Multimodal Engagement Analysis in Online Video-based Learning
Project Description
In recent years, online video-based learning, especially during the pandemic of COVID-19, has become prevalent. However, it brought new challenges to maintaining students’ engagement compared to face-to-face scenarios since there are limited connections among teachers and students. Analyzing students’ engagement patterns will provide tremendous values for teachers to reflect on and improve their teaching.
Supervisor
QU, Huamin
Quota
3
Course type
UROP3100
UROP4100
Applicant's Roles
This project aims to apply machine learning models that can fuse multimodal features extracted from audio, video, and transcripts for reliable engagement prediction in video-based online learning scenarios. Furthermore, based on the engagement predictions, we aim to conduct a systematic and comprehensive investigation into the engagement patterns in online learning through a data-driven manner. Specifically, we are interested in questions such as how the engagement of the whole class evolves through time, how students interact (e.g., ask/answer questions) with each other or teachers, what are the indicators/behaviors for low/high engagement, and what are the contexts for such moments.

Students will be given access to real-world labeled video data in an online learning scenario provided by an international communication training company. Students need to experiment with existing machine learning models for multimodal engagement prediction.

They are encouraged to build simple demos to investigate the engagement patterns reflected by the model predictions.
Applicant's Learning Objectives
1. Use python for multimodal data analyses to gain hands-on practice on video processing and applying multimodal machine learning models
2. Learn some development skills of frontend interactive visualization (e.g., JS, Vuejs/React, D3)
3. Opportunities to have a top-tier publication in data visualization/human-computer interaction, depending on the novelty and quality of the project outcomes
Complexity of the project
Challenging