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Info

Opportunities for Intelligent Behavior in Collaborative Learning Systems is a workshop to be held in conjunction with the Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED-2011)

Printable PDF of Call for Workshop Contributions

Important Dates:

  • Abstract must be submitted by: March 21, 2011 March 26, 2011
  • Full submissions due on: March 25, 2011 March 29, 2011
  • Notification of acceptance: April 18, 2011
  • Camera-ready deadline: May 16, 2011
  • Workshop date: June 27 or 28, 2011

Introduction:

Intelligent tutoring systems seek to individualize each student's learning experience, but this need not necessitate that the experience itself be solitary. A variety of recent systems have demonstrated ways in which an adaptive learning environment can incorporate and benefit from the presence of multiple learners. Similarly, students using computer-supported collaborative learning systems have been shown to benefit from the introduction of adaptive support that targets and improves the collaboration. In this workshop, we invite discussion and seek to explore ways in which the combination of collaborative and intelligent aspects of a system can benefit the learner by creating a more productive learning environment.

We recognize, however, that researchers face many challenges when working with collaborative intelligent learning systems. This workshop will be a venue for people to discuss lessons learned about practical difficulties involved in implementing intelligent support for collaborative learning and evaluating it in a rigorous manner. We encourage participants to share findings and theories on how we can overcome the barriers to developing adaptive support for collaboration in order to achieve results that a traditional ITS may not be able to offer, such as increased motivation and social skills in addition to improved learning outcomes. We also intend to solicit participation from members of the AIED community who work on research areas relevant to intelligent collaborative learning support, such as motivation and modeling ill-defined domains. We believe that research in intelligent support for collaboration would benefit from the expertise of these more well-established subareas. These participants will be able to offer a valuable external perspective on the research presented in the workshop, identifying weaknesses with current approaches and offering guidance on future directions.

One goal of this workshop is for participants to leave with a new set of ideas surrounding valuable research directions in adaptive support for collaborative learning. We wish to share knowledge about: What is the current state of the art in this field? What challenges do we face in building collaborative intelligent learning systems? What techniques have we found to be successful (or unsuccessful) in addressing these challenges? What are future research directions?

Topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

Modeling & Assessment

  • How can we model effective and ineffective collaboration?
  • How can we do student modeling in collaborative contexts?
  • Are models used in existing intelligent tutoring systems generalizable to collaborative scenarios?
  • How can we assess student collaboration?
  • What aspects of collaboration do we need to assess?

Assistance

  • How can we provide assistance/scaffolding to collaboration within the context of an intelligent tutoring system?
  • How can we improve intelligent tutoring feedback using peer input?
  • How can we intelligently set up conditions conducive to collaboration?

Platform

  • What practical lessons can we share about experiences building or testing these systems?
  • How can we leverage existing architectures (either intelligent or collaborative) in building new systems?

Workshop format:


The workshop goal is to foster communication regarding the challenges surrounding the development and evaluation of intelligent collaborative learning systems, with a particular focus on soliciting input from researchers in other areas of AIED. Thus, the workshop will emphasize small and large group discussions rather than conference-style presentations. It will consist of four main activities: a poster/demo session, a series of invited talks, break-out discussion session regarding the challenges facing the field, and then a larger group discussion sharing insights from the break-outs. We invite participation from all researchers interested in the role that collaboration can play in intelligent tutoring systems. Participants are encouraged to submit a short paper of up to 4 pages that will be presented as a demo or poster during the conference.

Poster & Demo Session (1 hour)

The workshop will begin with a one hour poster and demo session. At the beginning of the session, all presenters will do a 2 minute firehouse-style presentation of their work, so that workshop participants are made aware of all posters and demos in which they may be interested.

Invited Talks (1 hour)

Researchers from other relevant areas of AIED will be invited to give talks providing an external perspective on the state of the art in intelligent support for collaborative learning, and on fruitful future directions.

Small Group Breakouts (1 hour)

Next, participants will engage in small group break-out sessions organized around themes drawn from the invited talks. Groups will discuss potential solutions to the challenges broached by the invited speakers. Groups will then prepare to present their conclusions to the rest of the workshop participants.

Large Group Discussion (1 hour)

Finally, participants will come back together for a large group discussion. Each group will present an overview of the group discussion and field questions from the other groups. We will conclude with a large group discussion of all themes.

Organizers:


Preliminary Program Committee:


  • Christa Asterhan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  • Roger Azevedo (McGill University)
    Nilufar Baghaei (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)
  • Bob Hausmann (Carnegie Learning Inc.)
  • Toby Dragon (University of Massachusetts - Amherst)
  • Ulrich Hoppe (University of Duisburg)
  • Rose Luckin (University of London)
  • Bruce McLaren (DFKI - Saarbrucken/Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Helen Pain (University of Edinburgh)

Submission:

  • A call for proposals will be published here shortly.
  • Submit via EasyChair