ICT platforms for Indonesian EFL students viewed from gender during the COVID-19 pandemic

The aims of this study are to find out (1) ICT (Information and Communications Technology) platform used by male and female students from Islamic universities in Indonesia, (2) their perception of using ICT, and (3) their barriers to using ICT in English language learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was collected from an online questionnaire (Google Form) from students majoring in English from seven Islamic universities in Indonesia. There were 30 male students and 30 female students from every university who participated in this research, making a total of 210 student respondents. The data were analyzed quantitatively by using the SPSS computer program. First of all, female students used more various types of ICT platforms compared to male students. Second, the female students viewed ICT use more positively than male students in language learning. And lastly, even though the females deemed ICT more optimistically compared to male students, nevertheless the females encountered more barriers in using the ICT platforms compared to the male students in this study. Again, even though male students were more skillful in ICT literacy than female students, female students constructively regarded ICT use in language learning as more beneficial to them in terms of skill, knowledge, and motivational improvement.

Mental Health Promotion and Intervention in Occupational Settings: Protocol for a Pilot Study of the MENTUPP Intervention

Depression and anxiety are the most prevalent mental health difficulties in the EU, causing immense suffering and costing the global economy EUR 1 trillion each year in lost productivity. Employees in construction, health and information and communications technology have an elevated risk of mental health difficulties. Most mental health interventions for the workplace have been targeted at larger companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often overlooked despite most people being employed in SMEs. The MENTUPP intervention aims to improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce depression, anxiety, and suicidal behaviour. The MENTUPP project involves the development, implementation, and evaluation of a multilevel intervention targeting both clinical and non-clinical mental health issues and combating the stigma of mental (ill-)health, with a specific focus on SMEs. The intervention is underpinned by a framework of how to create a mentally healthy workplace by employing an integrated approach and has been informed by several systematic reviews designed to understand organisational mental health interventions and a consultation survey with key experts in the area. The intervention is facilitated through the MENTUPP Hub, an online platform that presents interactive psychoeducational materials, toolkits, and links to additional resources in an accessible and user-friendly manner. This paper presents the pilot study protocol for delivering the MENTUPP intervention in eight European countries and Australia. Each intervention country will aim to recruit at least 23 participants in 1–3 SMEs in one of the three high-risk sectors. The central aim of the pilot study will be to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and uptake of the MENTUPP intervention across the target SMEs. The findings will contribute to devising the protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) of the MENTUPP intervention. Findings from this study will also be used to inform the optimisation phase of the MENTUPP intervention which will aim to improve the materials and the implementation of the intervention as well as enhancing the evaluation strategy which will be employed for the cRCT.

An Efficiency Measurement of E-Government Performance for Network Readiness: Non-Parametric Frontier Approach

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) network readiness competency improves service quality and provides efficient service in implementing successful e-governments. By confirming ICT network readiness of e-governments, it must be redesigned using limited resources effectively to achieve realistic goals. When ICT investment and economic performance are featured, e-government’s network readiness competency improves potential demand, supply, and service maturity. It reflects information technology (IT) development competency on performance effectively. In this study, we propose the Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) method to present a method of improving ICT network readiness between countries. We derived the ICT network’s readiness competency level and strategic plan by comparing each country for efficient ICT operation of e-governments. If we make rankings in a non-traditional and efficient manner, it will become a successful strategy for ICT in the future. This effort provides guidance for each government and a solution for the growth delay problem, which is required for advancement in ICT investment and productivity. It also guides each government to overcome marginal products.

The Use of Technological Innovations in Promoting Effective Humanitarian Aid - A Systematic Review of the Literature

The number and scale of natural and man-made disasters is increasing at an unprecedented rate, leading to devastating consequences for citizens, governments and entire economies. In response, Humanitarian Supply Chains (HSC) are used as a means of reducing suffering and saving lives. HSCs manage and deliver aid to those in need after a disaster strikes and exist only for the period of the relief operation. With reduced budgets there is an impetus to investigate technological innovations that offer increased efficiencies and reduced costs. One such innovation is information and communications technology (ICT); currently under-utilized by HSCs. This paper investigates the benefits, barriers and enablers of increased ICT adoption in HSCs and offers solutions most suited to their needs. The study develops a matrix that identifies the enablers and barriers of implementing innovative ICT and highlights associated managerial implications and suggested areas for future research.

Mental Disorders in Children and Adolescents With Autism

Children and adolescents with autism frequently have symptoms of various mental disorders along with the features that define autism. Problems with anxiety, depression, emotion regulation, cognitive problems, and associated behavioural problems occur in children with autism of all ages. Overall, high rates of several psychiatric disorders have been reported in individuals with autism. Several authors have suggested cognitive and behaviour therapy (CBT) as a very useful intervention therapy, which can apply in schools, in order to help these children with autism and mental health disorders. It is also important the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and other computer programs to support students with autism in education. Therefore, with a coordinated effort to use this intervention program, schools have an opportunity to address the goals of improving social, emotional, and behavioural competence for these students and minimising the impact of established emotional, behavioural, or educational disorders.

Proposed Usage of ICT and Big Data in Healthcare of Madhya Pradesh

This paper gives an insight of how information and communications technology (ICT) in combination with big data analytics can help to improve healthcare services in Madhya Pradesh, which is a state in India having approximately 75 million populations. With ongoing projects like ‘Digital India’ which will allow computerization of hospitals and digitization of healthcare data. Digital India coupled with ICT, can play an indispensable role in providing effective healthcare services through e-health application like electronic health record, e-prescription, computerized physician order entry, telemedicine, mhealth along with the network like State wide area network (SWAN) and National health information network which will allow sharing of healthcare records across the network. Data stored through e-health application is of huge size having different formats which makes it difficult to perform analytics on it. But with big data analytics we can perform analytics on large voluminous healthcare data and useful result obtained from data analytics, patients can be given better and specific treatments. It will also help doctors to exchange their knowledge and treatment practices. This paper also illustrates a case study on M.Y. hospital located in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Keywords: ICT, E-health, Digital India, SWAN, CUG, Big Data Analytics.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY COURSE AT PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

The introduction of information and communications technology (ICT) in pedagogical universities of Ukraine has considerably optimized the professor’s preparation for different forms of in-class teaching. The aim of this research is to characterize the range of media resources used during the preparation of the teaching foreign languages methodology course at high-specialized school and universities of Ukraine. The predominant method used to check the effectiveness of ICT was content analysis. The method of psychological experiment served to study the link between ICT and the students’ emotional sphere. An anonymous poll has discovered a considerable number of students showing a positive attitude to online instruments and using those resources very frequently or almost every day.

Family Context Surrounding the Use of Technologies and Their Impact in Adolescents’ Media Multitasking

Recent studies pointed out that practically all adolescents are regular users of information and communications technology (ICT). Since the most usual context for the use of technology is the home, our aim is, on the one hand, to characterize the family technology context among adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years and, on the other hand, to analyse the relationship between multitasking and the different variables found within this family context. Participants were 977 adolescents. Significant relationship between the number of devices in the home and the frequency with which these are used are showed. Although a 60% of the adolescents have no parental rules over this use, there does not appear to be any relationship between the existence, or lack thereof, of rules over the use of ICT and multitasking. To reduce adolescents amount of media multitasking, we would recommend having fewer devices in the home rather than imposing rules about their use.