Meet Dr Jingyun Wang from our Department of Computer Science

Tell us a bit about yourself and your research interests?

My main research focuses on visualisation systems, AI supported education, special education support, educational big data analytics, knowledge graph, etc.

With a 12-year background in the field, I have gained extensive expertise and been recognised by the community as an expert in educational technology. I have published 50 papers in top-tier conferences (e.g. AIED, EDM, LAK) and journals (e.g. C&E, ILE, International Journal of HCI) and received several Awards including outstanding performance Award in IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference 2017, and an outstanding achievement and contribution Award in International Conference for Leading and Young Computer Scientists 2017.

I am an editorial board member for Computers & Education: Artificial Intelligence and International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, and a regular reviewer for Transactions on Learning Technologies, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Educational Technology & Society, Technology, Pedagogy and Education etc. Moreover, I have supported the organisation of 6 international conferences (eg, Core-A conference AIED 2022 and 2023).

When did you join us and what is your role at Durham University?

I joined Durham University in September 2020 and my role is assistant professor in Computer Science. Currently, I am the strand lead of “technology-enhanced learning” strand and a member of the “digital health” strand in Artificial Intelligence and Human Systems (AIHS) Group. I am also a core academic member of Centre for Neurodiversity & Development and Pedagogical Innovation in Computer Science Group.

What are the projects/research you are currently working on?

• I obtained the Research Impact Fund (2022-2023, 12 months) as the PI and lead an international research team with researchers from Denmark, Japan and Taiwan, to enhance the self-developed Open-Source Python library Medialib, enabling its tutorial and related teaching materials to benefit more Python learners and educators, and grow a pedagogical network to support Computational Thinking education.
• I am also a Co-I for the MoreLife UK KTP project (2023-2026), funded by Innovate UK and More Life, which is aimed at the design, development and implementation of innovative methods for delivering a real-time personalised weight management program, using an easy access digital platform.
• Additionally, I am Co-I for the Hong Kong General Research Fund “Preparation for Post Pandemic Society: Providing Technology-Supported Adaptive Scaffolding for Students with Mathematics Learning Difficulties in Hong Kong Primary Schools” (2021-2023, (18609221)), which is aimed at the development of adaptive visualization applications for primary school pupils with Mathematics Learning Difficulties.

What is interesting about your projects/research?

For my project related to the Research Impact Fund (2022-2023, 12 months), we launched the Medialib official website (medialib.club) in October. During these 7 months, over 4038 users visited from 62 countries with the majority from the UK, Japan and the USA.

Medialib library and its materials were used first to support the education of non-technical international students (around 40 per year) at Kyushu University since 2020, and then at Durham University for MSc Business Analytics students (around 50 per year) from 2021 and MSc Data Science (around 200 per year) from 2022, and for 1st year undergraduate Computer Science students (around 380 per year) from 2023 at Akita University. We organised the first workshop in December 2022 at Durham University, the second workshop in May 2023 at the University of Southern Denmark and the third workshop in June at Bochum University of Applied Sciences (German). In the coming months, there will be 4 workshops co-hosted with Kyoto University (Japan), Kyushu University (Japan), The Education University of Hong Kong, and National Taiwan Normal University.

What is the scientific and societal relevance of your research?

My research is mainly focused on how to use computer science technique especially AI to support education.

I have proposed and developed numerous educational visualisation systems, which have undergone institution and national-level experiments to collect user feedback and logs, and analysed educational data to evaluate the systems' effectiveness and to identify areas for improvement.

What are your plans for future research/study?

I am currently working on the of an Automatic feedBack systEm for supporTing emoTional spEech tRainingin (called BETTER). My recent work was just accepted by Core A conference Artificial Intelligence in Education 2023 and will be presented on 5^th July. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-36272-9_66

We are planning to host our system online soon for public usage. My future plan is to explore more possible ways to provide AI based feedback for various learners.

Any interesting hobbies/passion outside of work?

Travelling, photography, gardening, listening to music.