A taxonomy of video lecture styles

Many educational organizations are employing instructional video in their pedagogy, but there is limited understanding of the possible presentation styles. In practice, the presentation style of video lectures ranges from a direct recording of classroom teaching with a stationary camera and screencasts with voice-over, up to highly elaborate video post-production. Previous work evaluated the effectiveness of several presentation styles, but there has not been any consistent taxonomy, which would have made comparisons and meta-analyses possible. In this article, we surveyed the research literature and we examined contemporary video-based courses, which have been produced by diverse educational organizations and teachers across various academic disciplines. We organized video lectures in two dimensions according to the level of human presence and according to the type of instructional media. In addition to organizing existing video lectures in a comprehensive way, the proposed taxonomy offers a design space that facilitates the choice of a suitable presentation style, as well as the preparation of new ones.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

From script to screen: An emergent view of AI-generated avatars

In an age of ‘deepfakes’, designing learning media and video intentionally and ethically becomes more important than ever. Emerging educational research focuses on generative large language models, which use neural networks to produce human-like text based on prompts. Yet the educational design of synthetic media, particularly AI-generated avatars, which are also currently produced from text prompts, remains less explored. This paper share insights from an ongoing evaluation of realistic, AI-generated avatars as educational presenters at a large Australian metropolitan university. Using commercially available software, we created a suite of AI-generated avatars and accompanying interactives to explore the topic of ethics in business intelligence which was delivered to approximately 1200 students across two semesters in 2022 and 2023. The aim was to provoke critical discussion around ethical decision-making with AI by immersing students in text-to-video technology as part of their learning experience. To better understand students’ perceptions of synthetic media as a stimulus for learning, we conducted four focus groups over two iterations of the course. Our multidisciplinary team also documented the design, development, and implementation challenges of AI-generated avatars. Preliminary findings suggest that clarifying design intentions is key to the effective and ethical application of AI-generated avatars. Automating video content with synthetic media to simplify certain types of educational content could be a catalyst for increased sharing and collaboration. While traditional video formats may prove a simpler choice in the short-term, this study indicates the potential of more hybrid human and nonhuman representation in certain contexts. Students were comfortable with synthetic media use and blending humans and nonhuman elements, expressing a desire for greater interaction with both. We propose a posthuman perspective on AI-generated avatars, one which acknowledges the messy and entangled nature of learning and teaching with technology, that often surfaces issues of ethics and power. To assist educators, ‘VIEW’ is outlined, a brief educational design guide for AI-generated avatars that considers aspects such as the intentions or purpose of the video, the suitability of video as a medium, implementation, and ethical questions. Finally, we suggest more critical and ethical studies on the emergence of synthetic media applications in higher education are needed

Towards Social Autonomous Vehicles: Efficient Collision Avoidance Scheme Using Richardson's Arms Race Model

Background Road collisions and casualties pose a serious threat to commuters around the globe. Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) aim to make the use of technology to reduce the road accidents. However, the most of research work in the context of collision avoidance has been performed to address, separately, the rear end, front end and lateral collisions in less congested and with high inter-vehicular distances. Purpose The goal of this paper is to introduce the concept of a social agent, which interact with other AVs in social manners like humans are social having the capability of predicting intentions, i.e. mentalizing and copying the actions of each other, i.e. mirroring. The proposed social agent is based on a human-brain inspired mentalizing and mirroring capabilities and has been modelled for collision detection and avoidance under congested urban road traffic. Method We designed our social agent having the capabilities of mentalizing and mirroring and for this purpose we utilized Exploratory Agent Based Modeling (EABM) level of Cognitive Agent Based Computing (CABC) framework proposed by Niazi and Hussain. Results Our simulation and practical experiments reveal that by embedding Richardson's arms race model within AVs, collisions can be avoided while travelling on congested urban roads in a flock like topologies. The performance of the proposed social agent has been compared at two different levels.Comment: 48 pages, 21 figure

From script to screen: An emergent view of AI-generated avatars

In an age of ‘deepfakes’, designing learning media and video intentionally and ethically becomes more important than ever. Emerging educational research focuses on generative large language models, which use neural networks to produce human-like text based on prompts. Yet the educational design of synthetic media, particularly AI-generated avatars, which are also currently produced from text prompts, remains less explored.This paper share insights from an ongoing evaluation of realistic, AI-generated avatars as educational presenters at a large Australian metropolitan university. Using commercially available software, we created a suite of AI-generated avatars and accompanying interactives to explore the topic of ethics in business intelligence which was delivered to approximately 1200 students across two semesters in2022 and 2023. The aim was to provoke critical discussion around ethical decision-making with AI by immersing students in text-to-video technology as part of their learning experience.To better understand students’ perceptions of synthetic media as a stimulus for learning, we conducted four focus groups over two iterations of the course. Our multidisciplinary team also documented the design, development, and implementation challenges ofAI-generated avatars. Preliminary findings suggest that clarifying design intentions is key to the effective and ethical application of AI-generated avatars. Automating video content with synthetic media to simplify certain types of educational content could be a catalyst for increased sharing and collaboration.While traditional video formats may prove a simpler choice in the short-term, this study indicates the potential of more hybrid human and nonhuman representation in certain contexts. Students were comfortable with synthetic media use and blending humans and nonhuman elements, expressing a desire for greater interaction with both. We propose a posthuman perspective on AI-generated avatars, one which acknowledges the messy and entangled nature of learning and teaching with technology, that often surfaces issues of ethics and power. To assist educators, ‘VIEW’ is outlined, a brief educational design guide for AI-generated avatars that considers aspects such as the intentions or purpose of the video, the suitability of video as a medium, implementation, and ethical questions.Finally, we suggest more critical and ethical studies on the emergence of synthetic media applications in higher education are needed

Robot public speakers' effect on audience affective reaction and attention allocation

Social robots delivering public speeches have a wide range of practical applications as stand-ins for educators, experts, or entertainers. The goal of our work is to investigate how a social robot should be programmed to deliver an effective public speech. Applying a mixed methods research design to collect quantitative and qualitative data, we have conducted a study, which compares a human speaker with a semi-Anthropomorphic social robot speaker (the SoftBank Pepper robot). The robot was programmed to mimic the behaviour patterns of the human delivering the same speech. The study results show that the robot is perceived as intelligent and rational, which contributes to effective delivery of the message content. However, the robot struggles with actively engaging the audience and with establishing an emotional connection. In addition, the behavioural patterns that appear natural in the human speaker tend to be distracting in the robot. Suggestions for the improved design of robot public speakers are discussed, which include implementing rhetoric skills, exploiting and synchronising the robot's specific communication channels, and creating a robot persona

Human-Robot Interaction: Mapping Literature Review and Network Analysis

Organizations increasingly adopt social robots as additions to real-life workforces, which requires knowledge of how humans react to and work with robots. The longstanding research on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) offers relevant insights, but the existing literature reviews are limited in their ability to guide theory development and practitioners in sustainably employing social robots because the reviews lack a systematic synthesis of HRI concepts, relationships, and ensuing effects. This study offers a mapping review of the past ten years of HRI research. With the analysis of 68 peer-reviewed journal articles, we identify shifting foci, for example, towards more application-specific empirical investigations, and the most prominent concepts and relationships investigated in connection with social robots, for example, robot appearance. The results offer Information Systems scholars and practitioners an initial knowledge base and nuanced insights into key predictors and outcome variables that can hinder and foster social robot adoption in the workplace

Stick the face out. Talking Head’s use in online courses

In this essay we intend to examine in which contexts and under which conditions a particular and common video format that has within it a Talking Head of the speaker may be an opportunity in teaching or vice versa a critical issue. We will pay particular attention to the use of gestures and the connection between gestures and spoken word; because, gesture and speech form a set that can be significant and lead to understanding the lesson, learning and motivation of the student, but can also represent sources of cognitive load. We will propose the distinction, in the analysis, of significant/insignificant multimedia gestures as one of the elements that help to evaluate the potential of an educational event.   Mettiamoci la faccia. L’uso dei Talking Head nelle lezioni online In questo saggio intendiamo esaminare in quali contesti e a quali condizioni un particolare e diffuso formato di video che presenta al suo interno un Talking Head del parlante può rappresentare una opportunità nell’insegnamento o viceversa una criticità. Presteremo particolare attenzione all’uso dei gesti e al collegamento tra gesti e discorso parlato, in quanto gesto e discorso formano un insieme che può essere significativo e aiutare la comprensione della lezione, l’apprendimento e la motivazione dello studente, ma possono rappresentare anche fonti di carico cognitivo. Proporremo una distinzione, nell’analisi, tra gesti significativi/non significativi come uno degli elementi che aiutano a valutare le potenzialità di un evento educativo di tipo multimediale

Stick the face out. Talking Head’s use in online courses

In this essay we intend to examine in which contexts and under which conditions a particular and common video format that has within it a Talking Head of the speaker may be an opportunity in teaching or vice versa a critical issue. We will pay particular attention to the use of gestures and the connection between gestures and spoken word; because, gesture and speech form a set that can be significant and lead to understanding the lesson, learning and motivation of the student, but can also represent sources of cognitive load. We will propose the distinction, in the analysis, of significant/insignificant multimedia gestures as one of the elements that help to evaluate the potential of an educational event. Mettiamoci la faccia. L’uso dei Talking Head nelle lezioni onlineIn questo saggio intendiamo esaminare in quali contesti e a quali condizioni un particolare e diffuso formato di video che presenta al suo interno un Talking Head del parlante può rappresentare una opportunità nell’insegnamento o viceversa una criticità. Presteremo particolare attenzione all’uso dei gesti e al collegamento tra gesti e discorso parlato, in quanto gesto e discorso formano un insieme che può essere significativo e aiutare la comprensione della lezione, l’apprendimento e la motivazione dello studente, ma possono rappresentare anche fonti di carico cognitivo. Proporremo una distinzione, nell’analisi, tra gesti significativi/non significativi come uno degli elementi che aiutano a valutare le potenzialità di un evento educativo di tipo multimediale