News

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has led to various new ways of perceiving and understanding important public health data. Several exciting new methods for relaying complex information to the public have emerged using a variety of tools and platforms including visualizations (called sims), interactive augmented reality (AR) overlays, and interactive data platforms, among others.    This will be a collection of short articles (1000-3000 words – e.g., Perspectives, Methods, etc.) that highlight creative, new tools and their contributions to our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic.    The editorial team is flexible about the format and content in these articles, but we encourage the inclusion of multimedia elements and links showcasing the sims or platforms. Along with the short manuscript, we ask for an accompanying URL so that readers can access and experience the sim and interactive data platforms.     I also want to highlight that Frontiers’s senior management decided to waive the …

On May 15th, the ERUM consortium met for the second time, but, due to the current public health crisis, the meeting was held on Zoom. It was chaired by Judith, Alessandra and Johanna from the University of Vienna. During this productive day, the project partners discussed about already achieved milestones and about next important steps of the project. Internal management and dissemination strategies were addressed and the consortium discussed the progress of IO1 (reports on controversial topics represented in media), which is led by the University of Vienna and will be finalised this month. Furthermore, Vytautas Magnus University informed the partners about the progress of IO2, which focuses on guidelines for evidence-based communication. Other than being based on the research conducted in the framework of IO1, this second intellectual output builds on a survey targeted at journalists that will be conducted in the forthcoming months. Lastly, the consortium members continued …

To Cyprus Interaction Lab παρουσίασε το Arduino Webinar for Beginners που θα πραγματοποιήθηκε το Σάββατο 06/06/2020 στις 10:00-11:30 π.μ μέσω της πλατφόρμας Google Meet. Στόχος ήταν η επίδειξη της πλατφόρμας Arduino, δηλαδή μιας απλής πλακέτας ανοικτού κώδικα, η οποία μπορεί να προγραμματιστεί για να χρησιμοποιηθεί σε διαδραστικά έργα. Κρατήστε τη θέση σας ΤΩΡΑ!Δωρεάν συμμετοχή / Περιορισμένος αριθμός θέσεωνΓια δηλώσεις συμμετοχής μέσω Google Formhttps://forms.gle/HQg7zsmPrLUctTnk6 Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες σχετικά με το Webinar επικοινωνήστε με το email :eirinaios@www.cyprusinteractionlab.com

We have developed an interactive AR application for visualising and creative imaginaries for the area of Omirou Street and Fytoriou Street at Aglantzia Municipality allowing the public to influence the decision-making processes by creating their own visual material to discuss and comment on as part of our SUGAR project. More information available at the project page. We thank Harvard University and Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου | University Of Cyprus for a great collaboration. Social Computing Research Center – SCRC Cyprus University of Technology / Τεχνολογικό Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου Δήμος Αγλαντζιάς – Aglantzia Municipality Με το ερευνητικό μας έργο SUGAR έχουμε αναπτύξει διαδραστική εφαρμογή για να οπτικοποιήσουμε την υφιστάμενη κατάσταση και προτάσεις για την περιοχή πρόσβασης της οδού Ομήρου στην οδό Φυτωρίου στο Δήμο Αγλαντζιάς επιτρέποντας στο κοινό να αποκτήσει ένα οπτικό μέσο έκφρασης και να προτείνει εναλλακτικές προτάσεις ενημερώνοντας τα κέντρα λήψης αποφάσεων και ενισχύοντας ψηφιακά τις διαδικασίες διαβούλευσης. Περισσότερες πληροφορίες στη σελίδα του έργου μας. Ευχαριστούμε το Harvard University και Πανεπιστήμιο …

Due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), CIL will not host any internships for Summer 2020. A small number of virtual internships will be hosted i.e., the intern completes a project in distance with some online supervision meetings.  A certificate for a successful internship will be awarded by the Director of the Lab. The Cyprus Interaction Lab (CIL) offers 3-4 internships per year. We are looking to award 1-2 internships under CIL’s FeSTEM Project (http://festemproject.eu/).The CIL internship program allows undergraduate and graduate students as well as recent graduates to gain research/work experience by getting involved with ongoing activities of the Lab. CIL internships last for a period of 2-6 months and are completed under the supervision of a Lab member. FeSTEM Project internships will be supervised by Dr. Antigoni Parmaxi. CIL internships are unpaid internships. International applicants are encouraged to apply for external funding (e.g., Erasmus Student Mobility for Placements program that enables higher education …

The EIT Climate-KIC Young Innovators 2020 Cyprus aims to support secondary and high school students to develop their 21st-century skills and competencies related to climate innovation, under the umbrella of the PBL pedagogy. Among other competencies, the project promotes systems thinking and analysis, critical thinking, creative problem-solving and entrepreneurship. The programme has 2 Stages: Stage 1: Teacher Training Stage 2: Pilot Workshops with Students Contact us if you are interested!https://yicy2020-ck.cyprusinteractionlab.com/

The Cyprus Interaction Lab and RISE CoE are happy to announce its participation in a successful COST Action proposal titled on Promoting Gender Balance in Informatic. Women are underrepresented in Informatics (Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Computing, ICT) at all levels, while increasing female representation in the field is a grand challenge for academics, policymakers, and society as a whole. The main aim of this COST Action is to improve gender balance in Informatics through the creation and strengthening of a truly multi-cultural European network of academics working on the forefront of the efforts in their countries, institutions and research communities.

“Within the next 10 years, many millions of people will be … wearing relatively unobtrusive … devices that offer an immersive and high-resolution view of a visually augmented world” (Perlin 2016: 85). This is the ‘human-machine era’, a time when our senses are not just supplemented by handheld mobile devices, but thoroughly augmented. The language we see, hear and produce will be mediated in real time by technology. This has major implications for language use, and ultimately language itself. Are linguists ready for this? Can our theory, methods, and epistemology handle it? LITHME has two aims: to prepare linguistics and its subdisciplines for what is coming; and to facilitate longer term dialogue between linguists and technology developers. How will pervasive augmentation technology affect language in areas such as international law, translation, and other forms of language work? What will this mean for how people identify with specific languages? Could increasing …

Dr. Andri Ioannou (Associate Professor, Director of the Cyprus Interaction Lab & Coordinator of the EdMedia MRG) was invited at the 3rd meeting of the Erasmus+ KA2 project ASKFOOD, which took place on April 14th-16th 2020, at the Cyprus University of Technology.  During the project meeting, Dr. Ioannou delivered a successful workshop on “Innovative teaching methods in food science; examples from practice”. As part of the workshop she introduced the Research Center on Interactive Media, Smart Systems, and Emerging Technologies (RISE) and work of the EdMedia MRG, providing examples of digital games and game-based simulations in the context of food science.  

The research team aimed to demonstrate learning design for successful integration of VR technologies in real classroom settings.The educational activity took place at the following high schools with the support of the schools’ principals and Science Education teachers: • Petrou & Pavlou Lyceum, Limassol (Marios Ioannou, Michalis Ioannou, Petros Lofitis)• Apostolou Louca Lyceum, Limassol (Maria Theophanous, Demetra Hadjichambi, Nikolas Shikkis, Andreas Falkonidis, Olga Nicolaidou)• Agiou Ioanni Lyceum, Limassol (Sylvia Economidou, Nikolas Nikolaou, Symeon Symeou)• Kykkou B Lyceum, Nicosia (Panayiota Chrysoxou-Anastasiadou, Dionysis Apostolides, Argiro Costi, Demetra Tziakouri)• Pascal Private School, Nicosia (Pantelis Andreou, Piera Ekkeshi-Meletiou) The students expressed their enthusiasm for the inquiry-based learning experience and for the use of the VR simulation, which allowed them to study the Special Theory of Relativity in a more fun, experiential and interactive way.Enjoy snapshots of the experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Q0W6BUR1I A further showcase of the experience took place at the 9th Conference of Positive Sciences …

The kickoff meeting of the ERASMUS+ project FeSTEM (Female Empowerment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Higher Education) took place with great success on January 30-31, at the Cyprus University of Technology. FeSTEM, which is funded by the European Commission, is composed of five partners in five countries (Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Spain, Slovenia). Cyprus is represented by the Social Computing Research Centre  (http://www.socialcomputing.eu)  which has the responsibility for coordinating the project, with Dr. Antigoni Parmaxi as the Scientific Coordinator of the Project. The FeSTEM project includes leading universities and research centres with a distinguished research activity in the fields of science and education: the Smart Mobile Interactive Learning Environments (SMILE, http://smile.uom.gr/) Laboratory of the University of Macedonia, the CESIE Research Center (https://cesie.org/en/), the Geoss Educational Organization (www.ic-geoss.si) and two industrial partners: Magenta Consultoria (www.magentaconsultoria.com) and ARIS (http: //www.ariscy.com/). The main objective of the FeSTEM project is to promote an …

The kick-off meeting of the ERUM project (Enhancing Research Understanding through Media) took place on December 5th and 6th, at the Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. The ERUM project is funded by the European Commission, under the Erasmus+ framework (Strategic Partnerships in Higher Education). The project consortium is composed by seven partners (University of Vienna, Cyprus University of Technology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Alcalá, University of Versailles, Vytautas Magnus University and the European University Foundation) in seven countries (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, France, Lithuania and Belgium).  Cyprus was represented by the Cyprus Interaction Lab (https://www.cyprusinteractionlab.com/) of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) which is involved in all of the Intellectual Outputs as a contributor,  will host the 4th Transnational Project meeting, and has a leading role in the organization of the second multiplier event in Limassol.  Dr. Andri Ioannou ( Associate  Professor at the Cyprus University of Technology and …