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Dr Jake Renzella
Lecturer

Dr Jake Renzella

  • Doctor of Philosophy (Information Technology)
  • Bachelor of Information Technology (Honours)
  • Bachelor of Science (Computer Science)
Engineering
Computer Science and Engineering

I am a Lecturer and Co-Head of the Computing and Education research group in the School of Computer Science Engineering at UNSW. My research is at the intersection of novel software and artificial intelligence-based systems applications and world-class computing education. AI Education systems should genuinely enhance student engagement and improve learning experiences in computing education. My work has been published in premier conferences and journals such as the International Conference on Software Engineering. More importantly, it is embedded in open-source education projects such as SplashKit, and notably, Formatif, used at several Australian and New Zealand universities with over 230,000 students.

I also work in higher education's academic integrity, focusing on student-friendly approaches to retaining integrity. I am an:

Previously, I was a Research Fellow at the Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute (A²I²) in Defence, working on stochastic system modelling and insight generation, and has many years of experience teaching a wide range of computing courses at various universities in Australia.
Phone
+61-2-9348 0605
E-mail
jake.renzella@unsw.edu.au
  • Journal articles | 2022
    2022, 'Verifying student identity in oral assessments with deep speaker', Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 3, pp. 100044 - 100044, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100044
  • Conference Papers | 2023
    2023, 'Foundations First: Improving C's Viability in Introductory Programming Courses with the Debugging C Compiler', in SIGCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 346 - 352, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569768
    Conference Papers | 2021
    Renzella J; Cain A; Schneider JG, 2021, 'Real Talk: Illuminating Online Student Understanding with Authentic Discussion Tools', in SIGCSE 2021 - Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 886 - 892, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432484
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Renzella J; Cain A; Schneider JG, 2020, 'An intelligent tool for combatting contract cheating behaviour by facilitating scalable student-tutor discussions', in Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 298 - 299, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3377812.3390795
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Renzella J; Cain A, 2020, 'Enriching programming student feedback with audio comments', in Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 173 - 183, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3377814.3381712
    Conference Papers | 2019
    2019, 'A Proposal for Integrating Gamification into Task-Oriented Portfolio Assessment', in Proceedings of 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering, TALE 2018, pp. 1022 - 1027, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2018.8615174
    Conference Papers | 2019
    2019, 'SplashKit: A Development Framework for Motivating and Engaging Students in Introductory Programming', in Proceedings of 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering, TALE 2018, pp. 40 - 47, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2018.8615203
    Conference Papers | 2017
    Renzella J; Cain A, 2017, 'Supporting better formative feedback in task-oriented portfolio assessment', in Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering, TALE 2017, pp. 360 - 367, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2017.8252362

  • UNSW EF Grant - $30,000
  • Google CS4HS 2018 Grant, Deakin University - $15,000
  • Google CS4HS 2017 Grant, Swinburne University of Technology - $15,000
  • Google CS4HS 2016 Grant, Swinburne University of Technology - $10,000

  • UNSW Teaching Excellence Award, 2022

  • Renzella, J., Cain, A., & Schneider, J.G. (2021). Real Talk: Illuminating Online Student Understanding with Authentic Discussion Tools. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 886–892).
  • Renzella, J., & Cain, A. (2020). Enriching programming student feedback with audio comments. In 2020 IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET) (pp. 173–183).
  • Renzella, J., Tubino, L., Cain, A., & Schneider, J.G. (2021). Enhancing Online Education with Intelligent Discussion Tools. COVID-19 and Education: Learning and Teaching in a Pandemic-Constrained Environment, 97.
  • Renzella, J., & Cain, A. (2017). Supporting better formative feedback in task-oriented portfolio assessment. In 2017 IEEE 6th International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (pp. 360–367).
  • Renzella, J., Cain, A., & Schneider, J.G. (2020). An intelligent tool for combatting contract cheating behaviour by facilitating scalable student-tutor discussions. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (pp. 298–299).
  • Meyers, J., Cain, A., Renzella, J., & Cummaudo, A. (2018). A Proposal for Integrating Gamification into Task-Oriented Portfolio Assessment. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (pp. 1022–1027).
  • Renzella, J., Cummaudo, A., Cain, A., Grundy, J., & Meyers, J. (2018). SplashKit: A development framework for motivating and engaging students in introductory programming. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (pp. 40–47).

My Research Supervision

  • Bansri Mohdi, PhD Co-Supervisor