Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "WRITINGpro: Knowledge Center for Writing Process Research" "Mariëlle Leijten" Management "We would like to develop a Knowledge Center for Writing Process Research (WRITINGpro) in order to offer a digital platform to writing process research. The main aims of the Knowledge Center are to bring together methodological knowledge about writing process research and to offer a databank for writing process data (based on CHILDES). Website: logging tools, databank of writing process data, data collection, data analyses, FAQ and references." "Research into the life and work of sister Jeanne Devos in India, composing and writing a biography about the life and work of sister Jeanne Devos." "Kim Christiaens" "KADOC - Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society" "Sr. Jeanne Devos is a household name in Flanders. The sister gained fame through her efforts to improve the future of home workers in Indian metropolises. Because of her fame, she becomes the central figure in this research. We conduct research into her life, after which we try to make a biography of it." "Enhancing the research possibilities of the IMOB driving simulator" "Tom BRIJS" "Rehabilitation Research Center, Traffic Safety, Immunology - Biochemistry" "An expansion of the 2 IMOB's driving simulators with new equipment is described. Four changes are described. First, to investigate underlying neurocognitive processes of driving, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) will be implemented in future research. TMS is a well-established technique to stimulate a well-defined part of the human brain. It can reveal causal brain-behavior relationships providing important information about the underlying neurocognitive processes of driving. To this aim, a repetitive TMS (rTMS) device is necessary. Secondly, a second eye- and head-tracking system is necessary to investigate eye movements while driving in both simulators that are very often in use in parallel. Thirdly, replacement of screen projectors will largely improve overall focus and sign readability in the simulator which is important for our projects on road design. Finally, physical separation of driver and experimenter and a full cab mockup will improve reliability of our driving behavior measurements in all research. All together, this expansion will result in a more complete and reliable picture of driving behavior and will thus increase the impact of our research significantly" "Towards a blueprint for successful collaborative writing and revision in higher education: the interplay of instruction, interaction and writing processes and  task complexity and their relation to text quality." "Elke Van Steendam" "Language, Education and Society, Brussels Campus" "In education, collaborative writing has shown its advantages both for language and content learning. When writers collaborate to write a text, they can pool resources, offer each other assistance and observe each others learning and writing processes, which may translate in more effective writing processes and in better texts. For collaborative writing to have a positive outcome, a few conditions need to be met. Crucial for peer collaboration in writing or revision to be effective is instruction. However, other factors such as task complexity and collaborative processes may be equally important. It is precisely this mix of different factors which we investigate in a series of empirical studies. Considerable research has been done on separate components but very few studies look into the interaction between the components. A complete, evidence-based theory on collaborative writing, however, should specify these relations. Only then can we have an insight into crucial design parameters for collaborative writing a nd its full potential for education." "Fostering rephrasing and cohesion strategies in academic writing in a foreign language through automated writing evaluation" "Veronique Hoste" "Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication" "This project aims to investigate the potential and the added value of automated feedback on written syntheses produced by students of German in Flemish higher education, targeting their strategies regarding cohesion building and textual borrowing. Writing from sources in a foreign language (L2) is a genre that students majoring in languages need to master. However, because their linguistic resources are limited, they often merely cut-andpaste fragments from source texts, which leads to cohesion problems and excessive textual borrowing. While there is a clear need for guidance, providing formative feedback on writing is time-consuming. It is therefore highly relevant to investigate the potential of automated systems to foster student´s awareness of the necessary strategies. In this vein, Automated Writing Evaluation has received growing interest. The advance in Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies has paved the way for the development of tools that analyse text features based on corpus-linguistic research. Automated Writing Evaluation to date has received little attention within the German L2 research community, although the required NLP resources are at hand. The project aims to fill this gap by investigating the cohesive devices used by German L2 writers based on interlanguage theory, developing an e-tutor based on the results that specifically targets their cohesion and rephrasing strategies, and thoroughly evaluating its added value in higher education. " "Writing in school: powerful models" "Daan Debuysere" "Onderwijsinnovatie, Pro Teaching" "Writing is extremely important. It allows students to communicate, learn and participate in society. Yet, for example, the Dutch Poll 2018 shows how good writing skills of primary school children cannot be considered self-evident. Writing is a complex skill and the quality of instruction of teachers is therefore particularly important. An effective didactic approach for teachers, based on recent scientific research, is crucial. Meta-research shows how writing education should be structured: especially explicit instruction about text structure and writing strategies, goals regarding the writing product, feedback from an adult and collaborative writing are crucial for effective writing education (Graham et al, 2012). Modeling the writing approach by teachers and gradually phasing out that instruction is a powerful instructional principle. Although much research has been done into effective writing didactics, there appears to be a gap between science and practice (Koster & Bouwer 2016; Koster, Bouwer & Van den Bergh 2017). Unfortunately, powerful evidence-based interventions are not used or used insufficiently during writing lessons (Harris et al. 2013). The current PWO study, SOS Writing at School, shows that one of the most effective evidence-based interventions, namely the use of strategy instruction via modeling, is not or insufficiently used by teachers. The project exposed teachers' ignorance and reluctance to act in this area. Although teachers were explicitly encouraged to focus strongly on explicit strategy instruction via modeling, practice made it clear that on the one hand they do not know exactly what forms this strategy instruction can take and what its quality criteria are, and on the other hand that they are (too) have little confidence in their didactic actions to focus on this. This project aims to respond to this with educational design research by providing insight into the possible forms of strategy instruction via modeling, determining its quality characteristics and coaching teachers to increase their instructional power in this area. After all, research shows that as confidence in teachers' own instructional power increases, the writing results of students also increase (De Smedt, Van Keer & Merchie 2016). It is therefore important that teachers gain confidence in their didactic actions, for example through training or guidance (Graham et al. 2001). That trust can only arise when teachers are adequately trained, have insight into effective didactic strategies and have learned to apply them. The research aims to produce the following results, which will be made available to the professional field via the existing SOS website. Firstly, an in-depth section is provided to explain the quality characteristics of powerful models, including in the form of a viewing guide. Strong practical examples illustrate the different forms of models. Finally, this project aims to design a (hybrid or online) professionalization process. Video coaching is central to this process, as a strong instrument for professionalization. After all, a video coaching process makes it possible to link theoretical insights to (the reflection on) concrete actions in practice. It not only strengthens the competencies of teachers, but also promotes the culture of reflection in the school and ensures that, by viewing and discussing each other's visual material, teachers develop a common language for exchanging experiences and working together on powerful writing skills education." "Source-based writing in L1, L2 and FL: modelling of successful process characteristics." "Mariëlle Leijten" "Grammar and Pragmatics, Communication for Academic and Professional purposes (C-APP), Management" "Nowadays, writers rarely ever write from scratch. They integrate information from multiple online sources (e.g., reports, articles, blogs, tweets) into a new text that is coherent and relevant. Source-based writing is a complex mental process: writers must compare, contrast and evaluate sources, plan the text, select the relevant information from the sources and add new data, and write the text. The academic research into source-based writing is limited, yet in full development due to its growing professional importance. The existing research is focused primarily on the writing product and writing in the L1 (i.e., dominant language). This research project aims to create a theoretical model that describes source-based writing in the L1 (Dutch), L2 (English) and FL (French, Spanish). We will explore (1) how writers consult digital sources during the writing process, (2) how they integrate input (e.g., content, structure and wording) from those sources in their writing product, and (3) how these processes relate to the quality of the writing product and the writer's working memory and linguistic proficiency. We will do so by: (1) analysing keystroke logging data of about 600 texts written by master's students in Multilingual Professional Communication; (2) analyzing the students' writing products and processes by various plagiarism and linguistic annotation tools; (3) investigating the effect of process feedback on source-based writing via peer-based examples (modelling) in an experimental study." "WiLMa. Writing in a second language with machine translation" "Lieve Macken" "Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication" "Second language (L2) learners often resort to machine translation (MT) to help them during the writing process, which is why it is important to understand how L2 learners use MT tools during L2 writing and whether and how using MT impacts the writing product and process of L2 students. However, it is still unclear how L2 proficiency impacts the way L2 learners use MT tools during L2 writing. Moreover, it remains to be determined how different ways of MT use affect the L2 writing product across proficiency levels. Further research, taking more measures for variation in MT lookup behavior into account, in combination with L2 proficiency, is needed to fully understand how access to MT during writing affects the L2 writing product. Lastly, the effects of MT use on the L2 writing process are still underresearched, in particular in terms of the cognitive processes underlying L2 learners' online behavior. Further research, in which online and introspective data of more participants are triangulated, is needed to fully understand how MT use affects the L2 writing process. This project addresses these research gaps by collecting and analyzing keystroke logging, screen capture, eyetracking, stimulated recall and product data of L2 learners responding to writing prompts in two conditions: one with access to MT, and one with access to an online bilingual dictionary instead." "Creative Writing in Continental Europe. A Study of Current Developments and Digital Prospects" "Anneleen Masschelein" "Cultural Studies Research Group" "During the PDM, I will focus on the development of creative writing workshops within the continental European context. The project entails two research axes. The first axis establishes a state-of-the-art of creative writing workshops in the Low Countries. By means of quantitative and qualitative research methods, I mainly aim to arrive at an insight into the significance of these workshops (e.g. as gatekeepers) for the Dutch-language literary field. The second research axis is prospective and analyzes the conditions for building a digital archive for creative writing practices that could foster the development of writing workshops in national and European contexts. On the basis of these research axis, I will write two A1 articles." "Multilingual Corpus of Writing Processes" "Luuk Van Waes" Management "During the last 20 years writing research has focused explicitely on the analysis of writing processes. More recently, logging programs enabled researchers to record process data (e.g. keystrokes&pauses) in much more detail without interfering the cognitive activities. In this project we want to initiate an online corpus of multilingual writing processes. Also an XML-schema will be designed to create a basis for a common standard in this domain."