Competencies possessed by the training professionals of agricultural training institutes in Punjab, Pakistan

Professional competencies are considered as key to perform job responsibilities. Training professionals of Agricultural Training Institutes (ATIs) are engaged in imparting various skills and expertise to extension field staff in the form of training so that they would perform their tasks and responsibilities in a better way to disseminate advanced agricultural knowledge. In this scenario, the present study was designed to investigate various competencies possessed by the training professionals of ATIs in the Punjab province of Pakistan. For this purpose, data was collected from all training professionals working in all ATIs of Punjab Province in Pakistan. A well-structured questionnaire was developed as an instrument of the study. Descriptive statistics including frequencies, means and standard deviations were applied through Statistical Packages for Social Sciences. Results reveal that training professional of ATIs possess computer skill especially MS word and email skills. Motivational skills, lecture delivery skills and communication skills were ranked at top, which are being possessed by training professionals. Moreover, the results recommend that the government should launch capacity building programs to develop professional competencies of training professionals on regular basis.

The EFL pre-service teachers' experiences and challenges in designing teaching materials using TPACK framework

This study aimed to explore the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) pre-service teachers’ experiences in designing and implementing teaching materials by using the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework through the Learning by Design (LBD) approach. It also identified the challenges faced by the pre-service teachers in designing and implementing the teaching materials. This study involved EFL pre-service teachers in the Province of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to gather data needed to accomplish the research objectives. The results of the study showed that the LBD approach was found to be beneficial for the pre-service teachers in designing and implementing teaching materials by using the TPACK framework. The LBD approach helped the pre-service teachers in combining the technological tools and applications with teaching. The EFL pre-service teachers believed that the process that they experienced, enabled them to have a positive change in designing the teaching materials. However, some challenges were still faced by the EFL pre-service teachers in designing and implementing the teaching materials. These included the EFL pre-service teachers’ low level of computer skill, their lack of proficiency in content knowledge, and the availability of media. Moreover, the challenges they faced did not make them afraid of having more experience in LBD activities to promote their abilities in designing teaching materials and in teaching using the materials.

The Study of Prevalence and Associated Factors of Dementia in the Elderly

Objective: Nowadays, Thailand and Worldwide are going to be aged society. Elderly health issue is more important. Dementia is one of the major problems in elderly. Dementia patients can develop many symptoms such as memory loss, decision difficultly, language deficit, personality and mood change. In severe case, they need a caregiver. This disturbs daily activities and decreases quality of life. Because of taking part in primary care, there are many elderlies with dementia. There is less data about proactive study in primary care. Aims of this study are assessing the prevalence and related factors of dementia in elderly.Methods: A descriptive study of 295 elderlies was studied in Bangkruai subdistrict, Bangkruai district, Nonthaburi. According to the definition in Thailand, elderly is people who is older than 60 years old. Tools for this study were MMSE-Thai 2002 for screening dementia and calculating prevalence and general information questionnaire for related factor.Results: The results showed the prevalence of dementia in elderly in Bangkruai subdistrict, Bangkruai district, Nonthaburi was 18 percent. The related factors that have statistically significant were male sex, high age, low education, diabetes mellitus, no mobile phone, no computer skill, no internet skill, rarely social participation and rarely religion participation. However, factors that had no statistically significant were weight, height, BMI, marital status, occupation, hypertension, dyslipidemia, daily medicine, alcohol consumption, smoking, coffee, exercise, daily television use and family category.Conclusion: The prevalence of dementia in the elderly was 18 percent and the related factors that have statistically significant were male sex, high age, low education, diabetes mellitus, no mobile phone, no computer skill, no internet skill, rarely social participation and rarely religion participation. The study showed size of problem and made the good plans for elderly health such as technology assessment and motivation for social participation.

Towards the development of an Intelligent Management System

This paper presents a architecture and several technical issues of an intelligent management system, which can bridging the substantial gap between the theory and practical of an intelligent management. The particular system, throughout its interactions with executives, automatically generated modules that lead to the accomplishments of executives’ changing tasks. The generated modules have new friendly interface. They adapted to executives’ role, computer skill, and special task. The adaptive behaviours of the system show that the system is superior to the prevailing systems.

Demographics and perceived computer skill levels as predictors of faculty awareness and use of electronic information resources

Purpose The main aim of this paper is to examine the role of demographics and self-reported computer skill levels as predictors of e-resources awareness and use by faculty members working at various public and private universities in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted at public and private universities in Bangladesh. A total of 757 faculty members from 48 universities across the country responded to the survey. The data were analyzed using various descriptive statistics, i.e. frequencies and percentages and non-parametric Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests were conducted to see the differences in levels of awareness among faculty members in terms of university type, gender, age, designation, specialization and computer proficiency levels. An ordinal regression model was used to predict the role of demographics and computer skill levels on faculty awareness levels. Finally, correlation coefficient was measured to see the relationships between faculty awareness and use of e-resources. Findings The findings revealed that faculty members working at different universities in Bangladesh are generally aware of most e-resources types. There were significant differences in faculty awareness in terms of demographics and self-reported computer skills levels. The results showed that computer proficiency level is a significant predictor of faculty awareness of e-resources. The findings also showed that awareness and use of e-resources are positively and significantly correlated. Originality/value This is the foremost attempt to assess the role of demographics and computer skill levels as predictors of awareness and use of e-resources by faculty members.

Telemedicine awareness, knowledge, attitude and skills of healthcare workers in a low resource country during the COVID-19 pandemic (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, several healthcare service programs intended to provide healthcare telemedicine services have been introduced in Libya. Many physicians have used these services to provide care and advice to their patients remotely, without the need to be present in the clinic. OBJECTIVE Assessments of physicians’ awareness, knowledge, attitude and skills in using telehealth services are needed. We aimed to provide an overview of these assessments. METHODS A cross-sectional study conducted using a web-based survey sought responses from healthcare workers in Libya in May 2020. The questionnaire collected information on physicians’ basic characteristics, ability to use a computer, and telemedicine awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skills. RESULTS The awareness and skill levels of the 673 healthcare respondents were 56% and 36.8%, respectively. Knowledge and attitude levels were high (86.5% and 82.6%, respectively). There were no significant differences in awareness, knowledge, attitude and skill scores among physicians employed in public hospitals, private hospitals or both types of hospitals. Statistically significant differences were evident in the mean awareness, attitude and computer skill (P < .05) scores, where the distribution of the scores in the groups based on the ability to use computers was not similar. There were no significant differences in knowledge scores among the three groups. Respondents with professional computer skills showed significantly higher scores than those with high awareness levels (χ2(3) = 14.468, P ≤ .001). Respondents with higher computer skills showed significantly higher attitude levels (χ2(3) = 13.46, P = .001). Significant differences were evident in the mean computer skill scores of the groups [χ2(3) = 199.62, P ≤ .001]. CONCLUSIONS The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to persist for a prolonged time. Hence, policy programs, such as telemedicine services, which aim to address the obstacles to medical treatment created due to physical distancing steps, will likely continue for a long time. Therefore, there is a need to train and support healthcare workers and initiate governmental programs that provide adequate and supportive healthcare services to patients in developing countries. CLINICALTRIAL

The comparative survey of computer anxiety and computer attitude:

This study examined the relationship between computer anxiety and computer skill of students in Mongolian University of Life Sciences.The study results from the questionnaire analysis have been analysed using SPSS 23 and SmartPLS 3.0. The results of this study suggest that students' computer anxiety is inverse with the computer skills. The student-centered learning is more than of teacher-centered learning that has a major impact on the reduction of computer anxiety. Компьютер ашиглах үед илрэх түгшүүр болон хандлагыг харьцуулсан судалгаа Хураангуй: Оюутнуудын суралцах үйл ажиллагаандаа компьютер хэрэглэх чадвар болон компьютер хэрэглэх үед илрэх сэтгэлийн түгшүүрийг судлахдаа ХААИС-ийн багш, оюутнуудыг хамрууллаа. Бид судалгаандаа дэвшүүлсэн таамаглалаа бүтцийн тэгшитгэлийн загварчлал, статистик аргачлалаар SmartPLS 3.0, SPSS 23 программуудыг ашиглан боловсруулалт, шинжилгээ хийв. Энэ судалгааны дүнгээс харахад оюутны компьютер хэрэглэх чадвар нь сэтгэлийн түгшүүртэй урвуу хамааралтай болох нь харагдлаа. Багш төвт сургалтаас илүү оюутан төвт сургалт нь оюутны компьютер ашиглах үеийн сэтгэлийн түгшүүрийг бууруулахад илүү нөлөөлж байгаа нь ажиглагдлаа. Түлхүүр үг: Идэвхитэй сургалтын арга, судалгааны загвар, статистик боловсруулалт

Pelatihan Pemberdayaan Istri Nelayan Melalui Pelatihan Digital Marketing Strategy (DMS) Darah Biru

The fisherman’s wife was one of the nonproductive community that couldn’t get salary by themselves. The horseshoe crab was the most crab that live in Mayangan’s village. Usually, the community eat this crab and throw the blood away. In fact, this blood, blue colored, has many advantages in pharmacy area that one of ingredient to produce the medicines. The training was needed by community to produce and market the blue blood using digital marketing strategy. The training method covers the formation of caders, the packaging product, creating e-commerce account, the marketing strategy, finacial bookkeeping, and evaluating the use of digital marketing strategy. The training objects were five fisherman’s wives who live in Mayangan Villege and couldn’t earn the salary. After the training held, the community has computer skill and e-commerce account to promote the blood. They also could package the blood that must have good quality in several days. They also were skilled in financial bookkeeping and manage the e-commerce account. Finally, this community could earn the salary by themselves using the production and digital marketing strategy. Keywords—training, digital marketing strategy, blue blood Abstrak Istri nelayan merupakan salah satu masyarakat nonproduktif ditinjau dari kemandirian dalam mendapatkan penghasilan. Darah biru merupakan salah satu komponen pada kepiting tapal kuda yang sangat melimpah di Desa Mayangan. Biasanya, kepiting diolah sebagai masakan dengan proses pembuangan darah biru. Darah biru merupakan salah satu bahan baku obat sehingga diperlukan di bidang farmasi. Pemanfaatan darah biru ini perlu diberikan kepada mitra dan dipasarkan sehingga dapat memberikan penghasilan bagi istri nelayan. Kegiatan pelatihan ini bertujuan untuk memberdayakan istri nelayan agar menjadi masyarakat mandiri dengan memproduksi ekstrak darah biru dan memasarkannya melalui sarana digital. Metode pelaksanaan pelatihan diawali dari sosialisasi, pembentukan kader, strategi pengemasan produk, pembuatan akun e-commerce, strategi pemasaran, strategi pembukuan keuangan, dan evaluasi pemasaran digital. Sasaran pelatihan yaitu lima orang istri nelayan di Desa Mayangan yang tidak mempunyai pekerjaan. Hasil kegiatan ini yaitu adanya kemandirian masyarakat yang ditinjau dari adanya penghasilan yang diperoleh melalui strategi pemasaran darah biru. Penggunaan e-commerce sebagai sarana pemasaran digital dikelola dengan baik sehingga mampu menambah skill mitra di bidang komputasi. Mitra telah mempunyai pembukuan keuangan. Pengkaderan yang dilakukan bertujuan untuk keberlangsungan produksi dan pemasaran darah biru. Kata kunci—pelatihan, digital marketing strategy, darah biru