Assistant Professor Technology Enhanced Learning

We are looking for an excellent enthusiastic scholar to join the research and education at the section Instructional Technology (IST) and strengthen the area of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL).

Research at IST is situated at the intersection of educational psychology, instructional design, and educational technology. The group distinguishes itself with a focus on innovative technology supported learning arrangements for learning STEM topics.

The general aim is to build an understanding of how educational psychological theory and innovative technologies can be combined to come to strong instructional designs that benefit student learning.

For example research at IST addresses the design and evaluation of instructional technology (e.g., reflection tools, virtual agents, learning dashboards) to support inquiry learning, collaborative learning, game-based and gamified learning, and self-regulated learning. Aside from the above there is a focus on the design of effective learning environments to accommodate differences between learners and improve outcomes. In general, educational psychological theories and principles of multimedia learning are employed to explain findings and extend theory. Expertise in these or closely related fields is very welcome.

We contribute to research, teaching, and knowledge valorisation. You will:

• (co-)teach in our leading Master programmes of educational psychology (EP) and Educational Science and Technology (EST) and the Bachelor Psychology programme
• guide students from these programmes in their graduation assignments
• engage in cross-disciplinary collaboration with other groups in the department, the faculty and university
• develop a network of academic and industrial research partners in the fields of technology enhanced learning
• develop new lines of funded research with an emphasis on designing and investigating the effectiveness of technology enhanced learning environments
• contribute towards the supervision of PhD students

Post-doc research position “Probing hydrogen diffusion in Thin Films”

We are looking for a motivated and skilled post-doctoral researcher to carry out advanced physics research on probing uptake and diffusion of hydrogen in thin films used for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) optics applications. Our aim is to develop understanding how uptake and diffusion of hydrogen can be monitored in-situ, under realistic test conditions and with good reproducibility.

Your project will be part of a larger research programme on the physics of thin films for EUV applications (XTOOLS), coordinated by the XUV Optics Group at Twente (www.utwente.nl/xuv). We develop forefront fundamental research, relevant to high tech applications in collaboration with our industrial partners (Zeiss, ASML, Malvern Panalytical and VDL). The research will take place in a state-of-the-art thin film laboratory within the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente, which will allow you ample opportunities to collaborate and interact with various academic and industrial partners.

Your goal is to develop a custom thin film stack specifically designed for probing hydrogen uptake, and to develop a robust measurement procedure (including transport through air / ambient) to quantify hydrogen diffusion through change in optical properties of this stack. This includes:

• Selecting materials for optically probing hydrogen uptake, and protective layers for transport through air.
• Understanding the fundamental physics and chemistry of hydrogen uptake on, diffusion through and possible release from these films.
• Develop a concept for preparation of a layer stack for optically detecting hydrogen diffusion through EUV optical materials and verifying this method against established reference methods for hydrogen detection.

PhD position “In-situ TEM observation of plasma-material interaction”

We are looking for a motivated and skilled PhD candidate who is willing to take the challenge to develop methods for studying plasma-surface interaction on nanometre-thin films using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Understanding plasma-surface interaction is of utmost importance to develop thin films that resist exposure to reactive ions and radicals, thereby enabling application in future lithography technology. Our aim is to obtain scientific understanding how material properties and atomic-scale structure influence stability of thin films in reactive environments. You will develop and apply methods to perform TEM imaging while exposing samples to reactive conditions, thereby offering for the first time direct imaging of reaction and diffusion processes on these thin films while exposed to plasma.

Your project will be part of a research project on the physics of thin films for extreme UV applications, currently running in the XUV Optics Group at Twente (www.utwente.nl/xuv). We develop forefront fundamental research, relevant to high tech applications, in collaboration with our industrial partners (ASML, Zeiss, Malvern Panalytical and VDL). The research will take place in a state-of-the-art thin film laboratory within the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente, which will allow you ample opportunities to collaborate and interact with various academic and industrial partners.

Your goal is to apply and develop methods for in-situ and operando TEM imaging of thin films exposed to reactive environments. This includes:

• Studying physical and chemical processes in thin film samples exposed to reactive conditions (radical and/or ion exposure) in Environmental TEM set-ups at academic partners (Paris (F) - Ecole Polytechnique) , as well as reference experiments at our in-house TEM facilities.
• Development of TEM inserts that will allow in-situ imaging under reactive conditions at our in-house TEM facilities.
• Use the physics insight obtained from the newly developed imaging capabilities to understand how the resistance of thin films against plasma exposure is related to material combinations and atomic structure of the film.

PhD Improving ethical analysis through better theories of the moral role of technological products and systems

The central question of this project is how we can conceptualize the moral role of technological products and systems, and what implications this conceptualization may have for ethical analysis. The aim is to develop new theories and approaches for analyzing the moral role of technology.

One of the key challenges of ethical analysis in the context of technology is the question of whether technological products are only instruments that modify human moral action, or whether they can be characterized as moral agents or co-agents in their own right. For instance, what is the moral role of guns in causing harm? While humans ultimately pull the trigger, guns have affordances that make killing much easier, with less risk for the shooter. Similarly, what is the role of self-driving cars in causing harm or violating rights? Here, a human operator is not even directly involved. Should we therefore assign moral responsibility to self-driving cars? And how should ethical analysis proceed? Current approaches in ethics of technology often do not have good answers to these questions.

In addition to analyzing individual technological products with individual users, this project will also focus on larger systems with multiple technological components and human operators. Such systems include both sociotechnical systems - predominantly technical systems with human operators and enablers, such as electricity networks, industrial production systems, and the Internet - and technosocial systems - predominantly social systems that rely on technology, such as modern organizations and associations. The project will investigate how we can describe the moral role of these systems, how they produce moral outcomes, and how we can attribute causal and moral responsibility to humans and machines in them.

To achieve these goals, the project will study existing approaches in ethics, especially ethics of technology, to make explicit what roles are assigned to technology and to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. Existing conceptualizations of technological products can also be explored, in the fields of philosophy of technology, science and technology studies (STS), technology assessment, and/or impact assessment.

The project will be mostly theoretical, but it will also involve a number of case studies of particular technologies that are to be selected by the PhD student, in consultation with supervisors, for example of autonomous vehicles, Internet-of-Things, human enhancement technologies, or any others that are deemed useful for the study.

This project is funded by the ESDiT research program and will be located within the Department of Philosophy at the University of Twente. For description of both, see below. It will be supervised by Prof. dr. Philip Brey and dr. Adam Henschke at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Twente.