Workshop B (1-day, in English)

Title: Publishing Your Research in the AI Era: Sharing the Road Traveled
with Budding English as a Foreign or Second Language Scholars

Qin Xie, University of Macau

Workshop Description 

     Publish or perish. Publishing scholarly research is becoming unavoidable for academics working in universities worldwide. Publishing research in English poses considerably more challenges for EFL scholars working in developing countries. Such challenges could be overwhelming for budding scholars or EFL postgraduate students.

     In this workshop, we will address some of the challenges by involving experienced scholars to share their insights and experiences of publishing research in the field of language testing and assessment. We will also walk participants through the publication procedures, discuss with the participants the Dos and Don’ts, introduce some emerging Generative AI-based tools, and explore their potential to assist publication in an ethical and fair manner. Participants will learn how to use Gen-AI tools to produce mini-videos based on their own professional or scholarly outputs for broader dissemination of their research output.

     The workshop will have the following components:
     1. We will walk the participants through the common procedures of academic journal publication. Experienced and stellar researchers will be invited to share their insights and experiences on key stages of these procedures.
     2. We will introduce several recent AI-based tools and demonstrate how they can facilitate EFL novice researchers on their publication journey, especially in consolidating scholarly source materials and enhancement of the English language.
     3. We will showcase how researchers can digitize their professional resources and research outputs in the form of searchable online databases and short videos to achieve wider dissimilation and greater social impact

     The workshop will involve many interactions and step-by-step, hands-on practices of the tools introduced. Workshop participants will be asked to
     1. Work in small groups to discuss their publication ideas and potential challenges
     2. Work with case demonstrations and examples from existing materials to ground the workshop in real-world issues and applications.
     3. Work on tasks to trial and explore the AI tools introduced
     4. Be guided step by step on how to produce a one-minute video showcasing their research.

     We believe the workshop program with experience sharing, case demonstration, and practical hands-on training will allow participants to traverse from the conceptual to the practical, achieve a clearer perspective toward academic publication and ethical uses of AI tools, and learn to use these powerful tools to assist their publication not only in English journals and but also in the emerging form of digital publication. The latter could make their research more accessible and achieve greater social, educational, and academic impact.

Presenter Biodata: 

Qin Xie is Associate Professor of Language Assessment and Education at the University of Macau, where she trains English language teachers, focusing on their language assessment literacy skills. She also supervises doctoral and master students and has worked with them to publish their first research in academic journals. Her research interests include test washback, validation, and diagnostic assessment, from which she has published over 35 research articles in high-impact international journals such as Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Assessing Writing, Language Teaching, Systems, and Educational Psychology. Currently, Qin serves Language Assessment Quarterly and Journal of Asia TEFL as an associate editor; she is also on the editorial board of several other indexed journals and has been a regular reviewer for a dozen of journals in applied linguistics and language assessment. Qin will invite several guest speakers (TBC) to facilitate the workshop by sharing their experiences and insights about journal publications.