Edul@b at the EDEN Annual Conference 2025: reflecting on the future of education in the era of artificial intelligence
The members of the Edul@b research group Dr. Josep M. Duart, Dr. Albert Sangrà, Dr. Nati Cabrera and Dr. Marcelo Maina have participated in the EDEN Digital Learning Europe Annual Conference 2025, held this year in Bologna from June 15 to 17. This edition has focused on the future of education in the era of generative artificial intelligence, addressing both the opportunities and risks that this technology poses for teaching, learning and assessment.
With an interdisciplinary perspective, the conference explored scenarios for integrating AI into education, ranging from personalized learning to the creation of global learning networks. It also reflected on fundamental issues such as equitable access to knowledge, inclusion, educational quality, ethics, disinformation and sustainable development. This year’s conference was attended by more than 300 researchers, professionals and students in education from 42 different countries. The 2025 edition continues the positive and successful attendance trend of the last editions promoted by Edul@b group member Josep M. Duart, president of EDEN (2021-2024).
Edul@b’s participation in this conference reaffirms the group’s commitment to educational innovation and critical reflection on the impact of emerging technologies on learning.
Albert Sangrà, New Vicepresident of EDEN Digital Learning Europe
Within the framework of this event, Dr. Albert Sangrà has been appointed Vice President of EDEN Digital Learning Europe, a leading organization in the field of online learning and educational innovation on a European scale.
This election represents a significant recognition of his extensive professional career, marked by a solid dedication to research, teaching and the promotion of innovative educational models. Over the years, Dr. Sangrà has been a key figure in the digital transformation of higher education, actively contributing to the definition of educational policies, the creation of quality frameworks and the promotion of online training as a tool for inclusion and continuous improvement of educational systems.
Nati Cabrera, Recognized with EDEN Fellow Award
Dr. Nati Cabrera (Edul@b Research Group, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) has been awarded the EDEN Fellow Award together with Dr. Fiona Aiken (The Open University, UK), Dr. Ilona Buchem (Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Germany) and Dr. Anet Cohen (Tel Aviv University, Israel). This distinction recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of digital learning and sustained participation within the EDEN community.
The EDEN Fellow Award is a recognition of Dr. Cabrera’s more than 30 years of academic experience, marked by leadership in digital transformation, quality assurance and educational innovation. Participating in many of EDEN’s events, she has also actively involved her doctoral students in the EDEN community and has played a central role in shaping international research and practice in digital learning.
Marcelo Maina and Nati Cabrera Present FeedSmart Tool Powered By AI
In addition, Dr. Marcelo Maina and Dr. Nati Cabrera (Edul@b Research Group, Open University of Catalonia), representing the rest of the team members Dr. David Garcia and Dr. Carolina Garcia (Open University of Catalonia) presented “Using Generative AI to Assist Teachers in Developing Personalised, Formative and Quality Feedback in Higher Education”, where they explained the design and implementation of the Feedsmart tool, based on generative AI, to improve personalised formative feedback in higher education.
This study explores the integration of FeedSmart, as a teacher assistant to offer personalized and formative feedback, also contributing to the optimization of the teacher’s workload.
Preliminary results indicate that FeedSmart significantly improves the quality of textual feedback, including consistency, structure, specificity, and readability. Teachers positively assessed Feedsmart’s ability to highlight the strengths of students’ assignments, and that feedback aligns well with learning objectives and assessment criteria. However, experiences with the tool’s ability to provide actionable resources and improvement strategies varied. While FeedSmart shows promise in providing structured and motivational feedback, some refinements to the tool are needed to improve its ability to more consistently provide meaningful, personalized guidance to students.
More detalils about the design of FeedSmart
Edul@b Doctoral Students Have Participated in the PhD Symposium
The PhD Symposium, for several years now, has been a meeting point for doctoral students under the umbrella of EDEN. On this occasion, in Bologna, Patricia Mangeol, Paola Espejo, and Maria-Antònia Guardiola were able to present the current state of their theses and have the opinions and views of the panels of experts who listened to them, while receiving recommendations that will certainly help them improve the process of preparing and defending their doctoral thesis.
Discover EDEN Digital Learning Europe
EDEN Digital Learning Europe is an international educational association and non-profit organization. As a professional community for smart learning, we foster knowledge exchange and improve understanding among distance and e-learning professionals, while promoting best practices and policies across Europe and beyond.
Founded in 2019, EDEN Digital Learning Europe emerged as the successor to the European Network for Distance and E-Learning following the UK’s exit from the European Community. We are open to both institutions and individuals involved in e-learning and open and distance education, and strive to provide a full range of expertise, covering all levels of formal and non-formal education and training.
With a long history of fostering networking, international cooperation and professional development, EDEN Europe’s strong and active membership is a key asset.
