MediaFutures Annual Meeting
2022-11-15 13:00 - 2022-11-16 16:00 (Europe/Oslo)
MediaFutures is a centre for research-based innovation at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen. The centre operates under the Norwegian Research Council’s Research-based Innovation (SFI) scheme, and its main goal is to generate innovation and value creation for the Norwegian news media and media technology industry through long-term research on responsible media technologies.
Held on November 15-16 at Media City Bergen, Norway, the 2022 Annual Meeting constitutes a forum for the exchange of scientific results and industry insights within the field of responsible media technology.
Following last year’s success, the 2022 Annual Meeting is expected once again to attract, and bring together Norwegian and international researchers, and industry practitioners with the intent of engaging in discussions on topics related to:

Media experiences
Recommender technology
Content production and analysis
Content interaction and availability
Norwegian language technology

Join us for inspirational keynote talks, prototype demonstrations, presentations held by our researchers, and industry partners, and poster session.
We are pleased to announce our keynote speakers – Birgit Gray, Christian Sandor and Siv Juvik Tveitnes.

REGISTRATION

PROGRAM

Day 1 – Tuesday Nov. 15

12.00 – Registration
13.00 – Welcome address by Centre Director Christoph Trattner
13.10 – Greetings from Gottfried Greve, Vice-Rector for Innovation, Projects and Knowledge Clusters UiB
13.15 – Towards Trustworthy AI in Media ToolsBirgit Gray, Innovation Manager at Deutsche Welle
13.50 – Break
14.05 – Responsible Personalization and Recommendation: an OverviewMehdi Elahi, Associate Professor, UiBResponsible Personalisation and Recommendation: an Industry PerspectiveLars Skjærven, TV2 and Thomas Husken, BT Popularity Bias in RecommendationAnastasiia Klimashevskaia, PhD candidate, MediaFutures

14.45 – Break and snacks
15.00 – Visual Content VerificationDuc Tien Dang Nguyen, Associate Professor, UiB

15.15 – Fake News DetectionGhazaal Sheikhi, Postdoctor, MediaFutures

15.30 – Break
15.45 – Measuring Harmful Representations in Scandinavian Language ModelsSamia Touileb, Researcher, MediaFutures
Why is SFI Innovation So Hard?Eivind Throndsen, Academic Liaison, Schibsted

16.15 – Poster and demo sessions
19.00 – Dinner at Kulturhuset

Day 2 – Wednesday Nov. 16

9.30 – Six Battles to Win for Future Growth in News MediaSiv Juvik Tveitnes, EVP Schibsted News Media
10.05 – Break
10.20 – Understanding news experiences with innovative methodsHallvard Moe, Professor, UiBErik Knudsen, Researcher, MediaFuturesMarianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus, PhD candidate, MediaFutures

11.00 – Break
11.15 – Past and Upcoming 22 Years with Augmented RealityChristian Sandor, Professor Université Paris-Saclay
11.50 – Break
12.00 – Media Content Interaction & AccessibilityNjål Borch, Researcher, NORCEMorten Fjeld, Professor, UiB
12.30 – Lunch
13.30 – Workshop. Thinking beyond media use. How can we make sense of future media experiences?Irene Costera Meijer, Professor, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamJohn Magnus R. Dahl, Postdoc, MediaFutures
15.00 – Workshop. Synthetic Media for the NewsroomNicholas Diakopoulos, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

KEYNOTES

Birgit Gray, Innovation Manager at Deutsche Welle
Birgit Gray specialises in future media and resulting changes for broadcasters, content providers, creators, and business processes. In her role as Innovation Manager, she explores the use and impact of emerging media technologies and tools, innovation in news services, future facing market developments and innovation/transformation approaches. In recent projects, she covered topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, AI-Powered Tools, Digital Audio and Responsible AI. As a Strategic Media Consultant, Birgit worked with European media companies and has more than a decade of work experience in London. She has an industry background in broadcasting and holds a Master’s in communication and business studies.
At the MediaFutures 2022 Annual Meeting, Birgit will talk about the road Towards Trustworthy AI in Media Tools.

Birgit Gray

Learn more
Media companies increasingly use AI-powered technologies in content production and analysis workflows – also as integrated components in media tools that support the work of journalists and content experts.
In her keynote, Birgit first introduces the concept of Trustworthy AI and describes associated needs of media companies regarding AI services from external technology providers. Using a concrete example developed in the AI4Media project, she shows how an AI component for DW’s Truly Media verification tool was enhanced with trustworthy AI elements related to transparency and robustness. Birgit then highlights key learnings and challenges in this process, including the need for tailored transparency information and integration into user experiences.
Birgit’s talk aims to raise awareness for Trustworthy AI in media processes and practical approaches that can help to realise AI guidelines and principles.

Christian Sandor, Professor at the Universite Paris-Saclay
Christian Sandor is a professor at the Université Paris-Saclay and the leader of the VENISE team at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). Since the year 2000, his foremost research interest is Augmented Reality – a technology he believes will have a profound impact on the future of mankind.
In 2005, he obtained a doctorate in Computer Science from the Technische Universität München, and have been working with leading research groups, and institutions around the world. In 2012, he was awarded in Samsung’s Global Research Outreach Program. In 2014, he received a Google Faculty Award for creating an Augmented Reality X-Ray system for Google Glass. In October 2020, he was appointed Augmented Reality Evangelist at the Guangzhou Greater Bay Area Virtual Reality Research Institute. In 2021, Dr. Sandor was named “Associate Editor of the Year” by IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Read more about Christian here.
During MediaFutures 2022 Annual Meeting, Christian will talk about Past and Upcoming 22 years with Augmented Reality.

Christian Sandor

Learn more
Augmented Reality (AR) embeds spatially-registered computer graphics into a user’s view of the real world. During the last 22 years, AR has progressed enormously from a niche technology to a widely investigated one.
This keynote consists of two parts. First, I speak about how major challenges for AR have been solved over the last 22 years. Second, I speculate about what the next 22 years are going to bring.
The goal of this keynote is to present a Birdseye view of the AR domain, including the balance of power between the major AR forces US and China. In my view, Europe has a very big, possibly almost impossible, challenge ahead to catch up. I hope that my talk will contribute to laying the seeds of a major European AR initiative.

Siv Juvik Tveitnes, EVP Schibsted News Media
Siv Juvik Tveitnes is the Executive Vice President for Schibsted News Media, the leading digital media division in Scandinavia and a part of the Nordic family of digital brands, Schibsted. News Media consists of a broad portfolio of brands such as Bergens Tidende, Stavanger Aftenblad, Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, Omni, VG and Aftenposten. In addition, Schibsted’s news division has several digital niche products, with the podcast platform Podme among them. In total, News Media’s brands have over 600 million monthly visits. In 2021, News Media had a revenue of 790 M EUR and 2,400 employees.
Previous positions for Siv Juvik Tveitnes include COO for Schibsted Media, CEO in the regional Norwegian Schibsted-owned newspapers Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad, and Managing Consultant at Accenture and Bekk Consulting AS. Tveitnes holds a Master of Science, Business Administration and Management from the University of Bath and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Bergen.
The title of Siv’s keynote speech: Six battles to win for future growth in news media.

Siv Juvik Tveitnes

Learn more
For the last few decades, the media industry has faced enormous challenges. We have experienced – and are continuing to undergo – a digital transformation. The way in which people consume news and content has radically changed. Information flows are increasing exponentially, and our business models and ways of working have changed in step with new trends.
Through the transformation we have seen declining revenues, cost cutting, reorganisations, and concerns about the future. But two years ago, boosted by the pandemic, the picture turned when we achieved revenue growth for the first time in many years. And in 2021 we reached our goal of News Media as a whole becoming digitally sustainable. The same year we passed one million digital subscribers in total.
The time had come to shift focus from survival to growth. And to operationalise that ambition, we defined six must-win battles for the years to come. My keynote aims to give an insight into these battles and the challenges we face going forward.

WORKSHOPS

Title: Thinking beyond media use. How can we make sense of future media experiences?
Name: Irene Costera Meijer, John Magnus R. Dahl
Date: November 16th, 13:30 – 15:00.
Separate registration required: https://skjemaker.app.uib.no/view.php?id=13522842

Description
Media are no longer just the screens in the living room, the newspaper we pick up, or the record we put on. The media are all over our everyday world. For some time, media have been important to the constitution of our daily environments, as we have moved from using media to living in media. Younger people have taken the next step: Not only are they living in media, but media have also become integrated into their bodies, their identity and their world. Take away the smartphone from a 15-year-old, and parents will become aware how this technology is not only an important part of their world – young people are constructing their selves and making new digital worlds through their smartphones.
In this workshop we aim to make sense of this development and the consequences it may have for media scholars, media professionals and media organisations who are looking to understand the media experiences of the future. We will especially look at how teenagers use apps like Instagram, TikTok and dating apps to live in media and create digital worlds – in their specific individuality, but also to be social. You follow and share what matters for you on Instagram, you perform different trends on TikTok, and you literally put yourself out there and in touch with strangers on dating apps.
The workshop will include a brief introduction (by Irene Costera Meijer) and examples from fieldwork amongst teenagers in Norway (by John Magnus Dahl) before engaging participants in discussion on how to think beyond media use, including the development of new concepts and vocabularies.
Irene Costera Meijer is Professor of Journalism Studies and head of the Journalism Studies section at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is a world leading journalism and media scholar having recently set the agenda for the audience turn in journalism studies. Her research appeared in many journals and books, and focuses on what news users value about journalism. She is also a professor II at the Research group for Media Use and Audience Studies of the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at University of Bergen.
Her research interests focus on audience studies and in particular on the impact of digitalization on changing practices of media consumption, media experiences and news use. When doing research she often collaborates with media organisations. This makes it easier to translate scholarly results into relevant suggestions for every day professional practices and vice versa, understanding the fundamental dilemmas of professional practices and translating these into academic publications. Costera Meijer is also on the editorial board of the academic journals Digital Journalism and Journalism Practice.
John Magnus R. Dahl is Postdoc in WP1 Understanding Media Experiences at MediaFutures. He holds a MA in Rhetoric, Argumentation and Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD from the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen.
Dahl is interested in the relationship between culture, communication, and politics in a broad sense, as well is the development of ethnographic methods within media studies and rhetoric. He is currently working on a project of how Norwegian public broadcasters relate to, or do not manage to relate to, the media experiences and social and cultural needs of young people.

Title: Synthetic Media for the Newsroom
Name: Nicholas Diakopoulos
Date: November 16th, from 15:00.
Separate registration required: https://skjemaker.app.uib.no/view.php?id=13564988

Description
Ever heard of GPT-3 or DALL-E and wondered if these new AI models for generating synthetic media could be useful in the newsroom? In this workshop we’ll demystify these technologies and explore ways in which they could be productive in various newsroom tasks. Bring your laptop for a chance to try it out and brainstorm new possibilities.
Nicholas Diakopoulos is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science (by courtesy) at Northwestern University where he is Director of the Computational Journalism Lab (CJL) and Director of Graduate Studies for the Technology and Social Behavior (TSB) PhD program.
Diakopoulos’ research is in computational journalism with active research projects on (1) algorithmic accountability and transparency, (2) automation and algorithms in news production, and (3) social media in news contexts. He is the author of the award-winning book Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media from Harvard University Press.
For some of his latest thinking and writing on automation and algorithms in journalism see his column in the Columbia Journalism Review.

PRESENTATIONS

Responsible Personalization and Recommendation: an OverviewMehdi Elahi, Associate Professor, UiB
Responsible Personalization and Recommendation: an Industry PerspectiveLars Skjærven, TV 2 & Thomas Husken, BT
Popularity Bias in RecommendationAnastasiia Klimashevskaia, PhD candidate MediaFutures
Abstract:
Personalization and recommendation empower media applications to support consumers in discovering additional media content (e.g., news articles, videos) and to keep them engaged. One of the grand challenges in this field is that common recommendation approaches may have a little potential for the discovery of new types of content for the consumers and they might cause the “popular” media content to become even more popular. Such a problem can ultimately lead to a number of undesired effects (e.g., bias in recommendation, lack of diversity). Responsible personalization and recommendation aim to address these phenomena by employing techniques to effectively model user behaviors online and fairly calibrating the output of recommendation, hence, it can cover a rich spectrum of media content.In this presentation, WP2 team will provide an overview of such a challenge and approaches to mitigate it. They will present an industry perspective towards the challenge and further discuss potential techniques to build impactful media personalization and recommendation in a responsible way.

Visual Content VerificationDuc Tien Dang Nguyen, Associate Professor, UiB
Abstract:
In this talk, Associate Professor Duc-Tien Dang-Nguyen will summarise the work done within the scope of Task 3.2 under SFI MediaFutures’ WorkPackage-3. He will briefly talk about the recent scientific publications, one of which addresses the task of deepfake media detection using AI models, and the second presents an overview of multimedia content verification in journalism. He will briefly introduce the multimedia forensics web-repository which is under development under the scope of Task 3.2.
The work on deepfake media detection proposes new AI models for automatic detection of deepfakes. The research work was accepted for publication at ACM International Conference on Content-Based Multimedia Indexing (CBMI), held in Graz, Austria in October 2022. This work was nominated for a best paper award at the conference. The second research work on visual content verification in journalism tries to present the practices being followed in the news media industry by journalists/fact-checkers to debunk visual mis/disinformation. This research work also presents a brief technical survey of available multimedia forensics tools and technologies, along with their limitations, and concludes by proposing future directions to develop better multimedia forensics tools. This research study is ready to be submitted for peer review to IEEE Access Journal.
Tien will also give a brief overview of the Web-repository which is currently under-development. The repository aims to provide several resources related to multimedia forensics at one place, including image forensics tutorials, research publications, forensics tools, widely shared debunked mis/disinformation etc.At the end of the talk, Tien will talk about other related projects, and will present next year’s plan for the Task 3.2.

Fake News DetectionGhazaal Sheikhi, Postdoc, MediaFutures
Abstract:
With the rise of concerns around misinformation threatening democracy and freedom in recent decades, fact-checking has become an integral part of journalism. Fact-checking is an extensively burdensome procedure as it requires a sequence of rigorous tasks including identifying check-worthy claims, monitoring related fact-checks, collecting reliable evidence, verifying the asserted facts, and publishing the fact-check. Considering the volume and the speed of dissemination of misleading content in today’s digital era, it is a demanding task for the fact-checking community with its limited resources and manpower. Automated fact-checking (AFC) technologies could evidently assist in expediting and scaling-up the process.
In Task 3.1, we focus on the application and advancement of natural language processing technologies in media and social media content analysis for assisting human fact-checkers and journalists. We attack the problem from a multitude of aspects including explainable check-worthy claim detection for political discourse, claim detection in Norwegian using pre-trained language models (in collaboration with Faktisk.no), named entity-based factual error correction (FEC) for biomedical information (in collaboration with the NLP Institute at the University of Stuttgart), and question answering-based factual error correction. In this talk, you will hear about these studies as well as two demos, namely TweetSearcher and ontology based FEC are also presented.

Measuring Harmful Representations in Scandinavian Language ModelsSamia Touileb, Researcher, MediaFutures
Abstract:
Scandinavian countries are perceived as role-models when it comes to gender equality. With the advent of pre-trained language models and their widespread usage, we investigate to what extent gender-based harmful and toxic content exists in selected Scandinavian language models. We examine nine models, covering Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, by manually creating template-based sentences and probing the models for completion. We evaluate the completions using two methods for measuring harmful and toxic completions and provide a thorough analysis of the results. We show that Scandinavian pre-trained language models contain harmful and gender-based stereotypes with similar values across all languages. This finding goes against the general expectations related to gender equality in Scandinavian countries and shows the possible problematic outcomes of using such models in real-world settings.

Why is SFI innovation so hard?Eivind Throndsen, Academic Liaison, Schibsted
Abstract:
A look at why it is hard to generate innovation together, thoughts on how we can overcome the difficulties, and why SFI researchers should learn Solution Selling.

Understanding news experiences with innovative methodsHallvard Moe, Professor, UiBErik Knudsen, Researcher MediaFuturesMarianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus, PhD candidate, MediaFutures
Abstract:
In this presentation we highlight some of the research and collaborations in Work Package 1 Understanding media experiences, focusing on how to understand changing news use in a tumultuous world and in a datafied media landscape. We will present two initiatives to develop novel methods for comprehensive analysis of fundamental questions regarding news use. Researcher Erik Knudsen presents a survey experiment on news avoidance and constructive journalism, developed in close collaboration with NRK and Schibsted as well as other MediaFutures partners, utilizing the DIGSSCORE research facility for innovative experiment methods. PhD candidate Marianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus presents a framework for users to safely donate browsing and social media data to research, and how this can feed into research on young people’s news use. WP co-leader professor Hallvard Moe will introduce the WP and the presentations.

Media Content Interaction & AccessibilityNjål Borch, Researcher, NORCEMorten Fjeld, Professor, UiB
Abstract:
In order to provide end users with personalised experiences that they can understand, accessibility and interactivity are crucial components. While accessibility is often understood to help users that have auditive or visual impairments, it is equally important for cognitive loads, social restrictions and personal preferences.
WP4 is working on a number of technologies to improve the end user experience and providing information in better ways. In this presentation, we will focus on the work performed in the last year, demonstrating new and hopefully exciting new ways to think of end user experiences. Radio without sound for example.

POSTERS & DEMOS

Demos and PitchesPoster Titles

The Demos and Pitches session takes place in Media City Bergen, Restaurant area from 16:15-17:00. The posters will be presented by MediaFutures (and affiliated) PhD candidates, Postdoctoral Researchers, Researchers and Master’s students.
The session will start with a 60 second pitch by each presenter, and the audience is invited to visit the posters thereafter.
Click the tabs for an overview.

Demos
Demo showing the effect of a Re-Ranker on a recommender system
Anastasiia Klimashevskaia

FootyVision, an all-in-one Model for real-time football statistical analysis with player and ball localisation.
Pete Andrews

Gamification demo based on FootyVision
Jonathan Geffen

A Demo showcasing a tool using user browser history as a baseline to easily examine news usage over a month
Marianne Borchevink-Brækhus

A showcase of the Media Forensics Repository, a repository presenting a diverse set of resources to assist journalists, fact-checkers, and the public in verifying visual user-generated content.
Sohail Ahmed Khan

A showcase for a conversational food recommender system as a mobile application
Ayoub el Majjodi

Interactive demo showcasing gender bias in norwegian BERT models
Samia Touileb

Demo showcasing EventGraph. A text-to-event framework that encodes events as graphs showing the relation between arguments, triggers, and their corresponding events.
Houlin You

LiveTweets: A framework that monitors twitter in order to find tweets relevant to an ongoing event. Developed with sports events in mind.
Ghazaal Sheiki, Daniel Rosnes

Demo showcasing recommendations based on low-lever features in the movie domain.
David Olsen

Posters
A qualitative study of Instagram as a platform for civic engagement
Tiril Amalie Johansen

Ease-read AI for people with dyslexia
Thale Knudsen Kirkhorn, Svenja Lys Forstner

News Podcasts
Kristina Hansen

Bridging the Gap of Polarized Perspectives: Changing the Thoughts of the Hard Believers in Online Communities
Jia-Hua Jeng

See or Hear? Exploring the Effect of Visual and Audio Hints and Gaze-assisted Task Feedback for Search Tasks in Augmented Reality
Yuchong Zhang

The Influence of News Recommender technology on Shaping Selective Exposure and Sharing
Khadiga Seddik

Introduction to the Datadonor tool
Erik Knudsen

News and Collaborative Filtering
Peter Klingenberg

The resposible Dating App
John Magnus R. Dahl

How Mixed and Augmented Realities Impact Our World
Adam Nowak

Media Analytics for Personalization and Advertisement
Frank Rune Espeseth

Personalization and Recommendation of Upcoming Sports Events
Sebastian Cornelius Bergh

Comparing Visual Search between Physixal Enviournments and VR
Floris van den Oever

A Collaborative System of flying and Ground Robots with Universal Physuxal Interface (PCI), and the Potential Interactive Applications.
Zimming Wang

VENUES

Atlantis Auditorium, Media City Bergen, Lars Hilles gate 30, 5008 Bergen

The dinner will be at Kulturhuset, Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen

Organising committee

Ola Roth Johnsen, Admin coordinator
Anna Pacholczyk, Communication Officer
John Magnus Dahl, Postdoctoral Fellow
Are Tverberg, Team Leader, TV 2
Morten Fjeld, Professor

REGISTRATION

Photo: Jan-Petter Dahl.

MediaFutures Seminar: Heads-up Computing: Towards the next interaction paradigm with Shengdong Zhao, an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore
2022-12-08 11:00 - 12:00
Shengdong Zhao, Associate Professor at the National University of Signapore, will give a seminar on 8 December.
TITLE: Heads-up Computing: Towards the next interaction paradigm
WHEN: 8 December, 11:00-12:00
WHERE: MediaFutures & Zoom:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/66175341824?pwd=VU91bGJ2clovczNZY3lPTVpjT2JTZz09
Meeting ID: 661 7534 1824Password: N4fMaE7q

ABSTRACT:
Interaction paradigms (the style of interaction between humans and computers) can significantly change the way we work and live. However, as much as we are empowered by interaction paradigms, we are also significantly constrained by them. Existing interaction paradigms limits our movements and activities, which can negatively affect our overall well-being. Desktop computing, described as “sitting at a desk, interpreting and manipulating symbols”, isolates human beings from interacting with other human beings and nature. Mobile computing, although free us from the office environment, demands constant eye-and-hand engagement, leading to the notorious phenomenon called “smartphone zombies”. We need a new style of interaction that can better support human activities in nature and with other people as well as reducing cognitive load by blending reactive operations with appropriately designed proactive initiatives that can offer just-in-time assistance. By carefully redesigning and integrating some of the latest technologies, including wearable computing, sensors, voice-based multimodal I/O, data analysis and prediction, and distributed networking, etc, the new Heads-up Computing interaction paradigm can be designed to work seamlessly with our everyday movements and activities. It allows humans to interact with information while engaging in a variety of activities; therefore, facilitates a holistic lifestyle where essential human needs in work and life can be more seamlessly blended and fulfilled.

BIO:
Shengdong Zhao is an associate professor of the Computer Science Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS). I am also a member of the NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences & Engineering. My PhD degree is in computer science from the University of Toronto. My master degree is from School of Information Management & Systems, University of California, Berkeley. I also had a dual major in computer science and biology from the Linfield College, Oregon, USA. I founded the NUS-HCI Lab at the National University of Singapore in January 2009. I am passionate about developing new interface tools and applications that can simplify and enrich people’s lives (i.e., Draco, won best iPad App of the year in 2016). I publish regularly in top HCI conferences and journals (ToCHI, CHI, UbiComp, CSCW, UIST, IUI, etc.). I am interested in connecting academy results with the industry, and have served as a senior consultant with the Huawei Consumer Business Group. I frequently participate in program committees of top HCI conferences, and have worked as the paper co-chair for the ACM SIGCHI 2019 and 2020 conferences. In my leisure time, I love to read, run, and explore the beautiful nature.

MediaFutures Seminar: Maleficent Neural Networks with Michael Riegler, Chief Research Scientist at SimulaMet
2022-12-12 13:15 - 14:15
Michael Riegler, a Chief Research Scientist at SimulaMet and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, will give a seminar on 12 December.
TITLE: Maleficent Neural Networks
WHEN: 12 December, 13:15-14:15
WHERE: MediaFutures and Zoom:

https://uib.zoom.us/j/69019718716?pwd=TFd0WlFWZWZYekdrZEdQZ0ZQa2VjQT09

Meeting ID: 690 1971 8716
Password: SpRcB0CD
ABSTRACT:

Neural networks nowadays are used almost everywhere. From our phones to even smart devices such as fridges, etc. Due to their complexity neural networks cannot just solve the task at hand but can also be manipulated to perform other tasks. In this talk I will talk about a new method that allows hiding malicious code in neural networks and running this code on target systems. I will focus on the basic ideas and methods and provide an overview of methods that can help to counter these types of attacks.
BIO:
Michael Alexander Riegler received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. He is currently working as a Chief Research Scientist at SimulaMet, Oslo and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway. His research interests are machine learning in combination with biomedical and social sciences. He is also a member of the Young Academy of Norway.

29th International Conference on Multimedia Modeling
2023-01-09 - 2023-01-12
When:
9. – 12. January 2023
Time: to be announced
What:
The International Conference on Mulitmedia Modeling (MMM) is a leading international conference for researchers and industry practitioners for sharing new ideas, original research results and practical development experiences from all MMM related areas. MediaFutures Research Centre is the co-organizer and co-sponsor of the conference in 2023.
The organizers now call for research papers reporting original investigation results and demonstrations reporting novel and compelling applications. Special sessions, keynote lectures and the Video Browser Showdown will also contribute to a high-quality program.
Read more at: https://www.mmm2023.no/home

MediaFutures Seminar: Information Seeking Is Much More Than Searching with Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing at the Dublin City University
2023-01-10 15:15 - 16:15
Alan Smeaton, a Professor of Computing at the Dublin City University, will give a seminar on January 10th.
TITLE: Information seeking is much more than searching
WHEN: 10 Januar, 15:15-16:15
WHERE: MediaFutures & Zoom:
Link: https://uib.zoom.us/j/69616776839?pwd=QWlRSWk1M2RQb0JYUkk1YzkzYmxFQT09
Meeting ID: 696 1677 6839
Password: Dqf1HzTr
ABSTRACT:

Information seeking is an essential, daily activity that billions of us pursue as part of our work and leisure activities. Information seeking is a journey, a conversation between a searcher and an information repository which can have many final destinations, or none. Searching is one component of information seeking and search or more broadly information retrieval, in its early years has had a focus on known item search or searching around a broad topic. This has been supported and nurtured by our benchmarking activities like TREC, TRECVid, CLEF, FIRE and others and the systems we have developed and that we use in our essential daily information seeking activities reflect this. In this presentation I reflect on the broader information seeing landscape and on how a twist of good (or bad) timing, has left us with the search tools we use but which do not necessarily deliver the best support for our information seeking. This broader perspective will then allow us to contextualise the roles that various forms of media search can play in our information seeking journeys. Towards the end of the talk I will cover generative media where instead of searching for media, we create it.
BIO:
Alan Smeaton is Professor of Computing at Dublin City University where he has previously been Head of School and Dean of Faculty. He is an IEEE Fellow, Principal Fellow of Advance HE and an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is the 2022 winner of the ACM SIGMM Technical Achievement Award for contributions to multimedia computing. Alan’s interests are in human memory and how we forget and remember some things and not others and this involves the use of machine learning and data analytics, and the applications of text, image, and video analysis in areas like learning analytics, personal sensing, and lifelogging.

MediaFutures Seminar: Designing for Collaborative Video Editing with Pavel Okopnyi, PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen
2023-01-18 14:15 - 15:15
Pavel Okopnyi, a PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen, will give a seminar on January 18th.
TITLE: Designing for Collaborative Video Editing
WHEN: 18 Januar, 14:15 – 15:15
WHERE: MediaFutures & Zoom:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/69273144707?pwd=cFdCKzlwZ0h6YXd6MVdTTmFZeWNvdz09
Meeting ID: 692 7314 4707
Password: daKA5X52

ABSTRACT:

The seminar will explore the design space of collaborative video editing through a series of design workshops with video editors. Collaborative video editing can be supported by adding awareness features or other well-known collaborative features found in existing software and introducing new features designed specifically for video editing software. We identify different design concepts that illustrate how such collaborative features can be included in non-linear video editing software and discusses the challenges of introducing such features. Some design concepts are explicitly inspired by existing collaborative tools. However, we suggest that introducing such features might not be straightforward. In other cases, alternative abstract representations of time-based media might be necessary to support collaborative video editing.
BIO:
Pavel Okopnyi is a PhD Candidate at the University of Bergen. His PhD thesis is focused on collaborative aspects of video production workflows. He has master’s degrees in Sociology and Human-Computer Interaction. Pavel’s interests include media production tools, education, software engineering, and video games.

MediaFutures Seminar: Public expectations of transparency and accountability in citizens’ councils on data-driven media personalisation: Findings and methodological reflections with Ranjana Das, Professor at the University of Surrey
2023-01-26 12:00 - 13:00
Ranjana Das, Professor at the University of Surrey and currently visiting Erasmus fellow at the University of Bergen, will give a seminar on January 26th.
TITLE: Public expectations of transparency and accountability in citizens’ councils on data-driven media personalisation: Findings and methodological reflections
WHEN: 26 Januar, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures
ABSTRACT:

This talk presents findings and reflections across a set of three journal papers which emerged from a rigorous, three-wave series of qualitative research into public expectations of data-driven media technologies, conducted across locations in England, by a team bringing together sociology, engineering and media practice. Located within the contexts of the AI4ME project, through a range of carefully chosen scenarios and deliberations around the risks and benefits afforded by data-driven media personalisation technologies, we paid close attention to citizens’ voices, as our multi-disciplinary team sought to engage the public on what ‘good’ might look like in the context of media personalisation. We paid particular attention to risks and opportunities, examining practical use-cases and scenarios, and our three-wave councils culminated in citizens producing recommendations for practice and policy. In this talk, I will focus on citizens’ ethical assessment, critique and improvements proposed on media personalisation methods in relation to benefits, fairness, safety, transparency and accountability, particularly within the broader contexts of their expectations around algorithms and algorithmic systems. I will conclude with some reflections on our citizens council methodology, particularly the use of “vignettes” as scenarios as a method of data collection in user-centric algorithm studies, in terms of their potential in inviting users’ contextual experiences of algorithms but also enabling more normative reflections on what “good” looks like in contemporary datafied societies.
Note: The talk draws upon three journal papers from the team under review currently, and results presented should not be circulated further.
BIO:
Ranjana Das is Professor in Media and Communication, in the Department of Sociology, at the University of Surrey. Her research interests span families, parenting and parenthood, mental health, digital technologies and media audiences and users. Her upcoming book Anticipating algorithms: Algorithmic literacies of datafied parenthood will be published by Rowman & Littlefield. Link to project website: https://ai4me.surrey.ac.uk/
More information on the speaker: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/ranjana-das

The seminar is arranged by WP1 Understanding media experiences in SFI MediaFutures. At the seminar we will serve a light lunch on a first come first served-basis.

Seminar UiB AI: ChatGPT – trussel eller mulighet i forskning og utdanning?
2023-02-03 10:00 - 12:00
Chatboten ChatGPT har vært mye omtalt i media den siste tiden og skapt debatt blant forskere og undervisere. Hvilke potensiale har avanserte chatboter som ChatGPT, og hvilke implikasjoner kan det ha for vår måte å forske, undervise og lære på?
I årets første UiB AI seminar setter vi søkelyset på et aktuelt tema der verktøy basert på kunstig intelligens kan ha betydning for forskning og utdanning. Kunstig intelligens og maskinlæring har bragt store fremskritt innenfor vitenskapelige metoder og resultater, og noe av dette har vært tema under seminarene til UiB AI i 2022. Det nye med ChatGPT og lignende verktøy er at de har blitt veldig gode til å kommunisere på menneskelige språk og at de er gratis tilgjengelig for alle.
Deltakelse i seminaret er gratis og det blir servert lunsj. Påmelding innen 31. januar.
Program:
Velkommen
Pinar Heggernes, professor, prorektor og leder for UiB AI
Hva er ChatGPT og hvordan fungerer det og lignende verktøy?
Samia Touileb, forsker ved MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation, UiB
ChatGPT kan mange språk men kjenner ikke mange kulturer
Jill Rettberg, professor I digital kultur og leder av ERC-prosjektet Machine Vision in Everyday Life, UiB
Hva kan slike AI-verkyøy bety for læring, tilbakemelding og vurdering?
Arild Raaheim, professor i pedagogikk, UiB
Hvilke implikasjoner kan AI-verktøy som ChatGPT og Elicit.org ha for forskning?
Barbara Wasson, professor og leder for Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE), UiB
Panelsamtale: ChatGPT – trussel eller mulighet i forskning og utdanning?
Eirik Vassenden, professor i nordisk litteratur, UiBDavid Grellscheid, førsteamanuensis i informatikk, UiBSamia TouilebJill RettbergArild RaaheimBarbara Wasson
Moderator: Pinar Heggernes

Innovation workshop with Vestlandets Innovasjonsselskap (VIS)
2023-02-07 09:00 - 13:00
MediaFutures and VIS would like to invite you to an innovation workshop taking place at MediaFutures on February the 7th.
Vestlandets Innovasjonsselskap (VIS) is a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) established in 2004 and owned by the University of Bergen, Haukeland University Hospital, the Institute of Marine Research, Siva, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and NHH Norwegian Business School.
The goal of the workshop is to raise awareness of the value of intellectual property (IP) which is created through research, as well as management of rights in collaboration with industry partners.
The workshop is targeted at PhDs, PostDocs, researchers, Professors and industry partners who are curious about the process of bringing an idea/ a prototype to market, and who want to learn more about IP-rights.
Themes and topics for the workshop:

1. The commercialization process

Research-driven innovation (TTO)
Industry-driven innovation
Ability and reputation
Research collaboration with industrial partner

2. IP rights

IP and research at UiB
Strategies and management of IP

3. Software and IPR

Patenting – requirements and prerequisites
Other protection strategies

4. Case discussions / group work
Please see the attached preliminary program for more details.
The workshop will be held at MediaFutures 7th February from 09:15-12:00, followed by a lunch for all participants.
If you would like to participate, please sign up by sending an e-mail to Ola Roth Johnsen, ola.johnsen@uib.no, or Knut Risnes, knut.risnes@uib.no.

MediaFutures Seminar: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries with Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger
2023-02-14 12:00 - 13:00
Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger will give a seminar on February 14th.
TITLE: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries
WHEN: 14 February, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures & ZOOM:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/63852177471?pwd=RlN2am9QUGRFaWF3QXVCT3lYazBaUT09
Meeting ID: 638 5217 7471
Password: bVRYrT8h

ABSTRACT:

Digital infrastructures consist of backbone structures comprising Internet Exchange Points, Content Delivery Networks, Data Centers, and subsea fiber cables. Contrary to access structures (typically broadband), these structures are not regulated beyond competition law. As the media industries grow more and more reliant on these structures, particularly for content streaming, the ownership, regulation, and data streams of the internet’s backbone remain serious blind spots in media infrastructure research. Helle Sjøvaag has spent the last year mapping these infrastructures for Norway. In this presentation, Sjøvaag will present her insights into these backbone structures, including their ownership and regulation, and discuss what the shifting ecology of the internet backbones means for media industries in Norway.In this talk, Helle Sjøvaag together with Raul Ferrer Conill, will present ongoing work from the project The datafication of communicative power: Towards an independent media policy for Norway’s digital infrastructures, funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Link to the project: https://www.uis.no/en/research/norways-digital-infrastructures
BIO:
Helle Sjøvaag is Professor of Journalism at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.
Raul Ferrer Conill is Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.

Cutting-edge AI: Large Language Models
2023-02-21 08:00 - 13:00
MediaFutures researchers Samia Touileb and Lilja Øvrelid will partake in a series event “Cutting-Edge AI” organized by the Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium (NORA).
The event concerns Large Language Models such as ChatGPT; the technology, its implication on society and the ethical aspect, and will take place on February 21st at Domus Bibliotheca, Oslo.
For more information visit: https://www.nora.ai/events/cutting-edge-ai-large-language-models.html

Visual storyteller or brander
2023-03-24 12:00
En presentasjon om to måter for hvordan redaksjonelle miljøer kan bruke tredjepartsplattformer for å nå unge mennesker med kvalitetsjournalistikk og mulige utfall for disse veivalgene. Presentasjonen bygger på Peder Haugfos’ masteroppgave ved NTNU/TU Berlin, og er basert på intervjuer og innholdsanalyse av NRK P3 og VGs avdeling Z. Peder Haugfos er nå prosjektleder ved Media City Bergen.
Det vil bli servert en lett lunsj.
Sted: MediaFutures og Zoom: https://uib.zoom.us/j/63972035820?pwd=WVNHaWNsd3o0TVBrTVQxTUJ5YVIxZz09

A presentation about two ways in which editorial environments can use third-party platforms to reach young people with quality journalism, and about possible outcomes of these choices. Peder’s talk builds on his master thesis founded on interviews and content analysis of the NRK P3’s and VG‘s Z departments.
Peder Haugfos is now a project manager at Media City Bergen.
There will be served a light lunch.

Place and date: MediaFutures and Zoom, 24 March @12:00.

AI learn: Fra forskning til anvendt teknologi
2023-03-28 09:00 - 11:00
Norwegian Cognitive Center inviterer til et frokostmøte “AI learn: Fra forskning til anvendt teknologi” hvor MediaFutures forsker og arbeidspakke 4-leder Njål Borch skal vise sitt arbeid rundt tilpasset medieinnhold.

Mer informasjon: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-learn-fra-forskning-til-anvendt-teknologi-tickets-518704548267?aff=erelexpmlt&fbclid=IwAR3fYf1-ZlMtGLUunHs6KXbFPNlB–z20ShCaFHYEN4weHcy1DX0IoWfeVQ

The Nordic Seminar on eXplainable AI (XAI)
2023-03-29 - 2023-03-30
The Nordic Seminar on eXplainable AI (XAI) aims to update each other on ongoing XAI research in Norway and create and build a community for XAI in Norway. The seminar is organised over two days (March 29 – March 30) as a joint effort between the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB and Department of Computer Science, NTNU.
For more information visit: https://research.idi.ntnu.no/nail/xai-seminar/

Personalisation Day. The first Nordic workshop on personalisation and recommender systems.
2023-03-30
We invite all researchers and practitioners in the Nordics to the first Nordic Personalisation day in Oslo for a full day of talks and discussions on personalisation and recommender systems. The day will be full of both research and industrial talks on personalisation. There will also be plenty of time to meet peers and exchange ideas during the conference during coffee breaks, lunch and after-workshop drinks. We know there are many innovative academic and industrial labs, and hope this workshop can be the first step toward creating a Nordic community on this highly relevant topic. The event is organised by Schibsted in collaboration with MediaFutures, NorwAI, and BigInsights.

For more information visit: https://sites.google.com/schibsted.com/personalisationday/home

Kritisk blikk på ChatGPT og AI-generert innhold
2023-03-30 14:00 - 15:00
Torsdag 30. mars klokken 14.00–15.30 inviterer vi deg til biblioteket på Universitet i Stavanger for å lære mer om hvordan du forholder deg til tjenester som ChatGPT og AI-generert innhold når du jobber som journalist.
Hanne Louise Åkernes (BT) og vår forsker Samia Touileb kommer for å snakke om tematikken fra to ulike perspektiv.
Hanne Louise Åkernes er leder for datajournalistene og avdelingen Nye digitale formater i Bergens Tidende. Hun skal fortelle om hvilke retningslinjer Bergens Tidende har for bruk av AI. Hun har vært med å utvikle retningslinjene for bruk av KI-genererte bilder og illustrasjoner, og snakker om hvorfor journalistene bør være forsiktige med å mate de ulike verktøyene.
Sami Touileb er forsker ved SFI MediaFutures. Hun har doktorgrad i språkteknologi, og har jobbet innen feltet i over 10 år. Hun har stor innsikt i maskinlæring og kunstig intelligens og skal gjøre svært kompleks tematikk forståelig på en folkelig måte.

Når: Torsdag 30. mars 14.00–15.30 Hvor: Universitetsbiblioteket, UiS Ullandhaug Hvem kan bli med: Medlemmer og partnere av Medieklyngen: https://app.checkin.no/event/55484/kristisk-blikk-pa-chatgpt-og-ai-generert-innhold

MediaFutures and SUJO Joint Guest Lecture: Countering Russian Disinformation with Maksym Balaklytskyi from Kharkiv National University
2023-04-12 12:00 - 13:00
Maksym Balaklytsky from Kharkiv National Univeristy in Ukraine will give a seminar on April 12th.
TITLE: Countering Russian Disinformation
WHEN: 12 April, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures

ABSTRACT:

Russian propaganda has played a major role in the country’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014. It takes many forms, including imperialism, globalism, and a longing for the Soviet Union. Disinformation is one of its most important tactics, and Russia portrays itself as both a superpower and a victim of sinister forces.
The current “Big Lie” is that all territories ever controlled by the Russian empire or USSR are now canonical territory of the Russian Federation. Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova are the main targets of this propaganda due to their common past and Russian-speaking populations. While Belarus tries to retain power and avoid competition with the West, Ukraine has been making efforts to strengthen its connections with the EU and NATO. Despite Russian interference, Ukraine is slowly moving away from Russian influence.
In response, Russia has openly attacked Ukraine, claiming to liberate it from a Nazi regime and condemning any attempts to diminish Ukraine’s connections to its Soviet past, Russian language, and Orthodox church. The main political crime of the Ukrainian government, in this view, is the drive to diminish the above-mentioned sacred ties with Russia. Any alternatives to these three are declared illegal, irrational, unfounded and immoral.
BIO:
Maksym Balaklytskyi is a Professor of the Journalism Department of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, the highest-ranked Ukrainian University in the QS World University Ranking – in 2023, so it has been some years already. He holds a PhD in Social Communications from Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Because of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, he came to the UK in January 2023, aiming to do research on countering Russian propaganda. Now he is a Visiting Fellow to the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, UK. He is a news editor at Hope Media Group, contributor to the prominent national and B2B media outlets in Ukraine, author of 4 books, 2 student textbooks, and tens of academic articles.

MediaFutures Seminar: Computing Biases in Recommender Systems with Marko Tkalčič, University of Primorska
2023-04-14 13:30 - 14:15
Marko Tkalčič from the University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia will give a seminar on April 14th.
TITLE: Computational Psychology in Recommender Systems
WHEN: 14 April, 13:30 – 14:1

ABSTRACT:

Recommender systems are systems that help users in decision-making situations where there is an abundance of choices. We can find them in our everyday lives, for example in online shops. State-of-the-art research in recommender systems has shown the benefits of behavioural modeling. Behavioural modeling means that we use past ratings, purchases, clicks etc. to model the user preferences. However, behavioural modeling is not able to capture certain aspects of the user preferences. Behavioral modeling can amplify existing biases in datasets. In this talk I will show how the usage of complementary research in computational psychology, such as detection of personality and emotions, can help recommender systems to mitigate both data/algorithm biases and cognitive biases.
BIO:
Marko Tkalčič is associate professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (FAMNIT) at the University of Primorska in Koper, Slovenia. He aims at improving personalized services (e.g. recommender systems) through the usage of psychological models in personalization algorithms. To achieve this, he uses diverse research methodologies, including data mining, machine learning, and user studies. He is editorial board member of the Springer UMUAI and Frontiers in Psychology journals and PC chair of the ACM UMAP 2021 conference.

Mid-term evaluation of PhD candidate Sohail Ahmed Khan
2023-04-25 14:30 - 16:00
We are delighted to invite you to the public part of the mid-term evaluation of Sohail Ahmed Khan on April 25th at 14:30. The event will take place at MediaFutures Meeting Room (MCB, 3rd floor).During the presentation, Sohail will discuss his work on “Computational Visual Content Verification,” which is part of MediaFutures’ WorkPackage-3. He will showcase his progress, main findings, and future plans, focusing on developing (semi) automated visual content verification prototypes using AI techniques such as deep learning, computer vision, and NLP. Sohail’s research aims to provide solutions for various research problems, including developing prototypes for deepfake and cheapfake detection. The resulting prototypes will be made available to industry partners for further tailoring and incorporation into their workflows.The presentation will start with a 30-minute talk by Sohail, followed by a 15-minute Q&A session where the audience can ask questions. After that, we will continue with the internal part of the evaluation.The evaluation committee includes Sohail’s main supervisor, Duc Tien Dang Nguyen (UiB), co-supervisor, Andreas Lothe Opdahl (UiB), additional mentors and supervisors Fazle Rabbi (UiB) and Sergej Stoppel (Wolftech), and additional committee member Morten Fjeld (UiB).Your presence and contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Meeting grand challenges together: actionable knowledge through collaboration in research and innovation
2023-04-26 09:00
The conference will explore collaboration across sectors to bring forth knowledge that is actionable and relevant for solving pressing issues. Academia and other actors in society need to jointly identify challenges and questions that are societally urgent and academically relevant, critically examine our different roles in knowledge production and the tools and frameworks that can enable meaningful cross-sectorial collaboration for actionable knowledge. Finally, we need to reflect on whose voices are included in defining the challenges and as sources of knowledge and wisdom and how we might broaden the debate. By convening a dialogue between academia and public and private actors, the conference aims to take stock of lessons learnt so far and bring forth insights on how we might create viable collaborative partnerships in the future.

Registration deadline : 23.04.
Register here.
Programme
9:00 Opening
9:15 Keynote – Complexity, urgency and the imperative to collaborate
Jeroen van der Sluijs Professor at the Centre for the Study of the Science and the Humanities, University of Bergen
9:45 Group work reflecting on the questions to be discussed in the following roundtable sessions
10:15 Roundtable 1 – Taking stock: what have we learnt in the last decades of collaboration and stakeholder engagement in research and innovation?
This roundtable discussion will explore experiences with collaboration and stakeholder engagement in research and innovation for actionable knowledge, and findings from research on such processes. We will discuss lessons learnt from previous projects in order to identify barriers and opportunities for meaningful collaboration in research. The panellists will reflect on when, from their various perspectives, it is relevant and beneficial to engage in collaborative knowledge production ventures.
Moderator:
Siri Gloppen Professor and Director at the Centre on Law & Social Transformation
Panelists:
Stina E. Oseland Director of the Climate Agency, Bergen Municipality
Marieke van Haaren Coordinator of the project Learning with the City, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Brooke E Wilkerson PhD fellow at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, University of Bergen
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Roundtable 2 – Roles and knowledge needs: what knowledge is needed to meet the challenges of our time and how can we build on our respective strengths?
Is there a tension between what is societally and academically relevant and urgent, and, if so, how might we navigate different needs also in situations that are not necessarily characterised by win-win? This roundtable will examine which questions and types of knowledge that should be the focus on cross-sector collaboration. Which knowledge needs are better met in-house and in which instances would collaboration with universities be meaningful? The panelists will examine the roles of different actors in producing actionable knowledge, and reflect on how to approach the power asymmetries between different partners and stakeholders that are involved in collaborative knowledge production.
Moderator:
Scott Bremer Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen
Panelists:
Nicole Klenk Associate professor and Co-director of the Environmental Science in Society Lab, University of Toronto, Canada
Anna Steynor Senior Climate Services Scientist at the Met Office, UK
Maud Borie Lecturer in Human Geography at the research group Contested Development, King’s College London, UK
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Roundtable 3 – Reaching out: how can we broaden the range of actors/perspectives involved in co-producing knowledge?
Collaborative projects between academia and other sectors of society are usually limited to formal, institutional actors. How does this affect the co-production of knowledge and how societies navigate grand challenges? Is there a risk of narrowing the debate or reinforcing the agendas of powerful actors? The session will examine practical opportunities to broaden the range of actors and perspectives engaged in the creation of actionable knowledge.
Moderator:
Håvard Haarstad Professor and Director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation
Panelists:
Esperanza Diaz Professor and Director of the Pandemic Center, University of Bergen
Christine Jacobsen Professor of Social Anthropology at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, University of Bergen
Simon Neby Professor at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, University of Bergen
14:30 Roundtable 4 – Institutionalising collaboration for actionable knowledge: from projects to partnerships
Collaborative knowledge production tends to be organised as relatively short-term projects. How does this influence the types of engagement that is possible? When might longer-term partnerships be more relevant? This session will examine how we can institutionalise cross-sectorial collaboration for actionable knowledge short- and long term. What types of institutional support are needed from universities and other societal actors?
Moderator:
Christoph Trattner Professor and Director of MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology and Innovation
Panelists:
Gunn Mangerud Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Bergen
Helge O. Svela CEO of Media City Bergen
Torleif Markussen Lunde Director of the Eitri Medical Incubator, VIS and University of Bergen
15:30 Group work reflecting on recommendations
16:00 Concluding plenary session: Recommendations
16:30 End of conference

Norway Fintech Festival - Game Show: Generative AI and the unknown use cases - All against 1
2023-04-26 15:30 - 16:00
On Wednesday April 26th, our researcher Samia Touileb will participate in a session on Generative AI at the Norway Fintech Festival.
You can read more about it and get tickets here.

MediaFutures Seminar: Chatting Communities into Existence: Local Chat Groups as Emerging Civic Infrastructures with Emilija Gagrčin from the University of Mannheim
2023-04-28 12:00 - 13:00
Emilija Gagrčin from the University of Mannheim will give a seminar on April 28th
TITLE: Chatting Communities into Existence: Local Chat Groups as Emerging Civic Infrastructures
WHEN: 28 April, 12:00 – 13:00

ABSTRACT:

This presentation explores the civic potential of messenger groups. It zooms into the everyday communication in local chat groups, focusing on the case study of building chat groups in urban neighborhoods from a comparative perspective. Drawing on interviews with building chat group members in Israel and Germany, we investigate how building communities are co-constructed between platform affordances and user practices, and how civic norms are negotiated between online and offline communication spaces. We map the uses, gratifications, and constraints of the chat groups and their relations with the spatial organization, informational flows, and socio-political environment in each community.
BIO:
Dr. Emilija Gagrčin is a research associate at the University of Mannheim and affiliated with the ERC project PREPARE at the University of Bergen.
Her research focus is on political media use. In particular, she is interested in social, normative, and infrastructural aspects of digital political communication, such as on social media and messenger apps. She focuses on norms and competencies necessary for a democratic coexistence in networked societies.
Dr. Emilija Gagrčin is affiliated with the Digital Political Inequality Lab at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the Weizenbaum Panel research group at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin. She is also a representative of Early-Career Scholars in the management team of the Political Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Conference (ECREA).
Organizer
This seminar is a collaboration between MediaFutures and the ERC project PREPARE.

Bergen HCI and Visualisation Days 2023
2023-05-09 - 2023-05-12
MediaFutures invities to HCI and Visualisation Days 2023
DAY 1: Tue 9th May 2023 (host: Morten)
10:15: Interacting with AI: A visualization perspective: talk by Michael Sedlmair
Meeting in smaller groups:
We invite you to present your respective PhD/PostDoc projects, followed by discussion, thereby aiming to:

i) making your ongoing work know to experts in your field
ii) providing your with qualified feedback

iii) potentially opening doors for future collaboration
14.00: Floris van den Oever, PhD-student, Psychology and InfoMedia, Maritime Initiative, UiB
AR for ship bridges
14.45: Ingar Arntzen, PhD-student, Norce Research, UiT and MediaFutures WP4 Bridging the gap between Interactive and Linear Media Experiences, by creating a programming model for timed application state
DAY 2: Wed 10th May 2023 (smaller groups continued; host: Morten)
10:00: Oda Elise Nordberg, PhD student, InfoMedia,UiB Conversational news interactions
10:45: Peter Okopny, PhD-student, InfoMedia, UiB
Why don’t we have “Google Docs” for Video?
12:15: Live demo of BSc-students AR prototypes; link to event
14:00: Rikke Aas, PhD-student, Informatikk, UiB
Responsible Engagement in Humanized Visualizations
14:45: Yong Ma, PostDoc, Medical faculty (K1), ANeED project, UiB
From Speech Emotion to Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) Detection
DAY 3: Thu 11th May 2023 (host: Helwig)
12.45: Visualization for Mobile Devices and Embedded Experiences: talk by Petra Isenberg
DAY 4: Fri 12 May 2023 (host: Helwig)
Afternoon: A hike, if the weather allows! Details to follow.
Velkommen!Morten Fjeld, InfoMedia, UiB and Helwig Hauser, Informatikk, UiB

SXSW 2023: Siste nytt om teknologi, medier og samfunn med Anders Hofseth fra NRKbeta
2023-05-09 12:00 - 13:00
SXSW 2023: Siste nytt om teknologi, medier og samfunn fra verdens største møteplass for smarte folk og klovner

Anders Hofseth fra NRKbeta går igjennom hovedlinjene fra SXSW 2023-konferansen.
Hvor: MediaFutures, Media City Bergen
Når: 9. mai, 12:00

Anders Hofseth er kommentator og strategisk rådgiver i NRKbeta, rikskringkasterens innsiktsmiljø for skjæringen teknologi – medier – samfunn. Mye av jobben hans er å samle innsikt, forsøke å forstå endringer, og sette dem i kontekst for NRK, så bedriften kan fortsette å løse allmennkringkasteroppdraget best mulig i skiftende tider.

Sammen med TekLab UiB inviterer vi til StudentDemo
2023-05-10 12:00 - 13:30
Sammen med TekLab UiB har vi gleden av til å invitere alle til StudentDemo den 10.mai.
Samarbeid med Akvariet i Bergen
På kurset MIX250: Bacheloroppgave i Medie- og interaksjonsdesign har studentene jobbet med Akvariet i Bergen med Aslak Sverdrup i spissen. Han er administrerende direktør for Akvariet, og har dette semesteret hatt et tett samarbeid med studentene om deres prosjekter. Tidligere i vår presenterte Aslak hvilke type tjenester Akvariet var interessert i at studentene skulle utforske, blant annet teknologi innen virtuell og utvidet virkelighet (VR/AR), interaktive skjermer og andre innovative løsninger for gode brukeropplevelser. Akvariets fremtidige planer om å bli til et nytt verdenshavsenter på Dokken ved navn “O” har også vært et sentralt tema for dette samarbeidet.
Resultatet av arbeidet er seks prototyper som er designet for ulike målgrupper og bruksområder, og den 10.mai skal studentene presentere sine løsninger for Akvariet på Media City Bergen!
Lars Nyre er faglærer på kurset sammen med medlærere Julia Hellem Brandt og Helene Høylandskjær, og lærer i designmetode Joao Ribeiro. Vi har også fått verdifulle bidrag fra Øyvind Steensen i Hidden, Ronald Toppe i Scary Weather, Audun Kløyve Gulbrandsen i Spello og Christen Hermansen i Future Solutions.
StudentDemoen arrangeres av TekLab ved Lars Nyre, Julia Hellem Brandt og Helene Høylandskjær i samarbeid med NCE Media ved Helge O. Svela og Charlotte Vindenes og MediaFutures.
TekLab er eit nettverk for forsking, utdanning og innovasjon innan medie- og kommunikasjonssektoren. Nettverket formidlar nyheitssaker og resultat frå prototyping og evaluering utført av studentar på bachelor og master, PhD-stipendiatar og seniorforskarar.
TekLab utviklar nye samarbeid som kan fremje teknologiutvikling i skjæringspunktet mellom forsking og utdanning. TekLab samarbeider med lokale og nasjonale teknologifirma innan medie- og kommunikasjonssektoren.
Program
12:00 – 12:05: Introduksjon ved Helge O. Svela og rektor ved Universitet i Bergen, Margareth Hagen.
12:05 – 12:35: Åpent gulv, demo av prototypene. Publikum får mulighet til å gå rundt og teste prototyper og prate med gruppene om deres prosjekt.
12:35 – 13:20: Pitch fra gruppene. Hver gruppe får 2 minutter til å pitche sine prototyper for ekspertpanelet og publikum. Ekspertpanelet vil etter hver pitch bruke 5 minutter på å stille spørsmål og gi tilbakemeldinger til gruppene.
13:20 – 13:30: Refleksjon om arbeidslivsrelevans. I samtale med Helge O. Svela skal rektor ved UiB, Margareth Hagen, tredjeårsstudent Martin Lund og andreårsstudent Fredrik Hajian reflektere om kurset og hvilken arbeidslivsrelevans den har.
Ekspertpanel
Margareth Hagen, rektor ved Universitetet i Bergen.
Aslak Sverdrup, administrerende direktør for Akvariet i Bergen.
Janicke Allers, investor og rådgiver for start-up bedrifter.
Leif Ove Larsen, professor i medievitenskap ved Universitetet i Bergen.
Prototypene
FiskAR: Oppdag havets hemmeligheter med FiskAR! Med vår prototype kan du med AR-teknologi oppleve dyrelivet i ditt nærområde på en interaktiv og engasjerende måte. Lær om ulike arter og hvordan forurensning truer havets økosystemer. Bli med på reisen for å øke bevisstheten rundt vår påvirkning på naturen. Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Hans Christian Haakonsen, Precilia Isaksen, Mathilde Solbakken Stenberg, Sara Tumey Celik Nystad og Julia Dietze Paulsen.
Oppdag O: Har du noen gang drømt om å utforske havets mange skatter og hemmeligheter? I Oppdag O blir verdenskartet levendegjort med framtidens AR-teknologi for å gi en utforskende og lærerik «heads-up, hands-free» opplevelse full av diskusjon, samarbeid, og fysisk bevegelse. Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Emma Husa, Sara Rachel Johnsen, Amalie Kjersem, Håkon Lystad og Alrik Strandnæs Olsen.
PingFinn: Pingfinn gir deg et innblikk i de unike personlighetene til pingvinene ved bruk av kunstig intelligens. Ta et bilde og bli kjent med pingvinene på Akvariet! Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Mohamedamin Ayanle Godor, Markus Jin Hovland, Hedvig Bache Hungnes, Maja Sandvik og Amanda Jørgensen Værøy.
Havkompis: Hvordan kan man skape engasjement og lærelyst om havet og dets beboere blant barn og unge på en underholdende måte? Havkompis er en interaktiv læringsplattform med formål om nettopp dette. Gjennom profiler om Akvariets ulike arter og enkle aktiviteter, har vi som formål å spre kunnskap og læring på en måte som fanger barnas oppmerksomhet og bidrar til lærelyst. Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Emily Wei Stokke Dishington, Adrian Reksten Ringdal, Iselin Ågotnes Steffensen, Marte Hestetun Svinø og Irene Ulveseth.
Ark: ARK er en plattform som skal bidra til en mer effektiv og trygg arbeidsflyt hos Akvariet, og dermed sikre god dyrevelferd og mer tid til formidling for de ansatte! Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Helena Graver Arvidsson, Kaja Qvigstad Eek, Mari Elise Bøe, Martin Lund og Anna Solvoll Saugestad.
Dypdykk: Den digitale læringsplattformen Dypdykk tilbyr skoleklasser et organisert, fleksibelt og morsomt opplegg i forbindelse med et besøk på Akvariet! Prototypen er designet og utviklet av Emilie Engberg Andersen, Lukas William Larsen, Marie Moksheim, Thea Torgrimsen Svinø og Johanna Utle.
Alle prorotypene vil bli publisert på TekLab sin nettside på slutten av semesteret. Stay tuned!

Visualization for Mobile Devices and Embedded Experiences
2023-05-11 12:45 - 13:45
Welcome to a new department seminar!

Abstract:
Mobile devices, such as smartwatches, fitness bands, and phones record a variety of data with the goal of making it immediately available to wearers. Smartwatch faces, for example, have become mini data dashboards that can give an overview of data such as step counts, heart rates, locations, sleep information or even device-external data such as the current temperature or weather predictions. Due to their small screen size and usage context, mobile device screens pose several novel and interesting challenges to visualization: visualizations need not only to be small and glanceable but also often to be read in motion. In this talk, I will present a summary of our past work on mobile device visualization and outline open research opportunities.

Bio:
Petra Isenberg is a research director(DR) at the Inria Saclay Centre at Université Paris-Saclay, France in the Aviz team and part of the Computer Science Laboratory (LISN) of the University Paris-Saclay. Her main research areas are visualization and visual analytics with a focus on visualization for non-desktop devices, interaction, and evaluation. Petra’s research papers have received awards at premiere venues in Visualization and HCI such as IEEE VIS, IEEE VAST, ACM CHI, or EuroVis. She is currently vice-chair of the IEEE VIS steering committee, AEiC at IEEE CG&A, and AE at Computer Graphics Forum. Prior to joining Inria, Petra received her PhD from the University of Calgary in 2010 on collaborative information visualization, and a Diplom Engineer degree in Computational Visualistics from the University of Magdeburg (2004).

Media City Bergens' Future Week: Workshop on Disinformation and Fake News
2023-06-05 12:00 - 2023-06-07 15:00
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has been a marked increase in the spread of disinformation and propaganda by the Kremlin. The abundance of fabricated narratives has renewed attention the potential that automated fact-checking technologies have in combating false information online.
As part of MCB Future Week, MediaFutures is organizing a workshop on June 5 to address the issue of disinformation and fake news. The workshop will bring together media tech professionals and scientists to discuss the latest research and innovations in the field.
Program
Kl 12:00 – Welcome – Christoph Trattner
Kl 12:10 – Faktisk.no/IJ – Henrik Brattli Vold
Kl 12:40 – NORDIS – Laurence Dierickx
Kl 13:10 – Coffee and snacks
Kl 13:25 – MediaFutures – Duc Tien Dang Nguyen and Sohail Ahmed Khan
Kl 14:05 – Factiverse/UiS – Vinnay Setty
Kl 14:35 – Discussion – Led by: Duc Tien Dang Nguyen
Kl 15:00 – End
Descriptions of the talks and speakers

Faktisk.no/IJ – How Faktisk Verifiserbar verifies the war
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Faktisk Verifiserbar has been developing methods andworkflows to counter propaganda and get precise and verified information out from social media and into Norwegian newsrooms. During the course of these months, the newsroom has educated more than 30 journalists in open-source intelligence (OSINT) gathering, and their knowledge is being used to raise knowledge and awareness of the methods in many large newsrooms all over Norway. Henrik Brattli Vold will show you how they succeeded, and how they taught themselves to work with free or inexpensive tools to unmask the Ukrainian stories.
Henrik Brattli Vold is working at the Institute of Journalism in Pressens Hus, and he is also a fellow ofthe Faktisk Verifiserbar newsroom. He has experience working in very different fields and mediums, and he is now a journalism trainer.

NORDIS – Fact-checking the Ukraine war
As part of the Nordic Observatory for Digital Media and Information Disorder (NORDIS), theUniversity of Bergen focused on the tools and technologies likely to support or augment fact-checking practices. The research in this context encompasses state-of-the-art fact-checkingtechnologies, a study on the Nordic fact-checkers user needs, and designing and developinga set of multimedia forensic tools to support a human-in-the-loop approach, considering theend-user requirements.
Professional fact-checking activities can be schematized in a three-stage pipeline, whichconsists of identifying claims, verifying claims, and providing a verdict. However, this processis challenged by the complex application domain to which it relates – scientific, economic,political, cultural, social – and by the nature of the fact to check, either textual or audiovisual.Hence, to better understand the fact-checkers user needs and requirements in context, westudied the challenges of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which relates to the attempts tomanipulate public opinions through propaganda. What particular challenges do fact-checkersface? Does the socio-professional context affect the difficulties that fact-checkers encounter?Do fact-checkers perceive that they have adequate resources to perform their job efficiently?
To answer these questions, the research method included structured interviews with fact-checkers and an online questionnaire distributed during the Global Fact 9 Conference,organized in June 2022 in Oslo. 85 fact-checkers from 46 countries participated in thissurvey. Initial results showed that the main challenges they face concern access to reliablesources on either side of the conflict. They also underlined struggling to verify the informationpresented in manipulated context. Being a part of a global fact-checking network is viewedas an asset for exchanging information. Fact-checkers had mixed advice on the sufficiency ofthe tools at their disposal. However, they agreed on the need for new technological tools toprovide context and accurate translations.
Laurence Dierickx has a professional background in data and computational journalism. She holds a master’s degree in Information and communication science and technology and a PhD in Information and communication science. She is a researcher at the department of Information science and media studies at the University of Bergen and a data journalism teacher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium).

MediaFutures: The Future of Mis/Disinformation: The Risks of Generative Models and Detection Techniques for Countering Them

In this talk, we will explore the current progress of generative models and theirpotential in spreading misinformation and disinformation. Since recently, new generativemodels including GANs, Diffusion Models, Large Language Models have demonstratedremarkable progress in generating realistic fake (deepfake) content such as visuals, audios,and text. We will highlight the potential dangers that come with these powerful models, aswell as provide an insight into the research efforts being devised in order to detect fakecontent generated using these models. Also, the challenges associated with detecting suchcontent and the various efforts being devised to combat it will be briefly discussed. Overall,the talk will highlight the importance of being vigilant against the spread of mis/disinformation and the critical role that the detection models might play in mitigating its impact.

Sohail is a PhD candidate at MediaFutures and University of Bergen. He holds an MSc in Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sheffield, UK. Prior to joining MediaFutures, Sohail worked as a research assistant at Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Before that, he worked as a remote research assistant at CYENS Centre of Excellence, Nicosia, Cyprus. His research interests intersect deep learning, computer vision and multimedia forensics. Sohail is currently associated with the MediaFutures’ WorkPackage 3, i.e., Media Content Production and Analysis.

MediaFutures: Detecting Cheapfakes – Lessons Learned from Three Years of Organizing the Grand Challenge
This talk discusses the challenges and lessons learned from three years of organizing agrand challenge focused on detecting out-of-context (OOC) images. Cheapfakes, which referto non-AI manipulations of multimedia content, are more prevalent than deepfakes and canbe created using editing software or by altering the context of a media through misleadingclaims. Detecting OOC media is much harder than fake media because the images andvideos are not tampered with.
Our challenge aims to develop and benchmark models that can detect whether a given newsimage and its associated captions are OOC, based on the recently compiled COSMOSdataset. Participants have developed state-of-the-art methods, and we will discuss theevaluation metrics used in the challenge. We have also learned valuable lessons on thecomplexities and nuances of detecting OOC images and the importance of creating diverseand representative datasets.
Additionally, we will share insights on the interdisciplinary collaboration needed to combatcheapfakes effectively. The talk highlights the significance of detecting OOC media in newsitems, specifically the misuse of real photographs with conflicting captions.

Duc-Tien Dang-Nguyen is an associate professor of computer science at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen. His main area of expertise is on multimedia forensics, lifelogging, multimedia retrieval, and computer vision. He is a member of MediaFutures WP3 – Media Content Analysis and Production in Journalism and The Nordic Observatory for Digital Media and Information Disorder (NORDIS). He is the author and co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed and widely cited research papers. He is a PC member in a number of conferences in the fields of lifelogging, multimedia forensics, and pattern recognition. He is co-organiser of over 40 special sessions, workshops and research challenges from ACM MM, ACM ICMR, NTCIR, ImageClef and MediaEval during the last 10 years. He is General Chair of MMM 2023 and TPC co-Chair of ACM ICMR 2024.

Factiverse/UiS: Explainable AI for Automated Fact-Checking
Automated fact-checking using AI models has shown promising results to combatmisinformation, thanks to several large-scale datasets which are available. However, most models are opaque and do not provide reasoning behind their predictions. Moreover, with the recent popularity of LLMs such as GPT-3/4 by OpenAI, Llama by Meta and Bard by Google, there is renewed worry of misinformation. In this talk, I will enumerate the existing approaches w.r.t XAI for fact-checking and discuss the latest trends in this topic. The talk will also delve into what makes a good explanation in the context of fact-checking, and identify potential avenues for future research to address the current limitations.
Vinay Setty is a co-founder and the CTO of Factiverse. He is also an Associate Professor at University of Stavanger. His research area broadly includes natural language understanding (NLU), information retrieval (IR) and text mining involving unstructured textual documents as well as structured knowledge graphs. Specifically, automated fact-checking, question answering and coversational search over knowledge graphs. These days he is spending more time on his startup Factiverse with the mission to automate fact-checking using cutting edge AI and NLP. He has won the SR-Bank Innovation Prize for 2020 using the deep neural networks for fake news detection. He has a PhD from University of Oslo and he was a Postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany.

You can sign up for the workshop here.

Data Science and AI in excellence research centers in Chile: IMFD, CENIA and I-Health
2023-06-07 12:00 - 14:00
Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Denis Parra is principal researcher at the excellence research centers CENIA (National Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence in Chile), iHealth, and adjunct researcher at the IMFD (Millennium Institute for Research on Data Fundamentals). Prof. Parra research interests span Recommender Systems, Intelligent User Interfaces, Applications of Machine Learning (Healthcare, Creative AI) and Information Visualization.

MediaFutures Seminar: Hidden in Plain Sight: Microcelebrities navigating visibility and surveillance on Twitter with Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bergen
2023-06-09 12:00 - 13:00
Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen from the University of Bergenwill give a seminar on June 9th.
TITLE: Hidden in Plain Sight: Microcelebrities navigating visibility and surveillance on Twitter
WHEN: 9 June, 12:00 – 13:00
WHERE: MediaFutures
ABSTRACT:
On social media, microcelebrities and influencers play various roles and hold immense power as “focusers of attention” (Tufekci, 2013). This project was formed as an intervention to the growing interest these content creators receive in academic research for their ability to guide their audiences towards products and lifestyles they promote, while the similar effects they may produce when sharing political opinions, viewpoints and behaviors are neglected.
This talk is based on Özlem’s PhD research into Turkish Twitter microcelebrities and how they express antigovernment viewpoints and navigate the tensions between self-expression and self-preservation under an authoritarian regimese. Drawing from an analysis of tweets by 97 microcelebrity accounts in the 3-months leading up to the 2018 Turkish elections, she discusses how these accounts consider sharing political opinions and news as a duty despite apparent risks and express their thoughts through a narration of everyday life and daily events by formulating a language that is understood by subgroups who are acclimated to the platform culture.
BIO:
Özlem Demirkol Tønnesen is a postdoctor fellow at the ERC-project PREPARE – Distributed and prepared. A new theory of citizens` public connection networks in the age of datafication. She completed her PhD at the University of Southampton.

Symposium - Towards a Fairer Future of Education: Algorithmic Inequality and Learning Analytics
2023-06-13
Where & When: Scandic Hotel Ørnen in Bergen, Wednesday June 13th.
Invitation: SLATE Research Centre and MediaFutures invite you to the symposium “Towards a Fairer Future of Education: Algorithmic Inequality and Learning Analytics”!
The emerging applications of Learning Analytics and AI in education that employ student data to improve learning and teaching is gaining worldwide attention. How can data and analytics be used to empower learners, and what is their impact on education? How can we ensure that AI and Learning Analytics are used to support learning while preserving their responsible usage? What are the challenges associated with striking this balance? What can constitute an equitable and fairer use of AI systems in education and Learning Analytics?
These are just some examples of the thought-provoking questions that we will highlight during the symposium!
The event will be held in-person at Scandic Hotel Ørnen in Bergen on Wednesday June 13th. This is a physical symposium, not a digital webinar, and lunch, coffee, tea and snacks will be served.
The symposium program will be announced as we get closer to the event itself, but the registration form is already open!
Registration deadline is June 8th.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE:

Mohammad Khalil

Mohammad Khalil is a senior researcher at the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE) and the project leader of European Erasmus+ project Remote Intelligent Access to Labs in Higher Education (RIALHE). Khalil has a PhD degree in Engineering Sciences with distinction from Graz University of Technology. He worked as a Postdoc at Delft University of Technology in Technology Enhanced Learning. Khalil is the PI of three Peder Sather projects in joint collaboration with University of California Berkeley on Learning Analytics and Recommendation systems in higher education. He has also been involved in several European projects: Scaling up Educational Innovation in Schools (SEIS), Open Educational Resources in Computational Biomedicine (OERCompBiomed), and European Network for Virtual lab & Interactive SImulated ONline learning 2027 (ENVISION2027).
Khalil is currently an associate editor of the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) and served as a guest editor at the Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Journal of Learning Analytics, and the British Journal of Educational Technology. Khalil has more than 75 publications on ICT & learning. His key research interests include Technology Enhanced Learning, AI in Education, Learning Analytics, and Privacy and Ethics.

Mehdi Elahi

Mehdi Elahi is an Associate Professor at the University of Bergen (UiB), Norway. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 2014 and since then published more than 90 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. His current #citation is 2900+ and his H-index is 25. His research has been mainly focused on AI, Data Science, and Cognitive Science, with an emphasis on their potential industrial applications such as on Recommender Systems. He has also co-invented and co-owned an AI-related US-patent. Mehdi Elahi has been involved in the authorship of several EU grant proposals such as the large-scale grants, recently funded with a budget of 30 Million Euro, where he will serve as WP Leader for 8 years. Before that, he has received prestigious research credits from giant IT industries (i.e., Amazon and Google). His research findings have been published in some of the most prestigious reference literature of the field including a recently authored book. He has organized International Data Challenges together with top Companies (i.e., Spotify and XING).

Barbara Wasson

Barbara Wasson, Director of the Centre for The Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, Norway is a full Professor in the Department of Information Science & Media Studies. She was one of the founders of Kaleidoscope, a European Network of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning, sat on the executive committee, and was leader of its CSCL SIG with over 400 members. She is currently co-leader of the Learning Analytics Community Europe SIG (LACE). Wasson is an expert evaluator in the European Commission. Wasson is/has been a PI for numerous national and international projects including the recent Trond Mohn project ‘AI and Education: Layers of Trust’. She has over 120 publications in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning.
In addition to her work for the Council of Europe, she is a member of the Norwegian Government’s expert group on learning analytics, which is looking at the technical, pedagogical, legal and ethical aspects of the implementation of learning analytics in the Norwegian educational sector.

For more information click here.
