Design by Engaging Learners — A Light Piloting of the SRL-Enhanced Peer-Review System

The third project workshop and special Hackathon of the ERASMUS+ STARS project was held at LUT Software Engineering, LUT University, Lappeenranta Campus, Finland (November 3–5, 2025). In total, 10 project members attended the third project meeting.

Partners joined physically from South East Technological University, Ireland (Niamh McCrea, Daire O’Broin, Ken Power, and Libor Zachoval) and University of Tartu, Estonia (Djuddah Arthur Joost Leijen and Roger Michael Alan Yallop). Others joined online from An Cosán (Laura O’Brien, Adelaide Nic Chárthaigh, Dragana Doro, and Avril Hannifin).

The objectives of the events were to conduct a preliminary pilot test of the SETU team’s SRL-enhanced peer-review system.

Building on Tartu

This wasn’t the first time partners had seen the SRL-enhanced peer-review system. At the second project meeting in Tartu, the team ran a pilot of the first version and gathered feedback and recommendations. The SETU team took all of that away and iterated. Lappeenranta was the moment to put the improved version to the test — not only among partners but also with real students at the special hackathon held alongside the workshop. The group also worked through the project’s impact strategy report.

Venues

Project workshop: LUT RantaSauna, Lappeenranta Campus — partners worked through deliverables, with a lakeside sauna awaiting them at the end of the day.
STARS Hackathon: Room 6218, Linux Lab, Lappeenranta Campus — where students got hands-on with the SRL system and built their prototypes.

Hosts and guests

LUT WP5 PI Professor Jari Porras, Co-PI/Project Manager Sanaul Haque, and Researcher Ashok Tripathi organised the whole event. On the first day, Associate Professor Jussi Kasurinen (Head of Degree Programmes in Software Engineering) and Associate Professor Antti Knutas welcomed the Irish and Estonian partners.

On the second day, Professor Kari Smolander, the former Head of LUT Software Engineering, paid a brief visit and was welcomed to the social events. He highlighted LUT’s diverse working environment and stated, “We are very good at securing EU funds.” Partners enjoyed a delicious lunch at LUTbuffet. On the final day, key partners from SETU and the University of Tartu enjoyed the Saimaa lake area at RantaSauna while working on deliverables such as need-finding reports.

What comes next?

More student insights incoming: Partners plan to gather further feedback from students using the updated SRL-enhanced digital system, building the evidence base for what works.
Heading to Japan in 2026: The consortium signed off with plans to organise an online tutorial for the Persuasive Technology 2026 conference, taking place in Hakodate, Japan, on 11–13 March 2026.