The first two conferences have established the range of issues and approaches of concern in leveraging the availability of data about learning with powerful computational, representational and visualization techniques. This third conference is designed to consolidate the field by bringing these many voices into dialogue in a "middle space" under the overarching theme of "Dialectics in Learning Analytics", which has these facets: 

The Middle Space: The conference will explore the middle space within which Learning and Analytics intersect, and seeks proposals for papers and events that explicitly connect analytic tools to theoretical and practical aspects of understanding and managing learning. 

Productive Multivocality: Learning analytics is multidisciplinary, drawing on theories and methods from diverse research traditions. Our community includes educators, learning scientists, computer scientists, administrators, and policy makers, among others. The middle space serves as a topical "boundary object", enabling productive discourse between these many voices. 

The Old and the New: We are facing a centuries old problem: to improve learning, but we are trying to solve it using a new set of tools, not available before. We address these problems in the city of Leuven: centuries old, lively new.

TOPICS 

The following keywords will be used to classify submissions, and convey the breadth of topics covered. Authors are strongly encouraged to read the advice at http://lakconference2013.wordpress.com/for-authors/ concerning how papers should focus on some aspect of the intersection of learning and analytics. 

* Analytic Approaches, Methods, and Tools for sensemaking in learning

  analytics, including: algorithms, architectures, behavior modeling,

  case studies, clustering, computational linguistics, concept

  mapping, crowdsourcing, data integration, data mining, data sharing,

  design-based research, research about design, discourse analysis,

  educational research methods, ethnography, ethnomethodology,

  evaluation methods, frameworks, grounded theory, information

  visualization, interfaces for learning analytics, knowledge

  representation, machine learning, natural language processing,

  predictive analytics, recommendation engines, semantic web,

  sequential analysis, social network analysis, social network

  visualisation, statistical analysis, surveys, text mining, visual

  learning analytics

* Theories and Theoretical Concepts for understanding learning,

  including: activity theory, actor-network theory, affordances,

  communities of practice, conceptual models of learning enabled by

  analytics, connectivism, constructivism, distributed cognition,

  networked individualism, reflective learning, situated learning,

  social capital, social learning, sociocultural theory, structuration

  theory, symbolic interactionism

* Measures of Learning, Change and Success, including: accreditation,

  affect, emotions, and flow, analytic patterns, attendance and

  retention (as predictors of learning), attention, attitudes,

  collaboration and cooperation, community structure,

  comprehension/understanding, conceptual change, degree of

  competence, educational performance, expectations, learner behavior

  modeling, learning dispositions, metacognition, misconceptions,

  motivation, off-task behavior, organizational dynamics,

  participation, satisfaction, social dynamics

* Learning Activities, Applications, and Interventions: adaptation,

  analytic tools for learners, argumentation, assessment, awareness,

  big data applications and opportunities, classroom orchestration,

  collaborative learning, course management systems, decision-support

  systems for learning, informing policy, instructor support,

  intelligent tutoring systems, interventions based on analytics,

  knowledge work, language learning, learning communities, learning

  environments enhanced with analytics, learning how to learn,

  lifelong learning, management of learning interventions or settings,

  mentoring, open data and data access for learners, pedagogical

  adjustment/intervention, personalization, predicting failure,

  professional development, quantified self, reflection, scaffolding

  and scripting, self-management of learning, student monitoring,

  teacher analytics, teaching learning analytics

* Issues addressed may include: adoption strategies and barriers,

  cultural issues, ethical considerations (e.g., privacy and

  ownership), human factors, identity, legal aspects, privacy, social

  change

* Media studied may include: blogging, chats, haptic media & tangible

  computing, microblogging (twitter), mobile platforms, online

  discussion forums, shared workspaces, social networking media,

  video, whiteboards, wikis, and face-to-face interaction supported by

  technology

* Settings of Learning include: blended online/face-to-face, distance

  education, distributed work, face-to-face settings,

  corporate/workplace, government, graduate education, harmonizing

  individual and organizational learning, higher education, informal

  learning, military, mobile and ubiquitous, online communities, open

  university, primary school, secondary school, socio-technical

  networks, university/postsecondary, virtual organizations

RELEVANT DATES

January 31: Workshop Participation, Poster, and Informal Demonstration Submissions Due

February 15: Workshop, Poster, and Demonstration Notification 

February 15: Final Papers Due 

March 1: Early Registration Deadline 

April 8-12: Conference

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) - http://www.kuleuven.be

Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) - http://www.solaresearch.org

General Chairs

-- Erik Duval, University of Leuven, Belgium

-- Xavier Ochoa, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Ecuador

Program Chairs

-- Dan Suthers, University of Hawai'i, USA

-- Katrien Verbert, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Workshops and Tutorials Chairs

-- Ulrich Hoppe, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

-- Nikos Manouselis, Agro-Know, Greece

-- Alyssa Wise, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

-- Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

-- Katherine Maillet, Institut National des Telecommunications, France

-- Ravi Vatrapu, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Awareness, Interaction and Memory Chairs

-- Tony Hirst, Institut National des Télécommunications, France

-- Doug Clow, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Local Chair

-- Joris Klerkx, University of Leuven, Belgium

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