CategoriesCall for Proposals

From Sensor Data to Educational Insights - MDPI Sensors SI (IF 3.031)

My amazing colleagues José, Roberto and Jan and I are Guest Editing a Special Issue on MDPI Sensors - have a look! https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors/special_issues/sdei

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Technology is gradually being incorporated as an integral part of learning at all educational levels. This technology includes the now pervasive presence of virtual learning environments (VLEs), but also the inclusion of devices that are used/worn by learners or that are present in the classroom. This new educational ecosystem has greatly facilitated data capture about learners, and thus, several research areas such as learning analytics (LA), educational data mining (EDM), and artificial intelligence in education (AIED) have grown exponentially during the last decade. The inferences about learning that can be made by solely analyzing trace data from VLEs are rather limited. Therefore, the research communities have started to move beyond the data obtained from these VLEs by incorporating data from external sources such as sensors, pervasive devices, and computer vision systems. Within the context of education, this subfield is often denominated as multimodal learning analytics (MMLA), but the use of these data sources is also common in broader research areas, such as affective computing or human-computer interaction (HCI). The promise is to potentially augment and improve the extent and quality of the analysis that can be performed with these new data sources. The challenge is how to embed sensors and resulting data representations in authentic educational settings in pedagogically meaningful and ethical ways.

In this Special Issue, we welcome publications that include approaches to convert data captured using sensors (e.g., cameras, smartphones, microphones or temperature sensors), wearables (e.g., smart wristbands, watches, or glasses) or other IoT devices (e.g., interactive whiteboards, eBooks or tablets) into meaningful educational insights. The submitted articles need to appropriately explain how the inclusiveness of data from such devices can augment the analyses performed to improve teaching, learning or the educational context where it occurs (e.g., in classrooms, VLEs or other educational spaces).

This Special Issue focuses on all kinds of empirical case studies that fulfil the aforementioned criteria, but also experimental architectures or positioning/survey papers. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Empirical case studies that include data from sensors and IoT devices to make an impact in teaching and learning practices;
  • Learner modeling and intelligent tutoring using multimodal data sources;
  • Critical views or theoretical perspectives regarding how to transform data from these sensors and IoT devices into educational insights;
  • Systematic literature reviews or surveys about the role of data from sensors and IoT devices in research areas such as LA, EDM, AIED, affective computing or HCI to improve education;
  • Architectures or frameworks to manage the orchestration of these sensors and IoT devices to improve education;
  • Privacy, security, and ethical concerns about the use of these sensor data in educational settings.

Dr. José A. Ruipérez-Valiente
Dr. Roberto Martinez-Maldonado
Dr. Daniele Di Mitri
Dr. Jan Schneider
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sensors and IoT devices in education
  • learning analytics
  • educational data mining
  • artificial intelligence in education
  • affective computing
  • human-computer interaction
  • multimodal learning analytics
  • technology-enhanced learning
  • orchestration
  • multisensorial networks in education

Published by Daniele Di Mitri

Daniele Di Mitri is a research group leader at the DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education and a lecturer at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany. Daniele received his PhD entitled "The Multimodal Tutor" at the Open University of The Netherlands (2020) in Learning Analytics and wearable sensor support. His research focuses on collecting and analysing multimodal data during physical interactions for automatic feedback and human behaviour analysis. Daniele's current research focuses on designing responsible Artificial Intelligence applications for education and human support. He is a "Johanna Quandt Young Academy" fellow and was elected "AI Newcomer 2021" at the KI Camp by the German Informatics Society. He is a member of the editorial board of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence journal, a member of the CrossMMLA, a special interest group of the Society of Learning Analytics Research, and chair of the Learning Analytics Hackathon (LAKathon) series.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *