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Vialab is led by Dr. Christopher Collins at Ontario Tech University.
In addition to this site, visit our Github for software and our Blog for approachable reports of our innovations.

Research Blog

  1. AI Meets the Piano: How LLMs Are Transforming Sight-Reading Practice

    by Fareeha Malik

    Learning to play the piano is a deeply rewarding journey, but it comes with a notoriously steep hurdle: sight-reading. Sight-reading is the ability to read and play a piece of sheet music fluently on the first look, much like reading a book out loud in your native language. While essential  ...Read More


More from our blog

  1. Visualizing Language Transfer Effects in Large Learner Corpora

    by Ethan Duggan

    Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a research field that studies the process of learning another language. Language transfer effects occur when the learner applies structural, grammatical, or semantic rules from their native language to the language they are trying to learn. For example, a native  ...Read More

  2. Beyond the Static Page: A New Framework for Interactive Conference Posters

    by Fareeha Malik

    Poster sessions are a staple of academic conferences, offering a fantastic space to share research and spark informal conversations. However, standard printed posters have some major limitations: they aren’t very memorable, they can’t be easily saved for later, and their charts are stuck in a  ...Read More

  3. Covid Connect: Enabling anonymous peer-based mental health support with artificial intelligence and visualization

    by Ethan Duggan

    It’s been well over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, prompting various measures from governments and private-sector entities alike. One of the first responses to the pandemic came in the form of widespread implementation of work-from-home and learn-from-home policies.  ...Read More

  4. Guiding University Success: How AI and Smart Visuals Are Transforming Student Advising

    by Fareeha Malik

    Navigating university can be overwhelming. Between picking prerequisites, balancing demanding course loads, and adjusting to campus life, many students find themselves in academic jeopardy. While academic advisors play a crucial role in keeping students on track to graduate, their time is limited  ...Read More

  5. Rethinking the Search Bar: How “Slow” Visual Interfaces Help Scholars Explore the Humanities

    by Fareeha Malik

    We all take the single-line search bar for granted. You type in a few keywords, hit enter, and instantly get millions of results. But this familiar model relies on a major assumption: it presumes you already know exactly what you are looking for. For researchers in the humanities and social  ...Read More

  6. Visualizing sexual harassment in academia: How researchers conveyed the bigger picture behind the data without compromising the individual significance of the stories.

    by Ethan Duggan

    Sexual harassment in academia is an unusually overlooked component of the greater societal conversation around sexual assault and harassment. This is especially puzzling when you consider the intense power dynamics that exist in academic institutions, as well as the non-academic aspects of universit  ...Read More

For more posts from our research blog, check out our Medium Page.

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