A Study of the Predictive Relationships between Faculty Engagement, Learner Satisfaction and Outcomes in Multiple Learning Delivery Modes

The confluence of technology convergence, market forces, and student demand for greater access is reshaping higher education institutions. Indeed, the convergence of technological innovations in hardware, software, and telecommunications, combined with the ubiquity of learning management systems, is reconfiguring and strengthening traditional teaching and learning delivery modes (Amirault & Visser, 2009; Harasim, 2006; Laurillard, 2008). In the current context, one in which universities are forced to adapt, rethink, and even reinvent themselves, the traditional lines between distance education (DE) and face-to-face teaching and learning are becoming progressively blurred, particularly since the dramatic rise of online and blended or hybrid learning (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009; Parsad & Lewis, 2008). This structural transformation is progressively redefining the concept of faculty’s presence and their ability to interact and engage learners. The traditional model of teaching and learning (with its heavy reliance on teacher presence) is being augmented with various tools and technologies (Abdous & Yen, 2010). Additionally, student engagement and its corollary, interaction, have been closely linked to desirable learning outcomes, including academic achievement, critical thinking, and grades (Handelsman, Briggs, Sullivan, & Towler, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Carini, Kuh, & Klein, 2006).

Information Security Awareness On-Line Materials Design with Knowledge Maps

Information Security Awareness, though known as a primary and important issue in the domain of Information Security, CSI computer crime and security survey showed poor security awareness training in public and private sectors. In many studies, the authors have found that the usage of knowledge maps helps the process of learning and conception building. Therefore, the authors have tried to figure out if the implementation of knowledge maps on the training materials of Information Security Awareness will improve the learning performance. Based on the e-learning materials for E-Mail Information Security Awareness, the authors designed them in the format of knowledge maps and compared the learning performance with common browsing-based materials. The results showed the knowledge map-based materials lead to higher learning performance than browse-based ones.

A Multi-Agent Question-Answering System for E-Learning and Collaborative Learning Environment

The increasing advances of new Internet technologies in all application domains have changed life styles and interactions. E-learning and collaborative learning environment systems are originated through such changes and aim at providing facilities for people in different times and geographical locations to cooperate, collaborate, learn and work together by using various educational services. One of the most important requirements of learners in online and virtual environments is the ability to ask questions and receive appropriate answers. The nature of such environments and the lack of physical existence of teachers make such issues critical and challenging problems. This paper presents a multi-agent system for building a question-answering system in learning management systems and collaborative learning environments. In the proposed system, after validating the content of questions, all available resources including course materials, frequently asked questions and responses from other learners will be gathered and finally using a recommender system, the most appropriate answer(s) with respect to several criteria such as learner’s knowledge, research background, history of previous questions, and the candidate answers relevant to the question will be suggested. A simplified version of the system has been implemented and integrated to a well known open source collaborative learning environment system in order to simulate and evaluate the applicability and appropriateness of the proposed system. The result shows that the proposed question-answering system may be used efficiently and expanded to accommodate further advanced capabilities.

Research on Key Technology in Remote Education System of Spirit Diagnosing by Eye in TCM

Spirit diagnosing is an important theory in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), by which a TCM doctor can diagnose a patient’s body state. But this theory is complicated and difficult to master simply learned from books. To further the theory and skill of spirit diagnosing, in this paper, the authors propose a remote education system that can accept videos from a user and give the user an auto-diagnosed spirit. The key technology in this system is eye feature computation in spirit diagnosing, for which rules describing “the spirit” (spirit in TCM refers to the human’s mental state which reflects the one’s general physical condition) state are mined by the quantitative features regarding the human eyes. With videos capturing eye condition during a short period, a set of eye features are extracted. On this basis, attribute intervals of the eye feature space is generated by CAIM (class-attribute interdependence maximization). Several of the candidate rules are then mined by the association rule based on the cloud model. Finally, three complementary rule-pruning methods are modified and combined to trim the candidate rules. The cross validation test for mined rules has an average accuracy of 93%, which shows the high performance of the proposed method.

EIIS

The semantic web brings a new opportunity for efficient information organization and search. To meet the special requirements of the educational field, this paper proposes an intelligent search engine enabled by educational semantic support service, where three kinds of searches are integrated into Educational Information Intelligent Search (EIIS) framework, and web-based resources and local e-resources are both identically semantically processed. During the design, the EIISReasoning and its relevant rule sets are constructed to automatically reason semantic concepts to diverse levels by a semantic factor and a response time factor. Furthermore, the EIISRanking algorithm applies two-level ranking by a factor of semantic similarity, and the same relevance is differentiated in terms of the educational field’s needs. The experiments show that the EIIS engine with semantic services has a better precision rate and improved ranking performance.

The Effects of Videoconferenced Distance-Learning Instruction in a Taiwanese Company

Distance learning, where instruction is given to students despite wide separations of students and teachers, is increasingly popular. Videoconferencing, which is examined in this study, is a distance learning mode of featuring real-time interaction of students and teachers and provides sequence, real-time, vision, and actual interaction. This study focuses on learning achievement compared to that of face-to-face instruction at one fixed location. It investigates the interrelation of learning achievement, gender, emotional intelligence, and motivation. Statistical techniques are used to analyze and evaluate the data. The subjects were divided into a target group and control group. The findings were that learning achievement was similar for videoconferencing and traditional face-to-face instruction. It showed a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and learning achievement. An implication is that a judicious embedding of emotional intelligence consideration in the design and implementation of videoconferencing courses might enhance learning achievement.

Media Naturalness Reduction and Compensatory Channel Expansion

This study provides a combined test of the media naturalness and channel expansion theories with a study of communication media perceptions and use outcomes in the context of a college information systems course delivery. Data was collected from undergraduate students at the middle and end of a long semester. Approximately half of the students took the course face-to-face, and the other half online. As predicted, based on media naturalness theory, grades were significantly higher in the face-to-face condition than the online condition at the middle of the semester. Consistent with predictions based on channel expansion theory, the difference between grades obtained at the middle of the semester disappeared at the end of the semester. This study shows that online course delivery may lead to both negative and positive effects in the same semester, leading to a final outcome that is generally positive. It provides a more nuanced view of online course delivery effects, and clarifies previous empirical findings that appear paradoxical at first glance.

Adaptive Device Context Based Mobile Learning Systems

Mobile learning is e-learning delivered through mobile computing devices, which represents the next stage of computer-aided, multi-media based learning. Therefore, mobile learning is transforming the way of traditional education. However, as most current e-learning systems and their contents are not suitable for mobile devices, an approach for mobile devices to adapt to e-learning is presented. To provide device-independence mobile learning services, a context-aware mobile learning approach is proposed. Firstly, the formal definitions of contexts and their influence on mobile learning services, including device contexts NCxt, matrix of information transmission parameters S, the degree of influence of the context NCxt on information transmission parameters Q, and adaptation coefficient E, are given. By using this approach, the mobile learning system is constructed. In an example using this approach, the authors detect the contextual environment of mobile computing and adapt the mobile learning services to the learners’ devices automatically.

Addressing Challenges in Web Accessibility for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Searching for relevant information on the web is an important aspect of distance learning. This activity is a challenge for visually impaired distance learners. While sighted people have the ability to filter information in a fast and non sequential way, blind persons rely on tools that process the information in a sequential way. Learning is slowed by screen readers which do not interact well with web pages. This paper introduces WAVES, a tool for the fast retrieval of information in a web page for blind and visually impaired people. The paper describes the WAVES prototype, a system that performs a page restructuring of webpages. The system analyzes webpages, identifies elements of interests from a webpage, evaluates their importance by using semantic information and visual cues, sorts them by importance and uses them to restructure the webpage so that data from the original webpage are presented to the reader in a concise format. A preliminary evaluation test of the prototype system has been performed with a sample set of users. The results of the preliminary test show an increase in speed and accuracy when the WAVES system has been used.

Open Book Examinations in a Distance (Teacher) Education Programme

The current post-apartheid system of education in South Africa requires students to be critical thinkers. Education institutions utilise a variety of assessment strategies; peer assessment, self-assessment, and group assessment are some of the formative assessments that are crucial in the promotion of students. This article reports on the findings of a qualitative study conducted at a South African higher education institution where the emphasis was on the open book examination as an alternative form of assessment. The research was conducted among 32 teacher-learners who were enrolled in a two year part-time (teacher education) distance programme. Five of the teacher-learners’ facilitators were part of the sample. The majority of participants concurred that the open book examinations have a number of advantages. One advantage is that this model helps students in allaying anxiety usually associated with closed book examinations. However, there are few challenges posed by this form of assessment, as some current students simply reproduce extracts from the texts in their examination books without any critical interpretation. When properly applied, the open book examination presents an effective assessment model.