Know Center Research

Publikationen

Maitz Katharina, Fessl Angela, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Kaiser Rene_DB, Lindstaedt Stefanie
2022
Artificial intelligence (AI) is by now used in many different work settings, including construction industry. As new technologies change business and work processes, one important aspect is to understand how potentially affected workers perceive and understand the existing and upcoming AI in their work environment. In this work, we present the results of an exploratory case study with 20 construction workers in a small Austrian company about their knowledge of and attitudes toward AI. Our results show that construction workers’ understanding of AI as a concept is rather superficial, diffuse, and vague, often linked to physical and tangible entities such as robots, and often based on inappropriate sources of information which can lead to misconceptions about AI and AI anxiety. Learning opportunities for promoting (future) construction workers’ AI literacy should be accessible and understandable for learners at various educational levels and encompass aspects such as i) conveying the basics of digitalization, automation, and AI to enable a clear distinction of these concepts, ii) building on the learners’ actual experience realm, i.e., taking into account their focus on physical, tangible, and visible entities, and iii) reducing AI anxiety by elaborating on the limits of AI.
Fessl Angela, Maitz Katharina, Pleczek Lisa, Köhler Thomas , Irnleitner Selina, Divitini Monica
2022
The COVID-19 pandemic initiated a fundamental change in learning and teaching in (higher-) education [HE]. On short notice, traditional teaching in HE suddenly had to be transformed into online teaching. This shift into the digital world posed a great challenge to in-service teachers at schools and universities, and pre-service teachers, as the acquisition of digital competences was no longer an option but a real necessity. The previously rather hidden or even neglected importance of teachers’ digital competences for successful teaching and learning became manifest and clearly visible. In this work, we investigate necessary digital competences to ensure high quality teaching and learning in and beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. Based upon the European DigComp 2.1 (Carretero et al., 2017), DigCompEdu (Redecker, 2017) frameworks, the Austrian Digi.kompP framework (Virtuelle PH, 2021), and the recommendations given by German Education authorities (KMK 2017; KMK 2021; HRK 2022), we developed a curriculum consisting of 5 modules: 2 for individual digital media competence, and 3 for media didactic competence. For each module, competence-oriented learning goals and corresponding micro-learning contents were defined to meet the needs of teachers while considering their time constraints.Based on three online workshops, the curriculum and the corresponding learning goals were discussed with university teachers, pre-service teachers, and policymakers. The content of the curriculum was perceived as highly relevant for these target groups; however, some adaptations were required. From the university teachers’ perspective, we got feedback that they were overwhelmed with the situation and urgently needed digital competences. Policymakers suggested that further education regarding digital competences needs to offer a systematic exchange of experiences with peers. From the perspective of in-service teachers, it was stated that teacher education should focus more on digital competences and tools.In this paper, we will present the result of the workshop series that informed the design process of the DIGIVID curriculum for teaching professionals.
Disch Leonie, Fessl Angela, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2022
The uptake of open science resources needs knowledge construction on the side of the readers/receivers of scientific content. The design of technologies surrounding open science resources can facilitate such knowledge construction, but this has not been investigated yet. To do so, we first conducted a scoping review of literature, from which we draw design heuristics for knowledge construction in digital environments. Subsequently, we grouped the underlying technological functionalities into three design categories: i) structuring and supporting collaboration, ii) supporting the learning process, and iii) structuring, visualising and navigating (learning) content. Finally, we mapped the design categories and associated design heuristics to core components of popular open science platforms. This mapping constitutes a design space (design implications), which informs researchers and designers in the HCI community about suitable functionalities for supporting knowledge construction in existing or new digital open science platforms.
Fessl Angela, Maitz Katharina, Dennerlein Sebastian, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2021
Clear formulation and communication of learning goals is an acknowledged best practice in instruction at all levels. Typically, in curricula and course management systems, dedicated places for specifying learning goals at course-level exist. However, even in higher education, learning goals are typically formulated in a very heterogeneous manner. They are often not concrete enough to serve as guidance for students to master a lecture or to foster self-regulated learning. In this paper, we present a systematics for formulating learning goals for university courses, and a web-based widget that visualises these learning goals within a university's learning management system. The systematics is based on the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives by Anderson and Krathwohl. We evaluated both the learning goal systematics and the web-based widget in three lectures at our university.The participating lecturers perceived the systematics as easy-to-use and as helpful to structure their course and the learning content. Students' perceived benets lay in getting a quick overview of the lecture and its content as well as clear information regarding the requirements for passing the exam. By analysing the widget's activity log data, we could show that the widget helps students to track their learning progress and supports them in planning and conducting their learning in a self-regulated way. This work highlights how theory-based best practice in teaching can be transferred into a digital learning environment; at the same time it highlights that good non-technical systematics for formulating learning goals positively impacts on teaching and learning.
Thalmann Stefan, Fessl Angela, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2020
Digitization is currently one of the major factors changing society and the business world. Most research focused on the technical issues of this change, but also employees and especially the way how they learn changes dramatically. In this paper, we are interested in exploring the perspectives of decision makers in huge manufacturing companies on current challenges in organizing learning and knowledge distribution in digitized manufacturing environments. Moreover, weinvestigated the change process and challenges of implementing new knowledge and learning processes.To this purpose, we have conducted 24 interviews with senior representatives of large manufacturing companies from Austria, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Our exploratory study shows that decision makers perceive significant changes in work practice of manufacturing due to digitization and they currently plan changes in organizational training and knowledge distribution processes in response. Due to the lack of best practices, companies focus verymuch on technological advancements. The delivery of knowledge just-in-time directly into work practice is afavorite approach. Overall, digital learning services are growing and new requirements regarding compliance,quality management and organisational culture arise.
Kaiser Rene_DB, Thalmann Stefan, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela
2020
Organisations participate in collaborative projects that include competitors for a number of strategic reasons, even whilst knowing that this requires them to consider both knowledge sharing and knowledge protection throughout collaboration. In this paper, we investigated which knowledge protection practices representatives of organizations employ in a collaborative research and innovation project that can be characterized as a co-opetitive setting. We conducted a series of 30 interviews and report the following seven practices in structured form: restrictive partner selection in operative project tasks, communication through a gatekeeper, to limit access to a central platform, to hide details of machine data dumps, to have data not leave a factory for analysis, a generic model enabling to hide usage parameters, and to apply legal measures. When connecting each practice to a priori literature, we find three practices focussing on collaborative data analytics tasks had not yet been covered so far.
Iacopo Vagliano, Fessl Angela, Franziska Günther, Thomas Köhler, Vasileios Mezaris, Ahmed Saleh, Ansgar Scherp, Simic Ilija
2019
The MOVING platform enables its users to improve their information literacy by training how to exploit data and text mining methods in their daily research tasks. In this paper, we show how it can support researchers in various tasks, and we introduce its main features, such as text and video retrieval and processing, advanced visualizations, and the technologies to assist the learning process.
Fessl Angela, Apaolaza Aitor, Gledson Ann, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Vigo Markel
2019
Searching on the web is a key activity for working and learning purposes. In this work, we aimed to motivate users to reflect on their search behaviour, and to experiment with different search functionalities. We implemented a widget that logs user interactions within a search platform, mirrors back search behaviours to users, and prompts users to reflect about it. We carried out two studies to evaluate the impact of such widget on search behaviour: in Study 1 (N = 76), participants received screenshots of the widget including reflection prompts while in Study 2 (N = 15), a maximum of 10 search tasks were conducted by participants over a period of two weeks on a search platform that contained the widget. Study 1 shows that reflection prompts induce meaningful insights about search behaviour. Study 2 suggests that, when using a novel search platform for the first time, those participants who had the widget prioritised search behaviours over time. The incorporation of the widget into the search platform after users had become familiar with it, however, was not observed to impact search behaviour. While the potential to support un-learning of routines could not be shown, the two studies suggest the widget’s usability, perceived usefulness, potential to induce reflection and potential to impact search behaviour.
Fessl Angela, Simic Ilija, Barthold Sabine, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2019
Information literacy, the access to knowledge and use of it are becoming a precondition for individuals to actively take part in social,economic, cultural and political life. Information literacy must be considered as a fundamental competency like the ability to read, write and calculate. Therefore, we are working on automatic learning guidance with respect to three modules of the information literacy curriculum developed by the EU (DigComp 2.1 Framework). In prior work, we havelaid out the essential research questions from a technical side. In this work, we follow-up by specifying the concept to micro learning, and micro learning content units. This means, that the overall intervention that we design is concretized to: The widget is initialized by assessing the learners competence with the help of a knowledge test. This is the basis for recommending suitable micro learning content, adapted to the identified competence level. After the learner has read/worked through the content, the widget asks a reflective question to the learner. The goal of the reflective question is to deepen the learning. In this paper we present the concept of the widget and its integration in a search platform.
Fessl Angela, Kowald Dominik, Susana López Sola, Ana Moreno, Ricardo Alonso, Maturana, Thalmann_TU Stefan
2018
Learning analytics deals with tools and methods for analyzing anddetecting patterns in order to support learners while learning in formal as wellas informal learning settings. In this work, we present the results of two focusgroups in which the effects of a learning resource recommender system and adashboard based on analytics for everyday learning were discussed from twoperspectives: (1) knowledge workers as self-regulated everyday learners (i.e.,informal learning) and (2) teachers who serve as instructors for learners (i.e.,formal learning). Our findings show that the advantages of analytics for everydaylearning are three-fold: (1) it can enhance the motivation to learn, (2) it canmake learning easier and broadens the scope of learning, and (3) it helps to organizeand to systematize everyday learning.
Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela, Wertner Alfred
2018
Becoming a data-savvy professional requires skills and competencesin information literacy, communication and collaboration, and content creationin digital environments. In this paper, we present a concept for automatic learningguidance in relation to an information literacy curriculum. The learning guidanceconcept has three components: Firstly, an open learner model in terms of an informationliteracy curriculum is created. Based on the data collected in the learnermodel, learning analytics is used in combination with a corresponding visualizationto present the current learning status of the learner. Secondly, reflectionprompts in form of sentence starters or reflective questions adaptive to the learnermodel aim to guide learning. Thirdly, learning resources are suggested that arestructured along learning goals to motivate learners to progress. The main contributionof this paper is to discuss what we see as main research challenges withrespect to existing literature on open learner modeling, learning analytics, recommendersystems for learning, and learning guidance.
Cicchinelli Analia, Veas Eduardo Enrique, Pardo Abelardo, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela, Barreiros Carla, Lindstaedt Stefanie
2018
This paper aims to identify self-regulation strategies from students' interactions with the learning management system (LMS). We used learning analytics techniques to identify metacognitive and cognitive strategies in the data. We define three research questions that guide our studies analyzing i) self-assessments of motivation and self regulation strategies using standard methods to draw a baseline, ii) interactions with the LMS to find traces of self regulation in observable indicators, and iii) self regulation behaviours over the course duration. The results show that the observable indicators can better explain self-regulatory behaviour and its influence in performance than preliminary subjective assessments.
Fessl Angela, Wertner Alfred, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2018
In this demonstration paper, we describe a prototype that visualizes usage of different search interfaces on a single search platform with the goal to motivate users to explore alternative search interfaces. The underlying rationale is, that by now the one-line-input to search engines is so standard, that we can assume users’ search behavior to be operationalized. This means, that users may be reluctant to explore alternatives even though these may be suited better to their context of use / search task.
Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Thalmann Stefan, Fessl Angela, Füssel Julia
2018
Traditionally, professional learning for senior professionalsis organized around face-2-face trainings. Virtual trainingsseem to offer an opportunity to reduce costs related to traveland travel time. In this paper we present a comparative casestudy that investigates the differences between traditionalface-2-face trainings in physical reality, and virtualtrainings via WebEx. Our goal is to identify how the way ofcommunication impacts interaction between trainees,between trainees and trainers, and how it impactsinterruptions. We present qualitative results fromobservations and interviews of three cases in differentsetups (traditional classroom, web-based with allparticipants co-located, web-based with all participants atdifferent locations) and with overall 25 training participantsand three trainers. The study is set within one of the BigFour global auditing companies, with advanced seniorauditors as learning cohort
d'Aquin Mathieu , Kowald Dominik, Fessl Angela, Thalmann Stefan, Lex Elisabeth
2018
The goal of AFEL is to develop, pilot and evaluate methods and applications, which advance informal/collective learning as it surfaces implicitly in online social environments. The project is following a multi-disciplinary, industry-driven approach to the analysis and understanding of learner data in order to personalize, accelerate and improve informal learning processes. Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining traditionally relate to the analysis and exploration of data coming from learning environments, especially to understand learners' behaviours. However, studies have for a long time demonstrated that learning activities happen outside of formal educational platforms, also. This includes informal and collective learning usually associated, as a side effect, with other (social) environments and activities. Relying on real data from a commercially available platform, the aim of AFEL is to provide and validate the technological grounding and tools for exploiting learning analytics on such learning activities. This will be achieved in relation to cognitive models of learning and collaboration, which are necessary to the understanding of loosely defined learning processes in online social environments. Applying the skills available in the consortium to a concrete set of live, industrial online social environments, AFEL will tackle the main challenges of informal learning analytics through 1) developing the tools and techniques necessary to capture information about learning activities from (not necessarily educational) online social environments; 2) creating methods for the analysis of such informal learning data, based on combining feature engineering and visual analytics with cognitive models of learning and collaboration; and 3) demonstrating the potential of the approach in improving the understanding of informal learning, and the way it is better supported; 4) evaluate all the former items in real world large scale applications and platforms.
Thalmann Stefan, Larrazábal Jorge, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Kreuzthaler Armin, Fessl Angela
2017
n times of globalization, also workforce needs to be able to go global. This holds true especially for technical experts holding an exclusive expertise. Together with a global manufacturing company, we addressed the challenge of being able to send staff into foreign countries for managing technical projects in the foreign language. We developed a language learning concept that combines a language learning platform with conventional individual but virtually conducted coaching sessions. In our use case, we developed this ...
Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela, Wiese Michael, Thalmann Stefan
2017
Financial auditors routinely search internal as well as public knowledge bases as part of the auditing process. Efficient search strategies are crucial for knowledge workers in general and for auditors in particular. Modern search technology quickly evolves; and features beyond keyword search like fac-etted search or visual overview of knowledge bases like graph visualisations emerge. It is therefore desirable for auditors to learn about new innovations and to explore and experiment with such technologies. In this paper, we present a reflection intervention concept that intends to nudge auditors to reflect on their search behaviour and to trigger informal learning in terms of by trying out new or less frequently used search features. The reflection intervention concept has been tested in a focus group with six auditors using a mockup. Foremost, the discussion centred on the timing of reflection interventions and how to raise mo-tivation to achieve a change in search behaviour.
Luzhnica Granit, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria, Fessl Angela, Mutlu Belgin, Veas Eduardo Enrique
2016
Especially in lifelong or professional learning, the picture of a continuous learning analytics process emerges. In this proces s, het- erogeneous and changing data source applications provide data relevant to learning, at the same time as questions of learners to data cha nge. This reality challenges designers of analytics tools, as it req uires ana- lytics tools to deal with data and analytics tasks that are unk nown at application design time. In this paper, we describe a generic vi sualiza- tion tool that addresses these challenges by enabling the vis ualization of any activity log data. Furthermore, we evaluate how well parti cipants can answer questions about underlying data given such generic versus custom visualizations. Study participants performed better in 5 out of 10 tasks with the generic visualization tool, worse in 1 out of 1 0 tasks, and without significant difference when compared to the visuali zations within the data-source applications in the remaining 4 of 10 ta sks. The experiment clearly showcases that overall, generic, standalon e visualiza- tion tools have the potential to support analytical tasks suffi ciently well
Fessl Angela, Wesiak Gudrun, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2016
Reflective learning is an important strategy to keep the vast body of theoretical knowledge fresh, stay up-to-date with new knowledge, and to relate theoretical knowledge to practical experience. In this work, we present a study situated in a qualification program for stroke nurses in Germany. In the seven-week study, $21$ stroke nurses used a quiz on medical knowledge as additional learning instrument. The quiz contained typical quiz questions (``content questions'') as well as reflective questions that aimed at stimulating nurses to reflect on the practical relevance of the learned knowledge.We particularly looked at how reflective questions can support the transfer of theoretical knowledge to practice.The results show that by playful learning and presenting reflective questions at the right time, participants were motivated to reflect, deepened their knowledge and related theoretical knowledge to practical experience. Subsequently, they were able to better understand patient treatments and increased their self-confidence.
Fessl Angela, Feyertag Sandra, Pammer-Schindler Viktoria
2015
This paper presents a case study on co-designing digitaltechnologies for knowledge management and data-driven businessfor an SME. The goal of the case study was to analysethe status quo of technology usage and to develop designsuggestions in form of mock-ups tailored to the company’sneeds. We used both requirements engineering and interactivesystem design methods such as interviews, workshops,and mock-ups for work analysis and system design. The casestudy illustrates step-by-step the processes of knowledge extractionand combination (analysis) and innovation creation(design). These processes resulted in non-functional mockups,which are planned to be implemented within the SME.
Fessl Angela, Wesiak Gudrun, Feyertag Sandra, Rivera-Pelayo Verónica
2015
In-app reflection guidance for workplace learning means motivating and guiding users to reflect on their working and learning, based on users' activities captured by the app. In this paper, we present ageneric concept for such in-app reflection guidance for workplace learning, its implementation in three dierent applications, and its evaluation in three dierent settings (one setting per app). From this experience, we draw the following lessons learned: First, the implemented in-appreflection guidance components are perceived as useful tools for reflective learning and their usefulness increases with higher usage rates. Second, smart technological support is sufficient to trigger reflection, however with different implemented components also reflective learning takesplace on dierent stages. A sophisticated, unobtrusive integration in the working environment is not trivial at all. Automatically created prompts need a sensible timing in order to be perceived as useful and must not disrupt the current working processes.
Lindstaedt Stefanie , Kraker Peter, Höfler Patrick, Fessl Angela
2010
In this paper we present an ecosystem for the lightweight exchangeof publication metadata based on the principles of Web 2.0. At the heart of thisecosystem, semantically enriched RSS feeds are used for dissemination. Thesefeeds are complemented by services for creation and aggregation, as well aswidgets for retrieval and visualization of publication metadata. In twoscenarios, we show how these publication feeds can benefit institutions,researchers, and the TEL community. We then present the formats, services,and widgets developed for the bootstrapping of the ecosystem. We concludewith an outline of the integration of publication feeds with the STELLARNetwork of Excellence1 and an outlook on future developments.
Fessl Angela, Thalmann Stefan
In times of globalization, also workforce needs to be able to go global. This holds true especially for technical experts holding an exclusive expertise. Together with a global manufacturing company, we addressed the challenge of being able to send staff into foreign countries for managing technical projects in the foreign language. We developed a socio-technical language learning concept that combines an online language learning platform with gamification features and conventional individual but virtually conducted coaching sessions. We report from a project we conducted with an international manufacturing company in which native Spanish speakers learned English within two months. The approach was tested in a four weeks trial with 10 participants.The target audience for this talk are HR-professionals, educational technologists and all people interested in language learning. We expect that our talk will spark discussions about the combination of ICT mediated learning and f-to-f learning in language learning and also about the role of gamification in this process.