Colin Conrad

School of Information Management

Note: This is a legacy site, you can find my new site here.

I am an interdisciplinary information technology scholar who uses neuroscience and machine learning to investigate how our brains interact with computers. This site is an archive of my time as a student at Dalhousie University, where I completed my PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2019.

Education has been delivered the same way for thousands of years

I am currently studying how we can use artificial intelligence and brain data to transform online learning. The promise of online learning is open access to quality education for everyone. The problem is that online education is not good at making sure users stay engaged, so they don’t learn as well as they could. I want understand whether we can use measurements of electrical activity from your brain to tell if you are paying attention, or whether a lesson is too difficult. By doing this, we could build an e-learning tool that can adjust its techniques, and teach similarly to how good teachers do.

Publications

NeuroIS, Cognition and Online Learning

Conrad, C. & Newman, A. (2019). Measuring the Impact of Mind Wandering in Real Time Using the P1-N1-P2 Auditory Evoked Potential. In Information Systems and Neuroscience (pp. 37-45). Springer.

Conrad, C. & Newman, A. (2019). How Attention Networks Can Inform Research in Information Systems. In Information Systems and Neuroscience (pp. 155-162). Springer.

Conrad, C., & Bliemel, M. (2016). Psychophysiological Measures of Cognitive Absorption and Cognitive Load in E-Learning Applications. In Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Information Systems.

Data Mining and Natural Language Processing

Jankowska, M., Conrad, C., Harris, J. & Keselj, V. (2018). Combined N-gram and Semantic Approach to Assignment Feedback Analysis and Generation. In Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Springer.

Conrad, C., Ali, N., Gao, Q. & Keselj, V. (2016). ELM: An Extended Logic Matching Method on Record Linkage Analysis of Disparate Databases for Profiling Data Mining. In Proceedings of the 18th IEEE Conference on Business Informatics.

Conrad, C., & Keselj, V. (2016). Predicting Political Donations Using Twitter Hashtags and Character N-Grams. In Proceedings of the 18th IEEE Conference on Business Informatics.

Entrepreneurship and Business Education

Conrad, C., Bliemel, M., & Ali-Hassan, H. (accepted). The Role of Flow in Learning Distributed Computing and MapReduce Concepts using Hands-On Analogy. Journal of Information Systems Education.

Conrad, C., Bliemel, M. & Ali-Hassan, H. (2015). Hadoop Hands On: Teaching MapReduce to Business Students through Analogy. 2015 Americas Conference on Information Systems Big Data and Analytics EdCon.

Courses and Teaching

ECMM 6000: Overview of Electronic Commerce

Electronic commerce deals with the conduct of business using computer and communication technologies. It takes place in an environment shaped by government and business policies as well as social attitudes. The class examines business issues in global electronic commerce with an emphasis on e-commerce strategy, e-commerce business models, online and social media marketing, business analytics, and enterprise cloud software. In addition, students will complete three hands-on projects related to three different aspects of running an actual small e-commerce company.

COMM 3511: Management Information Systems

This course is designed to help students acquire the essential skills and conceptual background to become an effective client, user, and planner of Management Information Systems. It helps students develop a broad understanding of how information systems are used in organizations, the technologies that influence their use, their role in supporting business operations and decision making, how they need to be managed, and the impact that they can have on organizations' and professionals' competitive positions. Students will be exposed to SAP ERP systems and Business Analytics tools via hands-on lab work and exercises.

Service and Consulting

Empiricism meets strategy... and lots of data.

I provide service to the university and run a limited consulting practice when not doing things related to my PhD. Over the past five years, I have worked on a number of projects involving the management and execution of web strategies, marketing, and data analytics. My competencies are particularly well-suited to emerging technologies in web services, human behaviour and well-being. Currently I am pretty booked up, but I am always open to ideas.

Links to Supporting Groups

colin.conrad (at) dal.ca

Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 5112

© 2019 Colin Conrad All Rights Reserved