Who am I?

My name is Gloria Milena Fernández Nieto. I am originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and I have a passion for data, analytics, and visualisation. My interest in using data to support others’ practices developed during both my bachelor’s and master’s studies. I am a Computer Systems Engineer and obtained my bachelor’s degree in 2012 from Universidad Distrital and my master’s degree in 2015 from Universidad de Los Andes.

I am a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, and a member of the Centre for Learning Analytics at Monash (CoLAM). I earned my PhD in Learning Analytics from the University of Technology Sydney. My research sits at the intersection of Learning Analytics, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Artificial Intelligence, and the Learning Sciences.

I am fascinated by the potential of physical and digital data traces to support a better understanding of learning and teaching activities. These data traces can provide valuable insights for teachers and students to reflect on co-located activities such as teamwork, collaboration, self-regulated learning, and spatial behaviours.

About my research

My research focuses on designing and deploying innovative tools to enhance teaching and learning analytics across both physical and digital spaces.

My work aims to identify effective alignments between learning pedagogies and emerging technologies, providing meaningful and lasting support for both learners and educators.

My research interests include Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Learning Analytics, Computer-Supported Learning, Self-Regulated Learning, Reflection, and AI in Education.

Current projects:

Unpacking the Development of Self-Regulated Learning in Primary School Children - LEVANTE (2026–2030): This project aims to characterise the variability in the development of self-regulated learning (SRL) skills over time, both within individuals and across groups and contexts. This research is funded by the Jacobs Foundation. I am the project coordinator for this initiative in Colombia.
Evidence center assessment for writing with generative artificial intelligence. As part of this project, I collaborate with educators and students to better understand:i) the kinds of competencies that should be assessed in GenAI-assisted writing, ii) what counts as evidence of those competencies, and iii) how that evidence can be represented in actionable and interpretable ways.
Centre for Learning and Living with AI (CELLA): This project aim supporting the Self-Regulated Learning of 12–15-Year-Old Secondary School Students Through Learning Analytics and Generative AI. Relevant papers: 1) 2025 Transfer Reinforcement Learning for Self-Regulated Learning Support. 2) A learning analytics dashboard to support students’ reflection on collaboration

Previous projects:

Knowledge Management Systems: In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team at Monash University, we designed and developed a knowledge management system to facilitate knowledge sharing within communities of practice for educators. In this project, I explored the role of data comics and storytelling approaches in communicating and disseminating knowledge within teachers’ natural workflows. This research was funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA-KMASS) under the project Large-scale multimodal knowledge management: From organization and user modelling to fast contextual presentation. Relevant papers: 1) Co-designing a knowledge management tool for educators. 2) 2026 Capturing and sharing know-how through visual process representations
Teamwork Analytics: I investigate the use of data traces captured in physical spaces to provide feedback through visualisations and data storytelling approaches, supporting teachers’ and students’ sensemaking processes in healthcare simulation and collaborative learning settings. More information about this research is available on Teamwork Analytics. Relevant papers: 1) Teacher-cetred tool to for customissing learning analytics narratives. 2) What Can Analytics for Teamwork Proxemics Reveal About Positioning Dynamics In Clinical Simulations?. 3) 2026 Scalable LLM-based Coding of Dialogue in Healthcare Simulation.

Relevant Publications

All publications available on Google Scholar

Journal papers

recent publication Fernandez-Nieto, G. M., Echeverria, V., Li, Y., Tsai, Y. S., Sha, L., Chen, G., … Swiecki, Z. (2026). Capturing and sharing know-how through visual process representations: a human-Centred approach to teacher workflows. Behaviour & Information Technology, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2026.2636694

Echeverria, V., Nieto, G. F., Zhao, L., Palominos, E., Srivastava, N., Gašević, D., Pammer-Schindler, V., & Martinez-Maldonado, R. (2025). A learning analytics dashboard to support students’ reflection on collaboration. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 41(1), e13088. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.13088

Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Vanessa Echeverria, Gloria Fernandez-Nieto, Lixiang Yan, Linxuan Zhao, Riordan Alfredo, Xinyu Li, Samantha Dix, Hollie Jaggard, Rosie Wotherspoon, Abra Osborne, Simon Buckingham Shum, and Dragan Gašević. 2023. Lessons Learnt from a Multimodal Learning Analytics Deployment In-the-Wild. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 31, 1, Article 8 (February 2024), 41 pages. doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3622784

Vanessa Echeverria, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Lixiang Yan, Linxuan Zhao, Gloria Fernandez-Nieto, Dragan Gašević, Simon Buckingham Shum, “HuCETA: A Framework for Human-Centered Embodied Teamwork Analytics,” in IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 39-49, 1 Jan.-March 2023, doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2022.3217454

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, Pengcheng An, Jian Zhao, Simon Buckingham Shum, and Roberto Martinez-Maldonado. 2022. Classroom Dandelions: Visualising Participant Position, Trajectory and Body Orientation Augments Teachers’ Sensemaking. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’22), April 29-May 5, 2022, New Orleans, LA, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 17 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.351773.

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto et al. 2021, “Storytelling With Learner Data: Guiding Student Reflection on Multimodal Team Data”, in IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2021.3131842

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Vanessa Echeverria, Kirsty Kitto, Pengcheng An,and Simon Buckingham Shum. 2021. What Can Analytics for Teamwork Proxemics Reveal About Positioning Dynamics In Clinical Simulations?. Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact.5, CSCW1, Article 185 (April 2021),24 pages. doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3449284

Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Vanessa Echeverria, Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, and Simon Buckingham Shum. 2020.From Data to Insights: A Layered Storytelling Approach for Multimodal Learning Analytics. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI’20. 15 pages. doi https://doi.org/10.1145/ 3313831.3376148

Conference proceedings

recent publication Garces, K., Fernandez-Nieto, G., et al. (2025). Transfer Reinforcement Learning for Self-Regulated Learning Support: An Evaluation Using Successor Representations. In: Cristea, A.I., Walker, E., Lu, Y., Santos, O.C., Isotani, S. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 15882. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-98465-5_55

Fernandez-Nieto, G., Swiecki, Z., Tsai, Y.-S., Sha, L., Wei, Y., Wen, J., . . . Gašević, D. (2024). Co-designing a knowledge management tool for educator communities of practice. ACM - DIS, 1970–1990. recent publication. doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3660682

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Vanessa Echeverria, Kirsty Kitto, Dragan Gašević, and Simon Buckingham Shum. 2024. Data Storytelling Editor: A Teacher-Centred Tool for Customising Learning Analytics Dashboard Narratives. In LAK24: 14th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2024), March 18–22, 2024, Tokyo, Japan.

Lixiang Yan, Vanessa Echeverria, Gloria Fernandez Nieto, Yueqiao Jin, Zachari Swiecki, Linxuan Zhao, Dragan Gašević, and Roberto Martinez-Maldonado. 2024. Human-AI Collaboration in Thematic Analysis using ChatGPT: A User Study and Design Recommendations. 1, 1 (November 2024), 12 pages. link

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto,Simon Buckingham Shum, Kirsty Kitto, and Roberto Martinez-Maldonado. 2022. Beyond the Learning Analytics Dashboard: Alternative Ways to Communicate Student Data Insights Combining Visualisation, Narrative and Storytelling. In LAK22: 12 th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK22), March 21 \textendash 25, 2022, Online, USA.ACM, New York,NY, USA, 16 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3506860.3506895 PDF - 2-col PDF

Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Kirsty Kitto,and Simon Buckingham Shum. 2021. Modelling Spatial Behaviours in Clinical Team Simulations using Epistemic Network Analysis: Methodology and Teacher Evaluation. In LAK21: 11th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK21), April 12\textendash16, 2021, Irvine, CA, USA.ACM,New York, NY, USA, 11 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3448139.3448176

Lixiang Yan, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Beatriz Gallo Cordoba, Joanne Deppeler, Deborah Corrigan, Gloria Fernandez Nieto, and Dragan Gasevic. 2021. Footprints at School: Modelling In-class Social Dynamics from Students’ Physical Positioning Traces. In LAK21: 11th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 43-54. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3448139.3448144

Martinez-Maldonado, R., Gasevic, D., Echeverria, V., Fernandez-Nieto, G., Swiecki, Z., and Buckingham Shum, S. (2021). What Do You Mean by Collaboration Analytics? A Conceptual Model. Journal of Learning Analytics, 8(1), 126-153. doi: https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2021.7227

Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, PhD; Vanessa Echeverria; Katerina Mangaroska; Antonette Shibani; Gloria Fernandez-Nieto; Jurgen Schulte; Simon Buckingham Shum. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (IJAIED’21). Moodoo the Tracker: Spatial Classroom Analytics for Characterising Teachers’ Pedagogical Approaches. doi:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-021-00276-w [best paper]

Workshop papers:

The Second International Workshop on Multimodal Artificial Intelligence in Education (MAIEd’25) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-99267-4_38

Gloria Fernandez-Nieto, K. Kitto, and R. Martinez Maldonado, Four Challenges in Crafting Multimodal Collaboration Analytics for non-Data experts, 2019. In CSCL 2019, Collaboration Analytics. PDF

Miguel A. Ronda, Olga C. Santos, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado and Gloria Fernandez-Nieto. Exploring Emotional Reactions in Teamwork using Multimodal Physiological Data. MAIEd’21. 12 pages.

Workshop/Tutorial Chair:

recent publication LAK24 Workshop Chair LAK24 Web page

Workshop Organiser: Gloria Milena Fernandez-Nieto, et al., Converging Data Storytelling Narratives and Learning Analytics Dashboards. LAK24. Web page

Workshop Organiser: Vanessa Echeverria, Lu Lawrence, Yi-Shan Tsai, Shaveen Singh, Gloria Fernandez-Nieto, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado. A Tutorial on Data Storytelling for Learning Analytics Dashboards. LAK21 Workshop.

Workshop Organiser: Roberto Martinez-Maldonado and Gloria Fernandez-Nieto. Multimodal Analytics for Classroom Proxemics. ALASI 2019.