IFIP TC3 has recently engaged with doctoral researchers in a successful and first online doctoral consortium. The event was held over a period of two days, on 18th and 19th May 2023. Sixteen doctoral researchers from five continents were involved in sharing their research work with experts from across IFIP TC3. The doctoral researchers included two from Kenya, one from Peru, three from India, three from France, three from Germany, three from the United Kingdom and one from Australia. 

The doctoral researchers presented their work and gained feedback from 10 Senior Advisors from universities across Europe, Asia and Australasia. The online consortium organisation was led by Professor Javier Osorio, Chair of IFIP TC3 WG3.7, and all the sessions across the two days were chaired by Professor Christine Bescherer, a member of IFIP TC3 WG3.1. The doctoral researchers presented a wide variety of research topics, all fundamentally important when we consider the future of education. These topics included research on: 

  • developing confident and capable future digital citizens through the role of smartphones in Wales and Catalonia;
  • understanding and supporting elementary students’ regulated learning in computer-supported collaborative learning tasks;
  • the impact of online digital education on secondary school teachers in rural Maharashtra (India);
  • identifying developmental indicators that influence a student’s ability to apply programming constructs when creating software solutions;
  • training reading fluency in English as a Foreign Language in a virtually augmented readers’ theatre in years K-6;
  • digital citizenship among adolescent students from a marginalised sector in India;
  • automatic generation of examinations using machine learning techniques; and the role of technology on socio-emotional learning of high school students.

Our thanks to all involved, and particularly to the doctoral researchers who were willing to share their work, which enabled us to have insights into the ways that these researchers through their studies will positively affect the future of computing in education. 

IFIP TC3 is already planning to hold another doctoral consortium at the time of its OCCE 2024 conference, to be held in Bournemouth, UK, from 27 February to 1 March 2024. Details can be found on the website – http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/occe-2024.