Design and realisation of an automated and online system for the analysis, description and interpretation of research data on the identity of Catholic schools in a pluralising educational landscape. Integration of contentual, technical and ICT components.

Since 2007, a comprehensive research methodology is being developed at the Centre for Academic Teacher Training of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies to assess the philosophical and religious identity of Catholic educational institutes. This is done in collaboration with the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) in Australia. Besides document analysis and interview research, a suite of surveys are being used which can be completed online at http://identiteitsonderzoek.be/ (in Dutch) and http://www.schoolidentity.net (in English). The results of these questionnaires take the shape of automated data tables and graphs which are to be described and interpreted.

This PhD project in the field of Religious Studies offers a significant contribution in particular to this crucial step. The research question is: can we design an automated system that is able to analyse the quantitative empirical results of school identity research, discover relevant patterns and then correctly describe and interpret those patterns in the form of texts, both in Dutch and in English? In other words, we can teach the computer to 'write' texts on its own, thereby properly describing and interpreting the results of the school identity research? As such, this PhD project aims at an integration of both a reflection on the content of Catholic school identity in a context of global philosophical and religious pluralisation, and the technical expertise to automate the analysis, the description and the interpretation of data tables and graph results.

This automated chart interpretation provides a structural contribution to the Catholic school identity research. Indeed, this school identity research underwent a remarkable expansion in recent years. In the framework of several projects that run at the Centre, (literally) hundreds of school research reports are being written by hand. Thanks to the automated chart analyses, the computer will be able to assist with the written interpretation of standardised yet ever-changing research results.

This new PhD project is being promoted by Prof. Dr. Didier Pollefeyt. It is estimated to have a duration of two years (from September 2013 to August 2015), during which the automation of the various components of the identity research will be realised step by step. Throughout this period, funding is provided in the form of external project money.