Associate Professor Rhodora (Rhoda) Abadia

Excludes commercial-in-confidence projects.

Other projects

Associate Professor Abadia received thirteen major research grants of external funding and conducted research in different areas of Artificial Intelligence  applied in education: Learning analytics, Text analytics, Virtual Reality in education, multimedia and human-computer interaction;  user experience and usability; and  technology-enhanced online learning . She currently spearhead the innovative technology research at UniSA Online, and facilitates the scholarship of learning and teaching for online teaching academics.

Research outputs for the last seven years are shown below. Some long-standing staff members may have older outputs included. To see earlier years visit ORCID, ResearcherID or Scopus

Open access indicates that an output is open access.

Chapters

Journal Articles

Conferences

National Government Grants

Chief investigator, Data Ethics in Educational Ai: A Comparative Framework for Australia-Korea Collaboration. Australian Korean Foundation Grant .UniSA Co-investigators: Gosia Ludwichoswska-Alluigi (co-lead), Neil Bretana, Reid Honan, Srecko Jocsimovic; Flinders University: Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos; Changwon National University: Par Jaeuhun; Inje University: Lee Eun Hua. (EOI submitted, waiting for results) - 2025

Chief Investigator, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Software Engineering Research Labs. Funded by Advanced Research Institute in Computing, De La Salle University Research Coordinating Office, ASEAN Universities Network and Department of Science and Technology, Philippines (~AU$28,000). Investigators: Prof Raymund Sison, Dr Conrado Ruiz, Christine Gocolay, Carlo Galvey, Eden Ordona (1996-2003)

University Grants (2021-present)

Chief Investigator, EngageAI:Using Persuasive AI to Improve Student Engagement in Digitally Enhanced Learning Environments. Teaching and Learning Development Grant, UniSA (~$25000). Co-investigators: Gosia Ludwichoswska-Alluigi (co-lead),  Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos,  Neil Bretana, Reid Honan. (2024-)

Technology Equipment Grant (Additional servers to increase access to applications for online students) ~$41000 (2024)

Co-investigator, Perceptions and Adoptions of (Generative) Artificial Intelligence in Online Learning: The Case of the Large Language Model ChatGPT. UniSA Online Research Seed Grant ($5000). Co-investigator: Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos (lead) (2023- 2024)

Chief Investigator, Unlocking the Digital Potential of Construction Management Using Virtual Reality.  Research seed funding for Women, Australian Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environment. Investigators: Dr Shokry Abdelaal, Dr Thilini Jayawickrama, and Mr Jonathan Fritsch  (2023- present)

Chief Investigator, Enhancing Online Experiential Learning using Virtual Reality .UniSA Online Research Seed Grant. Investigators: Dr Shokry Abdelaal, Dr Thilini Jayawickrama and Mr Jonathan Fritsch.

Conference Awards:

• Best Paper Award -  International Conference in E-Learning and Digital Learning (2023)
• Best Paper Presentation - International Conference of Educational Technology and Computers  (2018)
• Nominiee for Best Technical Paper - Internation Conference in Computers in Education  (2019)

Associate Professor Abadia has more than 25 years of experience in undertaking research projects in the areas of  learning analytics, virtual reality, and  Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology in Education. Her major area of interest is in the use of technologies to improve quality of instruction and provide maximum impact on student learning.

She published in journals (such as Artificial Intelligence in Education; Journal Research in Science, Computing and Engineering; Journal in Computers and Education; Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Lecture notes in Computer Science; Pacific Rim International Conference on Artificial Intelligence; and International Conference on Computers in Education) and have presented in conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. She also worked as a visiting researcher at the School of Computing and Mathematics at Deakin University and worked on the area of intelligent tutoring including the consideration of human factors and visualisation in designing the interface of the system.  She conducted research at the Center of Highly-Interactive  Classrooms, Curricula and Computing in Education at University of Michigan. Her research focused on the design of a highly interactive intelligent tutoring interface for novice students learning logic programming. Aside from researching the use of technologies in education, she was also involved in the use of data mining applied to health.  She was part of the research team who developed algorithms for real time processing of data from patient biodevices.

Currently, she is continuing her research in areas such as technology (e.g., VR, AI) applied in education.  She is currently a recipient of a research award and working on analysing the effectiveness  of immersive technologies in students learning.