The Impact of Digitalization in Higher Educational Institutions

Digital Technology has changed the education scenario in the educational institutions by enhancing teaching and learning, research and governance. There is great need of adequate infrastructure, better internet connectivity, up to date digital equipment’s, safe platform and digitally competent professionals. In India, higher education institution is evident with the increasing use of ICT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, robotics and virtual reality in day-to-day practices which enhances competencies and help in aligning with industry-based skills. This article presents the issues related to implementation of digitalization process in higher education institutions.

Smartphones and Learning: An Extension of M-Learning or a Distinct Area of Inquiry

The smartphone has become an integral part of the education landscape. While there has been significant smartphone research in education under the guise of m-learning, the unique role of the device suggests that m-learning may not be an appropriate characterization. The purpose of this paper is to review the use of m-learning as a primary descriptor for smartphone- and learning-related research. In support of this goal, the paper reviews the definitions associated with m-learning, smartphones, and related technologies from the perspective of educational research. In addition, a review of author keywords of research on smartphones in education is used to provide context to the classification of the research. Finally, three theoretically guided smartphone programs are presented as evidence of the unique nature of smartphone and learning research. This review concludes with recommendations for the characterization of future research.

Emotional Presence in Online Learning

This chapter presents a theoretical understanding of emotional presence in online learning. Research findings show that emotions have a crucial influence on successful online learning. The increasing rate of online courses, especially in higher education, makes us reconsider how necessary emotional presence is to participate in the learning process. Learning is not only a teaching or assessment process, but also a social and emotional process. It is therefore crucial to understand how students engage in online learning, and how lecturers and students perceive their emotional presence. This chapter also highlights the importance of emotions expressed by both students and lecturers in online learning.

WaterBench: A Large-scale Benchmark Dataset for Data-Driven Streamflow Forecasting

This study proposes a comprehensive benchmark dataset for streamflow forecasting, WaterBench, that follows FAIR data principles that is prepared with a focus on convenience for utilizing in data-driven and machine learning studies, and provides benchmark performance for state-of-art deep learning architectures on the dataset for comparative analysis. By aggregating the datasets of streamflow, precipitation, watershed area, slope, soil types, and evapotranspiration from federal agencies and state organizations (i.e., NASA, NOAA, USGS, and Iowa Flood Center), we provided the WaterBench for hourly streamflow forecast studies. This dataset has a high temporal and spatial resolution with rich metadata and relational information, which can be used for varieties of deep learning and machine learning research. We defined a sample streamflow forecasting task for the next 120 hours and provided performance benchmarks on this task with sample linear regression and deep learning models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), and S2S (Sequence-to-sequence). To some extent, WaterBench makes up for the lack of a unified benchmark in earth science research. We highly encourage researchers to use the WaterBench for deep learning research in hydrology.

A comprehensive analysis of the 21st century's research trends in English Mobile Learning: a bibliographic review of the literature

PurposeThis study examines the importance of English Mobile Learning research as a foundation for lifelong and sustainable education from different points of view, including those of technology innovation experts, psychologists and educators. It aims to explore the current status and relevant research trends through the application of bibliometric mapping and bibliometric analysis.Design/methodology/approachFor this study, all Web of Science records (in total 5,343) from 2000 to 2020 in the field of English Mobile Learning were analyzed using the VOSviewer and CiteSpace software tools. The WoS built-in functions, including “Refine” and “Analyze,” were employed to perform the bibliometric analysis. The study further analyzed a sample of the five most-cited articles to identify the previous studies with the highest quality or impact.FindingsThe results showed that research in English Mobile Learning is growing quickly and steadily with a noticeable emphasis on various device-based technologies and applications. The study also discusses the key implications for research institutions, education policymakers and academicians, and identifies the most prominent avenues for future research on English Mobile Learning. Moreover, the results shared in this review highlight the most important and emerging areas of research in the field.Originality/valueThis article is the most recent bibliographic review of literature that particularly addresses the English Mobile Learning research during the past two decades.