STEM Faculty

Neil Smith

Senior Lecturer In Computing

Professional biography

Dr Smith is a senior lecturer in Computing and Communications with interests in aritficial intelligence, data science, machine learning, and pedagogy.

Research interests

My main research interests are in pedagogy of STEM education, including ways of engaging people in non-traditional contexts, such as children in Code Clubs and under-represented groups looking to move into computing.

Teaching interests

I teach in the areas of data science and machine learning. I currently lead a team developing a new module on machine learning for the OU's data science degree.

Impact and engagement

I work with several groups outside the university, including Code Club and GirlsCodeMK. Both these groups work to engage people with computing outside traditional higher-education contexts.

Featured research

Teaching programming with generative AI

Explore all research projects

Latest publications

Displaying 10 of 36 publications

Smith, N., Richards, M. and Cabrero, D. G., 2018, ‘Summer of Code: Assisting Distance-Learning Students with Open-Ended Programming Tasks’, in 23rd Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE ’18), 2-4 Jul 2018, Larnaca, Cyprus., https://oro.open.ac.uk/54651/.
Smith, N., Caldwell, H. and Richards, M., 2017, ‘A Comparison of MOOC Development and Delivery Approaches’, in Childs, Mark and Soetanto, Robby eds. Online Learning for STEM Subjects: International Examples of Technologies and Pedagogies in Use. Routledge., https://oro.open.ac.uk/49136/.
Smith, N., Richards, M., Caldwell, H. and Bandara, A., 2017, ‘A comparison of MOOC development and delivery approaches’, International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 34(2), pp. 152–164., https://oro.open.ac.uk/49137/.
Smith, N., Caldwell, H. and Richards, M., 2016, ‘A comparison of MOOC development and delivery approaches’, in International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education, 7-9 Jul 2016, Rhodes, Greece., https://oro.open.ac.uk/47450/.
Smith, N., Allsop, Y., Caldwell, H., Hill, D., Dimitriadi, Y. and Csizmadia, A. P., 2015, ‘Master Teachers in Computing: what have we achieved? In: Proceedings of the 10th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, 9-11 Nov 2015’, https://oro.open.ac.uk/45454/.
Smith, N. and Caldwell, H., 2015, ‘Ubiquitous computing devices in the training of teacher-trainers’, in International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education (ICICTE 2015), 9-11 Jul 2015, Kos, Greece., https://oro.open.ac.uk/43810/.
Smith, N., Sutcliffe, C. and Sandvik, L., 2014, ‘Code Club: bringing programming to UK primary schools through Scratch’, in 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 14), 5-8 Mar 2014, Atlanta, GA., https://oro.open.ac.uk/39111/.
French, F., Mancini, C., Smith, N. and Sharp, H., 2014, ‘Designing smart toys for the cognitive enrichment of elephants’, in First Symposium on Intelligent Systems for Animal Welfare, Proceedings of the 50th Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, 1-4 Apr 2014, Goldsmiths, University of London., https://oro.open.ac.uk/48581/.
Kortuem, G., Bandara, A., Smith, N., Richards, M. and Petre, M., 2013, ‘Educating the Internet-of-Things generation’, Computer, 46(2), pp. 53–61., https://oro.open.ac.uk/35693/.
Thomas, P., Waugh, K. and Smith, N., 2012, ‘Automatically assessing free-form diagrams in e-assessment systems’, in STEM Annual Conference 2012: Aiming for excellence in STEM learning and teaching, 12-13 Apr 2012, Imperial College London., https://oro.open.ac.uk/33478/.

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