The Educational Technology Group (part of the Intelligent and Adaptive Systems Research Group) is interested in the use of software tools to support the learning and teaching process. The primary focus of its research is upon practical tools that can be applied in teaching Computer Science at university level. Complementary research is addressing conceptual issues concerned with the development of computer-based learning environments for general educational applications.

Current work is concerned with software tools and principles in the areas of peer assessment, plagiarism detection, and automated submission and assessment systems. Other projects include the development of agent-based pedagogic architectures, and the use of learning objects in educational software.

Other research within the group has been directed towards principles for the development of interactive learning environments. A significant theme in this work is that the choice of programming paradigm strongly influences the support that the computer can give to constructionist approaches to learning.

Members of the group contribute to the activities of the Information and Computer Sciences Centre of the Higher Education Academy and to the IMPDET programme. There has been active collaboration with colleagues at other universities, including Dundee, Durham, Aalto University (Finland), UEF (Finland), KMUTNB (Thailand), London Metropolitan, Nottingham Trent, Southampton, Southern Denmark, Twente (Netherlands), Ulster, and Walailak (Thailand), and the group has close links with the Centre for New Technologies Research in Education in the Warwick Institute of Education.

Current Projects

Topics currently being investigated include the following (which include under each topic a complete list of publications).

• Agent-based Pedagogic Architectures
• Automated Assessment
• Computer Science Education
• Mobile Learning
• Plagiarism Detection
• Service-oriented Architectures in Higher Education
• Supporting Technologies

Completed Projects

Topics which have been under investigation recently, but which are not being actively pursued at Warwick at this time.

• Adaptive Learning Spaces
• Learning objects and metametadata
• Web-based Peer Assessment

People

The following staff and postgraduate students are currently involved.

Mike Joy (Academic)
Meurig Beynon (Academic)
Alexandra Cristea (Academic)
Nathan Griffiths (Academic)
Steve Russ (Academic)
Jane Sinclair (Academic)
Russell Boyatt (Research Assistant)
Antony Harfield (Associate Fellow)
Mmaki Jantjies (Research Student)
Andrés Moreno (Research Student, UEF)
Saba Toor (Research Student)
Shanshan Yang (Research Student)

The following colleagues are no longer based in the Department, but still contribute to our research.

Andy Chow (now with Barclays Capital)
Georgina Cosma (now with PA College)
Fawaz Ghali (now with Warwick Manufacturing Group)
Maurice Hendrix (now withe the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute)
Amirah Ismail (now with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)
Teemu Laine
Jenny Liu
Jirarat Sitthiworachart (now with the School of Informatics at Walailak University)
Shanghua Sun (now in Community Health Sciences at St Georges, University of London)
Jane Yau (now with Linnæus University)