IT graduates need a suite of technical competencies and soft skills married with an understanding of the social and business contexts of the systems that they build. To instill in students an awareness of current IT industry practice coupled with the broader impact of their discipline in society, academics from Victoria University and Federation University initiated an across-institutional collaboration. The initiative resulted in a common formative assessment task undertaken by teams of students enrolled in each institution’s professional development units. An initial survey of students was undertaken prior to the assessment task. The survey queried students’ perceptions of a broad range of professional attitudes and skill sets needed by IT professionals when compared to non-skilled workers. Upon the completion of the assessment task, students were surveyed again as to their perceptions of the importance of personal skills, technical competencies, professional and team working skills, workplace knowledge, and cultural awareness for their future professional lives. Comparisons of both surveys’ results revealed that the cohort had a greater appreciation of technical abilities and team-working skills post the assessment task.

An algorithm learning tool was developed for an introductory computer science class in a specialized science and technology high school in Japan. The tool presents lessons and simple visualizations that aim to facilitate teaching and learning of fundamental algorithms. Written tests and an evaluation questionnaire were designed and implemented along with the learning tool among the participants. The tool’s effect on the learning performance of the students was examined. The differences of the two types of visualizations offered by the tool, one with more input and control options and the other with fewer options, were analyzed. Based on the evaluation questionnaire, the scales with which the tool can be assessed according to its usability and pedagogical effectiveness were identified. After using the algorithm learning tool there was an increase in the posttest scores of the students, and those who used the visualization with more input and control options had higher scores compared to those who used the one with limited options. The learning objectives used to evaluate the tool correlated with the test performance of the students. Properties comprised of learning objectives, algorithm visualization characteristics, and interface assessment are proposed to be incorporated in evaluating an algorithm learning tool for novice learners.

Agile global software development (AGSD) is an increasingly prevalent software development strategy, as organizations hope to realize the benefits of accessing a larger resource pool of skilled labor, at a potentially reduced cost, while at the same time delivering value incrementally and iteratively. However, the distributed nature of AGSD creates geographic, temporal, socio-cultural distances that challenge collaboration between project stakeholders. The Cloud Computing (CC) service models of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) are similar to the aspirant qualities of AGSD as they provide services that are globally accessible, efficient, and stable, with lower predictable operating costs that scale to meet the computational demand. This study focused on the 12 agile principles upon which all agile methodologies are based, therein potentially increasing the potential for the findings to be generalized. Domestication Theory was used to assist in understanding how cloud technologies were appropriated in support of AGSD. The research strategy took the form of case study research. The findings suggest that some of the challenges in applying the agile principles in AGSD may be overcome by using CC.

One of the key attempts towards a collective African vision is the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). Barnard and Vonk (2003) report that “53 countries have been urged to implement ICTs in three crucial development arenas: education, health and trade”. While NEPAD and other initiatives have contributed to the provision of ICT infrastructure with positive results as seen in the growth of Internet uses, the disparities in development across Africa are enormous. The challenge to Higher Education Institutions in Africa has been summarised by Colle (2005): “central to creating digital resources and academic infrastructure is the question of universities’ relevance to the world around them, and especially to the challenge of being an active player – ‘an anchor of a broad-based poverty alleviation strategy’ in an increasingly knowledge-based economy”. It can be inferred from Colle that the activities of HEIs in Africa ought to be geared towards contributing to the realisation of the Millennium development goals.

This longitudinal, quasi-experimental study investigated students’ cognitive personality type using the Myers-Briggs personality Type Indicator (MBTI) in Internet-based Online and Face-to-Face (F2F) modalities. A total of 1154 students enrolled in 28 Online and 32 F2F sections taught concurrently over a period of fourteen years. The study measured whether the sample is similar to the national average percentage frequency of all 16 different personality types; whether specific personality type students preferred a specific modality of instructions and if this preference changed over time; whether learning occurred in both class modalities; and whether specific personality type students learned more from a specific modality. Data was analyzed using regression, t-test, frequency, and Chi-Squared. The study concluded that data used in the study was similar to the national statistics; that no major differences in preference occurred over time; and that learning did occur in all modalities, with more statistically significant learning found in the Online modality versus F2F for Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving types. Finally, Sensing and Thinking (ST) and Sensing and Perceiving (SP) group types learned significantly more in Online modality versus F2F.

The impact that mobile web-enabled devices have had on the lives and behavior of university students has been immense. Yet, many of the models used in the classrooms have remained unchanged. Although a traditional research approach of examining the literature, developing a methodology, and so on is followed, this paper’s main aim is to inform practitioners on observations and examples from courses which insist on and encourage mobiles in the classroom. The paper asked three research questions regarding the use, impact, and unintended consequences of mobile web-enabled devices in the classroom. Data was collected from observing and interacting with post graduate students and staff in two universities across two continents: Africa and Europe. The paper then focuses on observations and examples on the use, impact, and unintended consequences of mobile web-enabled devices in two classrooms. The findings are that all students used mobile web-enabled devices for a variety of reasons. The use of mobile devices did not negatively impact the class, rather students appeared to be more engaged and comfortable knowing they were allowed to openly access their mobile devices. The unintended consequences included the use of mobiles to translate text into home languages.

The study involved student teachers enrolled in early childhood teaching at a teacher training institute in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Seventy-four students participated in flipped classroom activities during their first semester of study. Students were told to learn from online videos related to using image editing software in their own time and pace prior to the next class. When they met in class, they were asked to apply their recently acquired editing knowledge to edit an image of their own choice related to the theme of their group project. At the end of the activity, students were asked to complete an online questionnaire. It was found that students had rated all five questions relating to generic skills highly, with self-study skills rated the highest. They particularly enjoyed the flexibility of learning on their own time and pace as a benefit of the flipped classroom. Data collected from students’ project pages show they had used average of 3.22 editing features for the theme images for their project. Most groups had inserted text followed by using the filter function. It is possible that these two functions are more noticeable than other editing functions. In conclusion, students were able to apply their self-learnt knowledge in a real-life situation and they had also developed their generic skills via the flipped classroom pedagogy.

The authors present the results of a study conducted at a comprehensive, urban, coeducational, land-grant university. A quasi-experimental design was chosen for this study to compare student performance in two different classroom environments, traditional versus flipped. The study spanned 3 years, beginning fall 2012 through spring 2015. The participants included 433 declared business majors who self-enrolled in several sections of the Management Information Systems course during the study. The results of the current study mirrored those of previous works as the instructional method impacted students’ final grade. Thus, reporting that the flipped classroom approach offers flexibility with no loss of performance when compared to traditional lecture-based environments.

Aim/Purpose: To understand the change of entrepreneurial initiatives by analysing some new initiatives that came up the last years based on IT enabled business models Background: The theme is described from an educational perspective by offering examples of successful entrepreneurship initiatives Methodology: Description of some cases: Waynabox, Lock up, Uber, Pinterest Contribution: This project tries to become a guide for youth in order to understand various aspects: first, the entrepreneurial aspects that have to be considered before starting a business; secondly, the characteristics that successful businesses have in common; and finally how an entrepreneur can be innovative and how they can achieve the success Findings: Only the 10% of the start-ups exist more than three years. Among the causes of failure are the high saturation of the market and the market competition, which are connected to the ignorance of the real necessity of customers. The company has to identify the needs of customers. They have to define and target their customers by observing and analyzing the market and, above all, getting in touch with the customers. The business plan is something that has to be carried out before the beginning of the project, and has to exist on paper. Everything has to be planned and organised, and the objectives have to be clearly stated in order to stay focused Recommendations for Practitioners : To use existent business models as an inspiration for the creation of a new business model. It is really important to avoid copying the business model itself. One thing that a company needs to do is to make the difference offering new characteristics adapted to the current customer’s experiences Recommendation for Researchers: It is really important to have a good relation with the customer, to attend their needs and to help them with all the doubts that they can have about the company. An entrepreneur cannot be guided by his own interests. He has to invest in order to know the needs of the potential customers Impact on Society : Customer experience is key to have success in new business models

Aim/Purpose: Assess the affordances and constraints of SimReal+ in teacher education Background There is a huge interest in visualizations in mathematics education, but there is little empirical support for their use in educational settings Methodology: Single case study with 22 participants from one class in teacher education. Quantitative and qualitative methods to collect students’ responses to a survey questionnaire and open-ended questions Contribution: The paper contributes to the understanding of affordances and constraints of visualization tools in mathematics education Findings: The visualization tool SimReal+ has potential for learning mathematics in teacher education, but the user interface should be improved to make it more usable for different users. Teachers need to consider technological and pedagogical affordances of SimReal+ at the student, classroom, and mathematics subject level Recommendations for Practitioners: Address technological and pedagogical affordances of SimReal+ Recommendation for Researchers: Improve the design of SimReal+ to make it technologically and pedagogically more usable Impact on Society: Understand the affordances and constraints of visualization tools in education Future Research: Implement a next cycle of experimentation with SimReal+ in teacher education to ensure more validity and reliability

Aim/Purpose : Share research finding about ransomware, depict the ransomware work in a format that commonly used by researchers and practitioners and illustrate personal case experience in dealing with ransomware. Background: Author was hit with Ransomware, suffered a lot from it, and did a lot of research about this topic. Author wants to share findings in his research and his experience in dealing with the aftermath of being hit with ransomware. Methodology: Case study. Applying the literature review for a personal case study. Contribution: More knowledge and awareness about ransomware, how it attacks peoples’ computers, and how well informed users can be hit with this malware. Findings: Even advanced computer users can be hit and suffer from Ransomware attacks. Awareness is very helpful. In addition, this study drew in chart format what is termed “The Ransomware Process”, depicting in chart format the steps that ransomware hits users and collects ransom. Recommendations for Practitioners : Study reiterates other recommendations made for dealing with ransomware attacks but puts them in personal context for more effective awareness about this malware. Recommendation for Researchers: This study lays the foundation for additional research to find solutions to the ransomware problem. IT researchers are aware of chart representations to depict cycles (like SDLC). This paper puts the problem in similar representation to show the work of ransomware. Impact on Society: Society will be better informed about ransomware. Through combining research, illustrating personal experience, and graphically representing the work of ransomware, society at large will be better informed about the risk of this malware. Future Research: Research into solutions for this problem and how to apply them to personal cases.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this project was to explore student perceptions of the value of both the creation of video content and exposure to other students’ work though peer assessment and inclusion of exemplars as unit material. Background: The research was in a first year information technology flipped-learning unit, where the assessment involved students developing video presentations that were peer assessed and exemplars incorporated into the unit as teaching material. Methodology: Data was gathered using a mixed methods approach using an online questionnaire followed by semi-structured interviews with a selection of questionnaire respondents. The interviews were designed to further explore issues identified from the analysis of the questionnaire data. Contribution: Informs on student perceptions of peer review and the integration of student generated content into University teaching. Findings: Most students enjoyed the video assessment (58%) with many preferring it to a written or programming task (55-58%). In the subsequent peer assessment, many liked seeing the work of others (67%) and found the approach engaging (63%) yet some other perceptions were mixed or neutral. Recommendations for Practitioners: University IT students generally enjoyed and perceived peer assessment and found student generated content to be valuable. Recommendation for Researchers: Further investigation of peer review and student generated content in contexts where the student cohort represents a variety of cultures and age categories Impact on Society: Contributes to a body of knowledge regarding peer assessment and student generated educational materials. Future Research: Future work is needed to better understand this domain, in particular the role of learners’ individual differences in order to successfully integrate these approaches into modern learning environments.

Aim/Purpose: Executive doctoral programs in higher education are under-researched. Scholars, administers, and students should be aware of all common delivery methods for higher education graduate programs. Background This paper provides a review and analysis of executive doctoral higher education programs in the United States. Methodology: Executive higher education doctoral programs analyzed utilizing a qualitative demographic market-based analysis approach. Contribution: This review of executive higher education doctoral programs provides one of the first investigations of this segment of the higher education degree market. Findings: There are twelve programs in the United States offering executive higher education degrees, though there are less aggressively marketed programs described as executive-style higher education doctoral programs that could serve students with similar needs. Recommendations for Practitioners: Successful executive higher education doctoral programs require faculty that have both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in higher education. As appropriate, these programs should include tenure-line, clinical-track, and adjunct faculty who have cabinet level experience in higher education. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should begin to investigate more closely the small but growing population of executive doctoral degree programs in higher education. Impact on Society: Institutions willing to offer executive degrees in higher education will provide training specifically for those faculty who are one step from an executive position within the higher education sector. Society will be impacted by having someone that is trained in the area who also has real world experience. Future Research: Case studies of students enrolled in executive higher education programs and research documenting university-employer goals for these programs would enhance our understanding of this branch of the higher education degree market.

Aim/Purpose: Authentic assessments offer students the opportunity to develop skills that implement the formal learning they receive in the classroom. Although there is a need for accounting graduates to possess a plethora of skills to equip them for success, there is a shortage of literature that focuses on authentic assessment design for accounting courses. This paper aims to address this gap by compiling a toolkit for accounting educators aspiring to design and implement authentic assessments. Background: This paper reviews examples of authentic assessments that are available and have been used by accounting educators and educators in general. It highlights the skills that might be developed with each assessment Methodology: A review of 182 articles on authentic assessment design and examples of authentic assessments like portfolios, reflective journals, presentations, reports, peer and self-assessment was conducted. Contribution: A toolkit with examples of authentic assessment to ease the task of authentic assessment design for those new to authentic assessment and seasoned authentic assessment practitioners alike. Findings: Authentic assessments are a form of learning. They help graduates develop skills and attributes that will make them work-ready and capable of handling a lot of real life practical work situations. Rubrics are an important part of authentic assessment implementation and their use is mandated by business school accrediting bodies like AACSB. Recommendations for Practitioners: Accounting educators may find guidelines in this paper which will help them understand authentic assessments and enlighten them on the challenges they may encounter when implementing the assessments. Recommendation for Researchers: There is a need for future researchers to contribute more to this topic so as to increase the variety and amount of literature available for those wishing to engage with authentic curriculum design in accounting. Future researchers could also focus on the perceptions of authentic assessments of accounting educators, students and employers. Impact on Society: This paper may also be of use to prospective employers wishing to gain a clear understanding of the skills inherent in prospective graduates who may have been exposed to authentic assessments. Accounting students and graduates may find this paper useful as it will help them comprehend the importance of some the assessments with the backing and assurance from the literature. Future Research: Future research may focus on the challenges in implementing authentic assessments. It would also be great to see more research addressing the perceptions of educators towards authentic assessments.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this article is to establish the different impacts of technological changes in institutions generating irrevocable changes in today’s society. Background: Technological changes have had a positive impact on many aspects of everyday life today, and it is natural that both public and private institutions benefit from this reality. Methodology: The research method used is based on the explanatory approach, through the documentary review of secondary sources and research works. Contribution: The implementation of electronic government in Ecuador is presented as a direct consequence of these technological developments with ways to direct and govern a country, which leads to competitive advantages in a world that is increasingly globalized. Findings: In the institutions the only permanent thing is change, for which the changing and evolving fact that the public and private institutions of today must have is highlighted. Recommendations for Practitioners: Results can inform to users the importance of the “new government” in a practical level. Recommendation for Researchers: The influence of technology on how to govern and if this in some way improves the functioning of the State. Impact on Society: Technological developments, which leads competitive advantages in a world that is increasingly globalized. Future Research: Create discussion and have a starting point to compare the influence of technological government in different parts of the world.

Aim/Purpose: To monitor Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) established by the United Nations through the hierarchical architecture of informing systems Background: The paper discusses the case of Poland and its Gdansk region Contribution: The solution combines the big-picture of civilization with small-picture of a nation, regions, cities, and firms Findings: The presented solution can be implemented if the political will can be secured. Recommendations for Practitioners: Take the main idea of this paper and adapt to your local case. Recommendation for Researchers: Develop some prototypes of presented informing systems and test in your local environment Impact on Society: The success of the sustainability of globalizing society can be secured if the coherent informing systems can be applied to the planning, monitoring, and implementation of the UN's universal SDG. Future Research: Work on the modeling of costs and benefits of the presented solution.

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of educational games on learning computer programming. In particular, we are examining whether allowing students to manipulate the underlying code of the educational games will increase their intrinsic motivation. Background: Young students are fond of playing digital games. Moreover, they are also interested in creating game applications. We try to make use of both of these facts. Methodology: A prototype was created to teach the fundamentals of conditional structures. A number of errors were intentionally included in the game at different stages. Whenever an error is encountered, students have to stop the game and fix the bug before proceeding. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate this approach. Contribution: This research investigates a novel approach to teach programming using educational games. This study is at the initial stage. Findings: Allowing the programming students to manipulate the underlying code of the educational game they play will increase their intrinsic motivation. Recommendations for Practitioners: Creating educational games to teach programming, and systematically allowing the players to manipulate the gaming logic, will be beneficial to the students. Recommendation for Researchers: This research can be extended to investigate how various artificial intelligence techniques can be used to model the gamers, for example, skill level. Impact on Society: The future generations of students should be able to use digital technologies proficiently. In addition, they should also be able to understand and modify the underlying code in the digital things (like Internet of Things).This research attempts to alleviate the disenchantment associated with learning coding. Future Research: A full scale evaluation – including objective evaluation using game scores – will be conducted. One-way MANOVA will be used to analyze the efficacy of the proposed intervention on the students’ performance, and their intrinsic motivation and flow experience.

Aim/Purpose: Although cassava is one of the crops that can be grown during the dry season in Northeastern Thailand, most farmers in the region do not know whether the crop can grow in their specific areas because the available agriculture planning guideline provides only a generic list of dry-season crops that can be grown in the whole region. The purpose of this research is to develop a predictive model that can be used to predict suitable areas for growing cassava in Northeastern Thailand during the dry season. Background: This paper develops a decision support system that can be used by farmers to assist them determine if cassava can be successfully grown in their specific areas. Methodology: This study uses satellite imagery and data on land characteristics to develop a machine learning model for predicting suitable areas for growing cassava in Thailand’s Nakhon-Phanom province. Contribution: This research contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a novel model for predicting suitable areas for growing cassava. Findings: This study identified elevation and Ferric Acrisols (Af) soil as the two most important features for predicting the best-suited areas for growing cassava in Nakhon-Phanom province, Thailand. The two-class boosted decision tree algorithm performs best when compared with other algorithms. The model achieved an accuracy of .886, and .746 F1-score. Recommendations for Practitioners: Farmers and agricultural extension agents will use the decision support system developed in this study to identify specific areas that are suitable for growing cassava in Nakhon-Phanom province, Thailand Recommendation for Researchers: To improve the predictive accuracy of the model developed in this study, more land and crop characteristics data should be incorporated during model development. The ground truth data for areas growing cassava should also be collected for a longer period to provide a more accurate sample of the areas that are suitable for cassava growing. Impact on Society: The use of machine learning for the development of new farming systems will enable farmers to produce more food throughout the year to feed the world’s growing population. Future Research: Further studies should be carried out to map other suitable areas for growing dry-season crops and to develop decision support systems for those crops.

Aim/Purpose: To understand readiness of students for learning in online environments across different age groups. Background: Online learners today are diverse in age due to increasing adult/mature students who continue their higher education while they are working. Understanding the influence of the learners’ age on their online learning experience is limited. Methodology: A survey methodology approach was followed. A sample of one thousand nine hundred and twenty surveys were used. Correlation analysis was performed. Contribution: The study contributes by adding to the limited body of knowledge in this area and adds to the dimensions of the Online Learning Readiness Survey additional dimensions such as usefulness, tendency, anxiety, and attitudes. Findings: Older students have more confidence than younger ones in computer proficiency and learning skills. They are more motivated, show better attitudes and are less anxious. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners should consider preferences that allow students to configure the learning approach to their age. These preferences should be tied to the dimensions of the online learning readiness survey (OLRS). Recommendations for Researchers: More empirical research is required using OLRS for online learning environments. OLRS factors are strong and can predict student readiness and performance. These are opportunities for artificial intelligence in the support of technology-mediated tools for learning.

Aim/Purpose: Teachers are being asked to integrate mobile technologies into their content creation and distribution tasks. This research aims to provide an understanding of teachers taking on this process and whether the use of technology has influenced their content creation and distribution in the classroom. Background: Many claim that the use of technology for content creation and distribution can only enhance and improve the educational experience. However, for teachers it is not simply the integration of technology that is of prime concern. As teachers are ultimately responsible for the success of technology integration, it is essential to understand teachers’ viewpoints and lived technology experiences. Methodology: The Task-Technology Fit (TTF) model was used to guide interpretive case study research. Six teachers were purposively sampled and interviewed from a private school where a digital strategy is already in place. Data was then analysed using directed content analysis in relation to TTF. Contribution: This paper provides an understanding of teachers’ mobile technology choices in relation to content creation and distribution tasks. Findings: Findings indicate that teachers fit technology into their tasks if they perceive the technology has a high level of benefit to the teaching task. In addition, the age of learners and the subject being taught are major influencers. Recommendations for Practitioners: Provides a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of teachers’ technology choices, which is necessary for the technology augmented educational experience of the future. Recommendations for Researchers: Provides an unbiased and theoretically guided view of mobile technology use with content creation and distribution tasks. Impact on Society: Teachers do not appear to use technology as a de facto standard, but specifically select technology which will save them time, reduce costs, and improve the educational experiences of their learners. Future Research: A mixed-method approach, including several diverse schools as well as learners would enrich the findings. Furthermore, consideration of hardware limitations and lack of software features are needed.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop a prototype of an information-generating computer tool designed to automatically map the dental restorations in a panoramic radiograph. Background: A panoramic radiograph is an external dental radiograph of the oro-maxillofacial region, obtained with minimal discomfort and significantly lower radiation dose compared to full mouth intra-oral radiographs or cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging. Currently, however, a radiologic informative report is not regularly designed for a panoramic radiograph, and the referring doctor needs to interpret the panoramic radiograph manually, according to his own judgment. Methodology: An algorithm, based on techniques of computer vision and machine learning, was developed to automatically detect and classify dental restorations in a panoramic radiograph, such as fillings, crowns, root canal treatments and implants. An experienced dentist evaluated 63 panoramic anonymized images and marked on them, manually, 316 various restorations. The images were automatically cropped to obtain a region of interest (ROI) containing only the upper and lower alveolar ridges. The algorithm automatically segmented the restorations using a local adaptive threshold. In order to improve detection of the dental restorations, morphological operations such as opening, closing and hole-filling were employed. Since each restoration is characterized by a unique shape and unique gray level distribution, 20 numerical features describing the contour and the texture were extracted in order to classify the restorations. Twenty-two different machine learning models were evaluated, using a cross-validation approach, to automatically classify the dental restorations into 9 categories. Contribution: The computer tool will provide automatic detection and classification of dental restorations, as an initial step toward automatic detection of oral pathologies in a panoramic radiograph. The use of this algorithm will aid in generating a radiologic report which includes all the information required to improve patient management and treatment outcome. Findings: The automatic cropping of the ROI in the panoramic radiographs, in order to include only the alveolar ridges, was successful in 97% of the cases. The developed algorithm for detection and classification of the dental restorations correctly detected 95% of the restorations. ‘Weighted k-NN’ was the machine-learning model that yielded the best classification rate of the dental restorations - 92%. Impact on Society: Information that will be extracted automatically from the panoramic image will provide a reliable, reproducible radiographic report, currently unavailable, which will assist the clinician as well as improve patients’ reliance on the diagnosis. Future Research: The algorithm for automatic detection and classification of dental restorations in panoramic imaging must be trained on a larger dataset to improve the results. This algorithm will then be used as a preliminary stage for automatically detecting incidental oral pathologies exhibited in the panoramic images.

Aim/Purpose: This paper presents an exploratory case study into using 360° videos to present small segments of lecture content for IT students in an Australian University. The aim of this study was to understand; what is the impact of incorporating 360° videos into class content for students and teaching staff? In this study the 360° videos are described as “learning atoms”. Learning atoms are short duration videos (1 to 5 minutes) captured in 360°. Background: Within this paper we conducted experiments in the classroom using 360° videos to determine if they have an impact on student's feeling of presence with class content. Additionally, to follow up, how does the inclusion of 360° impact on the teaching experience. Methodology: The methodology used in this study focused on both quantitative and qualita-tive aspects. Data was captured at the same time during the teaching period to address the research questions. In order to gauge the feeling of presence within the classroom a short survey was administered to students in the undergraduate IT class at the start (pre) and end (post) of the semester using the same questions to measure any change. Contribution: The main contributions from this study were that we demonstrated there is a potential for providing an alternative ‘immersive’ content presentation for students. This alternative content took the form of 360° learning atoms, whereas further showed our nuance process for creating and publishing of these atoms. Findings: The results show that for students, learning atoms can help improve the sense of presence, particularly for remote students, however the interactive experience can take student’s attention away from the lecturer. The results present potential for providing an alternative ‘immersive’ content presentation for students, however problems for uptake are present for both students and teachers, such as image capture quality and file size Impact on Society: We foresee this approach as being a new approach to teaching students in higher education within online spaces to increase engagement and move towards having a richer virtual experience no matter the location. Future Research: Future research will be conducted to resolve whether presence and engagement is supported by the inclusion of 360° videos in the classroom.

Aim/Purpose: Bring your own device (BYOD) provides opportunities for both the organization and employees, but the adoption of BYOD also introduces risks. This case study of an organization’s BYOD program identifies key positive and negative influences on the adoption decision. Background: The consumerization of IT introduced the BYOD phenomenon into the enterprise environment. As mobile and Internet technologies improve employees are opting to use their personal devices to access organizational systems to perform their work tasks. Such devices include smartphones, tablets and laptop computers. Methodology: This research uses a case study approach to investigate how business priorities drive the adoption of BYOD and how resulting benefits and risks are realized and managed by the organization. Primary empirical data was collected using semi-structured interviews with 15 senior employees from a large South African financial services organization. Policy documents from the organization were analyzed as secondary data. Contribution: Thematic analysis of the data revealed six major themes: improving employee mobility; improving client service and experience; creating a competitive industry advantage; improving business processes; information security risks; and management best practices. Findings: The themes were analyzed using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, showing the key positive and negative influences on the adoption decision. Recommendations for Practitioners: Organizations need to clearly understand the reasons they want to introduce BYOD in their organizations. The conceptual framework can be applied by practitioners in their organizations to achieve their BYOD business objectives. Recommendations for Researchers: BYOD remains an important innovation for organizations with several aspects worthy of further study. The TOE framework presents a suitable lens for analysis, but other models should also be considered. Impact on Society: The findings show that organizations can use BYOD to improve client service, gain competitive advantage, and improve their processes using their digital devices and backend systems. The BYOD trend is thus not likely to go away anytime soon. Future Research: The applicability of findings should be validated across additional contexts. Additional models should also be used.

Aim/Purpose: Providing both formative and summative assessment that allows students to learn from their mistakes is difficult in large classes. This paper describes an automated assessment system suitable for courses with even 100 or more students. Background: Assessment is a vital part of any course of study. Ideally students should be given formative assessment with feedback during the course so students and tutors can identify weaknesses and focus on what needs improvement before summative assessment, which results in a grade. This paper describes and automated assessment system that lessens the burden of providing formative assessment in large classes. Methodology: We used Checkpoint, a web-based automated assessment system, to grade assignments in a number of different computer science courses. Contribution: The students come from diverse backgrounds, with a wide range of ages, previous qualifications and technical skills, and our approach allows the students to work at their own pace according to their individual needs, submitting their solutions as many times as they wish up to a deadline, using feedback provided by the system to help identify and correct their mistakes before trying again. Findings: Use of automated assessment allows us to achieve the goals of both summative and formative assessment: we allow students to learn from their mistakes without incurring a penalty, while at the same time awarding them a grade to validate their efforts. The students have an overwhelmingly positive view about our use of automated assessment, and their comments support our views on the assessment process. Recommendations for Practitioners: Because of the increasing number of students in today’s courses, we recommend using automated assessment wherever possible.

Aim/Purpose: To capture digital training experiences, the paper introduces a novel data collection method – a graphic questionnaire. It aims to demonstrate the opportunities and limitations of this tool for collecting feedback from socially disadvantaged participants of digital literacy training about their progress. Background: In training of digital skills for disadvantaged audiences through informal educational interventions, it is important to get sufficient knowledge on factors that lead to their progress in the course of training. There are many tools to measure the achievements of formal education participants, but assessing the effectiveness of informal digital skills training is researched less. The paper introduces a small-scale case study of the training programme aimed at the developing of reading and digital skills among the participants from three socially disadvantaged groups – people with hearing impairments, children from low income families, and elderly persons. The impact of the training on participants was evaluated using different tools, including a short graphic questionnaire to capture the perceptions of the participants after each training. Methodology: We performed a thematic analysis of graphic questionnaires collected after each training session to determine how the students perceived their progress in developing literacy and digital skills. Contribution The findings of the paper can assist in designing assessment of digital literacy programmes that focus not only on final results, but also on the process of gaining digital skills and important factors that facilitate progress. Findings: The graphic questionnaire allowed the researchers to get insights into the perception of acquired skills and progressive achievements of the participants through rich self-reports of attitudes, knowledge gained, and activities during training sessions. However, the graphic questionnaire format did not allow the collection of data about social interaction and cooperation that could be important in learning. Recommendations for Practitioners: Graphic questionnaires are useful and easy-to-use tools for getting rich contextual information about the attitudes, behaviour, and acquisition of knowledge in digital literacy training. They can be used in applied assessments of digital literacy training in various settings. Their simplicity can appeal to respondents; however, in the long-run interest of respondents in continuing self-reports should be sustained by additional measures. Recommendations for Researchers: Researcher may explore the variety of simple and attractive research instruments, such as “honeycomb” questionnaires and similar, to facilitate data collection and saturate feedback with significant perception of personal experiences in gaining digital literacy skills. Impact on Society: Designing effective digital literacy programmes, including engaging self-assessment methods and tools, aimed at socially disadvantaged people will contribute to their digital inclusion and to solving the issues of digital divide. Future Research: Exploration of diverse research methods and expanding the research toolset in assessing digital literacy training could advance our understanding of important processes and factors in gaining digital skills.

Aim/Purpose: Drone technology has been increasingly used in education. This paper reports a study of assessing teachers’ readiness and training needs for using drone technology in their teaching. Background: New technology promotes new ways of practices. With the sophisticated design and the affordance to explore our world from a bird’s eye perspective, a drone has been increasingly used to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. However, it also brings challenges to teachers to integrate drone technology in their teaching. It is therefore important to obtain a better understanding of various aspects of integrating drone technology in education. Methodology: A group of pre-service teachers was engaged in a case study conducted using a designed-based approach. The participants were randomly assigned into three groups. They were required to develop lesson plans with the application of drone technology in teaching. The lesson plans were subsequently analyzed using the TPCK framework to identify teachers’ readiness and training needs. Findings: The participants, to a large extent, have sufficient competence to master the skills and knowledge of drone technology and to integrate it into their teaching. However, they were required to strengthen the pedagogical knowledge, subject content knowledge, and technological content knowledge in order to maximize the potential benefits of drone technology in education. Contribution: This paper reports the level of readiness and training needs of teachers regarding the use of drone technology in their teaching. Recommendations for Practitioners: To conduct teacher training regarding the use of drone technology in education, a particular focus should be put on enhancing teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, subject content knowledge, and technological content knowledge. Recommendations for Researchers: Researcher may further explore the strategies to integrate drone technology in teaching. Impact on Society: This paper suggests the area of teacher training regarding the use of drone technology in education. The teaching and learning effectiveness could be improved. Future Research: Future research may study the safety issue and ethical issue of using a drone in education.

Aim/Purpose: The flipped classroom approach is one of the most popular active learning approaches. This paper explores the effectiveness of a new pedagogy, known as FOCUSED, for postgraduate students. Background: The flipped classroom approach is a trendy blended learning pedagogy which capitalizes on the flexibility of online learning and the stimulating nature of face-to-face discussion. This article describes a pilot study involving post-graduate students who experienced the flipped classroom approach in one of their courses. Methodology: In additional to online activities, students adopted a newly learned approach to solve a related problem that was given by another group of students during classes. Quantitative data were collected from pre- and post-tests for both self-learned online materials and group discussion during classes so that the effectiveness of the flipped classroom pedagogy could be examined from the perspective of a holistic learning experience. Findings: It was found that the average scores for the post-test for the self-learned online video were much higher than for pre-test, even though the post-tests for both online and face-to-face learning were higher than the respective pre-tests. The qualitative data collected at the end of the flipped classroom activities further confirmed the value of the flipped classroom approach. Even though students could self-learn, more students valued peer interactions in the classroom more than the flexibility of online learning.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this project was to explore a method to enable an updated under-standing of digital literacy to be implemented in curricula in an environment of an existing, but outdated, understanding of digital literacy. . Background: The changing healthcare environment increasingly emphasizes the importance of digital literacy skills; therefore academics in the optometry discipline at Deakin University sought to better understand where digital literacy skills were taught in their program, and whether delivery was implicit or explicit. Methodology: This case study describes a systematic review of the optometric curriculum to first identify where and what digital literacy skills are currently being addressed in the curriculum, identify the gaps, and develop a strategy to address the gaps. Contribution: The main outcome of this work is the development of a spiraling curriculum to support the development of digital literacy skills required in later units of the program and for clinical practice post-graduation. Findings: Although the definition of digital literacy may be outdated, the digital literacy capabilities being addressed in the curriculum had grown as digital technology use by staff and students had expanded. This, together with the realization that students were not as digitally capable as expected, indicated that teaching digital literacy skills needed to be made overt throughout the curriculum. Recommendations for Practitioners: The process developed through this case study provides a strong foundation for course teams, curriculum developers and educational designers to efficiently analyze digital literacy expectations in existing, accredited health-related curricula and improve the curricula by more overtly embedding digital literacy teaching into it. Impact on Society: Graduates of the amended program of study are expected to be better prepared to undertake their future careers in a digitally enhanced and disrupted environment. Future Research: The framework will be used to explore digital literacy teaching practices in other disciplines. A systematic evaluation will be undertaken to identify the benefits and short comings of using the framework. The elements that make up the new definition of digital literacy need to be better articulated to allow curriculum developers to be better informed as to how to interpret the framework in their context.

Aim/Purpose: This brief paper will provide preliminary insight into an institutions effort to help students understand the application of the scientific method as it applies to the business discipline through the creation of a dedicated, required course added to the curriculum of a mid-Atlantic minority-serving institution. In or-der to determine whether the under-consideration course satisfies designated student learning outcomes, an assessment regime was initiated that included examination of rubric data as well as the administration of a student perception survey. This paper summarizes the results of the early examination of the efficacy of the course under consideration. Background: A small, minority-serving, university located in the United States conducted an assessment and determined that students entering a department of business following completion of their general education science requirements had difficulties transferring their understanding of the scientific method to the business discipline. Accordingly, the department decided to create a unique course offered to sophomore standing students titled Principles of Scientific Methods in Business. The course was created by a group of faculty with input from a twenty person department. Methodology: Rubrics used to assess a course term project were collected and analyzed in Microsoft Excel to measure student satisfaction of learning goals and a student satisfaction survey was developed and administered to students enrolled in the course under consideration to measure perceived course value. Contribution: While the scientific method applies across the business and information disciplines, students often struggle to envision this application. This paper explores the implications of a course specifically purposed to engender the development and usage of logical and scientific reasoning skills in the business discipline by students in the lower level of an bachelors degree program. The information conveyed in this paper hopefully makes a contribution in an area where there is still an insufficient body of research and where additional exploration is needed. Findings: For two semesters rubrics were collected and analyzed representing the inclusion of 53 students. The target mean for the rubric was a 2.8 and the overall achieved mean was a 2.97, indicating that student performance met minimal expectations. Nevertheless, student deficiencies in three crucial areas were identified. According to the survey findings, as a result of the class students had a better understanding of the scientific method as it applies to the business discipline, are now better able to critically assess a problem, feel they can formulate a procedure to solve a problem, can test a problem-solving process, have a better understanding of how to formulate potential business solutions, understand how potential solutions are evaluated, and understand how business decisions are evaluated. Conclusion: Following careful consideration and discussion of the preliminary findings, the course under consideration was significantly enhanced. The changes were implemented in the fall of 2020 and initial data collected in the spring of 2021 is indicating measured improvement in student success as exhibited by higher rubric scores. Recommendations for Practitioners: These initial findings are promising and while considering student success, especially as we increasingly face a greater and greater portion of under-prepared students entering higher education, initiatives to build the higher order thinking skills of students via transdisciplinary courses may play an important role in the future of higher education. Recommendations for Researchers: Additional studies of transdisciplinary efforts to improve student outcomes need to be explored through collection and evaluation of rubrics used to assess student learning as well as by measuring student perception of the efficacy of these efforts. Impact on Society: Society needs more graduates who leave universities ready to solve problems critically, strategically, and with scientific reasoning. Future Research: This study was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it is resuming in late 2021 and it is the hope that a robust and detailed paper, with more expansive findings will eventually be generated.

Aim/Purpose: This study examined learning during the COVID-19 crisis, as perceived by preservice teachers at the time of their academic studies and their student teaching experience. Background: The COVID-19 crisis is unexpected. On one hand, it disrupted learning in all learning frameworks, on the other, it may create a change in learning characteristics even after the end of the crisis. This study examined the pro-ductive, challenging, and thwarting factors that preservice teachers encountered during their studies and in the course of their student teaching during the COVID-19 period, from the perspective of preservice teachers. Methodology: The study involved 287 students studying at teacher training institutions in Israel. The preservice teachers were studying online, and in addition experienced online teaching of students in schools, guided by their own teacher. The study used a mixed method. The questionnaire included closed and open questions. The data were collected in 2020. Contribution: Identifying the affecting factors may deepen the understanding of online learning/teaching and assist in the optimal implementation of online learning. Findings: Online learning experience. We found that some of the lessons at institutions of higher learning were delivered in the format of online lectures. Many pre-service teachers had difficulty sitting in front of a computer for many hours—“Zoom fatigue.” Preservice teachers who had difficulty self-regulating and self-mobilizing for study, experienced accumulating loads, which caused them feelings of stress and anxiety. The word count indicated that the words that appeared most often were “load” and “stress.” Some preservice teachers wrote that collaborating in forums with others made it easier for them. Some suggested diversifying by digital means, incorporating asynchronous units and illustrative films, and easing up on online lectures, as a substitute for face-to-face lectures. Online teaching experience in schools. The preservice teachers' descriptions show that in lessons taught in the format of lectures and communication of content, there were discipline problems and non-learning. According to the preservice teachers, discipline problems stemmed from difficulties concentrating, physical distance, load, and failure to address the students' difficulties. Recommendations for Practitioners: In choosing schools for student teaching, it is recommended to reach an understanding with the school about the online learning policy and organization. It is important to hold synchronous sessions in small groups of 5 to 10 students. The sessions should focus on the mental wellbeing of the students, and on the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Students should be prepared for participation in asynchronous digital lessons, which should be produced by professionals. It should be remembered that the change of medium from face-to-face to online learning also changes the familiar learning environment for all parties and requires modifying the ways of teaching. Recommendations for Researchers: A change in the learning medium also requires a change in the definition of objectives and goals expected of each party—students, teachers, and parents. All parties must learn to view online learning as a method that enables empowerment and the application of 21st century skills. Impact on Society: Teachers' ability to deploy 21st century skills in an online environment de-pends largely on their experience, knowledge, skills, and attitude toward these skills. Future Research: This study examined the issue from the perspective of preservice teachers. It is recommended to examine it also from the perspective of teachers and students.

Aim/Purpose: In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks the disease activity using data collected from medical practice's on a weekly basis. Collection of data by CDC from medical practices on a weekly basis leads to a lag time of approximately 2 weeks before any viable action can be planned. The 2-week delay problem was addressed in the study by creating machine learning models to predict flu outbreak. Background: The 2-week delay problem was addressed in the study by correlation of the flu trends identified from Twitter data and official flu data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in combination with creating a machine learning model using both data sources to predict flu outbreak. Methodology: A quantitative correlational study was performed using a quasi-experimental design. Flu trends from the CDC portal and tweets with mention of flu and influenza from the state of Georgia were used over a period of 22 weeks from December 29, 2019 to May 30, 2020 for this study. Contribution: This research contributed to the body of knowledge by using a simple bag-of-word method for sentiment analysis followed by the combination of CDC and Twitter data to generate a flu prediction model with higher accuracy than using CDC data only. Findings: The study found that (a) there is no correlation between official flu data from CDC and tweets with mention of flu and (b) there is an improvement in the performance of a flu forecasting model based on a machine learning algorithm using both official flu data from CDC and tweets with mention of flu. Recommendations for Practitioners: In this study, it was found that there was no correlation between the official flu data from the CDC and the count of tweets with mention of flu, which is why tweets alone should be used with caution to predict a flu out-break. Based on the findings of this study, social media data can be used as an additional variable to improve the accuracy of flu prediction models. It is also found that fourth order polynomial and support vector regression models offered the best accuracy of flu prediction models. Recommendations for Researchers: Open-source data, such as Twitter feed, can be mined for useful intelligence benefiting society. Machine learning-based prediction models can be improved by adding open-source data to the primary data set. Impact on Society: Key implication of this study for practitioners in the field were to use social media postings to identify neighborhoods and geographic locations affected by seasonal outbreak, such as influenza, which would help reduce the spread of the disease and ultimately lead to containment. Based on the findings of this study, social media data will help health authorities in detecting seasonal outbreaks earlier than just using official CDC channels of disease and illness reporting from physicians and labs thus, empowering health officials to plan their responses swiftly and allocate their resources optimally for the most affected areas. Future Research: A future researcher could use more complex deep learning algorithms, such as Artificial Neural Networks and Recurrent Neural Networks, to evaluate the accuracy of flu outbreak prediction models as compared to the regression models used in this study. A future researcher could apply other sentiment analysis techniques, such as natural language processing and deep learning techniques, to identify context-sensitive emotion, concept extraction, and sarcasm detection for the identification of self-reporting flu tweets. A future researcher could expand the scope by continuously collecting tweets on a public cloud and applying big data applications, such as Hadoop and MapReduce, to perform predictions using several months of historical data or even years for a larger geographical area.

Aim/Purpose; Fostering student engagement is one of the great challenges of teaching, especially in online learning environments. An educators’ assumptions and beliefs about what student engagement is and how it manifests will shape the strategies they design to engage students in learning. However, there is no agreement on the definition of concept of student engagement and it re-mains a vague construct. Background: Adopting the principles of user-centered design, the author maintains that to design learning experiences which better support student engagement it is important to gain insights into how students perceive and operationalize the concept of engagement in learning. The recent challenges of teaching effectively online prompted the author to reflect more deeply on the concept of engagement and how it might be achieved. Methodology: In the tradition of reflective teaching, the author undertook an informal, qualitative inquiry in her classroom, administering a brief questionnaire to students in her online class. When the themes which emerged were integrated with other literature and findings from the author’s earlier classroom inquiry, some insights were gained into how students ‘operationalize’ the concept of engagement, and weight was added to the authors’ premise of the value of humanistic approaches to university teaching, the need for greater emphasis on student-teacher connection and the necessity of considering the affective domain alongside the cognitive domain in learning in higher education. The insights were brought together and visualized in a conceptual model of student engagement. Contribution: The conceptual model presented in the present paper reflects the author’s present ‘mental model’ of student engagement in classes online and, when the opportunity arrives, in face-to-face classes as well. This mental model shapes the authors’ course design, learning activities and the delivery of the course. Although the elements of the model are not ‘new’, the model synthesizes several related concepts necessary to a humanist approach to under-standing student engagement. It is hoped that the model and discussion presented will be stimulus for further rich discussion around the nature of student engagement. Findings: Interestingly, the affective rather than the cognitive domain framed students’ perspectives on what engagement ‘looks like to them’ and on what teachers should do to engage them. Recommendations for Practitioners: By sharing the process through which the author arrived at this understanding of student engagement, the author has also sought to highlight three key points: the importance of including the ‘student perspectives and expectations’ against which educators can examine their own assumptions as part of the process reflective teaching practices; the usefulness of integrating theoretical and philosophical frameworks in our understandings of student engagement and how it might be nurtured, and finally the necessity of affording greater influence to humanism and the affective domain in higher education. The findings emphasize the necessity of considering the affective dimension of engagement as an essential condition for cognitive engagement and as inextricable from the cognitive dimension of engagement. Recommendations for Researchers: The emphasis in research engagement learning and teaching is on how we (the educators) can do this better, how we can better engage students. While the student perspective is often formulated from data obtained through surveys and focus groups, researchers in learning engagement are working with their own understandings (albeit supported by empirical research). It is crucial for deeper insight to also understand the students’ conceptualization of the phenomena being researched. Bringing the principles of design thinking to bear on educational research will likely provide greater depth of insight. Impact on Society: Empirical, formal, and structured research is undeniably essential to advancing human endeavor in any field, including learning and teaching. It is however important to recognize informal research in the form of classroom inquiry as part of teachers’ reflexive practice is also legitimate and useful to advancing understanding of complex phenomenon such as student engagement in learning through multiple perspectives and experiences. Future Research: Further research on the nature of student engagement in different contexts and against different theoretical frameworks is warranted as is empirical investigation of the premise of the value of humanism and the affective do-main in defining and measuring student engagement in higher education.

Aim/Purpose This paper focuses on systematizing and rethinking the conformity of modern transdisciplinarity with its prime cause and initial ideas. Background The difficulties of implementing transdisciplinarity into science and education are connected with the fact that its generally accepted definition, identification characteristics, and methodological features are still missing. In order to eliminate these disadvantages of transdisciplinarity, its prime cause and initial ideas had to be detected. It is also important to analyze the correspondence of the existing opinions about transdisciplinarity with the content of these cause and ideas. Methodology The qualitative analysis of the literature reviews on the subject of transdisciplinary was used in order to determine the correspondence of the opinions about the transdisciplinarity with the meaning of its prime cause and initial ideas. These opinions had to be generalized as well. Through this method, it was possible to detect and classify opinions into 11 groups including 39 stereotypes of transdisciplinarity. For substantiation of transdisciplinary approaches that are consistent with the approaches of contemporary science, C.F. Gauss random variables normal distribution was used. The “Gauss curve” helped to show the place of transdisciplinary and systems transdisciplinary approaches in the structure of academic and systems approaches. The “Gauss curve” also demonstrated the step-by-step “broadening of the scientific worldview horizon due to sequential intensification of synthesis, integration, unification, and generalization of the disciplinary knowledge.” Contribution After reconsideration of the results on qualitative analysis of the literature reviews, the generalized definition of transdisciplinarity could be formulated, including the definition for transdisciplinary and systems transdisciplinary approaches. It was proven that transdisciplinarity is a natural stage for the development of contemporary science and education, and the transdisciplinary approaches were able to suggest the methods and tools to solve the complex and poorly structured problems of science and the society. Findings Many existing stereotypes of transdisciplinarity do not meet its prime cause and initial ideas. Such stereotypes do not have deep philosophic and theoretical substantiation. They also do not suggest the transdisciplinary methods and tools. Thus, the authors of such stereotypes often claim them to be transdisciplinary or suggest perceiving them as transdisciplinarity. This circumstance is the reason why many disciplinary scientists, practitioners, and initiators of higher education view transdisciplinarity as a marginal direction of contemporary science. Based on the generalized definition of transdisciplinarity, as well as its prime cause and initial ideas, it was shown that transdisciplinarity is presented in contemporary science in the form of two different approaches, i.e., the transdisciplinary approach and systems transdisciplinary approach. The objective of the transdisciplinary approach is to ensure science development at the stage of synthesis and integration of disciplinary knowledge, while the objective of the systems transdisciplinary approach is to ensure that the problems of modern society are solved through unification and generalization of the disciplinary knowledge. Recommendation for Researchers The researchers should consider that within the limits of the transdisciplinary approach, the disciplinary specialists are managed. Within the limits of the systems transdisciplinary approach, the disciplinary knowledge is managed. Thus, the transdisciplinary approach is efficient for organization and research with participation of the scientists of the complementary disciplines. An example of such research can be a team of researchers of medical disciplines and complementary disciplines from chemistry, physics, and engineering. The systems transdisciplinary approach is efficient for organization and performance of research with participation of the scientists of non-complementary disciplines such as economics, physics, meteorology, chemistry, ecology, geology, and sociology. Future Research In terms of the main initial idea, transdisciplinarity is formed as a global approach. The global approach should have a traditional institutional form: it should be a science discipline (meta-discipline) and have carriers with the transdisciplinary worldview. Training for such carriers can be organized by the universities within the limits of the systems transdisciplinarity departments and Centers of Systems Transdisciplinary Retraining for Disciplinary Specialists. Thus, it is reasonable to initiate discussion for the idea to reform the disciplinary structure of the universities considering creation of such departments and centers.

Aim/Purpose: Designing augmented reality (AR) experiences for education, health or entertainment involves multidisciplinary teams making design decisions across several areas. The goal of this paper is to present a classification schema that describes the design choices when constructing an AR interactive experience. Background: Existing extended reality schema often focuses on single dimensions of an AR experience, with limited attention to design choices. These schemata, combined with an analysis of a diverse range of AR applications, form the basis for the schema synthesized in this paper. Methodology: An extensive literature review and scoring of existing classifications were completed to enable a definition of seven design dimensions. To validate the design dimensions, the literature was mapped to the seven-design choice to represent opportunities when designing AR iterative experiences. Contribution: The classification scheme of seven dimensions can be applied to communicating design considerations and alternative design scenarios where teams of domain specialists need to collaborate to build AR experiences for a defined purpose. Findings: The dimensions of nature of reality, location (setting), feedback, objects, concepts explored, participant presence and interactive agency, and style describe features common to most AR experiences. Classification within each dimension facilitates ideation for novel experiences and proximity to neighbours recommends feasible implementation strategies. Recommendations for Practitioners: To support professionals, this paper presents a comprehensive classification schema and design rationale for AR. When designing an AR experience, the schema serves as a design template and is intended to ensure comprehensive discussion and decision making across the spectrum of design choices. Recommendations for Researchers: The classification schema presents a standardized and complete framework for the review of literature and AR applications that other researchers will benefit from to more readily identify relevant related work. Impact on Society: The potential of AR has not been fully realized. The classification scheme presented in this paper provides opportunities to deliberately design and evaluate novel forms of AR experience. Future Research: The classification schema can be extended to include explicit support for the design of virtual and extended reality applications.

Aim/Purpose. This study seeks to determine the impact of a card game intervention in improving the English verbal communication of nursing students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Background. Many international students studying in Australia experience setbacks in their university studies due to English language difficulties. This paper outlines how an educational card game designed can be played by nursing students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds as an intervention for their English verbal communication development. Methodology. The study used a descriptive qualitative approach to analyse the learning experiences of forty-five (N=45) nursing students from CALD backgrounds undertaking their second semester at a metropolitan university in Victoria, Australia after being introduced to an educational card game developed by the first author. The card game was designed to explore the use of English pragmatic markers, which are words, phrases, or verbal cues that signal or emphasise the intentions of the speaker. Following the intervention, participants were queried in a survey about their experiences with English language speaking and how the game improved their verbal communication skills. Contribution. This paper provides knowledge about how a game can be designed to enhance the English verbal communication skills of nursing students from CALD backgrounds which could help them in their clinical placements and their adjustment into Australian society. Findings. Three intertwining themes that emerged from the data analysis were education content, skills development, and fun and creativity. These themes signify the importance of providing opportunities for learners to creatively practise the educational content in simulative contextualised situations within a safe, comfortable, and inclusive learning environment. Recommendations for Practitioners. Educators still need to consider the importance of inclusivity of students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds as part of successful integration into the culture of their host countries. Recommendations for Researchers. The findings emphasise the need for educators and researchers to understand the challenges facing these students in relation to marginalisation and discrimination and how they can design an intervention that is engaging and inclusive. Impact on Society. The findings also put forward the awareness of pragmatics as part of both English language learning and integration into the society of a host country as students learn how to express intention appropriately in various interactions. Furthermore, the themes presented in this paper suggest that not only should an educational game or an intervention contain relevant educational content and practical activities for skills development, but they must also be enjoyable by encouraging creativity and social interaction. Future Research. The results of this study also open possible future studies that involves the adaptation of a digital version of the card game or possible implementation of the game in other health professional programs in universities and other educational institutes.

Aim/Purpose. Higher education institutions face difficulties and challenges when it comes to distance learning. The purpose of this paper is to examine self-efficacy indicators and student satisfaction during online English classes. Background. E-learning has been very relevant since the Covid-19 era and is still relevant today. It is possible for students to study regardless of their location or time. By measuring students’ self-efficacy, instructors can gain valuable insights into their students’ ability to create social interaction, cope with technology, and acquire knowledge and tools to manage the learning process. Methodology. This study uses mixed methods along with two measurements. Before and after the course, quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Higher education students in Israel participated. A total of 964 students enrolled in English as a foreign language courses at the pre-basic, basic, and advanced levels. Contribution. Analyzing self-efficacy from several angles provides insight into students. What influences students’ confidence and belief in their ability to succeed in online courses. Moreover, how students perceive their own learning and how they cope with challenges. Findings. Compared to the measurement before the course, self-efficacy decreased on average. Most significant decreases occurred in ‘creating social interactions’ and ‘acquirement of knowledge and tools’ to manage the learning process. A slight decrease was observed in the ability to cope with technology. Additionally, self-efficacy and satisfaction with the course were positively correlated. Recommendations for Practitioners. An overview is provided of the most effective tools and techniques for teaching languages in digital format in this paper. This will allow instructors to design and deliver courses in a more effective way. Thus, they will be able to make better informed decisions, resulting in better outcomes for students. Recommendations for Researchers. Distance Learning courses should resemble the common digital environments in everyday life, rather than imitating face-to-face courses mainly in the field of social interaction. Impact on Society. Digital tools should be encouraged that facilitate effective learning processes instead of sticking to traditional methods that characterize face-to-face courses. Using common interfaces in daily use among the general population will enable the implementation of these recommendations. Future Research. Future studies could be helpful if they compared the English courses developed in the CEFR model with those taught face-to-face as well as those taught online. In addition, motivation and self-monitoring should be examined in both synchronous and asynchronous courses as well.

Aim/Purpose. The aim of this study is to propose a teaching approach based on AI-based chatbot agents and to determine whether the use of this approach increases the students’ motivation. Background. Today, chatbots are an integral part of students’ lives where they are used in various contexts. Therefore, we are interested in incorporating these tools into our teaching process in order to profit from their benefits, assist and guide students while working with to prevent issues such as plagiarism and mainly to boost students’ motivation. Methodology. Using the proposed approach, new chatbot based learning activities were de-signed in three different courses for computer science engineering students. A mixed-method experimental study was conducted to evaluate students’ impression and satisfaction. Survey results of the students (N=58) who participated in the experiment (experimental group) were compared to the results of the students from the control group (N=60). Contribution. Trending AI conversational agents can be engaged in daily teaching activities as a learning assistant and coach to boost students motivation and skills development. Findings. Our study focuses on the impact of chatbots on student’s motivation. The study aimed to analyze the benefits and drawbacks associated with these conversational chatbots. Our findings revealed the significant role that chatbots can play in enhancing student motivation and improving teaching practices.

Aim/Purpose. The problem statement in the proposed study focuses on that, despite the growing recognition that teenagers need to undergo security awareness training, little is known about the impacts security training experts believe implementing a mandatory gamified security awareness training curriculum in public middle schools will have on the long-term security behavior of students in Texas. Background. This study was guided by the research question: What are the impacts security training experts believe implementing a mandatory gamified security aware-ness training curriculum in public middle schools will have on the long-term security behaviors of students in Texas? The study gathers opinions from experts on the impacts of security awareness training on students. Methodology. Our research used semi-structured interviews with twelve experts chosen through the use of purposive sampling. The population for the study consisted of experts in the fields of security awareness training for and teaching middle school-aged children. Candidates were recruited through the Cyber-Texas Foundation and snowball sampling techniques. Contribution. The research contributed to the body of knowledge by using interviews to explore the impacts of security awareness training on middle school students based on the opinions and views of the teachers and instructors who work with middle school students. Findings. The findings of this study demonstrate that middle school is an ideal time to provide cybersecurity training and will impact student behaviors by making them more conscious of cyber threats and preparing them to be more tech-savvy professionals. The research also showed that well-designed cybersecurity games with real-world application combined with traditional teaching techniques can help students develop positive habits. The research also suggests that teachers possess the skills to teach cybersecurity classes and the classes can be integrated into the current school day without the need for any significant changes to existing daily schedules. Recommendations for Practitioners. A well-design gamification-based curriculum implemented in Texas Middle Schools, combined with traditional teaching techniques and repeated over an extended time period, will impact students’ behaviors by making them more able to recognize and respond to cyber risks and will transform them into more secure and tech-savvy members of society. Recommendations for Researchers. The research shows middle school instructors and technology experts believe the implementation of a security awareness training program in middle schools is both possible and practical, while also beneficial to the students. The recommendation is to encourage researchers to explore ways to build curricula and games capable of appealing to students and implementing the instruction into school programs. Impact on Society. Demonstrating that training provided in middle school will make lasting impacts and improvements to student behaviors benefits children and their families in the short-term and workplaces in the long-term. The development of a more security-conscious workforce can reduce the significant number of data breaches and cyber attacks resulting from the poor security habits of companies’ users. Future Research. Future research that will add significant value to the body of knowledge includes testing the effectiveness of habit-shaping games to determine whether existing long-term games maintain student interest. Qualitative studies could interview parents of teenagers using habit-shaping games to determine the effectiveness of the applications. Another qualitative study could interview teachers to determine how teachers’ ages affect their comfort level teaching technology classes. Both studies could provide valuable insights into how to implement security awareness training in schools.

Aim/Purpose. Business schools need to design, develop and deliver courses that are relevant to business problem-solving. Current pedagogies do not often provide the insight – or experience – necessary to close the gap between theory and practice. Background. The paper describes an initiative to design, develop and deliver courses in business-technology problem-solving that thoroughly immerses students in the actual world of business. Methodology. The methodology included case-based analysis where actual cases where selected to model problem-solving scenarios. Contribution. Several courses are developed that immerse students into actual problem-solving experiences. Findings The courses will be delivered to business students to assess the impact of immersive/experiential learning. Recommendations for Practitioners. Additional courses should be informed by actual cases; the commitment to relevance should be expanded. Recommendations for Researchers. Ongoing research to measure the impact of immersive/experiential learning is recommended. Impact on Society. Business schools should rethink the content of their courses and the pedagogies that have dominated business schools for many decades. Future Research. Additional research will include more courses and additional immersive/experiential pedagogies.