Industry-based PhD program

Cinglevue has partnered with Edith Cowan University (ECU) through their ‘Industry engagement’ program to provide scholarships to promising PhD students, where research students have the opportunity to work on projects that are aligned with our five broad areas of research interest during three years. It allows us to infuse fresh thinking, new ideas and different perspectives into our practices and solutions.

How does it work?

First and foremost, we seek PhD students whose interests are mutually aligned with ours. Someone who is incredibly passionate about research and making an impact and relentlessly eager to experiment – doing so unnaturally well. With demonstrable enthusiasm, engagement, critical thinking, self-motivation, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving skills, dogged perseverance, and a willingness to listen to advice and make changes.

You will be fully immersed in our organisation, and provided with support and tools throughout your journey to facilitate your success as we jointly develop solutions that enhance our Virtuoso platform.

The topic of the research is established between the industry partner, the student and ECU.

The industry partner provides an industry-based supervisor to work with the student, working in collaboration with the other(s) supervisor(s) from the educational institution.

Expressions of Interest are considered through Cinglevue, where a project outline and a prospective supervisor is required.

Industry-based PhD projects

Executive functions

Schema development

Knowledge graphs

Executive functions

Assessing executive functions and problem-solving in students in an engaging and valid way

By Valeska Berg

From 2017, Edith Cowan University (ECU)

Supervisors

Shane Rogers and Mark McMahon from ECU, and Michael Garrett from Cinglevue.

This research focuses on the development of a child-friendly and engaging executive function measurement tool for students. With Cinglevue support, she has developed "eFun", an app with four games that are designed to measure executive functions and problem-solving in a fun and valid way.

Why is Valeska’s research important?

Executive functions are the foundation for learning. Therefore, knowing about children's executive function levels will facilitate the development of targets learning plans. Teachers will be able to access the outcome data of the app and directly integrate higher and lower executive function levels into learning interventions. For example, a child with a lower score on the working memory game might need more visual cues as reminders during the class.

Schema development

The effect of digitally supported schema development on middle school students’ problem-solving achievement

By Randa Siksek

From 2019, Edith Cowan University (ECU)

Supervisors

Mark McMahon and Kuki Singh from ECU and Michael Garret from Cinglevue.

Randa’s research is based on mathematical cognition and particular algebraic schemas. The aim is to develop features within Virtuoso that will support the measurement of schema development during learning and have this information at hand when suitable to enhance educational practice.

Why is Randa’s research important?

Grand theories of learning are too broad to operationalise effectively in the context of classrooms, provoking a paucity of transformation in secondary school education. Therefore, Randa’s research nurture the breadth and depth required to effectively investigate schema development to shape pedagogical innovation for supporting problem-solving and conceptual understanding.

Knowledge graphs

Developing autonomous solutions for building knowledge graphs to support educational outcomes in Virtuoso

By Ali Hur, from 2020

Edith Cowan University (ECU)

Supervisors

Dr. Naeem Janjua, Senior Lecturer, Edith Cowan University Dr. Mohi Ahmed, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University Dr. Michael Garret, Head of Research and Development, Cinglevue

The aim of Ali’s research is to develop a framework for the autonomous generation of knowledge graphs that ingests information from different enterprise data sources (internal as well as external) and uses them to generate better insights for decision support in a variety of enterprise software applications. The proposed techniques will be validated using the Virtuoso dataset to generate insights to support enhanced educational outcomes.

Why is Ali’s research important?

Knowledge graphs are a large network of entities and relationships that provides a powerful abstraction of representing the world's structured knowledge over the internet. Therefore, they express rich semantics and enables advanced reasoning that empowers applications to run use cases like deep question answering, semantic search, personalized recommendations, language understanding, advanced analytics and many more. This project will pave the way forward for greater opportunities for research and development for knowledge-intensive industries in the areas of global growth, transforming Australia into an innovative society. This project will transform educational organizations to provide knowledge-driven enterprise learning and instructional support emphasizing the recognition of individual differences in support of targeted learning pathways and experiences for each student.

Our PhD student’s experiences

“I started my Industry PhD with Cinglevue in 2017 and it has been an invaluable learning experience so far. The Industry PhD has allowed me to combine my passion for Education with Psychology. My PhD focuses on the development of a solution called ‘eFun’”. Valeska Berg.

“Cinglevue has given me the opportunity to be involved in collaborative projects with experts in psychology, software development, VR, AR and machine learning. The aggregate of these diverse experiences, helped me develop a greater appreciation for the wider perspectives on schema development in my PhD. I believe that industry-based PhD programs offer a solution to the gap between research and transformation. In my case, it has provided me with a tangible goal to enhance the lives of students and teachers in the classroom by becoming a valuable creator rather than a source of knowledge”. Randa Siksek.

“Industry and academia collaboration is always meant for solving end-user problems, where the outcome of the research does not just stay on within the research community but also brings value to the society in the form of innovative solutions. To solve such problems, Cinglevue provides an excellent platform equipped with the required supervision, teams with diverse expertise, a supportive and healthy environment, necessary infrastructure, and needed funding. I believe when you have a clear understanding of what end-users consider important, your research becomes more pragmatic and valuable. Doing a Ph.D. with Cinglevue has been a valuable experience and an opportunity to build multiple skills as a researcher and to conduct research in a more applicable manner. “. Ali Hur.