Welcome to the UCL Centre for Humanities Education blog

By Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, on 15 November 2025

Founded in 2023 with support from The Lord Randolph Quirk Endowment Fund at UCL, CHE serves as a laboratory for developing innovative approaches to education across the humanities.

This blog is a hub for that work. This is the place to read about creative methodologies, inventive use of digital technologies, and bold new ways to advance inclusion, enhance equity, and push for the decolonisation of the academy.

With more than thirty illustrated posts by educators and students on a wide range of topics, the blog serves as a resource, a forum for sharing best practice, and a space to discuss the present and future of humanities education.

Check back regularly for new articles exploring cutting-edge approaches and innovations in humanities teaching.

Find out more about the Centre and what we do in this video from our Celebration of Humanities Education event.

The blog is administered by the Vice-Dean Education and Founding Director of the Centre for Humanities Education, Prof. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen. 

The case for the video essay

By david.edgar.09, on 18 November 2025

Temenuga Trifonova, Professor of Film Studies UCL, reflects on the creative and intellectual potential of videographic criticism for researchers and students alike 

Located at the intersection of art, theory, and research, videographic criticism combines creative and academic research practices and supports the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic expression, scholarly investigation, and experimentation. In November 2024, I joined pioneering scholars and filmmakers Catherine Grant and Kevin B. Lee for a panel event at the Institute of Advanced Studies, supported by the UCL Centre for Humanities Education, to discuss the use and value of videographic criticism. In this blog post I reflect on the potential of videographic criticism as a research methodology and assessment method, drawing on the presentations and conversations at this event.  

Throughout our conversation, and during the Q&A session following it, we interrogated the false distinction between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ and underscored the importance of recognizing humanities research as an experimental, creative practice leading to new ideas, methods, and pedagogies. Videographic criticism challenges the conventions of academic discourse and invites us to rethink traditional models of knowledge production by creating a space where critical thought and creative expression intersect. Unlike traditional essays, video essays communicate through rhythm, montage, sound, and the visual texture of moving images: the images themselves embody thought rather than serving as mere illustrations of ideas and concepts. On the other hand, like textual essays, video essays can take various forms, from the expository, through the argumentative, to the conceptual and the poetic.  

We explored the history of videographic criticism and the new types of knowledge it produces. The video essay is not simply a way of presenting research findings but an autonomous research practice – processing audiovisual material constitutes a form of inquiry through which scholars can produce new insights unavailable through textual means alone. In short, videographic criticism is not just a method or a fashionable trend but a new, transformative way of knowing. 

For videographic scholarship to flourish, however, it needs institutional recognition – universities and funding bodies need to recognize videographic criticism as a legitimate, rigorous contribution to knowledge rather than as merely supporting or illustrating traditional research. At the event in November, Grant and Lee emphasized the need for supportive frameworks, resources, and evaluative criteria that acknowledge the intellectual depth and transformative potential of audiovisual scholarship. These concerns naturally led to a discussion of the ways in which videographic criticism can be incorporated in teaching and assessment, given that audiovisual scholarship changes not only the way we do research but also the way we, and our students, learn. Particular emphasis was placed on the importance of rethinking the process of learning as a process of exploration rather than a pursuit of mastery, and thus marking not the technical competence of the finished product but rather students’ process of reflection and self-awareness, the way in which they are able to articulate their own creative decisions, in short, their meta-cognitive skills.  

Many audience members, including students and course instructors, suggested that videographic criticism might best serve students at advanced stages of study, once they have developed confidence with textual and theoretical frameworks, by encouraging them to experiment with academic conventions and norms.  

Have thoughts about using video in research and assessment? Comment below! 

Our panellists and their work

Catherine Grant and Kevin B. Lee are pioneers in videographic criticism.  

Catherine Grant is an Honorary Professor at Aarhus Universitet and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, founder of the [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies. catherinegrant.org 

Check out her video essay on Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman.  

Kevin B. Lee is Professor of the Future of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts at Università della Svizzera Italiana, a filmmaker, and media artist. He has produced over 360 video essays. alsolikelife.com 

Check out Lee’s Transformers: The Premake, a film which introduced the “desktop documentary” format and was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by Sight & Sound.  

Resources 

Curious to explore this topic more? Below you can find some further resources on the growing field of videographic criticism as both critical and pedagogical tool.  

[in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies
A leading, fully open access, peer reviewed academic journal that publishes videographic criticism, founded by Catherine Grant.  

Dean, R. T., and Hazel Smith, ed. Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
Examines how creative practice can function as both a method of inquiry and a form of knowledge production, bridging artistic creation and academic research within the creative arts. 

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age. Zürich: Institute for Theory of Art and Design, 2003.
Explores how the video essay serves as a hybrid form of artistic and critical practice, merging theory, image, and politics to rethink authorship and knowledge production in the digital era. 

Nicholas Vick, “The Video Essay”
Discusses video essays as alternative/complementary assignments to written papers across disciplines, and their potential for assessment in undergraduate contexts. 

Ashley Hinck, “Framing the Video Essay as Argument”
Outlines a framework for teaching video essays as rigorous argumentation comparable to written essays and discusses how to assess them. 

About the author:
Temenuga Trifonova is Professor of Film Studies at University College London and the author of Precarity in Western European Cinema (2025, Amsterdam University Press), Screening the Art World (2022, Amsterdam University Press), The Figure of the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema (2020, Bloomsbury Academic), Contemporary Visual Culture and the Sublime (2018, Routledge), Warped Minds: Cinema and Psychopathology (2014, Amsterdam University Press), European Film Theory (2009, Routledge), The Image in French Philosophy (2007, Rodopi), and the novels Tourist (2018, Black Scat Books) and Rewrite (2014, NON Publishing). 

Beyond Words: How Visual Storytelling is Transforming University Learning: A Q&A with Dr Eleanor Chiari

By Admin, on 29 July 2025

UCL students participated in a zine-making workshop at our recent Celebration of Humanities Education.

Our collaboration started from a call for a Global Engagement seed fund for interdisciplinary pedagogical collaborations matched by UCL and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. During lockdown, Professor Subir Dey taught a module on Comics for Mental Health in the Department of Design at IIT Delhi and he found me through my UCL module on Trauma in Visual Culture. From different angles and in very different contexts, we were both considering the power of visual images to process complex private and public traumas. Given the challenges some of our students were facing with classroom engagement after the pandemic and with the threat of generative AI looming on the horizon, we wanted to explore ways our disciplines (design and cultural studies/visual culture) might come together in productive and joyful ways. We came up with a project that helped us explore how graphic visual storytelling might be used in the classroom. Professor Dey was interested in helping his students become more critical readers of images, and I was immediately thrilled by the possibilities that design approaches might offer to the creative assessments I was using with my students.

Participants at the Delhi Workshop, supported by the Global Engagement Seed Fund.

2. You mentioned the challenges students were facing after the pandemic. Could you tell us more about the current needs of students for emotional support and how your project addresses these needs?

Subir and I both hold active pastoral roles in our universities, he as undergraduate tutor for the Department of Design at IIT Delhi and I as Programme Director for the BA Language and Culture in UCL’s School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS). We both found that the pandemic accelerated processes that were already manifesting in our classrooms in recent years. Anxiety in particular seemed to be on the rise, not helped by insecurity over the future and increasing pressures over the cost of living.

Many students seem to find the classroom environment more emotionally charged than they used to. Establishing moments of joy and connection early on during the educational process can help students feel safer and better able to open up in front of classmates. The zine exercise we showcased at the Celebration of Humanities Education can be adapted in a variety of ways to get students to introduce themselves to fellow classmates (and could be assigned as homework if there isn’t time in class). In Delhi, we asked students to answer the question ‘who are you?’ and it was fascinating to see how many students chose to introduce themselves through the harder challenges they had faced in their lives. Showing fellow students their drawings and telling their stories allowed them to break the ice and get to know each other on a much deeper level than simple introductions might have done.

Drawing as a practice is a powerful tool for bringing people back into their bodies and, when well managed, creative practices in the classroom can be deeply bonding experiences. Sometimes, what we cannot say in words, we can communicate through stories and that vulnerable act of sharing unconscious parts of ourselves can help students feel seen and heard, a bonding and restorative experience. In our workshops, which were aimed at exploring scholarly ideas visually, we were struck by the students’ curiosity to share their personal stories and how that process helped establish deep connections between participants that ultimately also affected their learning and their enthusiasm for doing so.

Zines made during the IIT workshop.

3. How does interacting with visual storytelling and zine-making shift students’ understanding of knowledge production, pedagogy, and academic communication?

Zines are deceptively simple canvases for thought. For those not familiar with what a zine is, it is a self-produced micro-magazine or booklet, in our case consisting of six pages plus a front and back cover. Zines are very useful thinking tools because they restrict the space for expression… Like the word count in academic essays, challenging students to express their ideas in a fixed number of pages requires them to make strategic decisions about what they want to communicate and how. This is in itself a very useful exercise in narrowing down ideas and exploring effective communication.  There are some wonderful purely textual zines out there, but we were interested in using zines as tools for graphic visual storytelling. For that, we needed students to consider visual metaphors and also to reflect on all the ways they already communicate visually every day (on WhatsApp, through memes, cinematic spectatorship etc…) and to explore how these techniques might be used to communicate academic ideas visually as well.

Telling a good visual story is challenging, but when someone is able to pull it off, the experience is deeply gratifying. In our workshops we also took this process to a second level by getting students to plan a zine collaboratively. In negotiating and discussing ideas with others and planning how best to express them in drawing, students further consolidate their own understanding of those ideas and they engage with them in an entirely new way.

A zine made at the India workshop.

4. In what ways did the interdisciplinary nature of the workshops enhance or challenge the learning experience of students?

If you are working in a group with students who study different disciplines you often need to simplify your ideas to explain them. Students have to shed academic jargon, or become critically aware of academic practices which have become second nature to them. This reflective practice can be invaluable. In our Delhi workshops, the humanities students really benefited from working with extremely talented design students, who could quickly transform their ideas into beautiful drawings. Design students also benefited from the structured analytical planning and depth that humanities students brought to their storytelling. All students benefited from being pushed to think and work beyond their comfort zone. We have received wonderful feedback from all the workshops and have already seen students use their zines to promote their research at postgraduate conferences. One research illustration was even accepted for a journal contribution in comparative literature!

A zine made at the Celebration of Humanities Education.

5. What role did the workshop’s balance between structured guidance & open-ended exploration play in fostering student creativity and critical thinking?

Our workshops were designed, first and foremost, to be as inclusive and friendly as possible and to create the illusion of casual exploration. But they were, in fact, very carefully scaffolded. Each activity ensured that learners would be prepared for the next stage of engagement and aimed to build their confidence and encourage them to push themselves further.

A storytelling workshop requires careful consideration of time, objectives, expectations, and overall learning. While these factors were closely integrated in our workshop, we also ensured activities contained a playful element to make them light and enjoyable. This approach ensured that creativity was gradually revealed through the activities without overwhelming the students. The paced-down approach also gave them enough time to reflect and progress through the activities efficiently.

The Celebration zine-making workshop.

6. How might the practices of cross-cultural collaboration and visual literacy cultivated in this project be applied across broader educational contexts, e.g. at UCL?

During the Celebration of Humanities Education, I was delighted to see that my colleagues who teach languages in SELCS saw real potential in how zine-making could be used in Language teaching. It could be a very fun way of exploring and explaining complex grammar rules but also of getting students to do all kinds of storytelling in the classroom. We are already discussing a training session with me as part of our peer dialogue practices. I now regularly use creative forms of assessment in my teaching and I am very keen to promote such methods to any colleagues interested in adopting them for their modules.

Subir Dey and I used the generous contribution from the Centre for Humanities Education to create a workbook that can be used by students, teachers and creatives alike. The activity book will be a hands-on practice book to be used to enhance and polish creative storytelling skills, which can enhance academic thinking more widely. It is in the design stages now, but please watch this space for information on how to access it soon!

Zines made at the Celebration of Humanities Education.

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To find out more about Eleanor and Subir’s project, visit their website at: https://www.heartofthematter.in/

Dr Eleanor Chiari is an Associate Professor (Teaching) and the Programme Director for the BA language and Culture in the School of European Languages, Cultures and Society at University College London. She has been teaching interdisciplinary modules on history, photography, and visual culture for the past 16 years.

Inclusive Learning Practices through Multiple Choice and Short Answer Questions.

By Admin, on 22 July 2025

Authors: Michelle Lai, Luke Dickens, Bonnie Buyuklieva, Janina Dewitz, Karen Stepanyan

Close-up of traditional fountain pen with an iridium nib by Peter Milosevic, courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

Introduction

Accommodating neurodiversity in higher education often requires reasonable adjustments that take the form of additional time for completing the work, alternative assessment or examination settings, and the use of assistive technology among other options. An alternative approach to accommodating neurodiversity is to ensure that the material given to all students is universally accessible. We here examine AI based tools for improving the language used in tests to better support those with neurodiverse characteristics.

There is a significant proportion of the student body with neurodiverse characteristics. The statistics reported by HESA on self-disclosed learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, or AD(H)D show an increase of 26% between 2014-15 and 2021-22 (Tang et al., 2024). The total number of students with such learning differences in 2022-23 stands at 140,745 corresponding to roughly 6.5% of the total student population (HESA, 2025). Moreover, others have argued that this number is likely to underestimate the issue (Devine, J., 2024).

Neurodiverse characteristics, such as those associated with AD(H)D, autism, and dyslexia, have been linked to learning challenges associated with differences in cognitive function including: executive function (Southon, C., 2022), test anxiety (Mahak, S., 2024), and sensory sensitivities resulting in susceptibility to distraction (Irvine, B. et al., 2024.). This had led to calls for a revised approach to learning and assessment to include considerations of neurodiversity, e.g. (Sewell, A. and Park, J., 2021). Beyond academia, industry recruitment practices have shifted towards specifically taking into account neurodiversity of graduates as a way of obtaining greater competitive advantage (Borrett, 2024). Many universities are now leaning into offering greater support. In practice this takes the form of technology-based interventions, comprehensive support programmes, and transition into university and then employment (McDowall & Kiseleva, 2024). As a result of these changes the education sector is undergoing a paradigm shift that moves away from the traditional teacher-centred education to inclusive environments in Higher Education (Tang, Griffiths & Welch, 2024).

One approach to making education environments more inclusive is applying Universal Design principles to teaching materials. The principles of Universal Design advocate for developing environments that can be accessed, understood, and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their ability or disability. Designs suitable for all people suggest that learning environments should strive to be as inclusive as possible, benefiting all stakeholders to the greatest degree possible, and reducing specific adjustments as much as possible (UCL-ARENA, 2024; Center for Universal Design, n.d.). This framework prioritises making the language of assessments more ‘neurodiversity-friendly’. We specifically focus on exploring the relevance of generative AI approaches for reformulating questions that are identified as problematic for neurodiverse cohorts. This project was funded by the UCL Centre for Humanities Education, which enabled us to conduct a case-study that looked at current examples of assessment, more specifically a sample of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs), and the potential for making these more accessible to all students. In this case study, we look at two AI products that market themselves as generating textual outputs in neurodiversity-friendly language. We investigate how their suggested changes compared with the original questions set by two lecturers of technical subjects at UCL. The study was carried out by a funded postgraduate student and supported by academic staff at the Department of Information Studies, UCL, who co-authored this report.

Can AI Tools Make Assessment More Accessible?

Informed by the current body of research and by surveying available AI tools for diverse classroom applications (see Appendix 1), we shortlisted three tools based around two AI products (see Table 1). We then assessed whether these tools could make multiple-choice and short-answer questions written for assessment in technical modules more neurodiversity-friendly.

Our focus was on the AI tools that purport to be useful for making reading and language easier for neurodivergent people. We adopted Hemingway Editor and Goblin Tools Formaliser in our study. The latter product was tested under two modes: ‘More Accessible’ and ‘More to the point’ (see Table 1).

Table 1: AI tools examined in this research, which were selected from the list of tools with the greatest potential to support language processing needs of neurodiverse students. Note: the full list of AI Tools considered for examination in this research is presented in Appendix 1.

Evaluation and Results

We combined the questions into question sets based on the topic and word length to accommodate the limitations of the tools. There were 7 sets of questions:

• Web Tech. 1, comprises 7 theoretical and introductory multiple-choice questions (MCQs) on the topic of the Internet and Web technologies;
• Web Tech. 2, comprises 7 MCQs containing HTML code;
• Web Tech. 3, comprises 7 theoretical MCQs on accessibility;
• Stats. 1, comprises a single MCQ in Statistics, which included a longer scenario and a longer text for the MCQ options;
• Stats. 2, comprises 4 MCQs on fundamental concepts in Statistics;
• Stats. 3, comprises on 2 MCQs that required simple statistical calculations;
• Stats. 4, comprises 3 MCQs that can be attributed to set theory – a foundational area of Mathematics.

The question bank comprises 31 questions, and was taken from an introductory web technologies modules taught at an undergraduate level, and an introductory statistics module taught to masters students, both at UCL.

Table 2: Summary of studied question sets, including the number of questions in each set (Count), the average length of text in words (Length), and frequency of accuracy flags (Red, Orange and Green) by adopted AI tool for each question set or frequency of output with no change.

We passed each of the questions into the chosen three AI tools. We, therefore, had upto 93 suggested revisions along with the original set of 31 questions. Table 2 shows the number of questions (count) and average word count (length) for each set, along with the accuracy flags discussed further down.

One indication of how straightforward some text is to read is captured by the FORCAST (FORmula for Forecasting Average Single-Syllable word Count) readability formula (Scott, n.d.). We calculated the FORCAST scores for the original questions as well as the questions modified by the AI tools (Figure 1). A higher FORCAST score indicates a greater difficulty of written text.

Figure 1: FORCAST Scores by tool for each of the question sets in the question bank using the Original, Hemingway, Goblin More Accessible and Goblin Straight to the point..

While FORCAST scores can be useful, it is not always possible to gauge whether the output is clearer or more concise. However, there is no widely accepted framework for such an assessment, and we had to develop our own method for doing this consistently. Our assessment of clarity and conciseness was inspired by the earlier work of Bischof & Eppler (2011). However, we adopted a single Likert scale score for human judgment of each aspect for simplicity.

Table 3: Likert scale, used in evaluating Clarity of Language.

Table 4: Likert scale, used in evaluating Conciseness.

All original and AI-generated question sets were assessed by one of the researchers using these scores for clarity and conciseness. For our analysis, a researcher was asked to rate the question for clarity on the given Likert scale (see Table 3). Next a researcher was asked to rate each question for conciseness on a Likert scale (Table 4). Lower scores, therefore, indicate a lack of clarity or conciseness.

The results of the mean scores of the Clarity and Conciseness evaluations are presented for all seven sets of questions in Figure 2 and Figure 3 respectively.

Figure 2: Mean Clarity scores by tool for each of the question sets in the question bank using the Original, Hemingway, Goblin More Accessible and Goblin Straight to the point..

Figure 3: Mean Conciseness scores by tool for each of the question sets in the question bank using the Original, Hemingway, Goblin More Accessible and Goblin Straight to the point..

Finally, for each question in the sets the original authors of the test questions were asked if the questions produced by the AI tools retained the intended meaning with three possible judgement flags: green – the question retained the original meaning, orange – there were some issues with the meaning, and red – the question was no longer accurate given the context of the question. A final flag, gray, was given to questions that were unchanged by the tool. As indicated above, Table 2 presents the accuracy flag counts of the evaluated tools for each set. For readability these data are also plotted in Figure 4. It is clear from these results that these tools can perform differently across different types of questions, and no one tool performed without issues. Hemingway performed particularly badly on theoretical questions (Sets 1 and 3). It is also clear that Goblin: To the point performed well on questions containing code (Set 2). Overall accuracy, regardless the types of questions, does appear to be higher for both Goblin tools. However, this result should be viewed with caution due to a very small sample of questions used in the study. Furthermore, it is also important to study individual questions in greater detail to try and elicit why some of the questions were “tricky” for the AI tools.

Figure 4: Accouracy flag counts by tool for each of the question sets.

Preliminary Findings

The study highlighted that the adoption of Generative AI tools for making text accessible to neurodiverse audiences does not necessarily offer improvements. The FORCAST scores for some of the sets increased (see Sets 2 & 4), making the questions potentially more complex as a result of using AI tools. However, occasionally (see Sets 1, 2 and 6, Figure 1) the use of AI-generated content has offered improvements in FORCAST scores. In some cases, the original questions scored worse on clarity and conciseness than the AI-generated alternatives (see Set 4, Figure 2 & 3). Similarly, improvements in clarity were evident in some instances too (see Set 2, 4 & 5 in Figure 2). Most importantly, however, the noted improvements were rather small, with the range of variation in scores remaining minimal for all of the adopted metrics.

Goblin ‘more to the point’ had a higher conciseness score overall (Figure 3), but had a higher FORCAST score as well, meaning that a higher grade / education level was required to read it. The FORCAST formula uses the number of single-syllable words to calculate a score, which may be why a more concise output using less ‘extra’ words will generate a higher FORCAST score.

Tool Specific Findings

Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is a tool that offers readability statistics with the premium membership, including AI rewrite suggestions. This AI tool uses popular AI services, namely OpenAI, Anthropic, and Together. The interface of the Hemingway editor is easy to navigate, and is customisable. When feeding the questions in, the system recognised that the text was meant for a university-level reader and adjusted its suggestions accordingly. However, questions that contained HTML/CSS code were not processed correctly, failing to escape the tags, and changing the meaning of the question as a result.

Goblin Tools Formaliser: More Accessible

Goblin tools are a set of single-task tools that aim to break down and simplify tasks for neurodivergent people, and use “models from different providers, both open and closed source.” (goblin-tools, n.d.). The Formaliser tool converts texts with up to 15 prompts, such as ‘more accessible’ and ‘more to the point (unwaffle)’. There is a ‘spiciness level’ which controls how strongly the generated text will come across; for this study, it was set to the lowest level.

The ‘more accessible’ option often changed words to more commonly used and ‘lower grade’ words, as well as changing sentence structures. While this generally improved the readability and clarity of the outputs, the accuracy was sometimes affected, given the highly technical language of many questions.

Goblin Tools Formaliser: More to the Point

The ‘straight to the point’ Goblin Tools option often made little to no changes to the shorter questions, which suggests that in most cases the original question author had set questions using concise language. There tended to be no changes in wording, but this meant that the accuracy was usually unaffected, while the clarity of the question did not improve. For longer questions, there was a greater change in wording, which resulted in greater variation in clarity, and higher conciseness scores.

In addition, while the use of generative AI tools did not offer consistent performance in improving the FORCAST, clarity and conciseness scores, the review of generated alternative wording suggested by the tool were at times viewed as useful for formulating alternative ways of phrasing the questions.

Additional Reflections and Summary

The literature often refers to the clarity and conciseness as factors that could affect a neurodivergent student’s understanding of a question, relating to processing speed and cognitive load (e.g. Fakhoury et al., 2018).

In summary, our study suggests that generative AI tools can be useful as scaffolding tools for inclusive assessment design, when paired with informed human judgement. The Hemingway and Goblin Tools occasionally improved clarity, conciseness or readability, but introduced new difficulties related to the use of code snippets or altering meaning. It appears that generative AI can support producing neurodiversity‑friendly assessments, but it should only be adopted in an assistive role.

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Dr Bonnie Boyana Buyuklieva FHEA, FRGS is a Lecturer (research) in Data Science for Society at UCL’s Department of Information Studies. Bonnie’s background is in architecture and computation (Foster and Partners; Bauhaus University Weimar), and she holds a PhD from the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA, UCL).

Janina Dewitz has worked for over a decade as an Innovations Officer at UCL, having previously worked as a Learning Technologist and Learning Facilitator at Barking and Dagenham College. Janina earned a Bachelor’s in Humanities from the University of Hertfordshire in 1998 and a Higher National Certificate in Performing Arts from Barking & Dagenham College in 2004.

Dr Luke Dickens is an Associate Professor at UCL’s Department of Information Studies. Luke is also a Founding member and co-lead of the Knowledge Information and Data Science (KIDS) research group at UCL, and a Founding member of the cross-institutional Structured and Probabilistic Intelligent Knowledge Engineering (SPIKE) research group based at Imperial College.

Michelle Lai recently completed a Masters of Arts in Special and Inclusive Education (Autism) at UCL, having previously earned a BSc in Psychology with Education, Educational Psychology. Michelle is interested in how psychology can inform and enhance inclusive practices in special education and currently works as a Specialist Teaching Assistant at Ambitious about Autism.

Dr Karen Stepanyan is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in Computing and Information Systems. Based at the Department of Information Studies, he is leading the delivery of the Web Technologies (INST0007) module and Database Systems (INST0001).  He contributed to the development of the BSc Information in Society programme at UCL East. His research spans the inter-relation of information technologies and the concepts of knowledge.

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References:

UCL-ARENA. (2024). “Inclusive education: Get started by making small changes to your education practice.” Teaching and Learning Retrieved April 1 2025, from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/news/2024/nov/inclusive-education-get-started-making-small-changes-your-education-practice.

Bischof, N., & Eppler, M. J. (2011). Caring for Clarity in Knowledge Communication. J. Univers. Comput. Sci., 17(10), 1455-1473.

Borrett, A. (2024, Dec. 19) ‘UK employers eye “competitive advantage” in hiring neurodivergent workers’, Financial Times, accessed July 17 2025, Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/e692c571-b56b-425a-a7a0-3d8ae617080b.

Center for Universal Design. (n.d.). College of Design. https://design.ncsu.edu/research/center-for-universal-design/. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://design.ncsu.edu/research/center-for-universal-design/.

Devine, J. (2024). Comment: Neurodiversity and belongingness. Buckinghamshire New University. Retrieved July 18, 2025, from https://www.bucks.ac.uk/news/comment-neurodiversity-and-belongingness

Fakhoury, S., Ma, Y., Arnaoudova, V., & Adesope, O. (2018, May). The effect of poor source code lexicon and readability on developers’ cognitive load. In Proceedings of the 26th conference on program comprehension (pp. 286-296).

goblin-tools. About (n.d.). Retrieved July 18, 2025, from https://goblin.tools/About

HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency). (2025, April 3). Who’s studying in HE?: Personal characteristics. Retrieved July 18, 2025, from https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/whos-in-he/characteristics#breakdown

McDowall, A., & Kiseleva, M. (2024). A rapid review of supports for neurodivergent students in higher education. Implications for research and practice. Neurodiversity, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/27546330241291769 (Original work published 2024)

Scott, B. (n.d.). Readability Scoring System PLUS. https://readabilityformulas.com/readability-scoring-system.php.

Tang, E. S. Y., Griffiths, A., & Welch, G. F. (2024). The Impact of Three Key Paradigm Shifts on Disability, Inclusion, and Autism in Higher Education in England: An Integrative Review. Trends in Higher Education, 3(1), 122-141. https://doi.org/10.3390/higheredu3010007

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Appendix 1:

List of AI Tools considered for this study and classified by category (i.e. EF – Executive Function (planning, prioritizing, time management, task initiation); WM – Working Memory / information overload; LP – Language Processing / writing / reading load; SN – Sensory / modality flexibility (visual, auditory, text, speech); ANX – Reducing Anxiety (performance, math, participation); SOC – Social Communication load (participate without speaking live, review later); MATH – Math Conceptual/step scaffolding; ACC – General accessibility (alt input, captions, screen-reader friendly, etc.))

Student Reflections on the Celebration of Humanities Education

By Admin, on 22 July 2025

Mazal Oaknin and Marga Navarrete present at the Celebration.

We need to talk about Humanities education and celebrate the rich and exciting variety of perspectives and approaches within. On a sunny Wednesday morning on June 11th I found myself entering UCL’s Institute of Education to do just that, and here is what I found.

The day started bright and early with introductory speeches on the future of teaching and learning in the Humanities from Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (Founding Director of the Centre), Stella Bruzzi (Executive Dean, UCL Arts & Humanities), and Kathleen Armour (UCL Vice Provost, Education & Student Experience). Their speeches addressed some of my own concerns about the place of AI in the Humanities and acknowledged the challenges of teaching new generations of thinkers to respect and be curious about new ideas and visions of the world. I really appreciated these foci.

The large crowd of curious participants soon dispersed into several rooms to attend morning sessions. A panel in the discussion room led by Anne Grydehøj discussed the future of teaching languages at UCL, while Antony Makrinos looked at the future of Classics through VR goggles in the Technology Room. I didn’t get to take part in these, unfortunately, but the idea of wandering through a virtual agora or forum via an ultra-modern set of VR goggles was equally intriguing and entertaining.  As a Slade MFA student, I was drawn to the showcase of Spineless Wonders, an amazing collection of artist books and small press publications presented by Sharon Morris and Liz Lawes. After a quick cup of tea, I decided to return to the Showcase room and participate in a Culture and Language Show and Tell, an interactive discussion presented by Elletra Carbone about using objects from UCL’s Special Collections to provide a tangible connection between abstract language and material culture. Sadly, the nature of having separate discussions taking place simultaneously meant I couldn’t see Alexander Samson and Paula Rodriguez discuss the adaptation of Spanish Golden Age theatre classics in the twenty-first century or participate in the workshop “Ethical Encounters in Community-based Research, Learning, and Assessment”, led by Jelena Calic and Eszter Tarsoly.

Elettra Carbone’s More Than Words Exhibition.

In the afternoon, Jeff Bowersox led an interactive, multiplayer, pedagogical game that allowed players to take part in a model of the political system of the Weimar Republic, the post-war German government from 1918-1933, prior to the rise of Nazi Germany. Walking past, the session appeared in full and enthusiastic swing, so I made my way to the Showcase Room and joined a workshop on Graphic Narratives led by Eleanor Chiari. I entered the room with confidence, but it turns out an art degree doesn’t necessarily mean one would find sequential narrative storytelling easy! Thanks to help from Dr Chiari, however, I soon started storyboarding. It was amazing to see everyone’s results, with little zines illustrating different subjects and experiences. As an artist, I am used to creative exercises, but it was great to work with people who might not normally choose this way of working. I found it challenging to commit to one subject to illustrate – producing only five images requires a simplicity which is often missing in the way I paint. I nevertheless enjoyed this opportunity to be specific for a change.

In the late afternoon, many people were engaged in panel discussions on EDI Practices and Wellbeing in the Humanities Classroom. I decided to visit “A Mini Augmented Reality Exhibition of the Chinese Export Watercolours,” presented by Zeyu Zhao and developed with Gao Jin. I was really impressed with the outcome of this small display. Seeing the levels of engagement provoked by interactive displays made me reconsider my reservations against AR in exhibiting.

Zeyu Zhao shows how Augmented Reality is reimaginging Chinese Export Watercolours.

While many people engaged in panel discussions were UCL professional services or teaching staff, I felt welcome and encouraged as a student to share my views and ideas. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet and talk to experts in the humanities and make connections between subjects I wouldn’t have made before.  It was the first time I had taken part in such an event, and I felt empowered to seek out more opportunities like this one, just to have a chance to listen to and exchange perspectives on a wider variety of subjects than those directly concerning fine art practice.

And it was great fun! I would highly recommend attending similar events in the future to anyone curious and open-minded.

Noemi Stysiak is a Polish painter and second-year student at the Painting MFA at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art.

A college of images from the celebration.

A college of images from the celebration.

Our New Gold: Creative-Critical and Practice-Based Learning

By Admin, on 21 July 2025

Portrait of Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio, c.1627 by Eugenio Caxés, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Our New Gold international digital storytelling festival invites students from all over the world to submit short films in which they respond to, adapt, perform, and present adaptations of Golden Age plays they have been studying. There are thought to be more than 10,000 extant Spanish comedias (plays) from before 1700. Similar to its Shakespearean counterpart in London, the first fixed public theatres emerged across the Iberian Peninsula in the 1580s and performed to large audiences representing a cross-section of society. The main difference between Spanish and English Renaissance Drama was that women played female parts, in contrast to the boy actors in London. Sir Richard Wynn noted that actresses were particularly good at playing women and were one of the main reasons for the theatre’s popularity. Although there are well-known classics of European theatre like Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream (1636), many plays are little-known or unknown and new discoveries emerge all the time, including an unknown play by Lope de Vega discovered in 2010, Mujeres y criados.

The Lady with a Fan by Diego Velázquez, c.1635-1640, courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

The founder of the Our New Gold festival, Paula Rodriguez, is an actor, maker, and director who has dedicated herself to adapting this scintillating and underrecognised dramatic tradition. Student responses to the plays are incredibly varied and diverse. They reframe, reword, translate, set to music, perform, adapt, explain, and recast. At the root of all of them is a commitment to the plays’ texts—a love for poetic language, polymetric verse, and the plays’ resonant plots and situations, that so often feel so much more contemporary than they are.

We held a series of workshops in the autumn to discuss adaptation and begin to work on student projects. In the Spring, the jury convened to discuss the various entries and chose winners, special mentions and finalists. All of the winning entries can be viewed on the festival website: https://www.ournewgold.org/2024-festival.

In my opening remarks, I noted that theatre is embodied, presential, and located. Even in the more audio-visually driven short films, there are elements of performance, acting, fragments of mise-en-scene, alongside remarkable technical achievements from the animated photographs of Recuerdo to the soundscapes that accompany a translation of Calderon’s Life is a Dream Lucid Dreaming, and the animation of an Ode to Living Truthfully based on El monstruo de los jardines, reflecting on intergenerational expectations. The Golden Age has been written off too often as conservative and Catholic, linked by the Franco dictatorship with absolutism and hailed as a model for its repressive, pious ethnonationalism. This festival, however, embodies the radicalism, global resonance, and surprising diversity of these early modern representations. Ultimately, fiction and theatre are among the most challenging and fascinating sources for understanding the past because they reveal how people sought to represent themselves, the aporia and gaps in these representations provide the most important kind of evidence, not least because history is always in question.

It was an absolute joy to witness the creativity, the deep and varied engagement with the materials, the genuine attempt to build bridges between our world and the incredible culture of Spain’s Golden Age, its savagery, violence, and profound meditations on the human condition.

All the winning entries are on the website. UCL will be hosting the festival again in 2025 – 6, let’s see if we can get a UCL winner this time!

Alexander Samson is a Professor of Early Modern Studies in UCL’s Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies.  His research interests include the early colonial history of the Americas, Anglo-Spanish intercultural interactions and early modern English and Spanish drama.  He runs the Golden Age and Renaissance Research Seminar and is director of UCL’s Centre for Early Modern Exchanges and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters.

The corral de comedias (theatrical courtyard) represented a primary site for open air public theatre. Almagro’s Corral de Comedias, pictured in 2012 by Kandywiki, courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

A Pilot Study in Creative Digital Engagement with Museum Collections

By Admin, on 14 July 2025

Zeyu Zhao, Doctoral Student; Jin Gao, Lecturer in Digital Archives

UCL Department of Information Studies

7 July 2025

How can we reimagine cultural heritage collections to engage younger audiences? This question has been central to Zeyu’s doctoral research and led to the curation ARt-Z: Unlock the Unseen, a mini Augmented Reality (AR) exhibition featuring digital reinterpretations of the Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) collection from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). We are grateful for funding from the UCL Centre for Humanities Education (CHE) Technology Stream Fund and the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) Octagon Small Grants. The AR exhibition was held at First Floor Gallery – Breakout B of UCL East Marshgate from 1–23 May 2025. It explored how digital tools shape museum engagement while simultaneously serving as a practice-based pilot research method for Zeyu Zhao’s doctoral study, supervised by Jin Gao, Kaitlyn Regehr, and Photini Vrikki.

Exhibition poster.

The exhibition title, “ARt-Z”, reflects its mission: to create an AR-enhanced art experience for Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012. These young people, born in a media-saturated era, often expect museum displays to be visual, interactive, and socially shareable.¹ As a result, to better reach younger audiences, museums are increasingly blending traditional roles with digital innovation. They are evolving from static knowledge centres to dynamic, participatory spaces.² This exhibition aimed to contribute to that shift. Rather than passively viewing artworks behind glass, visitors were invited to explore each painting beyond the frame and continue their engagement beyond the gallery.

The exhibition presented 10 digitised CEW paintings, each enhanced with layered AR interactions. Visitors could scan QR codes next to the printed artworks, then use their mobile devices to access immersive experiences, including zoom-in details, animated loops, and ambient audio that unlock hidden narratives.

The layout was kept simple and accessible, with enough open space for visitors to move around comfortably and focus on each artwork at their own pace. An introductory video was also played on a nearby screen to guide first-time users through the AR experience. This helped ensure that anyone, regardless of technical background, could engage with the exhibition confidently and independently.

Exhibition installation view. Photo by Shuhua Tang.

Exhibition installation view. Photo by Zeyu Zhao.

Reinterpretation of V&A’s CEW Collection

To situate the experience within a meaningful cultural context, the exhibition content was based on the V&A’s Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) collection. The CEW collection includes over 2,350 artworks created by professional Chinese artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for European and North American markets. These works, which blend Chinese and Western artistic techniques, present local customs, occupations, trades, flora, fauna, and cultural beliefs. Despite their historical significance, they remain relatively understudied. Their transcultural nature and unfamiliarity to most audiences made them ideal objects for AR reinterpretation.

This exhibition was part of the third phase of the UCL–V&A CEW project, led by Dr Hongxing Zhang at the Asia Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Dr Jin Gao at the Department of Information Studies at UCL. The previous two phases focused on digitisation and provenance research. Here in Phase III, ARt-Z leveraged the CEW collection for public engagement, using AR technology to surface hidden layers of cultural meaning while offering a visual and interactive experience aligned with Gen Z preferences.

Exhibition installation view. Photo by Shuhua Tang.

A guided tour by curator Zeyu Zhao. Photo by Shuhua Tang.

Design and Technical Implementation

The AR experiences were created using Adobe Aero, a user-friendly, no-code platform compatible with other Adobe tools. Each artwork went through a six-stage development process involving image matting, keyframe drawing, animation production, AR creation, detail design, and testing.

The first task was to prepare the visual assets, isolating figures or details from the original artworks using Photoshop. Then, in Adobe Illustrator, Zeyu redrew key frames to suggest motion or transformation. These were animated in Adobe After Effects to form short loops or sequences. Zeyu then imported all assets into Aero, where she set up the interaction logic, assigning triggers, movements, and sounds to create layered experiences. Finally, all the AR content was tested on an iPad to ensure a smooth and intuitive experience.

In this exhibition, visitors could freely interact with these artworks on their devices. By scanning the QR codes next to the digitised painting printouts and following the software instructions to point their devices directly at the painting, the AR experience would animate automatically. Visitors could then tap the interactive points to unlock animated videos and explore hidden layers of the painting. The trigger-based interactions allowed for the integration of short animation sequences (e.g. MP4s or embedded GIFs) and environmental effects, which enhanced immersion without overwhelming the user.

A visitor engaged in an AR experience ©Shuhua Tang.

Online Engagement

To reach Gen Z more effectively and stimulate online discourse, we ran social media campaigns on Instagram (@artz_unlocktheunseen) and Xiaohongshu (@ARt-Z). These two platforms are widely used by Gen Z for creative and lifestyle content in the UK and China.

Two hashtag challenges, #ChiefExperienceOfficer and #BestPhotographerAward, encouraged visitors to record and share their favourite AR moments. These user-generated posts had a ripple effect: several visitors reported attending after seeing the exhibition in their friend’s feed, which highlights the influence of peer-led digital word-of-mouth promotion. By studying these online interactions, we aimed to capture the “afterlife” of museum visits and examine how digital content shaped ongoing engagement.

A promotion post on Instagram @artz_unlocktheunseen.

An audience’s reflection on Xiaohongshu @鹅油果酸奶冰淇淋.

(Translation: UCL East Watercolour AR Art Exhibition. Just finished my lab and stumbled upon a fun little exhibition on the first floor of Marshgate. Scan the QR code and you’ll see lively animations based on Qing Dynasty Chinese Export Watercolours — the once-static scenes suddenly come to life! If you’re around UCL East, do stop by and check it out. It’s actually quite fun!)

What Visitors Thought

We conducted on-site observations and distributed an online questionnaire during the exhibition period. Over 96% of respondents reported feeling engaged with the AR content. Many spent extended time at each artwork, returned with friends, or explored multiple AR layers.

Some also expressed curiosity about how the AR effects were made, which led to spontaneous informal tutorial workshops. These mini-workshops added another layer to the exhibition, not just as an experience to visit, but as something to learn from and create with.

Visitors also suggested future additions, including playful 3D animated scenes or wearable glasses, physical souvenirs, printed brochures, and themed workshops. These ideas offer valuable inspiration for shaping future exhibition practices.

The feedback below reflects a range of visitor experiences, most of which came from UCL students, and highlights both enthusiasm and thoughtful critique:

• “Outrageous but magical exhibition! Perhaps it could be held several more times.”
• “The exhibition is generally satisfactory. I hope to see them online after the visit.”
• “Very nice. It would be even better if there could be some additional installations to enrich the scenes.
• “The way of advertising should be chosen according to the target audience, for example, if the audience is college students, you can flyer the cafeteria off campus.”
• “The exhibition and the idea of the app are great. In the app, I’d suggest trying to make the transition from one painting to another more smoothly so that users wouldn’t have to go to a camera app and scan every QR code.”

Presentation at UCL Celebration of Humanities Education

On 11 June 2025, we presented this mini AR exhibition project at the UCL Celebration of Humanities Education. This event highlighted the wide variety of CHE projects and fostered discussions on innovative practices in humanities education. It offered an opportunity to exchange ideas with other educators and researchers exploring innovative approaches to humanities teaching and creative learning. During the session, we shared the aims, design process, visitor feedback, and research reflections from the exhibition.

Zeyu Zhao giving a presentation at the UCL Celebration of Humanities Education. Photo by Jin Gao.

Zeyu Zhao showing how to use Adobe Aero to access the AR experience. Photo by Jin Gao.

Overall, ARt-Z demonstrated how AR can be used to bring underexplored cultural heritage collections to life for younger audiences. It also highlighted the potential of hands-on, research-led curation as a method for studying digital cultural behaviours in context. As Zeyu’s doctoral study progresses, this pilot study will form a key part of her broader investigation into social media engagement and museum curation.

***

¹ Hughes, K., and Moscardo, G., 2019. For Me or Not for Me? Exploring Young Adults’ Museum Representations. Leis. Sci. 41, 516–534. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2018.1550455

² Bautista, S.S., 2013. Museums in the Digital Age: Changing Meanings of Place, Community, and Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

Zeyu Zhao is a doctoral student at the Department of Information Studies, UCL. Her research, supervised by Dr Jin Gao, Dr Kaitlyn Regehr and Dr Photini Vrikki, explores how digital tools shape audience engagement with museum exhibitions.

Dr Jin Gao is a Lecturer in Digital Archives at the UCL Department of Information Studies and an Associate Director of UCL’s Centre for Digital Humanities. Dr Gao is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, working on various collaborative research projects. Dr Gao teaches on the MA/MSc in Digital Humanities programmes and the MA in Archives and Records Management programme. Dr Gao also serves as the Admissions Tutor for the MA/MSc in Digital Humanities programmes and the Placement Coordinator for the MA in Archives and Records Management programme.

Q&A: Searching for Romanian Heritage in London Museums

By Admin, on 9 July 2025

What does it mean to search for your heritage in spaces that rarely acknowledge it? In Searching for Romanian Heritage in London Museums, a student-led ChangeMakers project at UCL, Maria Popa and Rares Muscar explore this question by revisiting London museums through the lens of their Romanian identities. With support from Ramona Gonczol (UCL SSEES), the project confronted the absence—and occasional presence—of Romanian artefacts in collections across the capital, using language, dialogue, and lived experience to challenge prevailing stereotypes. In this Q&A, they reflect on how museums can be spaces both of exclusion and (re)imagination.

1. Your ChangeMaker project, “Searching for Romanian Heritage in London Museums”, aimed to challenge stereotypical perceptions and prejudices about Romanian heritage by highlighting Romanian cultural artefacts in London museums, including the Migration Museum, the Horniman Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the British Museum. How does your project challenge common media stereotypes about Romanian identity, and how did museum spaces help you confront or subvert those narratives? 

Rares: Growing up as children of migrants and first-generation migrants ourselves, we have faced multiple instances of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping. Whether it was a ‘joke’ surrounding Romanians as migrants, comments or looks when we spoke Romanian on the street, or even simply our parents’ inability to truly interact with the system and structures surrounding them, our Romanian-ness, in my/our minds, was internalised as a drawback. I started viewing Romanian culture as an amalgamation of negative stereotypes and limited my speaking of Romanian strictly to my home environment. Thus, our project, through reconnecting with our heritage through the medium of London museums, rewrites those unjustly indoctrinated narratives we were fed in our youth. We become able to construct and understand the beauty, diversity, and legacy of the Romanian presence within London, and challenge the lifelong media stereotyping of Romanians as a ‘horde’, ‘wave’ or ‘invasion’ who are (paradoxically) filling only low-level, blue-collar jobs AND living off benefits simultaneously. Through discovering Romania’s cultural legacies present in London, we effectively subvert narratives not only by illuminating a culture which has habitually been expected to be negated, but also by demanding—through the project’s existence itself—a reframing of the unjust stereotyping of Romanian-ness, with the museum artefacts providing tangible evidence of the realities and value of Romanian cultural identity.

A Romanian friction drum from the Horniman Museum, London.

Our project’s scope also calls for the amplification of self-understanding when it comes to intercultural heritage through departmental and wider dissemination in multi-modal formats, encouraging further initiatives of this self-exploratory nature for all marginalised ethnicities and cultures. Such initiatives would include presenting at various conferences such as RAISE through podcast format, presenting with UCL ProLang through presentation/project-poster format and also, more optimistically, presenting to the Romanian community themselves possibly through the medium of Willesden Library which has a Romanian section for the extensive Brent Romanian community. This form of dissemination will have to be gauged for an engaging discussion and interaction across multiple generations while also taking into account the importance of accessibility, broader diasporic class structures, digital and cultural literacy and historical knowledge of cultural engagement. So far, we have considered project-posters and presentations alongside an open-ended discussion, however this may change drastically depending on future considerations.

2. In your project poster, you strikingly describe intercultural identities as being shaped by “an inward tug-of-war—a constant questioning, negotiation and reification of belonging, displacement, heritage, adaption, and erasure.” How did your personal experiences and identities shape the project’s aims and methodology, and did the project alter your understanding of those experiences and identities? 

Maria and Rares at the Migration Museum, London.

Rares: The feeling of an inward tug-of-war when conceptualising our own intercultural identities arose out of the necessity for code-switching. Our experiences with discrimination, degradation, and prejudice forced us to shed aspects of our identities, both Romanian and British, in specific situations. When Romanians were associated with crime, ‘invasion’, and ‘freeloading’, we had to associate ourselves with the notion of ‘the good migrant’, trying to construct a positive identity that would be accepted by the outside world.When we would speak to family members or friends back in Romania, we had to try and erase any residue of ‘British-ness’ that we had adopted in our lives, so as to not face ridicule and further accusations. The constant structuring and restructuring of our identities, and the subsequent confusion, meant that we had to understand the focality of this ‘tug-of-war’ in shaping our existences, and utilise it in an exploratory manner when forming our project.

Thus, our identities, directly shaped by our experiences of prejudice and discrimination, were not only employed in shaping the project’s aims and methodology, but were also the foundation we created our project around. We intended to create a project which would rewrite the long-standing narratives burdened upon Romanians in the UK while also being actively accessible, encouraging future similar exploratory initiatives and introspective intercultural dialogue for all. We therefore decided to utilise museums as our medium of choice, attempting to find traces of our culture within the realm of academia, a world within which Romanians are, for some reason, expected to be absent from. Supplementing this, our research interacted with multiple sociological theories such as Alina Dolea’s work on Ethnicity, Identity and the Diaspora, to refine the lens through which we were trying to understand and subvert prejudicial narratives. Our methodology also focused on reconnection and emphasising our Romanian identities, shaping our project by carrying out important conversations in Romanian, creating a symbolic but also physical link to our identities themselves.

Our project altered our understanding of our experiences and identities by bringing to light the psychological impact of discrimination and prejudice on our identities, and the fragmentation it caused. It emphasised the importance of truly grasping and celebrating your identity, even when its subversion is encouraged, and the significance of intercultural recognition for individuals of all ages, especially children, who navigate their identities without any true external support. The project enunciated the importance of rewriting injustices, and the necessity of breaking from academic rigidity so as to create the truly meaningful and emotion-focused discoveries which are often rejected by academia.

3. Your active approach to the artefacts in London Museums was very interesting—verbalising immediate impressions and deliberately holding conversations in Romanian to create “a deeper connection with our experiences and identities.” What did this feel like? Useful? Strange? Empowering? Was it a different conversation from the type you might normally have in a UCL classroom?

Maria: Speaking in Romanian to each other whilst interacting with the artefacts was natural for us, and in no way did it feel strange. I think a feeling of empowerment came through the discussions which we were having during the museum visits. Even if we felt slightly defeated that we couldn’t find as many objects as we had hoped for, it still felt freeing and powerful to be able to form an opinion on this matter. We reclaimed a sense of belonging in spaces where our identities are often underrepresented or overlooked, and therefore, speaking in Romanian simply solidified that feeling. A feeling of validation was also created through our verbal impressions of the objects, because it essentially brought us closer to the artefacts themselves. Our conversations were actually built upon what we had talked about in previous Romanian lessons at UCL, creating a full-circle moment in terms of our initial ideas within the classroom and how these developed in museum environments. In both instances, we conversed with fluidity, sometimes switching between Romanian and English as a way of expressing ideas that did not fully fit into either language. Ultimately, talking to each other in Romanian was not just about us using our maternal language, but rather instinctively using language to anchor our identities within the context of museums in London.

Rares and Maria at the Horniman Museum, London.

4. You stress the importance of “emphasising subjectivity as an important means of engaging with identity and heritage.” What challenges did you face in navigating the emotional, evolving nature of the project? 

Maria: The main challenge we faced was the fact that our emotional anticipation and expectations for our findings within the museums were not met. We entered these spaces with excitement and curiosity but left with some disappointment after seeing that the museums did not reflect the depth of Romanian identity we had hoped for. Of course, subjectivity itself lies within our disappointment, and it must be reiterated that the visits themselves can still be seen as a success, because our reactions could thus be used to share our opinions with the wider public, forming a representation of our heritage and what it means to us. The fact that the two visits prompted us to conduct more online research on Romanian objects and archives within London’s museums changed the course of the project for the better. For example, we made comments on how the descriptions in online catalogues of certain artefacts were too vague, or perhaps even incorrect. It was through the evolving nature of the project that we deepened our understanding and could become more vocal about our personal opinions on the portrayal of our Romanian identities. Navigating these difficulties? allowed us to pinpoint ideas that we did not initially think to comment on, and this itself highlights the benefits that can arise from unexpected challenges.

5. Your poster presents the project in a fascinating way, as a “dynamic and living artefact” that will promote healing and empowerment. What’s next for the project, and how do you envision it contributing to future educational and/or cultural initiatives? 

Ramona: We disseminate the project widely, through an initial e-poster, followed by this blog, then a case study for the ChangeMaker page. In September, we will create a podcast for the Research, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) conference, a student–staff collaboration conference held at the University of Glasgow. We will then present in at least two more places at UCL, inviting undergraduate students through the PROLang series and in at least one or more community hubs around London, most likely starting with the Romanian library in Willesden Green. We want to reach as many young people as possible.

The project will also be presented to subsequent cohorts of language students at UCL, including students of Romanian, as an example of identity and heritage searching in immigrant communities and what we can do outside the classroom to make their learning life relevant.

We are already thinking of a new project to follow, so watch this space!

—–

Ramona Gonczol is Associate Professor in Romanian Language at SSEES, UCL. She is the (co)author of Romanian and Essential Grammar (2nd edition, 2020) and Colloquial Romanian(4th edition, 2014) and the convener of the PROLang group and academic coordinator for Short Courses. Ramona is a fellow of the HEA and the recipient for the Order for Cultural Merits in Promoting Romanian Culture and Language Abroad (2018). Ramona completed 4 years of outreach projects with Secondary schools on HHCL speakers of Romanian and is carrying out research on Romanian as a HHC language. Her research interests also include language acquisition, cultural identities, language policy, multilingualism and ethnographic pedagogy. She is the staff partner in the project.

Maria Popa is a first-year student Comparative Literature student at SELCS, having chosen to study Romanian at heritage-speaker level at SSEES for her degree. Her interests focus on humanities-based subjects, ranging from world literature to history to film, building an intrigue in multicultural identities, and how these formed and further developed. Maria writes bilingual poetry too, in English and Romanian and enjoys translating between the two languages.

Rares Muscar: ‘I’ am a first year home student at SSEES UCL, born in Romania, studying Politics, Sociology and East European Studies. I am essentially interested in anything to do with the humanities overall and enjoy learning different contemporary and historical lenses of seeing and understanding societal structures and functions. My attention is also particularly drawn towards class and how it manifests itself within people, psychologically and sociologically and throughout time. Having grown up as a first-generation migrant where both parents had ‘blue-collar’ jobs, academia seemed, and still seems, like an impenetrable fortress, but working on projects such as this has allowed me (us) to carve out a space forcefully, where we are allowed to explore the intertwining of class, cultural legacies, identity etc. in its entirety, namely its emotional foundations which in my opinion are severely overlooked in favour for rigorous quantitative forms of knowledge production. I am always interested in anything which intertwines culture, ethnography, history, politics, sociology, psychology, literature and related fields. I would always be eager to engage with and would deeply appreciate any further projects or discussions that explore these interconnected themes.

Making Moodle Work | Q&A with April Jones on Enhancing the Digital Learning Environment in Greek & Latin

By Admin, on 30 May 2025

1. For students and academic and professional services colleagues, Moodle is a huge (and often confusing!) part of everyday life at UCL. Could you talk us through what inspired your project to redesign Moodle pages in the Department of Greek & Latin?
   

   Constantin Hansen (1838), Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum via Met Museum.

When I joined UCL in August 2023, in the middle of the Late Summer Assessment period, I was presented with a range of different systems and new web pages to familiarise myself with and learn quickly, one of which was Moodle. Although I had experience using Virtual Learning Environments at my previous institution, navigating the Moodle pages in the Department of Greek & Latin posed new challenges: Where was that submission point? Why were they located in different places on different pages? Why were there so many hidden or outdated sections?

These were relatively small issues but taken together, they highlighted the lack of consistency and clarity within our Moodle pages. Although functional, the pages had become cluttered over time, with outdated materials left behind through successive rollovers, leading to a disorganised experience for all users.

Whilst being the hub of student learning, Moodle is also at the centre of how academic colleagues provide teaching materials and how professional services colleagues monitor and support students. It became clear that improving its structure could benefit the entire department.

These ideas inspired the idea to apply for the Centre for Humanities Education project fund, to support the restructuring of these pages within the Department of Greek & Latin, making them more accessible and user-friendly for students and academic and professional services colleagues.

2. The project recruited a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PGTA) to evaluate existing Moodle pages and relied on student and staff focus groups. How did the involvement of both students and academic staff shape the final design of the Moodle pages? Can you offer any reflections or recommendations from those experiences?

Although improving the student experience was a central aim of the project, it was important to consider that academic and professional services colleagues also regularly use Moodle. The CHE funding allowed the project to recruit a PGTA to help evaluate and implement the required changes, and to gather input from student focus groups.

At the beginning of the project, a focus group was held that included both students and departmental colleagues. This created an open space for discussing the existing Moodle layouts and how they could be improved.

One of the key takeaways from students was that they wanted consistency of information across Moodle pages. They did not have a specific preference on where things were located, but that sections were in the same place across pages. This preference was also  emphasised by professional services staff, who proposed that consistency in layout would make it significantly easier to navigate pages and track assessments. Considering the views of a range of Moodle users allowed us to create a new structure that aimed to meet the needs of all members of the department.

Reflecting on the process, holding these open-format discussions was extremely valuable. They not only surfaced practical suggestions but also gave colleagues the chance to explain the rationale behind existing structures and how these could be reconsidered as part of the project.

3. One key priority for the project was digital accessibility, particularly for students with a Summary of Reasonable Adjustments (SoRAs). What lessons did you learn about promoting digital accessibility during this project?

In providing a standardised layout for Moodle pages, one of the project aims was to set consistent expectations for finding learning resources, submission points and information that students would need across their studies. It aimed to ensure that students could open a Moodle page and know where they could expect to find the information they were looking for, without having to do onerous searches of duplicated or out-of-date information.

For students with SoRAs, one of the main priorities was ensuring lecture recordings were located in the same place and clearly signposted under their own individual section. During the initial focus group, students highlighted that lecture recordings were sometimes hard to find and suggested that it would be useful to have these at the top of each page in their own dedicated section, so that they could easily be found by students.

Although this was a small change, it was important to students that they knew where to find learning resources and information.

It is clear that there is more work to be done in terms of digital accessibility, and that UCL has some helpful resources in supporting colleagues across the university in improving digital accessibility on Moodle. Even if there are small changes that can be made, improvements to digital accessibility are an important aspect of supporting students’ learning experience.

4. The project is now receiving feedback from students. How do you think the new pages have changed the way students use Moodle? Have you received any surprising feedback?

Feedback from students has been a useful tool for evaluating how the project went, but also what else could be considered for improvement in the future.

Student feedback found that the consistency of assessment information was incredibly useful and allowed them to find assessments easily, especially when they were at the point of submission. The new structure aimed for students to have key policy information on Extenuating Circumstances (ECs), marking criteria and late submissions, whilst providing clear signposting to this information in the UCL academic manual and the student handbook. We hope that this has changed the way students use Moodle to allow individual module pages to become key points of information that can be used alongside other resources.

One of the more surprising pieces of feedback was that students found the highlighting function a useful tool when navigating the Moodle page, particularly for the assessment section. They did not mind where this was located within the new structure but found that having it highlighted made it visually easier to navigate to.

5. Going forward, what kinds of broader lessons did you learn during the project that might be relevant to those designing or operating their own Moodle pages, including both academic and professional service staff? Could you give an example of any specific, perhaps minor, changes we can make to Moodle pages that can make a huge difference?

One of the most valuable lessons from this project is that consistency in Moodle can have a significant impact. Although each Moodle page delivers unique content, the familiarity of the same structure of Moodle pages created clarity and ease for departmental staff and students navigating these pages.

Providing clear section headings, placing learning resources in consistent locations across pages, and including standardised guidance helped us create a more user-friendly experience within the department.

Another important lesson was the need for regular maintenance during the annual rollover. As content is stored on the Moodle based upon the year the teaching takes place, removing outdated materials, updating submission points and checking any links are important for ensuring Moodle pages are user-friendly and accessible. This not only improves the student experience but also reduces the workload for staff in the long run by preventing Moodle pages from becoming cluttered.

For minor changes, use the highlighting function for assessment submission sections. It received positive feedback in the student focus group and will make these quick to find and visually stand out.

For additional support, consider reaching out to your Faculty Technology Lead, to see what suggestions they may have and how you could be supported with similar projects.

Frederic Edwin Church (1871), The Parthenon via Met Museum.

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April Jones is Senior Teaching and Learning Administrator within the department of Greek and Latin, having joined UCL in 2023. Before that, she was an Education Administrator at the University of Exeter, where she was nominated for an Employment Award for Business Impact in recognition of her efforts to improve processes for professional services staff. April has a strong interest in evaluating and refining current processes and resources to encourage a more efficient and supportive environment that enhances student experience.

Decentralised Networks as Resistance Infrastructure: A Creative Critical Technical Practice

By Admin, on 23 April 2025

By Koundinya Dhulipalla, Winnie Soon, Lily Chasioti 

Contemporary centralised communication systems perpetuate technical paternalism—systems designed with unexamined assumptions about control and hierarchy. These systems can reinforce existing power imbalances and render certain voices unheard. In response, local technologies that emphasise community participation and collective ownership emerge as alternatives to corporate-run centralised systems. The Reimagining Futures: Creative Networks for Social Justice workshop, facilitated by community educator Catalina Polanco and organised by Slade Art+Tech Research Lab (March 2025), demonstrated how engaging with community infrastructure serves both resistance and pedagogical innovation.

Through hands-on engagement with LoRa (Long Range) mesh networks—wireless communication systems that allow devices to directly connect and relay messages to each other without requiring centralised infrastructure—the workshop positions decentralised technology as both technical intervention and deconstructive educational practice. Building on Phil Agre’s framework of critical technical practice (Agre, 1997), the workshop explored how community-run networks can be used to teach students to question the material and ideological architectures of centralised infrastructure. By engaging with alternative infrastructures through hands-on practice, participants developed both technical literacy and critical consciousness about the political dimensions of network design and peer communication. This workshop not only explored technological alternatives but also demonstrated how such approaches inform innovative pedagogical practices that integrate technical skills with critical thinking, providing a model for interdisciplinary teaching and learning.

Caption 1: Reimagine Futures workshop at Slade Studio, UCL East.

Technical Characteristics and Political Affordances 

The problem of centralised networks lies in their hierarchical structure, where communication typically flows through corporate-controlled servers. In contrast, decentralised mesh networks offer an alternative approach with valuable teaching applications in examining the role of agency—how users can exercise control and decision-making power within technological systems. LoRa peer-to-peer mesh networks function by allowing devices (nodes) to communicate directly with each other without requiring a centralised server.

Caption 2: Peer-to-Peer Mesh Network. Credit: Koundinya Dhulipalla

These networks possess several distinctive technical characteristics that translate into political and pedagogical possibilities. Their network redundancy—the ability to have multiple backup paths for information to travel if one connection fails—allows data to route around failures, teaching students about robust system design against both accidental outages and deliberate communication disruption, embodying individual agency through system resilience.

Their adaptability enables nodes to dynamically discover communication routes and adapt to changing conditions, offering lessons in systems that “self-heal” as components join, leave, or change position—giving users agency to reshape network topologies as needed. Through incremental scalability, these networks demonstrate how systems can grow organically without requiring centralised planning or significant infrastructure investment, further emphasising community agency in network development. Additionally, LoRa devices can be powered with a battery, making them ideal tools for teaching about portable devices for long-range data communication, even during outages, enhancing user agency during crisis situations. 

Pluriverse of Local Worlds 

The workshop’s technical experiments with LoRa devices operationalised de Valk’s “pluriverse of local worlds”—systems rejecting universal solutions in favour of community-specific epistemologies (de Valk, 2021). Participants configured Meshtastic nodes not merely as communication tools but as infrastructural critiques, bypassing dependencies on internet service providers while interrogating terms like “protocol” and “bandwidth” as ideological constructs.  

When participants established their first successful node-to-node connections, discussions immediately turned to how these connections differed from corporate networks. Unlike centralised systems where communication passes through corporate ‘cloud’ servers, these peer-to-peer transmissions created direct links between community members. This technical arrangement materialised a different social relationship—one where communication infrastructure could be collectively set up, owned and governed rather than rented from distant corporations. This direct connection between technical configuration and social relationships formed the foundation for understanding how infrastructure design embodies political values.  

The workshop also situated this technical practice in Latin American community technology movements, where facilitator Catalina Polanco, a community educator working on promoting free and open technologies, shared experiences from organisations like Laboratorio de Medios and Red TIC-AC, which demonstrated how community-driven technology development and political action become naturally intertwined in grassroots contexts. These collectives focus on developing independent communication networks, providing digital security training, and supporting Indigenous and rural communities in reclaiming their narratives through open-source technology. Open-source technology—software and hardware whose design is public and can be accessed by anyone—is central to these movements as it enables communities to adapt technologies to their specific needs while reducing dependency on proprietary systems controlled by corporations.  

Caption 3: Catalina Polanco introducing the workshop.

These examples provided more than inspiration—they offered practical methodologies. When configuring LoRa devices, participants adopted approaches that prioritise repairability over optimisation. By embedding these principles in technical work, participants experienced how infrastructure design can either reinforce or challenge existing power relations. Contextualising the workshop with the works of these organisations working in Latin America also established a framework for approaching this workshop as an exploration of digital sovereignty—a resistance against surveillance and centralised corporate and state control—while also encouraging knowledge-sharing and the decolonisation of knowledge systems. 

Critical Technical Practice Methodologies 

The workshop operationalised Agre’s framework of critical technical practice through several specific methodologies: 

Speculative Scenarios 

A fictional scenario set in 2033 revealed tensions between decentralised resilience and scalability limits. Participants proposed interfaces between LoRa and community radio infrastructure. The scenario exercise highlighted how decentralised networks could support mutual aid during climate disasters, positioning them as essential infrastructure for community survival in increasingly precarious times (Bodó, Brekke, & Hoepman, 2021). This scenario-based approach connects to broader traditions of speculative design (Dunne & Raby, 2013) that use fiction as a method for exploring the social and political implications of technology. 

Caption 4: Participants Designing Network Topologies.

Repair and Maintenance as Critical Practice 

The workshop included discussions on maintenance and repair practices, shifting attention from innovation to sustainability—from creation to care. Repair practices reveal the values and power relations embedded in technical systems. By prioritising the ongoing life of devices over their replacement, participants enacted a different relationship to technology—one based on stewardship rather than consumption. This approach emphasises the agency to maintain and modify devices rather than being forced into cycles of obsolescence and replacement.  

The repair sessions also democratised technical knowledge. Participants with varying levels of expertise worked collaboratively, challenging the conventional separation between “experts” and “users” that often characterises technical education. This horizontal knowledge-sharing fostered what can be termed “cognitive justice” (Visvanathan, n.d.) —recognising diverse forms of expertise and making technical knowledge accessible to communities typically excluded from technological production. 

Caption 5: Hands-on Experimenting with LoRa Device.

Significant discussions emerged during the workshop around the labour implications of decentralised networks. Participants questioned who maintains these systems once they are built; how technical knowledge is preserved and shared; and what sustainable repair practices might look like (Internet Policy Review, 2021). Unlike corporate infrastructure with dedicated maintenance teams, community networks depend on distributed responsibility and skill-sharing arrangements that can be challenging to sustain over time. 

Participants also explored sustainability in environmental and social dimensions—considering how to create technologies that can be sustained without enormous energy demands, utilising renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, while also addressing how community knowledge can be preserved and transmitted through generations. 

Critical Technical Practice as a Pedagogical Framework 

By integrating theory and practice, this workshop embedded critical reflection directly into technical learning and teaching, demonstrating how deconstruction and critical technical practice (Soon & Valasco 2024) can serve as a pedagogical framework. Participants engaged simultaneously in learning technical skills (configuring Meshtastic devices, testing signal ranges, as well as a walk-through of the open-sourced program that runs on the LoRa devices) and analysing their political implications (who controls communication, how infrastructure embodies power relations). This integrated approach disrupts the conventional division between “technical” and “critical” courses, demonstrating how the technical and political dimensions of technology are inherently interconnected, fostering both technical competence and social awareness. 

As participants explored LoRa communication, significant debates emerged about network architecture choices. Some teams devoted considerable time to weighing the trade-offs between fully decentralised mesh networks, centralised systems with designated control points, or hybrid approaches combining elements of both. These discussions highlighted an important aspect of critical technical practice—that infrastructure design involves not just implementation but constant negotiation of values, priorities, and governance models. By experiencing firsthand how different network topologies embodied different political possibilities, participants gained insight into the open-ended nature of technical decisions and their social implications. 

The educational impact extended beyond individual skill development to collective knowledge production. As participants from different disciplines collaborated—some bringing technical expertise, others contributing critical frameworks from feminist or decolonial theory—engaging in the material creation of networks, they developed a shared understanding across disciplinary boundaries, demonstrating how infrastructure functions not just as physical structure but as a process that clarifies relationships between different knowledge systems. This approach recognises that infrastructure is not merely technical but encompasses social, epistemological, and cognitive components that together support collaborative learning practices. Such a pedagogical approach becomes essential in interdisciplinary contexts where diverse backgrounds and perspectives transform into meaningful collaborative exchange. 

Conclusion: Protocols as Praxis 

The workshop explored how building LoRa networks constitutes critical technical practice by materialising alternative social relations through channel configurations that prioritise community needs over corporate metrics. It embedded maintenance as ongoing ethical labour rather than a technical afterthought and situates technology within specific cultural and ecological contexts. 

As corporate platforms increasingly co-opt “decentralisation” rhetoric, community networks might remain sites of ongoing deconstruction—infrastructures that continuously question their own power dynamics while providing essential services (Soon & Velasco, 2024). This approach rejects both techno-utopianism and techno-pessimism in favour of what critical technical practice proposes—an engagement with technology that recognises its political nature while working toward more equitable and sustainable configurations. 

This workshop offers a model for integrated technical-critical pedagogy, aligning with the BA Art & Technology programme’s commitment to treating infrastructure not just as a technical system but as a cultural and political architecture open to reimagination. By embedding critical technical practice into the curriculum, the program fosters a generation of practitioners who approach technology as both a medium and a site of intervention—developing an artistic practice to build, critique, and reshape the systems that shape our digital and physical environments. The workshop’s approach directly informs undergraduate teaching in the BA Art & Technology by demonstrating how technical learning becomes transformative when situated within critical and creative frameworks – engaging in collaborative learning environments where diverse backgrounds and perspective inform an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning. By treating the classroom as a site of critical technical practice, the programme prepares students not merely as consumers of technology but as practitioners capable of reimagining the systems and infrastructures that increasingly define our social, cultural, and political realities. 

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The workshop was organised by the Slade Art+Tech Research Lab, based at UCL East, and is supported by UCL’s Centre for Humanities Education.  

Photo credits: Jessica Arnold 

Workshop facilitator: Catalina Polanco / IG: @descuartizadorahack Organisers:  Winnie Soon, Koundinya Dhulipalla, Lily Chasioti 

References 

• Agre, P. E. (1997). Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI. In G. C. Bowker, S. L. Star, L. Gasser, & W. Turner (Eds.), Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide (pp. 131-158). Lawrence Erlbaum. 

• Bodó, B., Brekke, J. K., & Hoepman, J.-H. (2021). Decentralisation: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Internet Policy Review, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2021.2.1563 

• de Valk, M. (2021). A Pluriverse of Local Worlds: A Review of Computing within Limits Related Terminology and Practices. In LIMITS ’21: Workshop on Computing within Limits, June 14-15, 2021. 

• Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press. 

• Soon, W., & Velasco González, P. R. (2024). (De)constructing Machines as Critical Technical Practice. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(1), 116-141. 

• Visvanathan, S. (n.d). The Search for Cognitive Justice. The ACU Review. Retrieved March 21, 2025, from https://www.acu.ac.uk/the-acu-review/the-search-for-cognitive-justice/