Simon.BuckinghamShum.net

Simon Buckingham Shum

Professor of Learning Informatics
University of Technology Sydney
Director, Connected Intelligence Centre

Welcome to my site! I have a career-long fascination with how computers help to make thinking visible in new ways. You’ll find on this site details of how my team has over the years invented a range of digital tools designed to combine human and machine intelligence, typically released open source.

My current focus is on the future of education, specifically, the contribution of human-centred design of Analytics/AI-powered tools to close the feedback loop to learners and educators, to build the capabilities needed for the future of work and citizenship. “Human-centred” requires pedagogy, design and ethics in deep dialogue with data science and systems thinking. For more on the path I’ve walked to get to this point, see my interests.

I share news and pre-publication thoughts on this blog and Medium. I’m a co-founder of the Society for Learning Analytics Research, and a Fellow of the RSA.

In more detail…

Partnerships and sectors: I’ve diverse interests, working with a wide range of organisations, all seeking new forms of sensemaking support to tackle wicked problems… analysing best practices in international development for World Vision; curating good practices for the UK health visitors association; mapping HIV prevention programs for the UN’s International Labour Organization; supporting non-violent hostage recovery options for US Joint Forces Command; adding sensemaking tools for the Hewlett Foundation’s open educational resource initiatives; piloting an open peer review journal for BP drilling engineers; science sensemaking support for NASA’s human mission to Mars program.

Academic background: I bring a human-centred computing perspective to technology. This started with a degree in Psychology (York, 1984-87), where I got interested in the emerging field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) thanks to Andrew Monk. Hooked on HCI, this was followed by a Masters in Ergonomics (UCL, 1988) under John Long, plus a dissertation with Phil Barnard developing an expert system for cognitive modelling in HCI, before returning to York for a PhD 1988-91 in HCI and Design Rationale (supervised by Nick Hammond, and Allan MacLean at Rank Xerox EuroPARC).

Invited talks and consulting: I enjoy communicating with diverse audiences [Talks/Media], and do occasional consulting in my ‘spare time’.

Elsewhere… I’m a lifelong learner husband to Jackie, and dad to Tom, Jas and Jo. I was a moderate tennis player and university darts champion many moons ago, and I still play a drumkit and cajon from time to time. When I lived in the UK, since my 20s I was an annual pilgrim to Greenbelt Festival and I’m now part of Spiritual Misfits. The way to my heart is very simple: Thai and Tiramisu.

I switched to WordPress in July 2008. 1996-2007 news stories are on my original news site.