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FASS Showcases Two UGC FITE Teaching Innovations at Hong Kong Teaching Excellence Alliance (HKTEA) Symposium 2026
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is proud to present two pioneering educational innovation projects at the biennial Hong Kong Teaching Excellence Alliance (HKTEA) Symposium on 28 August 2026. Supported by the University Grants Committee (UGC) Fund for Innovative Technology-in-Education (FITE 2023–2026), these initiatives exemplify FASS's forward-looking integration of emerging technologies into higher education—ranging from institution-wide generative AI competence frameworks to multi-agent AI systems for conference interpreting.
Featured Project 1: Cultivating Professional GenAI Competence Across Disciplines
📌 Project Metadata & Session Details • Project Title: From Framework to Classroom: Cultivating Professional Generative AI Competence Across Disciplines • Lead Investigator / Presenter: Prof. Liping Deng, Associate Professor, Department of Education Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), HKBU |
About the Initiative: Grounded in the conceptual Professional-GenAI-Competence framework, this initiative directly addresses the critical need to equip university educators with actionable competencies in generative AI. Drawing on empirical data from extensive surveys and in-depth interviews assessing instructors' existing practice and needs, Prof. Deng's project provides an evidence-based roadmap for leveraging GenAI across disciplines. The main deliverable of the project is a free E-handbook- “Developing professional GenAI competence in higher education: Practical strategies and disciplinary-based cases (https://aicompetence.wordpress.com/e-handbook-2/) and a collection of good practice cases in various disciplines. The presentation demonstrates how structured pedagogical redesign transforms traditional classroom dynamics and elevates teacher and student agency in the era of artificial intelligence.
Key Highlights and Pedagogical Impact:
• Evidence-driven faculty development: Formulated targeted strategies directly responding to survey and interview findings on university instructors' practical challenges, anxieties, and pedagogical support requirements.
• Targeted professional development: Designed and conducted a cohesive series of faculty training sessions focused on cultivating AI literacy, task design fluency, and technological-pedagogical agility.
• Assessment redesign guidelines: Showcased actionable principles for restructuring higher education assessment protocols to foster academic integrity, reflective thinking, and ethical student-AI co-creation.
• Cross-disciplinary multi-university evidence: Presented illustrative classroom case studies spanning diverse academic fields across three universities, highlighting concrete student support strategies and pedagogical effectiveness.
Featured Project 2: Implementing Innovative Technology in Conference Interpreting and Performance-based Language Education
📌 Project Metadata & Session Details • Project Title: Implementing Innovative Technology in Conference Interpreting and Performance-based Language Education • Principal Investigator (PI): Prof. Nan Zhao, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) & Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies (TIIS), HKBU • Co-Investigator (Co-I): Prof. Mark Shuttleworth, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (formerly HKBU) |
About the Initiative: This three-year initiative (September 2023 – June 2026) addresses cognitive strain, rapid technological shifts, and the demand for digital competence in conference interpreting and professional language education. By deploying multi-agent AI tools, open-access trilingual speech resources, smart hardware, and authentic conference service-learning, the project bridges classroom training with real-world professional practice.
Key Highlights and Project Deliverables:
• LanguageX multi-agent LLM system: Engineered a multi-agent AI system featuring concurrent speech recognition (ASR), live machine translation, real-time terminology extraction, and custom prompt agents (validated across 3 testing iterations).
• Trilingual Speech Repository: Produced over 75 studio-quality speeches across Cantonese, Mandarin, and English delivered by professionally coached student speakers, recorded in the HKBU Phonology Lab and released open-access on YouTube and WeChat channels.
• Curriculum & Service-learning integration: New BA course TRAN3055 Interpreting Technology embedded latest AI tools, enabling students to provide tech-assisted interpreting support during authentic hybrid conferences.
• Strategic industry collaborations: Established partnerships with leading language technology firms to provide professional student internships and dedicated server access to advanced computer-assisted and machine translation platforms.
• Scholarly publications & international exchange: Published multiple FITE-supported journal papers and forthcoming books and teaching-informed research projects in collaboration with scholars in The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
At a Glance: Two Complementary FASS FITE Initiatives
Dimension | Project 1: Prof. Deng Liping (DES) | Project 2: Prof. Nan Zhao (TIIS) |
Core Focus | Professional Generative AI Competence across academic disciplines | Conference interpreting & performance-based language training |
Technological Core | Pedagogical frameworks, GenAI tools, assessment redesign etc | LanguageX multi-agent AI, conference interpreting technology course, HKBU speech repository etc |
Lead Unit & FASS Role | Dept of Education Studies | FASS | Dept of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies | FASS |
#HKBU #FASS #EducationStudies #hkbutiis #UGC #FITE #HKTEA2026 #GenerativeAI #EdTech #ConferenceInterpreting #ProfessionalDevelopment
