Bastiaan Heeren
Head of Department and Associate professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Open University of the Netherlands.
I am a member of the Software Technology for Learning and Teaching research group, and teach various courses in the Software Engineering Master's programme. My research interests are functional programming languages in education, and advanced software technology concepts to support teaching and learning. Before I joined the Open University, I was a lecturer and a PhD student at Utrecht University.
Activities
- Program Committee member and reviewer for conferences related to Functional Programming (ICFP, JFP, Haskell Symposium, IFL), Computer Science Education (SIGCSE, CSERC, ICCE), and Intelligent Tutoring Systems (IJAIED)
- Board member of VERSEN (Dutch National Association for Software Engineering)
- Member of IPN (ICT Research Platform Nederland)
- Board member of Stichting Stilt: the foundation's goal is to stimulate the use of software technology in education
- Designer and developer of the Ideas software framework for building state-of-the-art components for intelligent tutoring systems (ITS)
- Guest researcher at Utrecht University with the Software Technology for Learning and Teaching research group
- Programme leader of the Master Computer Science of the Open University of the Netherlands (2014-2019)
- Lecturer of IPA course on Software technology for learning and teaching (2015)
- Co-organizer of the Tenth ICFP programming contest (2007)
News
- 17-12-2020: Colloquium talk about Software technology for automated feedback generation at OU and UU
- 31-8-2020: Best reviewer award for ICCE 2020 (and ICCE 2019) for track C1-AIED/ITS & AL.
- 13-9-2019: ideas-1.8 is released.
- 24-7-2019: Keynote "Automated feedback for mathematical learning environments" for ICTMT14.
- 19-10-2018: Advise-Me workshop on digital assessment in mathematics.
- 8-6-2018: Our research paper Fine-grained Cognitive Assessment based on Free-form Input for Math Story Problems was accepted for EC-TEL 2018.
Selected publications
Or visit the full list of publications.
- Sietske Tacoma, Bastiaan Heeren, Johan Jeuring, and Paul Drijvers. Intelligent Feedback on Hypothesis Testing. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 30(4):616-636, 2020.
- Josje Lodder, Bastiaan Heeren, Johan Jeuring, and Wendy Neijenhuis. Generation and Use of Hints and Feedback in a Hilbert-Style Axiomatic Proof Tutor. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 2020.
- Sander Kamps, Bastiaan Heeren, and Johan Jeuring. Assessing the Quality of Evolving Haskell Systems by Measuring Structural Inequality. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Haskell, Haskell 2020, pages 67-79, 2020. Association for Computing Machinery.
- Hieke Keuning, Bastiaan Heeren, and Johan Jeuring. How teachers would help students to improve their code. In ITiCSE '19, pages 119-125, 2019. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
- Hieke Keuning, Johan Jeuring, and Bastiaan Heeren. A Systematic Literature Review of Automated Feedback Generation for Programming Exercises. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 19(1):1-43, 2019.
- Bastiaan Heeren, Johan Jeuring, Sergey Sosnovsky, Paul Drijvers, Peter Boon, Sietske Tacoma, Jesse Koops, Armin Weinberger, Brigitte Grugeon-Allys, Françoise Chenevotot-Quentin, Jorn van Wijk, and Ferdinand van Walree. Fine-grained Cognitive Assessment based on Free-form Input for Math Story Problems. In Proceedings of European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) 2018, pages 262-276, 2018. Springer International Publishing.
- Bastiaan Heeren and Johan Jeuring. An Extensible Domain-Specific Language for Describing Problem-Solving Procedures. In Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence in Education: 18th International Conference, AIED 2017, pages 77-89, 2017. Springer International Publishing.
- Hieke Keuning, Bastiaan Heeren, and Johan Jeuring. Code Quality Issues in Student Programs. In Proceedings of ITiCSE'17, pages 110-115, 2017. ACM.
- Bastiaan Heeren, Josje Lodder and Johan Jeuring. A Domain Reasoner for Propositional Logic. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22(8):1097-1122, 2016.
- Alex Gerdes, Bastiaan Heeren, Johan Jeuring, and L. Thomas Binsbergen. Ask-Elle: an Adaptable Programming Tutor for Haskell Giving Automated Feedback. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 27(1):65-100, 2017.
- Johan Jeuring, Frans Grosfeld, Bastiaan Heeren, Michiel Hulsbergen, Richta IJntema, Vincent Jonker, Nicole Mastenbroek, Maarten van der Smagt, Frank Wijmans, Majanne Wolters, and Henk van Zeijts. Communicate! - A Serious Game for Communication Skills. In Proceedings of Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World: 10th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2015, pages 513-517, 2015. Springer International Publishing.
- Bastiaan Heeren and Johan Jeuring. Feedback services for stepwise exercises . Science of Computer Programming , 88:110-129, 2014. Software Development Concerns in the e-Learning Domain .
- Thomas van Noort, Alexey Rodriguez yakushev, Stefan Holdermans, Johan Jeuring, Bastiaan Heeren, and José pedro Magalhães. A Lightweight Approach to Datatype-generic Rewriting. J. Funct. Program., 20(3-4):375-413, 2010.
- Bastiaan Heeren, Johan Jeuring, and Alex Gerdes. Specifying Rewrite Strategies for Interactive Exercises. Mathematics in Computer Science, 3(3):349-370, 2010.
- Bastiaan Heeren, Jurriaan Hage, and S. Doaitse Swierstra. Scripting the Type Inference Process. In Proceedings of the Eighth ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming, ICFP '03, pages 3-13, 2003. ACM.
- Bastiaan Heeren, Daan Leijen, and Arjan van IJzendoorn. Helium, for Learning Haskell. In Proceedings of the 2003 ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Haskell, Haskell '03, pages 62-71, 2003. ACM.
PhD supervision
- Hieke Keuning, working on providing feedback in an interactive learning tools for imperative programming, funded by an NWO Doctoral Grant for Teachers
- Josje Lodder, working on the design and use of tools for teaching logic
- Sylvia Stuurman, Design for Change, 2015 (with Marko van Eekelen and Harrie Passier)
- Alex Gerdes, Ask-Elle: a Haskell Tutor, 2012 (with Johan Jeuring)
Research projects
In the Advise-Me project we develop an approach to using ICT for assessing mathematics achievement of pupils using learning environments for mathematics. In particular, we look at fine-grained cognitive assessment of free-form answers to math story problems, which requires determining the steps a pupil takes towards a solution, together with the high-level solution approach used by the pupil. We recognise steps and solution approaches in free-form answers and use this information to update a user model of mathematical competencies. We use the user model to find out for which student competencies we need more evidence of mastery, and determine which next problem to offer to a pupil. We have tested our work on a large dataset for one problem, and have performed multiple pilot studies in different European countries.
At the Open University in the Netherlands, we have started the Ideas project (Intelligent Domain-specific Exercise Assistants), which aims at developing tools for incrementally solving exercises. Our research focus is on strategies for exercises, which guide the reasoning in a particular domain. The software is written in Haskell and can be found on Hackage.
I am also interested in improving the quality of type error messages for higher-order, functional programming languages (such as Haskell). For this purpose, we have designed the TOP framework for constraint-based type inference, which is used in the Helium Compiler. A detailed description of this framework is given in my PhD thesis.
Teaching
See the list of suggested Master Graduation Assignments and supervised Master's theses. In addition to supervising Bachelor and Master projects, I am involved in teaching the following courses at the Open University of the Netherlands:
Software quality management
Software architecture
Design patterns
Functional programming
Contact
My office is in the BBG building at De Uithof, Utrecht. Click here for a detailed description how to reach my office, or see my former staff page for further contact information.Email: bastiaan.heeren@ou.nl
Phone: +31 (30) 253 4255
Office: Buys Ballotgebouw (BBG), office 572
Skype: bastiaanheeren