Dr Ahmed Kharrufa

Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction

Email: ahmed.kharrufa@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 191 208 3695
Personal Website: https://sites.google.com/site/ahmedkharrufa/Home
Address: Open Lab,
School of Computing,
Urban Sciences Building,
Newcastle University,
NE4 5TG

Background

I am a lecturer in human computer interaction at Open Lab, Newcastle University and the director of Diwan Software and Reflective Thinking. I lead the educational technology subgroup at Open Lab, Newcastle University. My aim is to design next generation digital technologies that can help students become better learners, critical thinkers, and citizens. To achieve this, students must be actively engaged in their education; and the strategy that I believe can make this happen is providing them with a curriculum that is relevant to their interests, needs and their future career opportunities.

My current research focus is exploring the concept of commissioning (as used in community services) in the context of education to help achieve the goals of a community driven curriculum and strong school-community partnership.
Commissioning can only be effective if, in addition to a commissioning platform, there are enough tools to support the creation of more innovative educational resources, tools to feedback into how these resources are being used (to provide grounds for improvement), and more innovative approaches to teaching/engaging students with such content. I am a researcher and an EdTech Entrepreneur and I am working now on putting all these pieces together.

In addition to educational technology, I am also interested in interaction design and interactive surfaces looking at the use of wearable sensors to enhance pen and touch interactions.

Apart from research, I founded ‘Reflective Thinking’ to realize the impact of my PhD by commercializing ‘Digital Mysteries’ (a tool for collaborative learning and thinking skills development). Digital Mysteries is now a platform for releasing topic-specific apps on the Apple store. Currently there are about 30 apps covering different educational topics and different age groups with more than 340,000 downloads from over 60 countries. Diwan Software, on the other hand, has a long history in desktop publishing software, internationalization, advanced fonts development, and more recently with educational software.

Google Scholar: Click here

Area of expertise: Interaction design and educational technology

Publications

Kharrufa A, Nicholson J, Dunphy P, Hodges S, Briggs P, Olivier P. Using IMUs to identify supervisors on touch devices. In: Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2015. 2015, Bamberg, Germany: Springer.
Heslop P, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Balaam M, Leat D, Olivier P. Evaluating Digital Tabletop Collaborative Writing in the Classroom. In: Human-Computer Interaction–INTERACT 2015: 15th IFIP TC 13 International Conference. 2015, Bamberg, Germany: Springer International Publishing.
Lin M, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Kong Z. Collaborative enquiry through the tabletop for second/foreign language learners. In: EUROCALL 2014: CALL Design: Principles and Practice. 2014, Groningen, Netherlands: Research-publishing.net.
Preston A, Kharrufa A, Lin M, Kong Z. Enhancing language learning around the digital tabletop: do actions speak louder than words?. In: Innovative Language Teaching at University: Enhancing student performance. 2014, Leeds: University of Leeds.
Kharrufa A, Martinez-Maldonado R, Kay J, Olivier P. Extending tabletop application design to the classroom. In: ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces. 2013, ACM. In Preparation.
Kharrufa A, Balaam M, Heslop P, Leat D, Dolan P, Olivier P. Tables in the Wild: Lessons Learned from a Large-Scale Multi-Tabletop Deployment. In: CHI 2013: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2013, Paris: ACM.
Kharrufa A, Leat D, Olivier P. Designing for Reflection: A Case Study with Digital Tabletops and Digital Mysteries. In: Yang, H., Wang, S, ed. Cases on E-Learning Management: Development and Implementation. Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA: Information Science Reference, 2013, pp.268-292.
Leat D, Kharrufa A, Olivier P. Brains on the table revisited: Digitising innovative formative assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 2013. Submitted.
Heslop P, Kharrufa A, Balaam M, Leat D, Dolan P, Olivier P. Learning extended writing: designing for children's collaboration. In: 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC). 2013, New York: ACM Press.
Pykhtina O, Balaam M, Wood G, Pattison S, Kharrufa A, Olivier P. Magic Land: the design and evaluation of an interactive tabletop supporting therapeutic play with children. In: DIS 2012: Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference. 2012, Newcastle, UK: ACM Press.
Maslamani JA, Windeatt S, Olivier P, Heslop P, Kharrufa A, Shearer J, Balaam M. Collaborative Strategic Reading on Multi-Touch and Multi-User Digital Tabletop Displays. In: EUROCALL. 2012, Gothenburg, Sweden: Research-publishing.net.
Kharrufa A, Leat D, Olivier P. Digital Mysteries: Designing for Learning at the Tabletop. In: ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces. 2010, Saarbruecken, Germany: ACM Press.
Kharrufa A, Olivier P. Exploring the requirements of tabletop interfaces for education. International Journal of Learning Technology 2010, 5 (1), 42-62. In Preparation.
Kharrufa A, Olivier P, Leat D. Learning Through Reflection at the Tabletop: A Case Study with Digital Mysteries. In: EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology. 2010. In Preparation.
Wilkinson G, Kharrufa A, Hook J, Pursglove B, Haeuser H, Hammerla N, Wood G, Hodges S, Olivier P. Expressy: Using a Wrist-Worn Inertial Measurement Unit to Add Expressiveness to Touch-Based Interactions. In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2016. 2016, San Jose, California: ACM.
Celina H, Kharrufa A, Preston A, Comber R, Olivier P. SOLE meets MOOC: Designing Infrastructure for Online Self-Organised Learning with a Social Mission. In: 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '16). 2016, Brisbane, Australia: ACM.
Al-Megren S, Kharrufa A, Hook J, Holden A, Sutton S, Olivier P. Comparing Fatigue When Using Large Horizontal and Vertical Multi-touch Interaction Displays. In: Human-Computer Interaction–INTERACT 2015. 2015, Springer International Publishing.
Heslop P, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Balaam M, Leat D, Olivier P. Evaluating Digital Tabletop Collaborative Writing in the Classroom. In: 15th IFIP TC 13 International Conference. 2015, Bamberg, Germany: Springer.
Heslop P, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Balaam M. Evaluating Tabletop Collaborative Writing in the Classroom. 2015.
Reid A, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Heslop P, Mellor C. Re-thinking thinking: students’ perceptions of learning processes as co-authors of digital tabletop applications. 2014. In Preparation.
Kharrufa AS, Olivier P, Leat D. Digital Mysteries: Designing for Learning at the Tabletop. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1171.
Sulaiman A, Olivier P, Heslop PA. TangiSoft: A Tangible Direct-Touch Tabletop Keyboard. In: World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (EDMEDIA 2009). 2009, Honolulu, Hawaii: AACE.
Sulaiman AN, Olivier P. Attribute gates. In: 21st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). 2008, Monterey, California, USA: ACM Press.
Richardson D, Crivellaro C, Kharrufa A, Montague K, Olivier P. Exploring Public Places as Infrastructures for Civic M-Learning. In: 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies. 2017, Troyes, France: Association for Computing Machinery.
Kharrufa A, Rix S, Osadchiy T, Preston A, Olivier P. Group Spinner: Recognizing & Visualizing Learning in the Classroom for Reflection, Communication & Planning. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2017, Denver, Colorado, USA: ACM.
Dodds C, Kharrufa A, Preston A, Preston C, Olivier P. Remix Portal: Connecting Classrooms with Local Music Communities. In: 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T '17). 2017, Troyes, France: ACM.
Lin M, Preston A, Kharrufa A, Kong ZR. Making L2 learners' reasoning skills visible: The potential of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments. Thinking Skills and Creativity 2016, 22, 303-322.
Sarangapani V, Kharrufa A, Balaam M, Leat D, Wright P. Virtual.Cultural.Collaboration - Mobile phones, video technology, and cross-cultural learning. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI 2016. 2016, Florence, Italy: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Heslop P, Preston A, Reid A, Kharrufa A. Students’ Perceptions of Learning Processes as Co-Authors of Digital Tabletop Activities. In: 31st International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference (HCI 2017). 2017, Sunderland, UK: BCS.
Kharrufa A, Ploetz T, Olivier P. A Unified Model for User Identification on Multi-Touch Surfaces: A Survey and Meta-Analysis. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 2018, 24(6), 39.