scholarly journals Implementation of Tel Aviv University MOOCs in academic curriculum: A pilot study

Author(s):  
Tal Soffer ◽  
Anat Cohen

<p>The study presented in this paper examines the feasibility of using MOOCs as a learning environment in academic courses. This paper focuses on the students who participated in two MOOCs offered by Tel Aviv University (TAU) during the year 2013. The preliminary findings of this pilot study illustrate the scope of student activity, the learning intensity, and learner path. In addition, attitudes of TAU students who participated in these courses as part of their curriculum are presented. From TAU’s perspective, the presented MOOCs are considered to be a successful experience for all those involved: the students, who were very satisfied with their learning and high achievements; the lecturer team, who were very enthusiastic and satisfied with the learning process as well as the new experience; and the University policy makers, who took the challenge and integrated this new model of learning into the academic environment.</p>

ReCALL ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN GILLESPIE

This article outlines the nature of the FirstClass computer conferencing program and considers its effectiveness in helping to develop a computer-based learning environment in modern languages at the University of Ulster. A wide range of different transactions is outlined and surveys of staff and student reactions are assessed. Their positive responses demonstrate that FirstClass is effective in establishing such an environment, enable us to draw encouraging lessons from our experience and indicate exciting possibilities of immediate further development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 111-146
Author(s):  
E. I. Kazakova ◽  
I. E. Kondrakova ◽  
Yu. L. Proekt

The aim of the current research was to identify the students’ subjective experience of the transforming learning environment according to the perceived opportunities provided by the digital learning environment of the university.Methodology and research methods. The research methodological framework is based on leading theories related to the students’ behaviour in digital learning environments (DLE). The synthesis of the theories considered made it possible to propose a theoretical model of the students’ subjective experiences in relation to DLE of the university, which was operationalised by constructing a questionnaire that reveals the students’ perception of the main components of the DLE. The following methods were employed: a questionnaire on alienation from study, a method for the assessment of students’ subjective experiences, and the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS). Previous distance learning experience was identified by the use of self-rating scales. The survey results were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient, the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, and the Pearson’s chi-squared test. The authors also used factorial ANOVA, correspondence analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Statistical calculations were performed using Statistica ver. 7.0 (Statsoft). 4558 students from 30 Russian universities (located in 23 subjects of Russia) took part in the research.Results. The present research demonstrated a change in the usual forms of learning activities carried out by students in the distance learning process. Distance learning is presented to students as a basis for meeting the need for subjectivity of their personality, the ability to initiate their own learning activities. Students feel that there are sufficient conditions and resources for mastering digital learning tools, and they easily adapt to the digital environment of their universities. However, in this process, the student acts as an atomised subject, weakly interacting with other people and not feeling a sense of interpersonal closeness and connectedness with others.The research findings revealed that the perceived characteristics of the DLE of the university have a direct impact on the inner states of students in the learning process. The formation of a stable social environment within the framework of the DLE, which ensures harmonious interaction and communication between the subjects of the educational process, contributes to achieving an optimal balance of students’ subjective experiences, reduces the risk of negative inner states that lead to learning demotivation, the experience of alienation from study, the growing sense of meaninglessness and emptiness in the learning process.Scientific novelty. The developed model of the influence of DLE on the subjective experiences of students in the emergence distance learning made it possible to identify significant DLE components, which determine the motivational and emotional states of students, and to establish student ratio to achieve the optimal balance of subjective experiences.Practical significance. The empirically based findings presented in this study can be used to design the DLE of the university, to determine the directions of work on the formation of psychological readiness of students for distance learning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-94
Author(s):  
A. V. Fomenko ◽  
◽  
D. O. Tarasov ◽  

One of the hallmarks of the learning process is its manageability, which provides for the possibility of planning and designing the educational process. The article deals with practical issues related to the administration of the University Virtual Learning Environment in terms of organization and differentiation of access rights of different categories of users. The authors discuss the principles of administering a virtual learning environment in terms of distinguishing levels of access to individual elements of the system for different roles of different categories of users. In LMS Moodle, the list of hierarchical contexts is as follows: System (no parent context); Website – homepage (parent context – system); Course category (parent context – system); Course (parental context – course category or system); Course element (parent context – course); Block (parent context – system or course); User (parent context – system). In the Lviv Polytechnic University, only Super Administrator, Global Group Management, Methodist, and Library have global roles. Role assignments are performed to determine the role in context. The site (homepage) and course are examples of two different contexts. While the role assignment process is the same for different contexts, the path to the assignment page may be different. The article gives examples of how to organize a system of administration with a description of the processes of creating different types of roles and the logic of implementation of each role and the need for certain approaches. There are five types of roles in the article, namely: managerial, supervisory, training, informational, temporary, providing justification and practical advice on setting up each role for each type. The article describes a common responsibility matrix for each user role. The roles of management roles are different aspects of course administration at the level of course categories of different types of nesting. This type includes administrators. The role of the controlling role is, by name, to investigate the various aspects of educational and training activities within the VNS system. The objectives of the learning roles are to ensure and carry out the learning process itself. These roles include, first of all, the system role by default – the student, the main participant in the process of acquiring knowledge, passing checkpoints and other components of the educational process. The tasks of information roles are to create information messages for both students and teachers at different levels of the information system. Temporary role tasks are to involve third parties in the system. Of course, the guest is first and foremost, but in our case guest entry is forbidden, so the roles of Conference Participant and Olympiad Participant were created to provide access to individual system resources. The article describes a common responsibility matrix for each user role.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (5(J)) ◽  
pp. 146-158
Author(s):  
Omoruyi O. ◽  
Chinomona E

Good and well calculated service delivery is very essential for the smooth running of institutions and for life long learning of students. Looking at factors that lead to employee attitude and service delivery bevaviour helps the higher education professionals to build a strong positive relationships with peers, students, staff and university leaders. This paper will look at remuneration, professional development and Information Communication Technology (ICT) efficiency as factors that contribute to positive employee attitude and good service delivery behaviour. Efforts by higher education institutions to improve the quality and standards of education professionals have progressed through the use of various forms of student feedback and methods of evaluation in an attempt to understand what matters to students’ and educational professionals regarding their educational experience. Structured questionnaires were distributed to university professionals, which include all university staff like Deans of faculties, Heads of departments and lecturers at one University of Technology (UoT). A quantitative method using Smart PLS was employed to test the relationships among the four hypotheses. The positive relationship between the four proposed hypotheses validatesthat remuneration; professional Development and ICT efficiencyare instrumental strategy to stimulating employee attitude and service delivery behavior of employees.Practically, the study build on a new direction towards research based on consumer behaviour by opening up a discussion on the importance of marketing practices in the development and improvement of service delivery behaviours in one UoTs in South Africa. Based on the findings, recommendations will be made to both the university policy makers and the university professionals for efficacy reasons. The proposed study is expected to have practical and theoretical implications to policy makers for the university and university professionals. In addition, it will provide added insights and added new knowledge to the existing body of literature hitherto not studied extensively in South Africa and UoT in particular.


2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Brennan ◽  
Anthony P. Wall ◽  
Pauric McGowan

PurposeThe aim of the paper was to investigate entrepreneurship in a university setting and in particular amongst university managers, established academic entrepreneurs and nascent academic entrepreneurs. The purpose was to better understand the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship taking place.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative, sense‐making methodology was used involving a single case method and a purposeful sampling approach. A three‐stage design strategy consisted of: identification of key themes by questioning university policy makers, managers and academic entrepreneurs; development of a questionnaire to profile academic entrepreneurs; and use of the questionnaire to assess preferences amongst nascent academic entrepreneursFindingsFour types of academic entrepreneur (hero, maverick, broker and prospector) were identified based on different approaches by individual academics to the use/production of discipline knowledge and the nature of their relationship with the host university.Research limitations/implicationsThe single case research is perceived as a limitation. Future studies will involve refining the level of analysis in terms of different disciplines and institutions.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that interventions to promote entrepreneurship within universities ought to consider different strategies in order to take account of preferences amongst nascent entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe paper looks at entrepreneurship in universities from a corporate perspective rather than from an individual perspective. The powerful influence of the university organisational setting is therefore recognised in terms of the creation of enablers and barriers to academic entrepreneurship taking place.


Distance e-learners are expected to participate in an e-learning environment and interact with the content, colleagues and facilitators through distance education technologies. Learning environment goes a long way to determine student’s academic performance. Hence, this study tends to find out relationship between online interaction and distance e-learners. The purpose of the study was to analyze the correlation that exists between learner-content-interaction (LCI), learner-learner-interaction (LLI) and learner-instructor-interaction (LII) and academic performance of distance e-learners in a Nigerian university. Two research questions were designed to guide the study. A descriptive design of survey type was adopted for the study and a questionnaire was used to collect the quantitative data. The study was conducted in four selected study centres of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and a total of 1,025 participants completed the survey-based questionnaire. The researchers used Spearman’s correlation to determine if correlation exists on each type of interaction. The findings of this study revealed that learner-learner-interaction was the only factor that was significant(r = .066, p-value = .034), with very small weak correlation out of the three types of interactions discussed in this study. Findings also revealed that all the three types of interactions were significant (LCI, r= .121** p=0.009; LII, r=.108*, p=0.018; LLI, r = .105*, p = 0.023) for female distance e-learners but none was significant for male distance e-learners.Based on the findings of the research, recommendations have been made which will assist Nigerian university policy makers and course developers with a view to improving the academic performance of distance e-learners.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 120-139
Author(s):  
Dave Harte ◽  
Paul Long ◽  
Annette Naudin

This article examines the nature and role of courses designed to train creative workers, policy-makers and related actors, in the skills necessary for cultural management, enterprise or intermediation and their relationship in apprehending the sector. The article takes a case study approach, engaging with university policy, student research, reflections from graduates and staff who have participated in a suite of integrated MA awards at a UK university. We find that the programme created environments in which practitioners and intermediaries were positioned in reflexive relation to their experiences and roles. We outline the insights and understandings that have emerged as students explored their own orbits in relation to both critical and instrumental research on the cultural sector, and in relation to perceptions of the transformations in sector and how it is conceived. The case study sets out an agenda for exploring the relationship of research, pedagogy and practice after the creative industries.


Author(s):  
Weiqin Chen ◽  
Nils Magnus Djupvik

Complex systems are difficult to understand, and without extended training and experience, people tend to misperceive these systems. Although current simulation tools illustrate what is happening in complex systems, they lack the means to represent the narrative aspects of the exhibited behaviours, in order to provide an account for the behaviours. The goal of this research is to provide visualizations of complex dynamic system behaviours with multimedia, focusing on video narratives, and to study the implications and added values of the video clips. The target users are primarily university students in System Dynamics. The method could also be of value both to lower level school students as well as to policy makers and general population who must deal with challenging complex problems. A pilot study was conducted and the findings confirmed our prior expectations; namely, that providing the users with video clips facilitates their learning process.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 4032
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Christe ◽  
Sergey Negrashov ◽  
Philip M. Johnson

Modern electrical grids are transitioning from a centralized generation architecture to an architecture with significant distributed, intermittent generation. This transition means that the formerly sharp distinction between energy producers (utility companies) and consumers (residences, businesses, etc.) are blurring: end-users both produce and consume energy, making energy management and public policy more complex. The goal of the Open Power Quality (OPQ) project is to design and implement a low cost, distributed power quality sensor network that provides useful new forms of information about modern electrical grids to producers, consumers, researchers, and policy makers. In 2019, we performed a pilot study involving the deployment of an OPQ sensor network at the University of Hawaii microgrid for three months. Results of the pilot study validate the ability of OPQ to collect accurate power quality data in a way that provides useful new insights into electrical grids.


Author(s):  
Olukayode Solomon Aboderin ◽  
A.M Laleye

Distance e-learners are expected to participate in an e-learning environment and interact with the content, colleagues and facilitators through distance education technologies. Learning environment goes a long way to determine student’s academic performance. Hence, this study tends to find out relationship between online interaction and distance e-learners. The purpose of the study was to analyze the correlation that exists between learner-content-interaction (LCI), learner-learner-interaction (LLI) and learner-instructor-interaction (LII) and academic performance of distance e-learners in a Nigerian university. Two research questions were designed to guide the study.  A descriptive design of survey type was adopted for the study and a questionnaire was used to collect the quantitative data. The study was conducted in four selected study centres of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and a total of 1,025 participants completed the survey-based questionnaire. The researchers used Spearman’s correlation to determine if correlation exists on each type of interaction. The findings of this study revealed that learner-learner-interaction was the only factor that was significant(r = .066, p-value = .034), with very small weak correlation out of the three types of interactions discussed in this study. Findings also revealed that all the three types of interactions were significant (LCI, r= .121** p=0.009; LII, r=.108*, p=0.018; LLI, r = .105*, p = 0.023) for female distance e-learners but none was significant for male distance e-learners.Based on the findings of the research, recommendations have been made which will assist Nigerian university policy makers and course developers with a view to improving the academic performance of distance e-learners.


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