Nathan Carter (Bentley University): Lurch: software for immediate feedback for students in a first proof course (School Seminar)

Abstract:

Lurch is an open-source word processor that can check the steps in students’ mathematical proofs. Users write in a natural language, but mark portions of a document as meaningful, so the software can distinguish content for human readers from content it should analyze.

This talk begins with an overview of the most recent release of the system, the ways in which it impacts students’ learning of mathematical proofs, and how it needs to be improved in the future. I will then cover how we are making those improvements in the next version, which will lead naturally to an introduction of the Lurch Web Platform, a foundational set of tools that we will use to bring the project to the web.

That platform is available on GitHub for other mathematical software developers to use in their own projects. It includes a web editor with mathematical typesetting, an interface for marking up documents with mathematical (or other structured) meaning, OpenMath support, meaning visualization tools, and document dependence and sharing features, among others.

Speaker Bio:

Nathan Carter uses computer science to advance mathematics. He writes open source mathematics software for university mathematics education, in areas including mathematical logic and abstract algebra visualization. He is a past winner of the Mathematical Association of America’s Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member and his first book, Visual Group Theory, won the 2012 Beckenbach Book Prize from that same society. His second book, Introduction to the Mathematics of Computer Graphics, was published in 2016. His current book project will be an edited volume entitled Data Science for Mathematicians, intended to help mathematics faculty make the transition into teaching and doing research in the fast-growing field of data science.

Event details

  • When: 25th September 2018 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

Science and Innovation mission to Japan

Sue Kinoshita, Minister Counsellor economic affairs and Professor Quigley

This week Professor Quigley joined a mission to Japan with other academics from the University of Oxford, Edinburgh, UCL and Manchester. The week long event was organised by the UK’s Science and Innovation team in Japan, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Over five days the delegation visited and presented at seven companies along with three seminars and workshops. Across nine presentations Professor Quigley presented to hundreds of people and introduced some of the Human Computer Interaction research in SACHI, along with research from the AI research group. This mission has the goal to strengthen research collaboration and innovation partnership between the UK and Japan.

During his talks, Aaron provided examples from our engineering doctorate program, our MSc program, work on research interns, PhD students and academics from across Computer Science.

 

Sethu Vijayakumar, Edinburgh University, Sue Kinoshita, Minister Counsellor economic affairs, Professor Aaron Quigley, Seiichi Asano, Senior science Officer and Joesph Robertson, Science & Innovation Officer.

Griff Jones, First Secretary, science innovation & global challenges, Sethu Vijayakumar, Edinburgh University, Sue Kinoshita, Minister Counsellor economic affairs, Professor Aaron Quigley, Seiichi Asano, Senior science Officer and Joesph Robertson, Science & Innovation Officer.

Global Human Computer Interaction at World Usability Day Estonia

Professor Quigley will be a distinguished speaker at the World Usability Day in Tallinn, Estonia this November as part of the ACM DSP. Aaron was appointed to the Distinguished Speaker Program (DSP) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) earlier this year. The DSP brings together international thought leaders from academia, industry, and government.

In Estonia, Aaron will present a talk on Global Human Computer Interaction. This is the study of HCI when considering global challenges, languages, concerns, cultures and different economic drivers. This talk explores new technologies and the next generation of interfaces beyond the desktop, in a global context. The World Usability Day was founded by the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) and the theme for 2018 is “Design for Good or Evil”. It brings together UX professionals and the topics range from usability to user experience, and innovative technologies to studies in human computer interaction.

The next big thing or the next big gimmick?

Dr Tom Kelsey will be holding a panel discussion at Computing’s first ever Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Live conference on Monday 19th November in London. Through a variety of expert key-notes, end-user case studies, and panel discussions the conference will highlight key developments within AI.

Tom’s panel discussion: The next big thing or the next big gimmick?

Read more about the conference and programme of events at http://events.computing.co.uk/computingai/programme

MSc Poster Demo Session 2018

After a year of hard work, and an intensive summer project, our MSc students submitted their final dissertation and presented their project posters and artefacts.

Last month’s busy poster demonstration session pictured below, provided a great opportunity for students to meet with second markers, reflect upon their MSc experience and appreciate the diverse projects completed by their peers.


We wish them all, every success with future plans, and look forward to seeing them again at December Graduation.

Images courtesy of Lisa Dow and Xu Zhu

Alumni visit School of Computer Science

A group of alumni who studied in the school over 20 years ago (graduating classes of 1994, 1995 and 1996) organised an informal reunion last month. During their stay in town they organised a visit to the school, where they sampled the school coffee, acquired a coveted CS mug and reminisced around the photo boards. The group were given an overview of the present day Computer Science at St Andrews and proceeded on a tour of the department with current Head of School, Simon Dobson, Professor Emeritus, Ron Morrison and Dave Munro.

Dr Roy Dyckhoff

Our friend and colleague Roy Dyckhoff died in hospital last month. He had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which was being managed through blood transfusions. His death was however sudden and unexpected.

Roy was educated at Winchester College, before studying at King’s College, Cambridge. He undertook postgraduate study at New College, Oxford. He was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Pure Mathematics in St Andrews in 1975, moving to Computer Science in 1981.

Roy worked in logic and proof theory, having begun his career as a topologist and category theorist (for which one of his thesis advisors was Dana Scott). Much of his work concerned various aspects of intuitionistic logic, but he also contributed to work in programming languages, type theory, natural language processing, and model checking. He was also instrumental in changing the peal of the bells in St Salvator’s chapel, the college church of the University, which he frequently rang at graduations and other events, including the celebration of the 550th anniversary of the consecration of the chapel.

He had retired from St Andrews but retained an honorary position with us, and was a frequent visitor and seminar-goer until very recently. We’ll remember him as someone who was always ready to dive into deep mathematical or philosophical discussions, as well as being someone who could explain the essence of advanced mathematical concepts even to those with a lot less mathematical sophistication than he himself possessed. His engagement with the School and the wider academic community in Scotland and worldwide should have gone on for much longer than it did, and we’ll miss the conversations and interactions that we’ll no longer have with him.

Roy’s funeral will be held on Thursday 6 September at Kirkcaldy Crematorium at 11.45am, and plans are being developed for a Service of Thanksgiving at St Salvator’s Chapel later this year. There’s a card in the front office ready for his funeral later this week.

For those who’d like to mark his passing in some way, the family have suggested giving blood as a suitable marker. Alternatively, they are collecting for the Scottish Mountain Bothies Association, which was a charity he supported for many years.

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/roydyckhoff

Fable-based Learning: Seminar by Prof Jimmy Lee

CUHK + UniMelb = Fable-based Learning + A Tale of Two Cities

Prof Jimmy Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong

This talk reports on the pedagogical innovation and experience of a joint venture by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the University of Melbourne (UniMelb) in the development of MOOCs on the computer science subject of “Modeling and Solving Discrete Optimization Problems”.  In a nutshell, the MOOCs feature the Fable-based Learning approach, which is a form of problem-based learning encapsulated in a coherent story plot.  Each video lecture begins with an animation that tells a story based on the Chinese classic “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, in which the protagonists in the novel encounter a problem requiring technical assistance from the two professors from modern time via a magical tablet bestowed upon them by a fairy god.  The new pedagogy aims at increasing learners’ motivation as well as situating the learners in a coherent learning context.  In addition to scriptwriting, animation production and situating the teaching materials in the story plot, another challenge of the project is the remote distance and potential cultural gap between the two institutions as well as the need to produce all teaching materials in both (Mandarin) Chinese and English to cater for different geographical learning needs.  The MOOCs have been running recurrently on Coursera since 2017.  Some learner statistics and feedbacks will be presented.  The experience and preliminary observations of adopting the online materials in a Flipped Classroom setting at CUHK will also be detailed.

This video at Youtube shows the trailer for the Coursera Course:

Biography:

Jimmy Lee has been on the faculty of The Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1992, where he is currently the Assistant Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Engineering and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.  His major research focuses on constraint satisfaction and optimization with applications in discrete optimization, but he is also involved in investigating ways of improving students’ learning experience via proper use of technologies.  Jimmy is a two-time recipient (2004 and 2015) of the Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award and most recently the recipient of the University Education Award (2017) at CUHK.

Event details

  • When: 21st August 2018 13:30 - 14:30
  • Where: Cole 1.33b
  • Format: Seminar

Seminar: SMT, Planning and Snowmen

Professor Mateu Villaret, from Universitat de Girona is a visiting scholar with the AI group from July 1st until September 30th. Professor Villaret works on algorithms for routing and scheduling with the AI group at St Andrews.

As well as solving practical problems, he also enjoys puzzle games. That is the basis of this talk, about using Planning and SMT to solve the “Snowman” puzzle.

Event details

  • When: 6th August 2018 11:00 - 12:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: AI Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar