University Information Technology Research Articles

Knowledge internalization in e-learning management system

Knowledge management (KM) is gaining significance as a worthy research subject due to its contribution to the success of wide range of organizations, including higher education institutions. Knowledge internalization is mainly related to capability to see the relevance of one’s knowledge in a real situation. e-learning management system (eLMS) provides an online teaching and learning platform for students (as novice users) and lecturers (as experts in their specific domains) with the potential to improve students' knowledge acquisition. Thus, this empirical study was conducted to investigate the impact of knowledge internalization in eLMS among students in Iraq. To achieve these aims, survey research design was adopted and the sample comprised of 109 undergraduate students attending College of Information Technology in Iraq, all of whom were actively engaged in eLMS activities. The findings show that knowledge can be effectively transferred from lecturers to students via eLMS. Additionally, eLMS enable students to improve their prior knowledge through the internalization process, while also motivating them to share their knowledge with other students.

Problems of Teaching Computer Science and Information Technology in Universities

Problems of Teaching Computer Science and Information Technology in Universities

Identifying the Factor of Mathematical Reasoning That Affects the Ability to Programming Algorithm

This paper examines the limited proficiency to engage in programming algorithms among university students in information technology and information system in several universities across Surabaya, Indonesia. The purpose of this research is to find the most influential factor in learning programming algorithm using a quantitative approach. The research subjects were second-semester information technology students in several private universities in Surabaya, Indonesia. The research instruments were mathematical reasoning and basic algorithm programming test. Mathematical reasoning tests incorporated linear algebraic, basic calculus, and mathematical logic. The data analysis used was variant-based Structural Equation Modelling, also known as Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modelling based on Smart-PLS 3. With α = 5%, the research results conclude that mathematical reasoning positively influences algorithm programming ability with an R score of 0.999, and that the most influential variable among mathematical reasoning abilities was algebra with an R score of 0.732.

Academic Branding and Positioning through University’s Website Profile

Personal branding is becoming an essential concept for academic staff. They often use their owned media such as social media, blogpost and website to engage with the audience and disseminate their works. This study, however, focuses on the staff profile on the University’s website. The web page is a media earned by the staff, by virtue of their employment but owned by the University. The University controls the content of these webpages but allows the academic staff to present themselves based on the stipulated. This study analyzed academic staff profiles across 136 UK Universities. Twenty-eight key sections were identified and further group into five themes of Personal Information, Educational Information, Research Information, Industry Information and Engagement Information. There were instances of incomplete and outdated profile and profile with no photographs. The study contributes to studies on academic branding and higher education marketing. The study highlights the responsibilities of the University to provide the platform and encourage staff to make use of the opportunity to develop and maintain their brand. It offers practical implications for University Managers, Information and Communications Technology, Marketing Communications and Academic Staff on how to develop and manage staff profile.

Exploring Ways of Incorporating Education about Ideological and Political Theories in All Courses within Higher Vocational Colleges

Promoted by the “Construction Plan of High-level Vocational Schools and Specialties with Chinese Characteristics”, the model of integration of specialty groups with industry chains or job groups will become the new trend of high-quality, higher vocational colleges development. In this context, from the perspective of specialty group construction, exploring the ways of implementing the propagable Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses reform aligning with the characteristics of different schools as well as of specialty group courses has been given new requirements and challenges. Based on the actual situation of Changzhou College of Information Technology, from the perspective of decomposing the ideological and political curriculum standard and constructing banks of ideological and political cases, this paper explores how to activate reforms in terms of building featured projects as well as cultural cultivation of Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses, and accordingly, provides new ideas and methods for the reform in the new era of China.

Factors affecting teachers’ behavioral intention of using information technology in lecturing-economic universities

Factors affecting teachers’ behavioral intention of using information technology in lecturing-economic universities

FORMATION OF COMPETENCE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS IN THE PROCESS OF WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT FOR CONDUCTING A REMOTE INTERNET CONFERENCE

The article analyzes and highlights the current problems of training specialists in information and communication technologies in universities. It is revealed that the development of a site for remote Internet conferencing is one of the many components that help to shape the system of professional competencies of future specialists in information and communication technologies.An important place among the information technologies used by scientists in various industries, is occupied by Internet technologies. The Internet provides unlimited opportunities for every user, especially for scientific and teaching staff. For a scientist, the Internet today is a means of finding information and an opportunity to get acquainted with the publication of scientific articles in electronic professional journals, and to approve the results of research through participation in Internet conferences. In this regard, the problem of the problem of designing a site for remote Internet conferencing for IT professionals and its analysis is certainly relevant.A number of higher education institutions use modern information technology to hold conferences using remote report technology. The purpose of the article is to develop a site for conducting a remote Internet conference in the process of training specialists in information and communication technologies. When developing the software, modern web technologies were selected and substantiated: Django framework; Python language for backend development; Javascript language for frontend development; nginx as a web server; React framework for frontend development and more. The developed web service fully meets all the requirements set at the stage of setting the task and is ready for operation.

The Impact of Socialization on Collaborative Learning Method in E-Learning Management System (eLMS)

The rapidly increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the academic community allows learners to access information and academic content anywhere at anytime. e-Learning Management System (eLMS) is one of the popular tools that are increasingly being used in higher education institutions to support and manage teaching and learning. This empirical study was thus conducted to investigate the impact of e-learning on the socialisation among students in Iraq. The sample comprised of 109 undergraduate students from College of Information Technology at a public university in Iraq, all of whom were active eLMS users. The participants took part in a survey, the results of which indicated that knowledge can be effectively transferred from lecturer to students via eLMS, which motivates students to share knowledge with peers through socialisation process, which is one of the critical aspects of Knowledge Management (KM).

The Impact of Educational Infographic on Students’ Interaction and Perception in Jordanian Higher Education: Experimental Study

This study aims to evaluate the effect of employing infographics in higher education, specifically with regard to students’ interactions and their perception of the meaning of transferred information. This evaluation was presented through lectures at Applied Sciences Private University in Jordan and two other selected colleges (one scientific and the other humanistic) to compare the two variables applied in this study. To achieve this object infographic materials were developed by researcher and guided by (ASSURE) instructional model to present the lectures to the two experimental groups by infographic method through two selected courses from Information Technology College and Business College. Meanwhile, two control groups were taking the same courses in deferent class by conventional method. In addition, the total of participants was (138 students) and that includes all students of the experimental and control groups. Furthermore, a post-test questionnaire was involved to experimental groups to measure their interaction and perception after presenting lectures by infographic materials. The findings of this study show that infographics have a positive and strong impact on students’ interaction and perception. Furthermore, a comparison shows that the students of the scientific and humanistic colleges had different effect of interaction. However, infographics have a similar effect on perception in both colleges.

The Problem-Based Learning Procedural Model in the Software Modeling Course at the Information Technology College in Indonesia

The characteristic of the Direct-Instruction system, which depends on the ability of the teacher's reflection, only provides little opportunity for students to be actively involved in the learning process. This process contrasts with the characteristics of the Software Modeling course which ideally emphasizes student-centered learning. The impact of the learning process becomes ineffective, and students cannot reach the minimum competency standards planned in the learning design. We propose a model of integrating Problem-Based Learning (PBL) into the Learning Modeling Software design on three elements of the learning system namely Elementary Curriculum, emphasizing the use of problems as the starting point of student learning; Element Group, emphasizing collaboration systems (group discussion based learning); and Student Elements, emphasizing the Student-Directed-Learning (SDL) system. We tested the effectiveness of the PBL model in small group trials in learning situations that resembled the actual situation and found PBL effectively increased student mastery of a particular topic. However, further discussions regarding 1) how many guidelines are needed in PBL; 2) potential student experience confusion if there is not enough initial learning framework; 3) students who do not have adequate initial knowledge and tend to experience underdevelopment, are still needed to find PBL models that are genuinely effective in learning the field of Software Engineering.

Spatio-Temporal Mapping of Water Consumption at Public Institutions: Case of the United Arab Emirates University

Abstract. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) faces water scarcity. Yet, the UAE is one of the highest countries in the per capita water consumption. The United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) is one of the biggest public institutions in the country. On average, the water costs the university annually around two million dirhams. In this study, indoor water consumption at the UAEU is assessed for the period 2016–2017. Geographic Information System (GIS) is utilized to answer where water is highly consumed within the university (hot spots), when (time), who consume it, why (causes), and how to minimize consumption. It assembles diverse data reside at various departments to gain a better knowledge about the broad patterns of water consumption in the university. The assumption made here is that water consumption is directly proportional to population density and less during winter. The highest water consumption is found at the College of Information Technology (CIT) and this is due to its size and heterogeneity of its activities. The relationship between water consumption and number of students is modeled using least square. The results indicated low correlation between water consumption and number of students. This may be due to the centralized usage of buildings and movement of students between buildings. Temporal variation showed sharp decrease during July of 2016 and 2017 irrespective of the building type/size and this is associated with summer holidays. The hypothesis of activity-driven consumption showed that the highest water consumption is found at residential buildings due to the longer stay time at hostels. The library showed consistent low water consumption. It is interesting to deduce the library usage while investigating water consumption, but it is a lesson that water consumption could be used as a proxy to reveal number of users at buildings. The water consumption at UAEU is benchmarked with other institutes in UAE and abroad. The result from this study identified sites with the highest water consumption and this could be used to adapt water conservation techniques at these sites. A survey was conducted to understand the students’ water consumption behavior, know their willingness to use water conservation methods, and measure their awareness level related to water issues in UAE. The results revealed that half of the respondents are not aware of the water issues. Majority of respondents prefer to drink bottled water than tap water. Majority of respondents are not willing to use grey water or urinals as ways to conserve water due to the lack of knowledge and some physiological reasons. Yet, they are willing to take course designed to teach them how to conserve water and to participate in competitions that reward them for having lower water consumption at hostels.

Aprendizaje activo a través del uso del software Excel en asignaturas de finanzas

Los cambios en los procesos enseñanza aprendizaje han impactado tanto a docentes como estudiantes, donde el uso de las tecnologías de información en las universidades ha modificado la forma de enseñanza, ejemplo de ello, es el uso del Excel en las escuelas de negocio. Este estudio tiene por objetivo medir la percepción de los estudiantes sobre la contribución del Excel en asignaturas del área finanzas de una universidad estatal chilena, como estudio de caso. Metodológicamente se aplicó un cuestionario en escala Likert a 177 estudiantes y un análisis de conglomerado bietápico para determinar perfiles. Se obtuvo una fiabilidad estadística aceptable, con un alfa de Cronbach de 0,96, una evaluación promedio general de 3,33 en una escala de 1 a 5. El análisis de conglomerado se sustenta en una medida de cohesión de 0,6. Los resultados muestran un avance significativo en el dominio del Excel una vez finalizadas las asignaturas y donde los estudiantes destacan una alta valoración sobre su importancia en la formación de finanzas, transferencia de contenidos y especialmente su contribución a su desarrollo profesional futuro, generándose tres conglomerados, y donde las mujeres tienen una mejor evaluación en su proceso formativo.

Fostering information technology students’ internship program

Improving the King Abdulaziz University (KAU) Information Technology (IT) internship training program is critical for students. This internship is the only requirement in the current IT curriculum that attempts to build a bridge of connection for students. A solid bridge is expected to maximize the confidence of students in regard to discovering their future career opportunities in the Saudi Arabian market. The main objective of this research is to explore the skills gap between IT internship students and leaders in the IT industry. It is expected that by the end of the internship program, the students will have better perceptions of the needs and requirements of the Saudi Arabian IT market. The results reported in this study are based on a survey of the skills and knowledge required of new IT employees as perceived by 68 IT leaders and 133 IT internship students. The results report sixteen skills/traits that demonstrate a significant gap. Identifying this gap highlights the need for improving the students’ training experience.

Exploring Gender Diversity in IT and CS Departments Within 3 Private Universities in Erbil City

The number of information technology (IT) jobs is increasing dramatically in Iraq. This has produced an increased need for IT graduates than before. On the other hand, most IT and computer science (CS) departments in private universities are seeing small numbers of females in their courses. This indicates that these private universities have failed in attracting a sufficient percentage of female students. In this article, we explore the gender gap in IT and CS departments at 3 private universities: Tishk, Cihan, and Bayan, using 3 data sets related to the 2017 to 2018 academic year. The research design is descriptive and primary data were collected using personal observations made by the authors over the past 2 years. By analyzing these data sets, we can discover important issues such as students’ diversity in computing departments. For example, we find that a gender gap does not clearly exist in the IT department of Tishk University, while it’s more obvious in CS departments of Bayan and Cihan Universities. This finding implies that there is a need for some initiatives to attract women to IT and CS departments and to more investigate the gender gap in computing within the higher education level. These findings may also be relevant to the computing programs at other large public universities.

Level of Faculty Members’ Tolerance of Cultural Diversity among Students at the University of Jordan from the Students’ Perspective

The study aimed at identifying the level of faculty members’ tolerance towards the cultural diversity between the students from the point of view of the students themselves at the University of Jordan and the relationship with some variables. To achieve this objective, the study used the descriptive method. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire developed according to previous studies. It was distributed to a sample of graduate students in the College of Educational Sciences and King Abdullah II College of Information Technology, which consisted of (89) male and female students. The study found out that the level of faculty members’ tolerance of cultural diversity from the students' point of view was medium. The study also showed that one of the most important aspects of the faculty members' tolerance of cultural diversity lies in respecting the cultural and religious specificity of students, believing in multiculturalism, and evaluating students objectively without discrimination. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) among the students attributed to sex, and in favor of males, and there were no statistically significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) attributed to the college. In light of these results, the study recommended that there should be awareness-raising efforts about the positive role played by positive diversity in improving the educational environment and the interaction between students who enrich their knowledge and contribute to the development of their skills. The study also recommended benefiting from cultural diversity among students and transforming it into a cultural capital that all students would enjoy.
 Keywords: Cultural diversity, University of Jordan, Graduate students.

Research on MOOC-based Blended Learning of Programming Language Course

With the continuous development of information technology in colleges and universities, the emergence of MOOC has changed the teaching methods of teachers and the way students learn. This provides a new development opportunity for blended learning. The MOOC-based blended learning mode is constructed. The learning mode relies on the MOOC platform to mix online learning and classroom learning, including pre-analysis, learning activity design, and learning evaluation design. Through two years of teaching practice, good results have been achieved in the teaching of Visual Basic Programming course.

MODERNIZATION OF IT EDUCATION IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES IN SOCIAL – CULTURAL SPHERE

The purpose of the article is to take into account the process of integration of Ukraine’s education into the international educational space, it is necessary to pay attention to the projects of the national standard classification of education that relate to the directions and specialties of training of IT specialists and outline the expediency of these areas of professional training in higher educational institutions of culture. Methodology of investigation consists in the analysis of existing projects of the national standard classification of IT education made conclusions about their compliance with international standards and recommendations. On the basis of the analysis of open statistical data, the importance of the development of the socio – cultural sphere as a promising branch of the economy and the need for IT specialists with knowledge in this subject field.The analysis of existing projects of the national standard classification of IT education made conclusions about their compliance with international standards and recommendations. On the basis of the analysis of open statistical data, the importance of the development of the socio – cultural sphere as a promising branch of the economy and the need for IT specialists with knowledge in this subject field. Scientific novelty consists in considering the problem of IT education in non – core higher educational institutions, in particular, in higher educational institutions of the socio – cultural sphere. Conclusions. The article analyzes the proposed projects of the national standard classification of education related to the directions and specialties of preparation of IT specialists. Proposed projects of the national standard classification in education related to the directions and specialties of preparation of IT specialists have been analyzed in the article. The emphasis is placed on the need to harmonize educational IT-programs and professional IT qualifications. It has been emphasized on the expediency of training specialists in information technology in universities of culture in connection with the need to master the subject field for which the software product is being created or implemented.

Udayana University: Proposal for The Establishment of a ‘Political Parties and Local Governments Studies Center’


 
 
 In Bali, where political life is largely determined by tradition and the role of Sukarno, the main challenge is to create a cadre system unrelated to mass organizations (gangs), to oligarchy links and to traditional networks (puri/local rulers and Sukarno affiliations). To coin Riswandha Imawan?s words, there is “cadre confusion” in that the existing cadres tend not to hee d the goals of the 1998 Movement: they neglect their working duties, fail to pay taxes and do not care about political education -all things mandatory in a democracy. Aware of these failings, Academics from FISIP Udayana University, later supported by colleagues from Warmadewa University and the University of National Education, and by AIPI Bali and several women NGOs, proposed to set up a center for political parties and local Government, which would work with Udayana University’s revitalized Tax Center (different from the website Imissu at Udayana University information technology service). In the hope of getting support from the political parties cadres, the FISIP Udayana undertook a series of Focus Group Discussions of cadres followed by a survey. But the cadres refused the ?political clinic? proposed by FISIP as part of the project implementation. A new solution is now put forward by the research team: through the IbIKK (Ipteks bagi Inovatif Kreativitas Kampus), the FISIP Udayana simply proposes to revitalize the Tax Center and to Establish a Political Parties and Local Government Studies Center annexed to the Institute for Peace and Democracy/IPD at Udayana University in Denpasar.
 
 

Correction: Mahmood et al. Hard Real-Time Task Scheduling in Cloud Computing Using an Adaptive Genetic Algorithm. Computers 2017, 6, 15

In article by Mahmood [1], the results for a genetic algorithm (GA), adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA), and greedy algorithm were not correctly reported in Section 5 due to a programming error[...]

The effective integration of ICTs in universities: the role of knowledge and academic experience of professors

ABSTRACTDespite the fact that investment in information and communication technologies (ICTs) in universities has increased dramatically, there is no clear evidence that ICTs have been incorporated effectively in the process of teaching and learning. This article investigates the knowledge that university professors need in order to integrate ICTs into their teaching practices. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model has been frequently used for this purpose, but its application in higher education has been limited. The objectives of the study are both the confirmation of the applicability of the model in universities, and the study of the key variables of professors for effective technology integration. A self-assessment questionnaire was administered to 113 professors of three different university schools. The results of this study confirm the usefulness of the model and revealed significant differences regarding the previous academic experience of the teacher. The investigation thus contributes to studies that aim to foster the effective integration of technology in teaching and learning.