This paper compares the effect of social isolation on students enrolled in online courses versus students enrolled in on campus courses (called in this paper Face-to-Face or F2F). Grade data was collected from one online section and two F2F sections of a computer literacy course that was recently taught by one of the authors of this study. The same instructor taught all sections thereby providing a controlled comparison between the two forms of teaching (F2F and online). This paper first introduces the plan and the limitation of this study. It provides a literature review and notes the trend of social isolation found in online courses. This paper then presents a summary of the collected data; and offers a conclusion based on the collected data.

Internship courses, unlike others, are multi-pronged because they require coordination at different levels. Typically, a faculty member coordinates the communication and implementation at each level to achieve the desired outcomes. We call the position that this faculty holds the “internship coordinator”. For the work of the internship coordinator to be successful, he/she may need to synchronize the work of the internship with all parties involved. Failure to coordinate at one level or another may affect the work of other parties involved in completing the internship for the students. This paper explains the experience of an internship program at the computer science department (COSC) at Indiana University Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). We focus on the work of the internship coordinator for this program and his work to communicate and coordinate to successfully implement the internship experience for the students. We first discuss the theoretical foundation that led to the development of internship programs in academia and then elaborate on the multiple levels of the role of the internship coordinator in completing the internship experience for the students.

One effective way of accelerating the commercialization of university innovations (inventions) is to execute a “Technological Entrepreneurship” framework that helps the execution of agreements between universities and industry for commercialization. Academics have been encouraged to commercialize their research and findings yet the level of success of commercialization of inventions (innovations) in industry is questionable. As there is no agreed commercialization framework to guide the execution of processes to support inventions moving from laboratories to the right market. The lack of capabilities of appropriate processes have undermined the turning of innovation and products into wealth. The research questions are designed to identify the constraints and hindrances of commercialization and the characteristics of successful processes built from framework based on selected case studies of incubation capabilities within universities commercialization program.

The number of online resources available for teaching and learning in higher education has been growing enormously during the last decade. A recent development is the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and of Open Educational Resources (OER). The result is a huge number of videos that are available on line. Can these videos enrich learning? As a pilot study we added sixteen videos to an existing introductory course in Human-Computer Interaction. This course is mandatory in the Bachelor programs Computer Science and Information Science (second year). Watching the videos was optional for the students. The videos originated for the most part from the MOOC Human-Computer Interaction, produced by Stanford University. We offered this course to a pilot group of eight students. The educational context was problem-based learning in distance education. The videos were welcomed by all of the students and were found to be useful in their learning process. The students watched the videos intensively and appreciated them very well. A main reason for the students to be positive about the videos was that they liked to alternate reading texts and watching videos.

Many higher education institutions are moving towards blended learning environments that seek to move towards a student-centred ethos, where students are stakeholders in the learning process. This often involves multi-modal learner-support technologies capable of operating in a range of time and place settings. This article considers the impact of an Audience Response System (ARS) upon the ongoing development of an Information Systems Professional course at the Masters level in the College of Business at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. The course allows students to consider ethical issues faced by an Information Systems Professional. Given the sensitivity of some of the topics explored within this area, an ARS offers an ideal vehicle for allowing students to respond to potentially contentious questions without revealing their identity to the rest of the group. The paper reports the findings of a pilot scheme designed to explore the efficacy of the technology. Use of a blended learning framework to frame the discussion allowed the authors to consider the readiness of institution, lecturers, and students to use ARS. From a usage viewpoint, multiple choice questions lead to further discussion of student responses related to important issues in the unit. From an impact viewpoint the use of ARS in the class appeared to be successful, but some limitations were reported.

This paper describes the employment of a Personal Response System (PRS) during a Decision Analysis course for Management Information Systems (MIS) students. The description shows how the carefully designed PRS-based questions, the delivery, and the follow-up discussions; provided a context for eliciting and exercising central concepts of the course topics as well as central skills required for MIS majors. A sample of PRS-based questions is presented along with a description for each question of its purpose, the way it was delivered, the response rate, the responses and their frequencies, and the respective in-class discussion. Lessons from these findings are discussed.

Many degree courses at technical universities include the subject of control systems engineering. As an addition to conventional approaches Fuzzy Control can be used to easily find control solutions for systems, even if they include nonlinearities. To support further educational training, models which represent a technical system to be controlled are required. These models have to represent the system in a transparent and easy cognizable manner. Furthermore, a programming tool is required that supports an easy Fuzzy Control development process, including the option to verify the results and tune the system behavior. In order to support the development process a graphical user interface is needed to display the fuzzy terms under real time conditions, especially with a debug system and trace functionality. The experiences with such a programming tool, the Fuzzy Control Design Tool (FHFCE Tool), and four fuzzy teaching models will be presented in this paper. The methodical and didactical objective in the utilization of these teaching models is to develop solution strategies using Computational Intelligence (CI) applications for Fuzzy Controllers in order to analyze different algorithms of inference or defuzzyfication and to verify and tune those systems efficiently.

The Open Software movement serves as a landmark and a starting point for many “open-something” initiatives, such as Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC). However, under a pragmatic point-of-view, many of its basic principles are not considered specially when dealing with the above mentioned initiatives: common, industry-standard OER and MOOC lack a considerable set of really open features in a way that deviate the sense of the “O” letter – for Open – in its acronyms. Considering this, the present paper presents a systematization of these concepts around the general principle of openness. There will be discussed some strengths, challenges, and drawbacks in adopting openness as the key for OER and MOOC for Education in 21st Century.

The transition from printed to electronic sources of information has resulted in a profound change to the way procurement officers seek information. Furthermore, in the past decade there have been additional technological revolutions that are expected to further affect the procurement process. In this paper, we conduct a survey among forty nine university procurement officers in Israel to examine to what extent procurement officers have adapted to smartphones and tablets by testing how frequently officers use notebooks, smartphones, and tablets for work-related and leisure purposes. We find that while officers prefer electronic sources of information over printed sources of information, officers have not yet adapted to the later technological advances (i.e., smartphones and tablets). Notebooks are more frequently used than either smartphones or tablets for work-related and leisure purposes. One explanation behind this result is that officers are not skilled in using smartphone and tablets applications. This implies that training officers in the use of these devices may improve their performance.

The paper reviewed the emerging roles of the 21st century librarians, charged with the responsibility to manage repository services across libraries in present-day information technology environment. Librarians need to be trained and empowered with requisite skills and knowledge needed for successful management of the ICT driven repository initiatives that the 21st century demands. Literature was reviewed on the roles and responsibilities of librarians, training needs and opportunities, career path and recruitment of librarians, and community support necessary for effective and efficient implementation and management of repository initiatives. This entails the ability to comprehend trends and change patterns which are essential for providing research focused and user-friendly models in open repository services that are based on thorough analytical understanding of the challenges of emerging trends. To achieve this requires the training and retraining of librarians to reposition them as information specialists in their career path. The role of the library as an integral part of its social environment is to educate the community about the existence of an open repository by building partnership with community-oriented research centres through seminars, workshops, symposium, training, and awareness programmes. The study recommends that librarians should strategize and collaborate with researchers to make open repository an essential research tool.

The field of business intelligence (BI), despite rapid technology advances, continues to feature inadequate levels of adoption. The attention of researchers is shifting towards hu-man factors of BI adoption. The wide set of human factors influencing BI adoption con-tains elements of what we call BI culture – an overarching concept covering key managerial issues that come up in BI implementation. Research sources provide different sets of features pertaining to BI culture or related concepts – decision-making culture, analytical culture and others. The goal of this paper is to perform the review of research and practical sources to examine driving forces of BI – data-driven approaches, BI agility, maturity and acceptance – to point out culture-related issues that support BI adoption and to suggest an emerging set of factors influencing BI culture.

Project work forms a large part in work undertaken by graduates when they enter the workforce, so projects are used in higher education to prepare students for their working lives and to enable students to apply creativity in their studies as they present a solution to a problem, using technical skills they have learned in different units of study. Projects, both at work and in higher education, may be completed in teams, thus providing experience and the opportunity to develop team working skills. The team projects presented in this paper have been provided by external organisations, so that students work in a team on a real life problem, but with the support of their tutors, in the university setting. In this way the projects more closely resemble the sorts of problems they might encounter in the workplace, giving an experience that cannot be gained by working on tutor devised problems, because the teams have to communicate with an external client to analyse and solve an authentic problem. Over the three years that the Live Projects have been running, feedback indicates that the students gain employability skills from the projects, and the organisations involved develop links with the university and benefit from output from the projects. A number of suggestions for improving the administration of the Live Projects were suggested, such as providing clients with information on timescales and providing students with more guidance on managing the projects.

This paper presents a validation research of seven Digital Learning Domains (DLDs) and sixty-five performance statements (PSs) as perceived by students with experience in learning via ICT. The preliminary findings suggest a statistical firmness of the inventory. The seven DLDs identified are Social Responsibility, Team-based Learning, Information Research and Retrieval, Information Management, Information Validation, Processing and Presentation of Information, and Digital Integrity. The 65 PSs will enable a teacher to identify the level of competency the learner has in each DLD, thus identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses that must be addressed in order to facilitate learning in the current era. As can be concluded from the findings, most of the participants evaluate themselves as digitally literate with regard to the basic information research and retrieval skills, validation and information management. But when it comes to PSs that require complex decision making or higher order thinking strategies, it seems that a large number of participants lack these skills. Also, social responsibility and digital integrity domains are perceived as known by the participants but not very well taken in terms of pro-active action to enforce appropriate digital behavior, or avoiding illegally obtained music or movies.

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 most common course delivery model is based on teacher (knowledge provider) - student (knowledge receiver) relationship. The most visible symptom of this situation is over-reliance on textbook’s tutorials. This traditional model of delivery reduces teacher flexibility, causes lack of interest among students, and often makes classes boring. Especially this is visible when teaching Computer Literacy courses. Instead, authors of this paper suggest a new active model which is based on MS Office simulation. The proposed model was discussed within the framework of three activities: guided software simulation, instructor-led activities, and self-directed learning activities. The model proposed in the paper of active teaching based on software simulation was proven as more effective than traditional.

This paper reports on the educational aspects of an information systems work-integrated learning (WIL) capstone project for an organization which operates to alleviate homelessness in the Australian non-profit sector. The methodology adopted for the study is Action Design Research (ADR) which draws on action research and design research as a means for framing a project's progress. Reflective insights by the project stakeholders, namely, students, academics, and the non-profit client, reveal a curriculum at work through internal features of the organization; personal features of the participants and features of the external environment. Preliminary findings suggest that students in a WIL project for a non-profit are highly engaged, especially when they become aware of the project’s social value. As well, the improvement of professional skills and emotional intelligence by students is more likely in real-life practice settings than in other less authentic WIL activities, equipping graduates for the workforce with both strong disciplinary and generic skills. Win-win-win synergies through project collaboration represent worthwhile outcomes to education, industry and research.

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: This study aims to investigate various characteristics from both victims as defaced websites and defacers that linked to a risk of being defaced through a set of descriptive analysis. Background: The current figures from a spectrum of sources, both academic and non-academic reports, proved a progressive increase of website defacement attacks to numerous organisations. Methodology: This study obtains a set of data from Zone-H site, which is accessible to the public, including 99,437 defaced websites. The descriptive analysis is applied in order to understand the motives of defacers and the probability of website re-defacements through the statistical investigation. Findings: The motives for defacing websites are driven mainly due to entertaining reasons. This in turn has an implication on the type of techniques defacers attack websites.

Aim/Purpose: This article examines how learning activities draw on resources in the work context to learn. Background The background is that if knowledge no longer is seen mainly as objects, but processes, how then to understand boundary objects? Our field study of learning activities reveals the use of pictures, documents and emotions for learning in the geographically distributed Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority Methodology: The study is a qualitative study consisting of interview data, observation data, and documents. Contribution: Contribute to practice based theorizing. Findings: Three ideal types of representing practices have been identified, i.e., ‘Visualizing’, ‘Documenting’ and ‘Testing’. All three are combined with storytelling, sensing, reflections and sensemaking, which point at the importance of processes in learning. The article also add insights about how emotions can be an important resource for boundary spanning – and sensemaking – by creating the capability of reflecting upon and integrating different knowledge areas in the in- practice context. Recommendations for Practitioners: Look for boundary objects within your field to promote online learning. Recommendation for Researchers: Study boundary objects in work context to understand learning. Impact on Society Role of objects in human learning. Future Research: Focus on how emotions can be used for online learning.

Aim/Purpose: This paper aims to describe how various Kanban elements can help alleviate two prominent types of challenges, communication and collaboration in Global Software Development (GSD). Background: Iterative and Lean development methodologies like Kanban have gained significance in the software development industry, both in the co-located and globally distributed contexts. However, little is known on how such methodologies can help mitigate various challenges in that occur in a globally distributed software development context. Methodology: The study was conducted using a single-case study based on a general inductive approach to analysis and theory development. Through the literature review, collaboration and communication challenges that GSD teams face were identified. Data collected through semi-structured interviews was then inductively analyzed to describe how the case-study teams employed various Kanban elements to mitigate communication and collaboration challenges they face during GSD. Findings: The study found that some Kanban elements, when properly employed, can help alleviate collaboration and communication challenges that occur within GSD teams. These relate to Inclusion Criteria, Reverse Items, Kanban Board, Policies, Avatars, and Backlog. Contribution: The paper contributes to knowledge by proposing two simple concept maps that detail the specific types of communication and collaboration challenges which can be alleviated by the aforementioned Kanban elements in GSD. Recommendations for Practitioners: This paper is relevant to GSD teams who are seeking ways to enhance their team collaboration and communication as these are the most important elements that contribute to GSD project success. It is recommended that relevant Kanban elements be used to that effect, depending on the challenges that they aim to alleviate. Future Research: Future research can investigate the same research questions (or similar ones) using a quantitative approach.

Aim/Purpose: Governments, private business, and academia have become increasingly aware of the importance of collaboration in multi-stakeholder, multicultural environments. This is due to the globalization and (developing) mutual relationships with other global partners, due to the often varying visions and goals between the respective organizations in managing projects that span those environments. Background: This research conducts a survey of literature pertaining to organizational collaboration in multi-stakeholder, multicultural environments in government, private business, and academic sectors, conducting an analysis to identify the gaps in the basic questions thus far explored in the literature. The gap analysis will expose the opportunities for greater collaboration in these environments. Methodology: The author conducted a literature review to identify existing research gaps to focus interviews that will develop multiple case studies in future research. Contribution/Findings: This literature review has determined gaps in understanding how contributing factors to cultural communication impact collaboration in multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder organizations, encouraging additional research in this area. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners have the opportunity to develop their use of cultural communication contributing factors, potentially increasing their collaboration efficiency. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers have opportunity to gather empirical evidence that factors of cultural communication may influence collaboration in the multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder environment. Impact on Society Improved understanding of how cultural communication factors influence collaboration in multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder organizations can improve organizational efficiency. Future Research: Gather empirical evidence that factors of cultural communication may influence collaboration in the multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder environment.

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: This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of mentor’s work with immigrant children and adolescents at risk, using the Elements Way. Background: The New Media offers our “screen kids” a lot of information, many behavioral models, and a new type of social communication. The Elements Way is an educational method designed to enhance openness, development, breakthroughs, goal achievement, and transformation in the age of media and social networks. Methodology: The Elements Way was developed following research on communication in the diversified media, especially new media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and television reality shows, and the study is an examination of the effectiveness of mentors’ work with immigrant children and adolescents at risk, using the Elements Way. All mentors had been trained in the Elements Way. The study population included 640 mentors working with immigrants’ children in Israel. The work was conducted in 2010-2013. The mixed-methods approach was selected to validate findings. Contribution: Empowering children and enhancing their ability to cope; Creating openness and sharing, making children more attentive to the significant adults in their lives; Supporting children who face the complex reality that characterizes our age. Findings: Significant differences were found in the mentors’ conduct with the children. Work programs were designed and implemented with care and consistency, and mentors succeeded in generating change within the children and achieving desired goals. Of the 640 participating mentors, 62 were not able to promote the child, and interviews with them revealed that their work with the children was not consistent with the Elements Way and began from a different vantage point. Recommendations for Practitioners: Success factors: Self-awareness and awareness of one’s surroundings. Empathy. Willingness to engage in significant interactions. Self-cleansing and self-reflection. Ability to engage in a personal and interpersonal dialogue. Ability to accept and contain the child. Cooperation with the child in creating a work program and assisting the child to achieve the goals that were set in the program. Recommendation for Researchers: Future studies should focus on analyzing the discussions of children and adolescents, to add depth to our insights regarding children and adolescents’ perception of the mentors’ work from their perspective. Impact on Society: Finding the “keys” to openness, development, goal achievement, and transformation in our work with “screen kids.” Future Research: Studies that are designed to examine the effectiveness of mentor’s work with immigrant children and adolescents at risk, using the Elements Way.

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: In today’s changing economy, economic growth depends on career and technical programs for skill training. Background: This study discusses the key area in promoting individual learning and skill training and discusses the importance of career education and training as a way of promoting economic growth. Methodology : This study uses a qualitative study approach to investigate and report on the status and influence of Workforce Education and Development and its economic importance. Contribution: This report contributes to the knowledge base common to all work settings that can solve many human performance problems in the workplace. Findings: This study also justifies and validates the ideas on the importance of workforce education and development in the 21st century as a way of developing economic growth and providing learning to make individuals competitive in the global economy. Recommendations for Practitioners : For practitioners, this study suggests that we must always have discussions of what leads to career success and understanding that there is not enough high-skill/high-wage employment to go around. Therefore, developing these skills requires a decision about a career or related group of jobs to prepare to compete for them; we have to provide training needed in order to be competitive in global economy. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers have to develop strategies to promote career direction with willingness to evaluate the level of academic interest, level of career focus and readiness for life away from home (attitudes, skills and knowledge of self). Impact on Society: Institutions must regularly evaluate curriculum to reflect the rapid technological changes and the globalization of world markets that reflect their mission and develop students’ mindset to always think big and think outside the box in order to be competitive in the global market. Change is external, transition is internal. It is important that the change agent communicate both the reasons for change and the probable consequences that people will experience during the time of this change, which is transition – a change people go through when they become unemployed or face a major employment obstacle in their lives. Future Research: New research should focus on career assessment materials and related academic programs and career directions that will promote success.

Aim/Purpose: Despite millions of apps on the market, it is still challenging to develop a mobile app that can run across platforms using the same code. Background: This paper explores a potential solution for developing cross platform apps by presenting the hybrid app approach. Methodology: The paper first describes a brief evolution of the different mobile app development approaches and then compares them with the hybrid app approach. Next, it focuses on one specific hybrid app development framework called Ionic. Contribution: The paper presents the hybrid app approach as an emerging trend in mobile app development and concludes with the highlight of its advantages and teaching implications. Findings: The hybrid app approach reduces the learning curve and offers tools to allow the reuse of code to create apps for different mobile devices. Recommendations for Practitioners: The experience that the paper describes in using Ionic framework to create a hybrid app can be adopted in a web design or mobile app development course. Impact on Society : The advance in hybrid framework in general and the growing acceptance of open source framework, such as Ionic in particular, may provide an alternative to the native app domination and may trigger the rapid rise of hybrid apps in the years to come.

Aim/Purpose: The uptake of university by regional students has been problematic for various reasons. This paper discusses a program, initiated by a South Australian regional university campus, aimed at attracting regional students into higher education. Background: A qualitative descriptive approach to study was used to determine the value of the program on participating students and school staff. Year 10 students from Roxby Downs, Port Augusta and Port Lincoln high schools were invited to participate in a two-day regionally-focussed school-university engagement program that linked students with the university campus and local employers. Methodology: A survey was administered to determine the impact of the program. Perceptions about the program by school staff were gathered using a modified One-Minute Harvard questionnaire. While 38 Year 10 students and 5 school staff members participated, 37 students and 3 staff evaluated the program. Findings: The findings revealed that the majority of the students would like to attend university, but financial and social issues were important barriers. The students learned about the regional university, what it can offer in terms of programs and support, and the employment prospect following university. The school staff benefited by developing a closer relationship with students and becoming better informed about the regional university. Recommendation for Practitioners: One way by which university uptake may be increased is to provide similar immersion programs featuring engagement with employers, our recommendation to other regional universities. In increasing the levels of education, individuals, communities and the society in general are benefited.

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: Student dropout in higher education institutions is a universal problem. This study identifies the characteristics of dropout. In addition, it develops a mathematical model to predict students who may dropout. Methodology: The paper develops a mathematical model to predict students who may dropout. The sample includes 555 freshmen in a non-profit private university. The study uses both descriptive statistics, such as cross tabulation, and a binary regression model to predict student dropout. Contribution: There are two major contributions for the paper. First, it identifies the dropout rates of each group, a finding that may be used to better allocate resources at higher education institutions. Second, it develops a predictive model that may be used in order to predict the probability of a student dropping out and take preventive actions. Findings: This study compared dropout rates of one and a half year of enrollment among Traditional Undergraduate Students. Two major findings are the following: (1) Some of the resources designed to assist student are misallocated, and (2) Predictive models can be used to calculate the probability of a student dropping out. Recommendations for Practitioners: The study recommends that institutions must create initiatives to assist freshmen students and have annual assessment to measure the success of the initiatives. Recommendation for Researchers: Two, mathematical models may be used to predict dropout rates, the paper includes a model that predicted with 66.6% accuracy students who will dropout.

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this study is to understand how video lectures of the same length and content as the current face-to-face lectures can be designed and implemented to have a positive effect on student performance, particularly when there is a campus shutdown. Background: In a number of South African universities protests by the students are on the increase. Often, they lead to the cancellation of academic activities such as face-to-face classes and examinations. Methodology: A quasi-experimental design was used on two video lectures to (1) compare the performance of the students who did not watch the video lectures and those who watched the video lectures, (2) compare the performance of each student who watched the video lectures on the test topics covered in the videos and the test topics not covered in the videos, and (3) determine the factors that influence the effectiveness of the video lectures. Contribution: This study contributes to the literature by investigating the effectiveness of video lectures in improving student performance, the factors associated to the effectiveness of such lectures, and the complexity or simplicity of the two video lectures used, and by providing possible solutions to the challenges identified in relation to designing video lectures. Findings: In terms of student performance, there is no significant advantage arising from watching the video lectures for the students who watch the video lectures, as compared to those who did not watch the video lectures. It is also found that the student performance on the topics with video lectures is significantly associated to the students’ commitment, prior performance, the quality of the content, and the design of the videos. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study recommends how the accounting video lectures can be designed and highlights the environments in which the video lectures of the same length and content as the face-to-face lectures should not be used. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should replicate this study by using short length videos of better quality and appropriate length, which incorporate current issues, games, are interactive, and so forth. Impact on Society: This study examines the use of educational video lectures in order to minimise the impact of disruptions at university level. Future Research: Future studies may use randomly selecting treatment and control groups. They may consider a nationwide research or using qualitative interviews in examining the use of educational video lectures.

Aim/Purpose: The primary objective of this research is to build an enhanced framework for Applied and Computational Math. This framework allows a variety of applied math concepts to be organized into a meaningful whole. Background: The framework can help students grasp new mathematical applications by comparing them to a common reference model. Methodology: In this research, we measure the most frequent words used in a sample of Math and Computer Science books. We combine these words with those obtained in an earlier study, from which we constructed our original Computational Math scale. Contribution: The enhanced framework improves the Computational Math scale by integrating selected concepts from the field of Data Science. Findings: The resulting enhanced framework better explains how abstract mathematical models and algorithms are tied to real world applications and computer implementations. Future Research: We want to empirically test our enhanced Applied and Computational Math framework in a classroom setting. Our goal is to measure how effective the use of this framework is in improving students’ understanding of newly introduced Math concepts.

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: The proposed Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) for Empowerment (PKM4E) Framework expands on the notions of the Ignorance Map and Matrix to support the educational and informing concept of a PKM system-in-progress. Background: The accelerating information abundance is depleting the very attention our cognitive capabilities are able to master, contributing to widening individual and collective opportunity divides. Support is urgently needed to benefit Knowledge Workers irrespective of space (developed/developing countries), time (study or career phase), discipline (natural or social science), or role (student, professional, leader). Methodology: The Design Science Research (DSR) project conceptualizing the PKM System (PKMS) aims to support a scenario of a ‘Decentralizing KM Revolution’ giving more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups. Contribution: The informing-science-related approach synthesizes and visualizes concepts related to ignorance and entropy, learning and innovation, chance discovery and abduction to inform diverse audiences and potential beneficiaries. Findings: see Recommendation for Researchers Recommendations for Practitioners: The PKM4E learning cycles and workflows apply ‘cumulative synthesis’, a concept which convincingly couples the activities of researchers and entrepreneurs and assists users to advance their capability endowments via applied learning. Recommendation for Researchers: In substituting document-centric with meme-based knowledge bases, the PKMS approach merges distinctive voluntarily shared knowledge objects/assets of diverse disciplines into a single unified digital knowledge repository and provides the means for advancing current metrics and reputation systems. Impact on Society: The PKMS features provide the means to tackle the widening opportunity divides by affording knowledge workers with continuous life-long support from trainee, student, novice, or mentee towards professional, expert, mentor, or leader. Future Research: After completing the test phase of the PKMS prototype, its transformation into a viable PKM system and cloud-based server based on a rapid development platform and a noSQL-database is estimated to take 12 months.

Aim/Purpose: This paper describes and information system for the maintenance and management of municipal lighting systems that also serves as a decision support tool for reducing power consumption on urban lighting. Background: Many municipalities are financially constrained and unable to invest in improving their lighting infrastructure. We propose a very efficient and inexpensive way to set up the database and provide city leaders with tools to improve their system efficiently. Methodology: An information database for the data management and an Integer Programming model for deriving the optimal investment plan. Contribution: This paper contributes to the fields of urban economics and sustainability. Findings: Informing management and workers about the status of the system and how to optimize it will reward the city with considerable savings and improve the service quality. Recommendations for Practitioners: The application of this model, even in a small scale such as a neighborhood can improve citizen’s quality of life without a heavy burden on the city budget. Recommendation for Researchers: There is a growing need for cost-effective means to improve urban management. Innovative ideas that meet these goals should be researched and developed. Impact on Society: First, it allows reduction in carbon emissions and light pollution by reducing power consumption and over-luminous lighting levels. Second, financially constrained municipalities can manage their systems at a very low cost. Future Research: A full scale application is needed in order to evaluate the city-wide benefits of the system.

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: This exploratory study investigates the influential factors of users’ decisions in the dilemma of whether to agree to online personalization or to protect their online privacy. Background: Various factors related to online privacy and anonymity were considered, such as user’s privacy concern on the Web in general and particularly on social networks, user online privacy literacy, and field of study. Methodology: To this end, 155 students from different fields of study in the Israeli academia were administered closed-ended questionnaires. Findings: The multivariate linear regression analysis showed that as the participants’ privacy concern increases, they tend to prefer privacy protection over online personalization. In addition, there were significant differences between men and women, as men tended to favor privacy protection more than women did. Impact on Society: This research has social implications for the academia and general public as they show it is possible to influence the personalization-privacy tradeoff and encourage users to prefer privacy protection by raising their concern for the preservation of their online privacy. Furthermore, the users’ preference to protect their privacy even at the expense of their online malleability may lead to the reduction of online privacy-paradox behavior. Future Research: Since our results were based on students' self-perceptions, which might be biased, future work should apply qualitative analysis to explore additional types and influencing factors of online privacy behavior.

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: Medical images are very sensitive data that can be transferred to medical laboratories, professionals, and specialist for referral cases or consultation. Strict security measures must be utilized to keep these data secured in computer networks when transferred to another party. On a daily basis, unauthorized users derive ways to gain access to sensitive patient medical information. Background: One of the best ways to which medical image could be kept secured is through the use of quantum cryptography Methodology : Applying the principles of quantum mechanics to cryptography has led to a remarkable new dimension in secured network communication infrastructure. This enables two legitimate users to produce a shared secret random bit string, which can be used as a key in cryptographic applications, such as message encryption and authentication. Contribution: This paper can make it possible for the healthcare and medical professions to construct cryptographic communication systems to keep patients’ transferred data safe and secured. Findings: This work has been able to provide a way for two authorized users who are in different locations to securely establish a secret network key and to detect if eavesdropping (a fraudulent or disruption in the network) has occurred Recommendations for Practitioners: This security mechanism is recommended for healthcare providers and practitioners to ensure the privacy of patients’ medical information. Recommendation for Researchers: This paper opens a new chapter in secured medical records Impact on Society Quantum key distribution promises network security based on the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics by solving the problems of secret-key cryptography . Future Research: The use of post-quantum cryptography can be further researched.

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: This paper investigates the changing paradigms for technical skills that are needed by Data Engineers in 2018. Background: A decade ago, data engineers needed technical skills for Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS), such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. With the advent of Hadoop and NoSQL Databases in recent years, Data Engineers require new skills to support the large distributed datastores (Big Data) that currently exist. Job demand for Data Scientists and Data Engineers has increased over the last five years. Methodology: This research methodology leveraged the Pig programming language that used MapReduce software located on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Data was collected from 100 Indeed.com job advertisements during July of 2017 and then was uploaded to the AWS Cloud. Using MapReduce, phrases/words were counted and then sorted. The sorted phrase / word counts were then leveraged to create the list of the 20 top skills needed by a Data Engineer based on the job advertisements. This list was compared to the 20 top skills for a Data Engineer presented by Stitch that surveyed 6,500 Data Engineers in 2016. Contribution: This paper presents a list of the 20 top technical skills required by a Data Engineer.

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this study was to concept test a new instructional aid called Virtual Pathology Learning Resource (VPLR), which was used as a vehicle to communicate information and enhance teaching and learning of basic sciences (Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology) to allied health science students at a South Australian university. Background: Pathology was traditionally taught using potted specimens to review disease manifestations independently. However, this approach was found inadequate and ineffective. VPLR is a new teaching platform comprising of digitised human normal and human pathology specimens (histology, histopathology), patient case studies, short answer and critical thinking questions, and self-assessment quizzes. Using authentic learning theory as an educational pedagogy, this learning resource was developed to enhance the teaching and learning of Pathology. Methodology: Cross-sectional study design was used. A survey, given at the end of the course, gathered qualitative and quantitative data concerning the perceptions and experiences of the students about VPLR and its components. The online tool SurveyMonkey was utilised so that students could respond anonymously to a web link that displayed the questionnaire. The perceived impact on students was assessed using an 18-item questionnaire seeking agreement or disagreement with statements about VPLR, multiple choice and open-ended questions querying the best things about VPLR, benefits to be derived, and areas for improvement. Descriptive and frequency analyses were performed. Contribution: The VPLR approach involved rich learning situations, contextualised content, and facilitated greater understanding of disease concepts and problems. Findings: In a sample of 103 Medical Radiation students, 42% of students (N=43) responded to the post-intervention survey. The majority of students reported highly positive effects for each component of the VPLR. The overall results indicated that this tool was a promising strategy in teaching Pathology as it assisted students’ gaining knowledge of the science, facilitated connections between sciences, and allowed students to make better links with professional practice and skills. Recommendations for Practitioners: As students found VPLR to be beneficial, it is recommended that the same approach is applied for the teaching of Pathology to other health science students, such as Nursing. Other universities might consider adopting the innovation for their courses. Recommendation for Researchers: Applying VPLR to teaching other allied health science students will be undertaken next. The innovation will be appropriate for other health science students with particular emphasis on case-based or problem-based learning and combined with clinical experiences. Impact on Society: In reshaping the way of teaching a science course, students are benefited with greater depth of understanding of content and increase motivation to study. These are important to keep students engaged and ready for practice. VPLR may impact on education and technology trends so that exploration and possibilities of initiatives are ongoing to help students become successful learners. Other impacts are the new forms of learning discovered, the renewed focus on group work and collaboration, and maximising the use of technology in innovation. Future Research: Future directions of this research would be to conduct a follow-up of this cohort of students to determine whether the impacts of the innovation were durable, meaning the change in perceptions and behaviour is sustained over time.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify how Advanced level Mathematics and Mathematics course units offered at university level do impact on the academic performance of theoretical Computer Science course units. Background: In Sri Lankan state universities, students have been enrolled only from the Physical Science stream to do a degree program in Computer Science. In addition to that, universities have been offering some course units in Mathematics to provide the required mathematical maturity to Computer Science undergraduates. Despite of this it is observed that the failure rates in fundamental theoretical Computer Science course units are much higher than other course units offered in the general degree program every year. Methodology : Academic records comprised of all 459 undergraduates from three consecutive batches admitted to the degree program in Computer Science from a university were considered for this study. Contribution: This study helps academics in identifying suitable curricula for Mathematics course units to improve students’ performance in theoretical Computer Science courses. Findings: Advanced level Mathematics does not have any significant effect on the academic performance of theoretical Computer Science course units. Even though all Mathematics course units offered were significantly correlated with academic performance of every theoretical Computer Science course unit, only the Discrete Mathematics course unit highly impacted on the academic performance of all three theoretical Computer Science course units. Further this study indicates that the academic performance of female undergraduates is better than males in all theoretical Computer Science and Mathematics course units. Future Research: Identifying other critical success factors contributing to the students’ academic performance of the theoretical Computer Science through empirical studies

Table of Contents for IISIT Volume 15, 2018