[agents] 2nd AIED Workshop on Simulated Learners (apologies for multiple posting)

[John Champaign]

Below is a preliminary Call for Papers for the 2nd workshop on Simulated
Learners to be held in conjunction with the upcoming AIED conference
in Madrid, Spain this June.  Given your interest in this subject, we would
like to encourage you to submit a paper to the workshop.

Your paper can be a technical paper reporting on your own research
related to simulated learners or a more philosophical paper making
arguments about the role of simulated learners and simulated learning
environments.  What we would like to achieve is a critical mass of
researchers to discuss this important issue at the AIED conference and
through the workshop proceedings stimulate wider debate in the
community on simulated learners.

We would appreciate it if you could let us know whether you think you
will be submitting a paper so we can get an idea of how much interest
there is in this subject and to try to ensure enough attendees to hold
the workshop.

Cheers,
    Gord McCalla and John Champaign, Workshop Co-Chairs

---
(formatted pdf version:  http://goo.gl/kkUjDM)

2nd AIED Workshop on
Simulated Learners

in conjunction with AIED 2015
June 22-26, 2015
Madrid, Spain

As learning environments become increasingly complex and are used by
growing numbers of learners (sometimes in the hundreds of thousands)
and apply to a larger range of domains, the need for simulated
learners (and simulation more generally) is compelling, not only to
enhance these environments with artificial agents, but also to explore
issues using simulation that would be otherwise be too expensive, too
time consuming, or even impossible using human subjects. While some
may feel that MOOCs provide ample data for experimentation, privacy
concerns, ethics approval, attrition rates and platform constraints
with the large providers have all proven to be substantial barriers to
this approach.  Controlled experimentation is also difficult in real
courses.  And, with thousands of learners at stake, it is wise to test
a learning environment as thoroughly as possible before deployment.

Some Questions

Since this is a follow-up to the 2013 workshop, we would like to build
on some of the ideas that emerged there (see proceedings at:
http://goo.gl/12ODji).  There are many other questions and issues that
could be discussed, such as:

• how can simulated learners be deployed to support better learning
environments?
• what advantages do simulated learners provide in comparison to real
learners? what disadvantages?
• what is the role for entire simulated learning environments,
including simulated learners?
• what pedagogical questions can be explored with simulated learners?
• what best practice and lessons learned have we achieved from
research into simulated learners?
• what are the major challenges in the development and use of
simulated learners?
• what are the most promising applications of simulated learners?
least promising?
• what are the most promising directions for research into simulated
learners? least promising?
• are there interesting ideas to draw on from the use of simulation in
other domains?

These questions and issues are not exclusive: the workshop solicits
papers that touch on any theme involving simulated learners.
Theoretical, philosophical or experimental papers are welcome.  Papers
will be reviewed by members of the program committee or other
appropriate reviewers. Accepted papers will be collected in a separate
Proceedings independent from the main AIED conference Proceedings,
although a one-page overall summary of the workshop will be included
in the main conference Proceedings.

Program Committee

John Champaign (University of Illinois at Springfield), co-chair
e-mail:  john.champaign at gmail.com
Gord McCalla (University of Saskatchewan), co-chair e-mail: mccalla at cs.usask.ca
Esma Aimeur (Université de Montréal)
Robin Cohen (University of Waterloo)
Ricardo Conejo (Universidad de Málaga)
Evandro Costa (Federal University of Alagoas)
Michel C. Desmarais (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal)
Fabiano Azevedo Dorça (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia)
Yang Hee Kim (Utah State University)
Fuhua (Oscar) Lin (Athabasca University)
Noboru Matsuda (Carnegie Mellon University)
Zachary Pardos (University of California, Berkeley)
Kurt Van Lehn (Arizona State University)

Important Dates

• Paper submission deadline: March 20th
• Notification of decision: April 20th
• Camera-ready copy due: May 20th
• Workshop date: TBA [June 22nd to June 26th]

Short or long papers, ranging from 3 to 10 pages, using the AIED
conference format are welcome:

Word2007 ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/tex/latex/llncs/word/splnproc1110.zip
LaTeX2e ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/tex/latex/llncs/latex2e/llncs2e.zip

Please submit papers in a PDF file using e-mail to john.champaign at gmail.com