XIXth International CALL Research Conference

KU Leuven, Bruges, Belgium, 4-6 July 2018

“CALL Your Data”

The XIXth International Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Research Conference addressed the theme of Open Data, Information and Content, and took place from 4 to 6 July 2018 on KU Leuven’s campus in Bruges (Belgium). The conference welcomed contributions from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives (pedagogy, technology, linguistics and psychology) with a view to discussing as a community the multiplicity of challenges inherent in the description, interpretation, (re-)use, and sustainable exploitation of open data, information and content for language learning and teaching.

Every CALL practitioner and researcher is confronted on a daily basis with the challenges and issues associated with the use of Data, sometimes massive amounts of it, where Data can become Information and/or Content depending on our goals.

We distinguish four types of Information:

• Information about the Learner: information provided by the learner, the teacher, the school, the parents, e-portfolios, social networks (e.g. through data scraping) and smartphones (e.g. by providing the learner’s geotemporal location) …. This information can be useful and even needed for the personalization and contextualization of the learning process.
• Information about the Learning Process or Learning Analytics: data gathered by a system or electronic learning environment with a view (a) to assessing and supporting the learner, (b) to analyzing the learning process, (c) to improving the learning environment and (d) to predicting learner behavior (in the case of Big Data or educational data-mining on a large scale).
• Pedagogical metadata: sets of data that may facilitate the reusability and discoverability of digital learning resources, with a view to supporting the learner (hyperlink glosses, captions, just-in-time information, procedural information …) or the teacher (tags, readability indexes, CEFR levels, pedagogical instructions…). These metadata are mostly integrated in content for learning or teaching.
• Research Data: with the recent Open Access policies comes also the tendency to facilitate access to the datasets with any publication.

We distinguish four types of Content:

• Published materials: textbooks, courseware, MOOCs;
• Self-made (or co-authored with colleagues or students) materials: OERS, LMS-embedded exercises, sound files, subtitles, captions, corpora, knowledge clips, fan fiction, textual or audiovisual content produced in online communities of practice …;
• Authentic Documents found on the Web, especially the Semantic Web, or level-adapted materials (e.g., easy readers);
• Content found in Virtual Worlds, Serious Gaming, Ambient Intelligence, Augmented Reality and The Internet of Things.

Both Information and Content are not given high priority as Open Data in the CALL field. This is why we dedicated a special conference to the theme.

Participants were invited to submit a proposal where they described their current research and, more importantly, the challenges encountered and solutions found regarding the “Openness” of the Data you make, use of and/or produce. Contributions may establish a link between personal work and one or more of the following sub-themes:

• Personalization and data-driven learning
• Digital literacy and digital privacy
• Methodological challenges
• Generic object models, interfaces and standards
• Tools for content authoring
• Content for Special Purposes and for Special Contexts
• Open Educational Resources, knowledge clips and MOOCs
• Social learning analytics
• Task design
• Telecollaboration
• Transdisciplinarity

Abstract Submission Guidelines:

Submissions must address the theme of the conference (as described above), and must consist of a one page abstract (500 words). In the first part, you need to describe your current research; in the second part, you need to focus on one or more issues regarding Open Information or Open Content as described in the conference theme.

The authors of the accepted abstracts were given the opportunity to submit their conference papers for international double-blind peer review and for publication in the conference proceedings (with ISBN number). The best papers were selected as plenary presentations, and there was also be an award for best PhD presentation.

Keynotes:

Alex Boulton is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Lorraine and director of the research group “Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française” (ATILF: UMR 7118, CNRS & Université de Lorraine). Particular research interests centre on corpus linguistics and potential uses for ‘ordinary’ teachers and learners (aka data-driven learning). He has published and edited books and papers in these fields over the years, and is on various boards and committees: AFLA (Association Française de Linguistique Appliquée; vice-president), EUROCALL (European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning) and TaLC (Teaching and Language Corpora); as well as a number of scientific journals: ReCALL (editor), Alsic, ASp, CALL-EJ, the EUROCALL Review, IJCALLT, JALT-CALL Journal, Language Learning & Technology, and Al-Lisaniyyat. He has collaborated with the Computer Assisted Language Learning journal as a reviewer and contributor to joint editorial panels at major CALL conferences.

Rose Luckin is Professor of Learner Centred Design at UCL Knowledge Lab in London. Her research involves the design and evaluation of educational technology using theories from the learning sciences and techniques from Artificial Intelligence (AI). She has a particular interest in using AI to open up the ‘black box’ of learning to show teachers and students the detail of their progress intellectually, emotionally and socially. Rose is also Director of EDUCATE: a London hub for Educational Technology StartUps, researchers and educators to work together on the development of evidence-based Educational Technology. Rose is lead author of Nesta’s influential ‘Decoding Learning’ report published in 2012 and Pearson’s Unleashing Intelligence, published in 2016. She is a UFI charity trustee, a governor and trustee of St Paul’s school in London and a governor of the Self-Managed Learning College in Brighton. She has taught in the state secondary, Further Education and Higher Education sectors, and she was previously Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sussex. Rose was recognised as one of the most important 20 figures in British education in The Sunday Times’ Seldon List 2017, being described as the ‘Dr Who of AI’.

Important Dates:

• Call for abstracts (details available): 1 December 2017
• Submission opens: 1 December 2017
• Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 January 2018
• Notification of acceptance: 28 February 2018
• Deadline for submission of conference paper: 30 March 2018
• Registration opens: early April 2018
• Deadline for early-bird registration: 15 May 2018
• Conference: 4-6 July 2018

Programme Overview:

Registration fees:

• 340 EUR (early bird – until May 15)
• 400 EUR (late bird – after May 15)

The registration fee includes access to all sessions, lunches and coffee breaks, the welcome reception at the City Hall on Wednesday July 4th, and the conference dinner on the evening of July 5th.

Accommodation and optional social programme activities are not included in the registration fee.

Registration is now closed.

Conference Venue:

After Tarragona in 2015 and the University of California Berkeley in 2017, the International CALL Research Conference descended on another magnificent venue. It was held on the brand new Bruges campus of KU Leuven, Belgium’s largest university with campuses in 11 Belgian cities and, founded in 1425, one of the oldest and most renowned universities in Europe. KU Leuven tops the Reuters ranking of Europe’s most innovative universities, and its Arts and Humanities disciplines feature 22nd in the Times Higher Education 2018 World University Rankings.

© Bert Vandenberghe

The Bruges campus was inaugurated in June 2017 and served students of KU Leuven for one year before accommodating the conference. The campus was nominated in the category ‘educational architecture’ of ArchDaily’s 2018 Building of the Year competition.

© Rob Stevens

The conference venue faces the train station of Bruges, and is within walking distance of the historical city centre.

© Dennis De Smet

Location: Spoorwegstraat 12 8200 Brugge

Coordinates: N51 11.666, E3 13.093

Local Hosts:

After KU Leuven (University of Leuven) hosted EuroCALL in 1998 on its main campus in Leuven, the time was ripe for organizing another conference on computer-assisted language learning, this time on its brand new campus in Bruges.

The XIXth International CALL Research Conference was hosted by ITEC, an interdisciplinary research group of KU Leuven campus Kulak (Kortrijk) devoted to impactful digital innovation in education. The research group is affiliated with the faculty of Arts and the faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, as well as with imec, Flanders’ high-tech research and innovation hub for nanoelectronics and digital technologies. At the time of writing, the team comprised about 35 researchers trained in the learning sciences (instructional design for educational effectiveness, statistical modelling), applied linguistics (language learning and natural language processing), and computer science (data mining and machine learning). ITEC has a strong tradition in CALL research. It also forges research collaborations with industrial partners in EdTech, like Barco and Televic, who sponsored the conference.

ITEC team in June 2017

Outcomes and Impressions:

More than 130 delegates from over 30 countries took part in a varied programme. The programme comprised:

• keynote talks by top experts in the field: Rose Luckin (University College London) on artificial intelligence, and Alex Boulton (Université de Lorraine & CNRS) on data-driven learning;
• over 80 regular paper presentations;
• three thought-provoking selected plenary talks;
• an open panel for prospective authors of the Computer Assisted Language Learning Journal, organized by its editorial board and reviewers;
• an award session for researchers who distinguished themselves in the field of CALL;
• invigorating social activities in the charming medieval city of Bruges.

For more detail on the programme, please refer to the programme section of this website. There you can also download the open access conference proceedings.

SUPPORTED BY:

SPONSORS:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

Header picture © Jan D’Hondt