E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

An important part of our newly established Delft Extension School  is Research and Innovation. Under the leadership of our Dean and Director of Education we have a couple of existing faculty that are involved in this, but we are also hiring new people. The first two job openings are now available.

Researcher Learning Analytics

The research to be conducted will largely be data-driven, using and improving technologies developed within various areas of computer science including web data management, data
analytics and user modeling. It will be inspired by the big data challenges that MOOCs offer. As a researcher you will be hosted, supported, and supervised by the Web Information Systems
Group within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. The group has made significant research contributions in user modeling and data analytics within the last few years and will provide the researcher with a large support network and extensive research experience. Additionally, the position is also part of the Open & Online Education team and associated with the Delft Extension School, enabling direct access to education practitioners.

We are looking for a researcher (PhD or Postdoc level),

Deadline: 15 October 2014. More information is available here.

Automatic Assessment and Feedback for Online Assignments

The research in this position will focus on methods and techniques for the design and implementation of automatic assessment of and feedback on assignments in online courses. An assessment should reflect a student’s understanding of the course material, feedback should provide the student with detailed explanations of an assessment, and tutoring should help a student improve that understanding. This requires a thorough analysis of the student’s work. In traditional education environments, this analysis is carried out directly by instructors who can apply the amazing pattern matching and cognitive faculties of the human brain. However, this approach does not scale to the numbers of students of MOOCs, and is already challenged by large regular courses at universities. Automating assessment, feedback, and tutoring requires that we formalize the ‘assessment function’ that is applied by instructors.

We are looking for a PhD student.

Deadline: 15 November 2014. More information is available here.