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Natural Language Processing
in support of Learning:
Metrics, Feedback and Connectivity
July 7th 2009, Brighton, UK
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Introduction
In AI-ED research, providing feedback for learning entails
measuring
differences among learners; between learners and their desired
characteristics (e.g., knowledge, competences, motivation,
self-regulation processes); or between learners and their looked-for
resources (e.g. web-links, articles, courses) has often been performed
by computing and analysing ‘distances’ using several techniques like
factorial analysis, instance-based learning, clustering, and so on.
Corpora on which these measures are made are all writing-based, that
is, are multiple forms of pieces of evidence such as texts read
(written by teachers), spoken utterances, essays, summaries, forum or
chat messages. Some of these metrics are based on shallow syntactical
and morphological aspects of the interaction and production artefacts
(e.g., text length). Others are focused more on semantic and pragmatic
aspects. These measures are used for providing various kinds of
feedback for supporting learning and connections between learners. For
instance, relations between learners’ utterances, knowledge, concept
acquisition, emotional states, essay scores, and even learners
themselves have all been investigated with the help of computing
semantic distances.
Aims
The purpose of this workshop is to focus on the latter two –
semantics and pragmatics – by trying to identify what questions and
problems are solved, but also to raise and discuss how well the metrics
developed assist in the provision of support and the construction of
feedback for learning. What are the most efficient ones? To what extent
do they match distances inferred by teachers’ assessments? This
workshop addresses the problem of how support can be provided and
feedback be generated for helping students learn.
Several Natural Language Processing techniques like Latent
Semantic Analysis (LSA) or the use of semantic and pragmatic analysis
of conversations have been successfully deployed in various educational
applications to enrich learning and teaching with information
technology. However, few research approaches considered also in detail
the problem of providing feedback.
The primary goal of the workshop is to bring together experts
in the related fields in order to:
- share knowledge (i.e., approaches, models, issues,
solutions) acquired in the domain of distance semantics, gained within
distributed research about distance-based computing applied to
educational applications (either from the context of the IST projects
such as LTfLL, Cooper, iCamp, TenCompetence, Role, and
Prolearn/Stellar, or from computer and cognitive scientists involved in
LSA-based research).
- debate on directions and possibilities of future research
in the domain.
- create a forum for further collaboration and develop an international
community on this field of study.
Topics
The topics of this workshop relate on the AI-ED applications
of these techniques and the methodological issues they have raised
(e.g., their selection and validation). A previous workshop with a very
close purpose has been organized two years ago in Heerlen at the Open
University of the Netherlands (http://dspace.ou.nl/bitstream/1820/933/1/lsatel07___miniproceedings.pdf).
Topics should cover the following distance-based semantic
processing techniques in AI-ED research, but are not restricted
to:
Automated
essay scoring & grading, Summarization & writing
assistance, such as:
- Feedback generation, Tutoring & Tutor support,
Question answering
- Learner modelling, Enriching user profiles, Peer finding
& community formation
- Positioning & Placement of
learners
- Selection & Sequencing of content
- Protocol analysis, Knowledge gap analysis, Task
analysis
Methodological
issues of distance-based semantic processing techniques, such
as:
- Corpus composition & preparation (sanitising,
filtering, selection, seeding, domain modelling, etc.)
- Optimisation of analysis and queries
- Statistical properties
- Combining these techniques with other ones
- Evaluation and Validation concerns
Cognitive
Modelling using distance-based semantic processing techniques, such
as:
- Knowledge acquisition
- Language acquisition and development
- Measure of semantic relatedness
- Cognitive architectures
- Activity modelling
- Cognitive corpora
Analysis,
assessment and feedback generation of content and inter-animation in
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning through chats, such
as:
- Content analysis of chat conversations
- Discourse analysis and visualization in chat
conversations
- Identification of discussion and argumentation threads in
conversations
- Identification of inter-animation, transactivity and
interactions in chats
- Assessment of learners’ participation in
conversations
- Feedback generation for chats in educational settings
Submission Types
Submitted papers should describe substantial and unpublished
work.
English is the official language for both papers and talks.
Submissions are expected to comply with the AI-ED
paper format (Word
users, Latex
users). The submitted papers should be 6-8 pages in
length and in PDF format.
Paper Submission Process
- All papers will be reviewed using a blind refeering process
by at least two members of the program committee.
-
Submit a
paper at
the AIED
Workshops
Submission Site:
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aiedw2009 (passed)
powered by
EasyChair
(please
get an
EasyChair account before submitting and select the appropriate workshop
in the list when submitting. Also note that it is mandatory to
use
this site to submit a
paper: papers directly submitted through e-mail won't be
taken into account).
- Accepted papers will be printed locally for dissemination
at the workshop.
- Based on the quality of the submissions we are considering
publishing post-workshop proceedings in a special issue of LDV-Forum
or CEUR-WS.
Authors will be required to provide expanded versions of their
submissions which will undergo an additional review process for
inclusion in the special issue.
Organisational Committee
This workshop is jointly organized and supported by members of
the LTfLL
(Language Technologies
for LifeLong Learning) EC-funded Research Project
- Philippe Dessus (University of Grenoble, France)
- Stefan Trausan-Matu (UPB, Romania)
- Peter van Rosmalen (OUNL, The Netherlands)
- Fridolin Wild (Open University, UK)
Program Committee
- Jean-Yves Antoine (University of Tours, France)
- Gaston Burek (Tuebingen University, Germany)
- Philippe Dessus (University of Grenoble, France)
- Arthur C. Graesser (University of Memphis, USA)
- Xiangen Hu (University of Memphis, USA)
- Marco Kalz (OUNL, The Netherlands)
- Mathieu Lafourcade (University of Montpellier, France)
- Benoît Lemaire (University of Grenoble, France)
- Sonia Mandin (University of Grenoble, France)
- David Meyer (Vienna University of Economics and Business
Administration, Austria)
- Phil McCarthy (University of Memphis, USA)
- Danielle S. McNamara (University of Memphis, USA)
- Paola Monachesi (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
- Traian Rebedea (UPB, Romania)
- Stefan Trausan-Matu (UPB, Romania)
- Jan van Bruggen (OUNL, The Netherlands)
- Peter van Rosmalen (OUNL, The Netherlands)
- Fridolin Wild (Open University, UK)
- Virginie Zampa (University of Grenoble, France)
- Submission
Deadline (passed): Sunday 26th April 2009 11:59 pm CEST
- Notification
of acceptance (delayed): 26th May 2009
- Camera-ready papers due date
(passed): 5th June 2009
- NLPsL Workshop:
7th July,
2009 morning
- AIED
Conference: July 8-10, 2009
Contact:
Please ask any further question at nlpsl@upmf-grenoble.fr
The Proceedings of the Workshop
are available in PDF and will be printed for attendees
Program↑
This workshop was organized on
7th July,
2009 morning in
a workshop session of the AIED
Conference.
The slides of each talk can be downloaded separatately, and the audio presentations (thanks to Fridolin Wild!) are at
http://podcast.open.ac.uk/pod/nlpsl-2009#
The iPod subscription (from iTunes) is at itpc://podcast.open.ac.uk/feeds/nlpsl-2009/rss2.xml
- Welcome/Goals of the workshop — P. Dessus & P. van Rosmalen
- Berlanga, A., Brouns, F., van Rosmalen, P., Rajagopal, K., Kalz, M. & Stoyanov, S. — Making Use of Language Technologies to Provide Formative Feedback [Audio+Slides][PDF Slides]
- Ávila I. & Gudwin, R. — Lexical Similarity Metrics for Vocabulary Learning Modeling in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) [Audio+Slides][PDF Slides]
- Ward, A., Connelly, J., Katz, S., Litman D. & Wilson, C. — Cohesion, Semantics and Learning in Reflective Dialog [Audio+Slides][PDF Slides]
- Renner, A., McCarthy, P., Boonthum C. & McNamara, D. — Speling Mistacks and Typeos: Can your ITS handle them? [Audio+Slides][PDF Slides]
- 11:35-12:10 — Hoareau V., El Ghali A. & Legros D. — The Episodic Memory Metaphor in Text Categorisation with Random Indexing [Audio+Slides][PDF Slides]
- Final thoughts and Overall discussion — P. Dessus & P. van Rosmalen