Regular expressions (REs) are often taught to undergraduate computer science majors in the Formal Languages and Automata (FLA) course; they are widely used to implement different software functionalities such as search mechanisms and data validation in diverse fields. Despite their importance, the difficulty of REs has been asserted many times in…

Laboratory automation and data science are valuable new skills for all chemists, but most pedagogical activities involving automation to date have focused on upper-level coursework. Herein, we describe a combined computational and experimental lab suitable for a first-year undergraduate general chemistry course, in which these topics are…

A significant activity in the business analytics process is enrichment, which deals with acquiring and combining data from external sources. While different strategies for enrichment are possible, it can be accomplished more efficiently through automation using Python scripts. Since business students may not be immersed in technology skills and…

STEM fields, such as physics, increasingly rely on complex programs to analyse large datasets, thus teaching students the required programming skills is an important component of all STEM curricula. Since undergraduate students often have no prior coding experience, they are reliant on error messages as the primary diagnostic tool to identify and…

The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented global health crisis, has not only significantly impacted public health but has also caused substantial disruptions to conventional education systems. In response to these challenges, our institution has undertaken innovative measures within the realm of education. A pivotal aspect of our response involves…

Human-guided machine learning can improve computing intelligence, and it can accurately assist humans in various tasks. In education research, artificial intelligence (AI) is applicable in many situations, such as predicting students' learning paths and strategies. In this study, we explore the benefits of repetitive practice of short-answer…

The increasing integration of software and automation in modern chemical laboratories prompts special emphasis on two important skills in the chemistry classroom. First, students need to learn the technical skills involved in modern scientific computing and automation. Second, applying these techniques in practice requires effective collaboration…

Nolan and Temple Lang's "Computing in the Statistics Curricula" (2010) advocated for a shift in statistical education to broadly include computing. In the time since, individuals with training in both computing and statistics have become increasingly employable in the burgeoning data science field. In response, universities have…

Lectures of courses at universities are increasingly being recorded and offered through various distribution channels to support students' learning activities. This research work aims to create an automatic system for producing and distributing high quality lecture recordings. Opencast Matterhorn is an open source platform for automated video…

This paper describes how digital talking books (DTBs) with embedded functionality for learners can be generated from content structured according to the OU OpenLearn schema. It includes examples showing how a software transformation developed from open source components can be used to remix OpenLearn content, and discusses issues concerning the…