Access To Online Content Research Articles

An evaluation and review of English language pre-exposure prophylaxis websites and YouTube videos

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a promising HIV prevention strategy in which antiretroviral medications are taken to prevent HIV infection. PrEP was approved as an HIV prevention method in the United States in 2012 for individuals aged 18 years and older. Since its approval, there has been a growing amount of online content about PrEP targeted to general, non-medical, audiences. However, this online information is under-studied and under-evaluated. Two raters catalogued and coded PrEP material written in the English language from 61 websites and 58 YouTube videos for educational content, credibility, usability, and interactivity. The online material was catalogued and searched for between September 2017 and April 2018. Online PrEP material showed deficiencies in each of these content areas, however, there is a significant amount of publicly accessible online content available about PrEP. This content could be packaged, used, and tested in a prevention intervention to improve PrEP uptake and engagement in care.

Examining the contemporary digital divide of university students with specific reference to students with special educational needs

AbstractThe contemporary digital divide is characterised by the uneven distribution of access to information communication technology (ICT), originating in the different motivation, physical access and skills of users. We synthesised existing theories and frameworks to develop and then empirically validate a theoretical model to predict university students' use of online learning resources (OLRs) at the crossroads of formal and informal learning. Because access to digital content may be a bigger issue for students with special educational needs (SEN), we also examined OLR use among this group. Fifty‐six students with SEN and 1642 mainstream students participated in the survey. Our main conclusions are as follows. In the whole sample, personal socio‐cognitive factors (beliefs, self‐efficacy) are the only significant predictors of OLR use. The results suggest that motivational and skills‐related differences between students contribute more to the digital divide than do either differences related to unpleasant environmental conditions (eg, inaccessibility, high prices, etc.) or personal context (eg, study‐fit, learning preferences, etc.). Separate regressions show that beliefs were significant predictors for both SEN students and their peers, while self‐efficacy was a significant predictor for the mainstream students only. Measuring unpleasant environmental factors as a continuum (environmental and contextual barriers) explained OLRs better than solely differentiating between SEN and mainstream students. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about the topic The use of online educational resources (OLRs) is student‐driven and needs to be examined through the lens of the digital divide. There is currently no established theoretical or empirical model that can predict the use of OLRs, especially in informal learning settings. Inaccessibility of OLRs for students with special educational needs (SEN) is a result of socially constructed barriers such as designing inaccessible technical environments. What this paper adds A research model designed to predict the use of OLRs, combining psychological and ICT theories and frameworks. Application of the concept of environmental and contextual barriers to measure the effect of imposed and selected environments on OLRs. Identification of environmental barriers as a measure of diverse access and accessibility needs of mainstream and SEN students. Implications for practice and policy The findings suggest that the secondary digital divide is more related to cognitive and motivational aspects than to the lack of access to ICT and accessible online content for both groups. The developers of university learning environments should focus on the central role of cognitions in students' actual behaviour. The role of personal context and the identification of “pure” environmental factors in informal learning settings should be further explored.

Contemporary models of a social dialogue: the regional dimension

The radical transformations caused by the Internet have affected primarily the sphere of social communication. E-technologies have become not only the foundation for production, storage, distribution, and management of information, but also a means of maintaining social connections, and thus radically changed the basic structure of communications within the modern media space and caused a technological inversion of public processes and phenomenon. The Internet provided population with an opportunity not only to receive information, but also to be an active participant of numerous social processes, including political power relations. The research actualizes the problem of improving a mechanism of digital democracy based on the formation of a new model of social dialogue between power structures and society. The aim of this article is to reveal the indicators representing the convergence level of power and population by means of e-communication channels. The analysis of practice of the online communication of the officials and population was carried out within the research. Based on accessible online content, the feedback tools between power and society were analyzed as well as goals and motivation of social networking practices of Saratov regional and municipal administrations. The research shows that the realization of the social dialogue potential is impeded by a number of institutional, legal, and socio-communicative barriers. Received data gives evidence of low spread of innovative forms of open social and political interaction between public authorities and population, which can be described as insufficient and passive. The authos concludes that public governance should take into account the expectations, interests, and opinions of different communities. The scientific novelty of the presented study lies in drawing attention to the previously insufficiently studied aspects of the problem of improving the partnership between the authorities and the population, in raising the question of the need to increase the level of communicative competence of subjects of social dialogue as a condition for the effective use of electronic communications in the process of implementing democracy, and in strengthening the civil society institutions.

Career Conversations: Disability and Hiring

In my experience, librarians believe they try very hard to be aware and supportive of people with differing abilities, both physical and intellectual. Our successes in this area tend to be public facing, with detailed attention paid to construction of public spaces, design of accessible online content, and creation of inclusive public programming. We talk about library services and outreach to people with disabilities—the web pages, articles, and blog posts out there are legion. Yet when it comes time to make hiring changes within our ranks, inclusivity doesn’t happen. While I genuinely believe we want to support diversity in hiring, we fall short.

SKALA CYBERSLACKING PADA MAHASISWA

Cyberslacking in the educational context is defined as using internet in the classrooms for non-academic purpose during lectures. One of student cyberslacking scale was developed by Akbulut, Dursun, Dönmez, & Sahin through researches towards Turkey undergraduate students. This scale consists of items to measure non-academic internet access activities during lectures. Those activities are sharing, shopping, real time updating, accessing online content and gaming/ gambling. This study aims to adopt the Cyberslacking Scale of Akbulut dkk. in the context of undergraduate Indonesian students. Subjects for adopting this scale are 46 male and 156 female undergraduate university students (N=202) with age range between 18-23 years. Second order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to analyze this scale. The results showed that dimension of sharing, shopping, real time updating, accesing online content, and gaming/gambling dimension are positively represented cyberslacking construct. Thus the cyberslacking scale can be used in Indonesian educational context.

Evaluating Promotional Efforts for Driving Traffic to an Extension Outreach Website

As online communication becomes more important to Extension professionals, understanding how promotional strategies affect the number of people accessing online content also becomes more important. We tracked website visits resulting from four different promotional efforts to understand relative effectiveness of these efforts. Each effort was unique in cost, efficacy, and efficiency. We found that using multiple promotional approaches to drive traffic to educational content can increase engagement over time and allow for reaching larger audiences.

Assessing of use of the Internet for personal reasons at lessons at school: A Validation of the Cyberloafing Scale

Emergence of a possibility of Internet access at school bears new opportunities and risks too. The tendency to growth of number of the pupils Internet use for non-class-related purposes in the classroom (Cyberloafing) causes concern. Studying of this new phenomenon at the Russian school is complicated due to the lack of reliable and valid techniques. Therefore, adaptation of a scale of a cyberloafing of Y. Akbulut, etc. became an objective of this research. We translated into Russian of 29 items of a technique which were estimated by school students by means of 5-point Laykert scales. Results of application of a scale showed that its items form 5 factors. These are online shopping, accessing online content, activity on social networks, sharing information, socialization. The items of a factor of playing online games did not receive confirmation of validity and internal consistency. They need to be reconsidered. The received factors have sufficient reliability (the Cronbach’s alpha (α) values of all the factors range from 0.77 to 0.881). Work makes a contribution to studying of a cyberloafing at school.

Experiences of People with Visual Impairments in Accessing Online Information and Services: A Systematic Literature Review

The World Wide Web is the largest source of electronic information in the world. Over the years, rapid advances in the internet have made it less accessible thereby making it increasingly difficult for people with visual impairments to access online information and services . This paper systematically reviews previous research to identify challenges that people with visual impairments face, and the role of accessibility technologies and guidelines to support people with visual impairments in their access to online information and services. The findings discuss three categories emerged from the literature: inaccessible content for the visually impaired, improving website accessibility for the visually impaired, and accessibility technologies and their benefits and limitations for people with visual impairments. The findings further discuss the usability issues which are present in accessing online content, the different attempts that have been made to mitigate these problems, and the different guidelines and tools that can be adopted by web designers to make websites more accessible for the visually impaired. It also discusses the versatility and availability of various accessibility technologies. Although these technologies provide basic access to online information, they are greatly limited in their functionality. Therefore, it is up to the web designers to change their perceptions when designing websites. With the proper use of the guidelines, the capabilities of accessibility technologies can be accommodated in making information provided accessible to all users including those with visual impairments. The contributions of this research are that it offers a rigorous narrative review to summarise the state of knowledge on challenges that people with visual impairments face in accessing online information and services, the support and limitations of accessibility technologies in addressing some of these challenges. In addition, this study identifies gaps and areas that deserve more scrutiny in future research including digital exclusion issues among the visually impaired, explanation on the unwillingness of web designers to develop accessible websites, improvements to accessibility technologies to support increasingly visually complex websites, among others. Since the visually impaired are a diverse group with different degrees of impairments, needs and preferences, we encourage researchers to involve them in future studies.

Modelling MOOC learners' social behaviours

MOOCs offer world-widely accessible online content typically including videos, readings, quizzes along with social communication tools on a platform that enables participants to learn at their own pace. The number of learners who sign up and attend the courses are exponentially growing. Consequently, MOOC platforms generate a large amount of data about their learners. Researchers use participants' digital traces to make sense of their engagement in a course and identify their needs to predict future patterns and to make interventions based on these patterns. The research reported here was conducted to further understand learners social engagement on a MOOC platform and the impact of engagement on course completion. The patterns of learners social engagement were modelled by using learning analytics techniques. The findings of this research show that the integrated social features such as commonly known follow features and deeper peer interactions have potential value in tracking, analysing, and generating insightful information related to participants' behaviours.

La accesibilidad de la televisión "online" en España: análisis de la programación de Antena 3 y Telecinco

El acceso a la información es un derecho fundamental que cobra especial relevancia en el caso de la televisión por su origen como servicio público y su función de inclusión social. Por ello, la legislación europea y española establece que los contenidos televisivos deben incluir subtítulos, audiodescripción y lengua de signos para ser accesibles. Este argumento se extiende también a la televisión online en una sociedad en la que Internet se adentra en todos los ámbitos de la vida modificando los hábitos de consumo comunicativo. Este artículo analiza la accesibilidad de los contenidos online, en directo y a la carta, de las dos cadenas de televisión más vistas en España – Antena 3 y Telecinco– y demuestra la hipótesis de que los niveles de accesibilidad de los contenidos online son inexistentes o muy inferiores a los de la televisión tradicional, impidiendo el acceso de las personas con discapacidad visual o auditiva.

Online informal learning of English through smartphones in Slovenia

The accessibility of online resources in English means that today informal contexts offer a multitude of language development opportunities. The main objective of this paper concerns the investigation of smartphone use for the online informal learning of English among undergraduate students in Slovenia. An online survey and semi-structured interviews were used to explore the most frequent smartphone activities involving language use, the predominant language for these activities, and the level of co-evolution between smartphone activities in English and perceived language competence in English. The results show that, despite the affordances of Web 2.0 technologies, the participants still predominantly access online content for receptive rather than interactive/productive activities, in particular when English and not their mother tongue is involved. In terms of perceived communicative competence and online informal learning of English, the results indicate the co-evolution of two complex dynamic systems: the use of the digital context in English and the system of participants’ communicative competence levels in English.

Predictors of Cyberloafing among Preservice Information Technology Teachers

The current mixed-method study investigated the extent of involvement in cyberloafing within classroom settings among preservice information technology teachers. Thirteen state universities were picked randomly from hierarchical clusters, which were determined according to the national university rankings. Then, a recent five-factor cyberloafing scale was administered to 1856 participants in these universities to collect the quantitative data. An open-ended survey was also administered to two volunteers from each university (n: 26) to address their rationale for cyberloafing. Parametric analyses on cyberloafing scores were conducted through considering background variables including gender, university, grade level, grade point average, socioeconomic status, ownership of mobile devices and online social networking habits. The qualitative data were processed through descriptive content analysis, which was confirmed by an independent scholar. Findings revealed that males surpassed females in terms of three cyberloafing types (i.e., shopping, accessing online content, and gaming). Significant differences were observed in terms of university and grade level. The relationship between the grade point average and cyberloafing was negative and statistically significant. Socioeconomic status, ownership of mobile devices and social network use predicted cyberloafing behavior. Finally, qualitative data from open-ended questions revealed student- and instructor-related rationales for cyberloafing.

Approaches for preserving content integrity of sensitive online Arabic content: A survey and research challenges

Trends in Internet usage and accessing online content in different languages and formats are proliferating at a considerable speed. There is a vast amount of digital online content available in different formats that are sensitive in nature with respect to writing styles and arrangement of diacritics. However, research done in the area aimed at identifying the necessary techniques suitable for preserving content integrity of sensitive digital online content is limited. So, it is a challenge to determine the techniques most suitable for different formats such as image or binary. Hence, preserving and verifying sensitive content constitutes an emerging problem and calls for timely solutions. The digital Holy Qur'an in Arabic, constitutes, one case of such sensitive content. Due to the different characteristics of the Arabic letters like diacritics (punctuation symbols), kashidas (extended letters) and other symbols, it is very easy to alter the original meaning of the text by simply changing the arrangement of diacritics. This article surveys the different approaches that are presently employed in the process of preserving and verifying the content integrity of sensitive online content. We present the state-of-the-art in content integrity verification and address the existing challenges in preserving the integrity of sensitive texts using the Digital Qur'an as a case study. The proposed taxonomy provides an effective classification and analysis of existing related schemes and their limitations. The paper discusses the recommendations of the expected efficiency of such approaches when applied for use in digital content integrity. Some of the main findings suggest unified approaches of watermarking and string matching approaches can be used to preserve content integrity of any sensitive digital content.

MacAnatomy Pathology Learning Tool Project

MacAnatomy is the current online portal, which was developed for the Education Program in Anatomy at McMaster that allows students to easily access learning content. Previous analysis of student perceptions of the website have guided the development of specific pathology learning tools. Prototypes were then developed using the six themes elucidated from student interviews that were most requested: design & layout, user interface, learning approach, assessment, multimedia, and maintenance.Data was collected from 24 interviewees that had all participated in the anatomy curriculum, then those transcripts were analyzed by five independent assessors. We found that students predominantly placed value in having self‐assessments that were seamlessly integrated within their content. These could be as simple as incorporating exercises that allow for the comparison of pathological states to normal. One important aspect of increasing the appeal to students is ensuring the interface is maintained and updated, as well as having a modern aesthetic to design and layout. Another highly requested feature was to ensure that the learning tool content was relatable and relevant to course material.With the increased student demand for accessible online content, there is an opportunity for anatomical education to move and adapt towards utilizing various technological platforms. Our prototypes were developed to reflect student demand and preference in order to create an optimal learning tool that will be beneficial to both students and educators in the Anatomy Program at McMaster.

Company taxonomy development: the case of an international emergency response organization

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore theoretically and empirically the understanding and implementation of an information taxonomy in the UN organization World Food Programme (WFP) by analysing users’ information behaviour and by establishing a minimum set of cross-silo metadata (taxonomy).Design/methodology/approach– The study implies the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods. This includes desk review of key documents and interviews with information architecture staff from various WFP units; data collection carried out as semi-structured staff interviews in WFP; log analyses of search log-files from WFP intranet portal (WFPgo) from September to November 2013, the results were applied and a suggested taxonomy tested at workshops conducted for the staff in headquarters.Findings– The results reveal an organization with a high demand for easier access to information and knowledge, greater internal collaborations and stronger links with various sources of knowledge. Staff participating in the various workshops pointed out that work processes as well as the human resources component cannot be left out of a solution development.Originality/value– There has been little research carried out on current taxonomy projects in corporate environments and international emergency response organizations and few has touched on how knowledge organization systems can enhance or constrain staff’s ability to access online content.

In search of a measure to investigate cyberloafing in educational settings

Cyberloafing is among the problematic tech-trends in contemporary work-based and educational settings. The current study administered an existing three-factor scale to three samples. The factor structure was not confirmed among high school teachers (n: 33), high school students (n: 479) and undergraduates (n: 86). A new and more comprehensive scale to address contemporary cyberloafing behaviors during lectures was developed through literature review, expert panels and observations. Data from undergraduate students (n: 471) were used for construct validation with an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), which revealed a five-factor structure and explained 70.44% of the total variance. Factors were sharing, shopping, real-time updating, accessing online content and gaming/gambling. The scale was administered to another undergraduate student sample (n: 215) and a social networker student group (n: 515). The structure was validated in these new samples through confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). The scale and current findings are expected to facilitate further cyberloafing research in educational settings.

"APPLICATION OF BIG DATA IN EDUCATION DATA MINING AND LEARNING ANALYTICS – A LITERATURE REVIEW "

The usage of learning management systems in education has been increasing in the last few years. Students have started using mobile phones, primarily smart phones that have become a part of their daily life, to access online content. Student's online activities generate enormous amount of unused data that are wasted as traditional learning analytics are not capable of processing them. This has resulted in the penetration of Big Data technologies and tools into education, to process the large amount of data involved. This study looks into the recent applications of Big Data technologies in education and presents a review of literature available on Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics.

Bridging the app gap: An examination of a professional development initiative on mobile learning in urban schools

In this study we present a professional development initiative aimed at helping urban teachers in low-income underserved schools in the U.S. learn how to utilize iPads (a representative mobile device) and educational apps (software programs that run on mobile devices) to support teaching and learning. Subsequently, we examine the ways in which four case study teachers utilized iPads and educational apps in their classrooms to support their students' learning experiences. Data included observations of professional development activities, classroom observations, teacher interviews, and student focus groups. Findings revealed that students used iPads and educational apps to (a) access online content, (b) create learning artifacts, and (c) reinforce content learning through personalized instruction. Findings also indicated that use of iPads and educational apps supported student academic growth and empowerment. Results have implications for mobile learning researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, particularly those charged with the design and implementation of professional development programs.

Special Education

• strategies for assessing how accessible online content is and using a tool to measure how well it addresses principles of Universal Design for Learning. Should special educators move forward now or wait for more research, especially for students with special needs? A federally funded review of existing studies found no difference between face-to-face and online instruction (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010). Moreover, students already expect every aspect of their lives to take place online, with 75% to 80% of children ages 8 to 18 accessing the Internet at home via both mobile devices and computers (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). Surely this means online special education is not only inevitable but also likely to become more common with time—instead of asking why or whether, perhaps we need to ask how:

Microcomputations as Micropayments in Web-based Services

In this article, we propose a new micropayment model for nonspecialized commodity web-services based on microcomputations. In our model, a user that wishes to access online content (offered by a website) does not need to register or pay to access the website; instead, he will accept to run microcomputations on behalf of the service provider in exchange for access to the content. These microcomputations can, for example, support ongoing computing projects that have clear social benefits (e.g., projects relating to medical research) or can contribute towards commercial computing projects. We analyze the security and privacy of our proposal and we show that it preserves the privacy of users. We argue that this micropayment model is economically and technically viable and that it can be integrated in existing distributed computing frameworks (e.g., the BOINC platform). In this respect, we implement a prototype of a system based on our model and we deploy our prototype on Amazon Mechanical Turk to evaluate its performance and usability given a large number of users. Our results show that our proposed scheme does not affect the browsing experience of users and is likely to be used by a non-trivial proportion of users. Finally, we empirically show that our scheme incurs comparable bandwidth and CPU consumption to the resource usage incurred by online advertisements featured in popular websites.