Teaching methods applied in higher education during C0VID-19 pandemic in Africa

The outbreak of COVID has imposed a lot of challenges globally to effective teaching since the first COVID 19 pandemic in Africa. In 2020, different African countries have witnessed a drastic change in economic, social and political sphere of life. In order to avoid further spread of COVID-19 and with strict preventive measures, physical contact teaching was cancelled until further notice. The suspension of physical classes at the universities has brought unique challenges to students and educators in the process of delivering contents of the curriculum and achieving value in the education sector across Africa. Our empirical research aimed at finding out the effective teaching methods adopted by higher educational institutions during COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa. The study employed qualitative study design rooted in a descriptive case study, semi structured interview was used to collect data from ten lecturers from seven countries in Africa. The study found greater satisfaction with teaching and learning methods used in African universities. However, both adaptation and application of new teaching methods in higher learning institutions in Africa are still facing various challenges. Throughout this study, we recommend that each university should invest in technologies and research, consistent internet availability, training and skill acquisition in computer operation.

CHALLENGES FACED BY STUDENTS IN STUDYING TARKÎB WITH ZOOM PLATFORM DURING PANDEMIC

This paper discusses the difficulties of Arabic department students when dealing with Tarkîb al-Marfû’ât subject and the using of Zoom/forced technology due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using the qualitative approach, this paper aimed to explore whether students were negatively impacted by switch of learning mode to online. Interviews were conducted to nine students who live in remote areas, and it revealed that those students experienced delay in learning the subject due to their lack of the internet availability. Teaching activities were not optimal due to signal interference so that the exposure to the relevant material was not comprehensive. Moreover the students also lacked understanding to the subject because of the specific difficulty level of the subject. The students missed additional explanations and material from the lecturer, even equipped examples. This paper contributes to educational policies in the ways Indonesian government addresses distance learning for students in Islamic higher education.

Developing a Minimalist Multilingual Full-text Digital Library Solution for Disconnected Remote Library Partners

The University of Florida (UF) George A. Smathers Libraries have been involved in a wide range of partnered digital collection projects throughout the years with a focus on collaborating with institutions across the Caribbean region. One of the countries that we have a number of digitization projects within is Cuba. One of these partnerships is with the library of the Temple Beth Shalom (Gran Sinagoga Bet Shalom) in Havana, Cuba. As part of this partnership, we have sent personnel over to Cuba to do onsite scanning and digitization of selected materials found within the institution. The digitized content from this project was brought back to UF and loaded into our University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) system. Because internet availability and low bandwidth are issues in Cuba, the Synagogue’s ability to access the full-text digitized content residing on UFDC was an issue. The Synagogue also did not have a local digital library system to load the newly digitized content. To respond to this need we focused on providing a minimalist technology solution that was highly portable to meet their desire to conduct full-text searches within their library on their digitized content. This article will explore the solution that was developed using a USB flash drive loaded with a PortableApps version of Zotero loaded with multilingual OCR’s documents.

Persepsi Wisatawan Domestik dan Mancanegara terhadap Pengelolaan Daya Tarik Wisata Jatiluwih, Kabupaten Tabanan, Provinsi Bali

Jatiluwih Tourism Attraction as part of the World Cultural Heritage is a tourist product consumed by tourists. Perception of tourists is important to be studied as a reference in the management of tourist attractions. Data collection techniques using survey methods are used to determine tourists' perception of Jatiluwih Tourism Attraction as part of the World Cultural Heritage. Questionnaires are used as research instruments to obtain information from tourists. After the data is collected, then the measurement is done using the Likert Scale. In determining the number of tourist samples used Slovin formula. Based on Slovin formula with a tolerance limit of 5%, the number of samples for foreign tourists as many as 204 people, and the number of samples for domestic tourists as many as 52 people. The total sample count was 256 people. Domestic and foreign tourists give the highest perception of employment opportunities for the community from the management of tourist attractions. Good perception of tourists is also given to the friendliness of the staff in providing service, naturalness and beauty of the scenery around the tourist attraction. The perception of tourists is not good given to the price of souvenirs, ease of access to the internet, availability of souvenirs with local characteristics, and smooth traffic around tourist attractions.

Secure Data Transmission for Cluster Based Internet Integrated with MANETs

Integrating the Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) with Internet has many advantages. The Data collected from the Mobile nodes can be broadcasted to the world by connecting the Internet to it via Gateway. Clustering is a practical way to enhance the system performance. Security is a significant issue in the Integrated MANETInternet climate in light of the fact that in this climate we need to think about the assaults on Internet availability. So, to overcome this issue, we have proposed Secure and Authenticated routing protocol (SARP) to enhance security performance of the networks. This routing protocol is used to discover a secure route and to transmit data packets securely. In this protocol clusters are formed and security relies on the hardness of the symmetric and asymmetric key algorithms. We show the practicality of this convention as for the security prerequisites and security investigation against different assaults. The estimations and reproductions are given to show the security of the proposed convention. The outcomes show that, the proposed convention have preferred execution over the current secure conventions for Cluster based Internet Integrated with MANETs, in terms of security.

Improved Text Summarization of News Articles Using GA-HC and PSO-HC

Automatic Text Summarization (ATS) is gaining attention because a large volume of data is being generated at an exponential rate. Due to easy internet availability globally, a large amount of data is being generated from social networking websites, news websites and blog websites. Manual summarization is time consuming, and it is difficult to read and summarize a large amount of content. Automatic text summarization is the solution to deal with this problem. This study proposed two automatic text summarization models which are Genetic Algorithm with Hierarchical Clustering (GA-HC) and Particle Swarm Optimization with Hierarchical Clustering (PSO-HC). The proposed models use a word embedding model with Hierarchal Clustering Algorithm to group sentences conveying almost same meaning. Modified GA and adaptive PSO based sentence ranking models are proposed for text summary in news text documents. Simulations are conducted and compared with other understudied algorithms to evaluate the performance of proposed methodology. Simulations results validate the superior performance of the proposed methodology.

Adolescents’ physical activity and sedentary behaviour in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of mothers’ perspectives

Background Socio-behavioural adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic may have significantly affected adolescents’ lifestyle. This study aimed to explore possible reasons affecting changes in physical activity and sedentary behaviour in Indonesian adolescents during the pandemic based on mothers’ perspectives. Methods We recruited parents (n = 20) from the Yogyakarta region of Indonesia (July–August 2020) using purposive and snowball sampling. Individual interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and anonymised. Data were imported into NVivo software for a reflexive thematic analysis. Results The interviews lasted between 38 and 113 min (M = 65 min). Participants’ age ranged between 36 and 54 years (M = 42.6 years). Participants’ children ranged in age from 12 to 15 years (M = 13.7 years, female: 9, male: 11). Themes related to changes in physical activity during the pandemic were 1) self-determination and enjoyment, 2) supports from others, and 3) physical activity facilities and equipment. Themes related to changes in sedentary behaviour during the pandemic included 1) educational demands, 2) psychological effects due to the pandemic, 3) devices and internet availability, 4) parental control, and 5) social facilitators. Conclusions During the pandemic, mothers perceived their children to be less active and using more screen-based devices, either for educational or recreational purposes, compared to before. The present themes might be useful when developing interventions and policies promoting physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour in adolescents. Interventions could, for example, consider increasing parents’ and adolescents’ awareness on current activity guidelines, providing education on healthier recreational screen time, and involving parents, peers, and teachers. Increasing the accessibility of physical activity facilities and equipment, making use of adolescents’ favourite program and social media for interventions, and providing activities that are fun and enjoyable may also important.

Internet Connectivity: Is Free Space Optics the Solution?

During the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic era, poor internet availability hampered online activity, particularly in the sector of education in Malaysia. The most effective way to address this situation is through the construction of telecommunications towers. However, it takes time due to the significant costs involved. Outdoor use of FSO appears to be more advantageous due to the absence of licensing requirements and the high bandwidth it offers. However, there are limitations. We will explore these FSO restrictions in this paper.

Social media use to improve communication on children and adolescent’s health: the role of the Italian Paediatric Society influencers

Background Fake news on children’s and adolescent health are spreading. Internet availability and decreasing costs of media devices are contributing to an easy access to technology by families. Public health organizations are working to contrast misinformation and promote scientific communication. In this context, a new form of communication is emerging social media influencers. Aim of this study is to evaluate the role of paediatric influencers (PI) in communicating information about children and adolescents’ health. Materials and methods A group of PI was enrolled from December 2019 to January 2020 by a scientific commission nominated by the Italian Paediatric Society (SIP). PI were asked to share Facebook messages from the official page of the SIP to their own network. Social media tools have been evaluated across 12 months, from July 28, 2019, to July 11, 2020. For the purposes of clarity, we schematically divided the study period as follows: the period of PIs activity (January 6, 2020, to July 11, 2020) and the period when PIs were not yet active (July 28, 2019, to January 4, 2020). Information on Facebook page (lifetime total likes, daily new likes, daily page engaged, daily total reach) and on published post (lifetime post total reach, lifetime post organic reach, lifetime engaged users) were evaluated. Results A significant increase in Facebook daily new likes, page engagement and total reach, as well as in lifetime post total and organic reach was evidenced. As for PI, they reported a positive experience in most cases. Discussion In the digital era, communication strategies are becoming more important, so that the scientific community has to be actively involved in social media communication. Our pilot study demonstrated that the recruitment of paediatric influencers has increased communication and interaction of the SIP Facebook page. Conclusion Our study shows the potential role of influencers: spreading health messages via PI seems to be a successful strategy to promote correct communication about children’s and adolescents’ health.

Toward Supplying Internet Everywhere and Anytime

The internet is a common style used to connect various types of networks, sensors and personal devices. Accessing and using the Internet need to permission from an internet service provider (ISP) which needs to pay some amount of money. Internet became for some people like the water and air and need it everywhere and anytime. It can be used in education, business, chatting, etc. Thus, it became as a third lung for the world. Moreover, it works as a backbone for the internet of things (IoT). However, the existed policies of providing Internet for people and IoT are expensive and not efficient in exploiting the available Internet packages. In this paper, a new policy to provide Internet service everywhere (at least in the cities) and any time (IWT) is proposed. It depends on the collaboration concept among users to share Internet account packages with each other to increase Internet availability and utilization. It can determine the time period and the number of allowed devices to connect and use the Internet account of other users. In addition, it determines which user device or IoT sensor should connect at which time depending on the priority. Moreover, it takes the overhead and energy and bandwidth consumption into account. From the simulation results, we concluded that applying IWT can enhance the work of IoT and make the Internet cheaper and increase the percentage of Internet availability.