IT-related Courses Research Articles

Slow and Steady or Fast and Furious: An Analysis of Completion Duration in open.uom.lk

The open.uom.lk platform is an open learning platform developed by the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, offering free asynchronous online IT related courses. The platform was developed as an initiative to meet the growing human capital requirement of the IT industry in Sri Lanka, one of the only sectors showing strong growth even during the country’s recent economic crisis. In the two years since the release of its flagship course Trainee Full-Stack Developer, there have been over 270,000 enrolled learners. The course consists of six subjects covering Python programming, web design, and a professional practice module that includes a capstone project. Despite the massive number of enrollments, as in many other MOOCs, completion rates remain low. For instance, for the two beginner courses in programming and web design, into which all participants are enrolled automatically, completion rates stand at 7-10%. Completion rates for subsequent subjects are higher given that enrollment is conditional on completing prerequisites. From a planning perspective, it is not just estimates of how many participants complete the programs but also the time they take to do so that are integral for determining the future growth of the IT industry. As such, this study aims to develop a model for course completion using survival analysis which has the advantage of being able to model censored data (e.g. when duration is unknown due to non-completion) and provide forecasts of completion rates at different points in time. The analysis uses student activity completion reports and demographic information of participants including employment and educational background. The findings suggest that the course interaction variables, particularly the speed of completing early activities, are more important for predicting course completion than the demographic variables, though education and employment status are also significantly correlated with completion. The survival model could then be used for purposes of predicting both the completion probability as well as the timeframe within which the completion may be expected.

Constructing “English+” teaching mode enabled by ChatGPT: Taking “English + IT” subject as an example

With the explosion of English subjects, graduates majoring in English are now facing the dilemma of losing social and employment competitiveness. The present study found that English can combine its designated education with other subjects to improve students’ overall competence, and using the new artificial intelligence of ChatGPT may be a promising method to assist English language teaching. The research has conducted semi-structured interviews with five students studying “English Language and Data” subjects at a university in Zhejiang, China. Through the semi-structured interviews, all of the interviewees used ChatGPT during their studying life at university; they not only used ChatGPT in English major courses, but they also used it in IT-related courses more often, and they preferred using ChatGPT, believing it had more pros than cons. The results showed that ChatGPT had become a good tool for English language teaching and “English+” subject learning, and its future remains to be explored.

Towards a novel catalog of assessment patterns for distant education in the information technology domain

This paper presents a research and its results in the domain of higher education's pedagogical patterns for remote assessments - precisely in the computer science, software engineering and informatics-related courses. This research was motivated by the COVID-19 crisis, which separated teachers, teaching assistants, and students physically. During this period, remote knowledge assessment was one of the most challenging among all educational activities. The lack of available resources and advice on remote knowledge assessment revealed a need for a specialized assessment pattern catalog.The main result of the research is the assessment pattern catalog that started to grow organically at the Institute of Informatics, where we teach IT-related courses. We started with the initial set of patterns, identified by analyzing recurring practices, applied by teaching staff for remote assessments in the period from March 2020 till December 2020. The patterns were aggregated and gradually refined using a systematic approach. In addition to guided workshops, a systematic literature review was employed, followed by catalog refinements, and, finally, an extensive survey was carried out among teachers and teaching assistants. The latter was used as a validation of the correctness of the novel assessment pattern catalog, as well as the presented patterns’ suitability and popularity among users.The resulting assessment pattern catalog presented in this paper boasts 47 patterns, classified into four main categories, that support the whole process of (remote) assessment. It is organized and documented systematically. It also boasts several indicators per each pattern to demonstrate its suitability for distant assessments, popularity rankings among teachers, teaching assistants, and top picks in every category per teachers and teaching assistants.The survey that we performed revealed a subset of patterns that are important for a successful remote assessment, validated in the IT-related courses. Based on the results, the presented assessment pattern catalog showed itself to be useful not only for the remote assessment but also for judging knowledge in the classroom successfully.

Health professional students' preparedness for E-Health

Abstract Background: E-Health is one of the recent major developments in health-care provision. Today's health professional students are considered digitally oriented, and this may endow them with the necessary capabilities to implement E-Health on graduation. Aim: This study aimed to assess students' views, use, confidence, and need for training on E-Health. Participants: Fourth-, 5th- and internship-year students of the medical and dental schools at the Libyan International Medical University constituted the study population. Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study conducted using an online administered survey. Prior to implementation, the questionnaire was reviewed by experts and then piloted on a group of research-targeted students. Likert scale was used for most questions and few were in the form of short answers. Descriptive statistics were reported using SPSS software version 23.0. Results: One hundred and two students responded, and all responders were included for most select-response questions. The male-to-female ratio was 2:3, with a mean age of 24 ± 1.8 years. Medical students accounted for 52% of the participants. An average of 45% reported proficiency in written and spoken English. Only 12% have taken IT-related courses. Their view on E-Health was moderately positive with a mean of 3.5 ± 0.34 of 3.1 ± 1.029. In spite of this, 43% ± 3.9% had negative views on E-Health. Nearly 58% of the participants used digital tools and software with a mean score of 2.43 ± 0.6. Most students reported using social media, especially Facebook (mean 4.95 ± 1.7). The students reported a confidence level of information and communication technology (ICT) use of 3.4 ± 1.2. They also described their confidence in learning a new technology with a value of 3 ± 0.3. Almost 32.9% of the participants expressed an overall need for training on ICT tools. Conclusion: The overall preparedness of this group for ICT is moderate and needs improvement. This could be achieved through introducing changes in the taught curriculum.

Perception of Undergraduates about Computer and Internet Ethics in Pakistan

Computer and internet has brought innovative changes in education all over the world. In the universities of Pakistan, computer and IT related courses have recently been included as compulsory subjects in all disciplines at undergraduate level. Therefore, it was important to know the perceptual understanding and awareness of university teachers and undergraduate students about the ethical use of computer and internet through a survey. A total of 378 teachers and 643 students from four different universities participated in the study and the results were interpreted on the bases of their demographic information. Overall, the results were not very highly appreciated regarding the awareness about computer and IT ethics. But teachers from private sector universities and male students from both private and public sector universities were found perceptually more positive than to others. It was recommended that computer ethics awareness training is needed for all the stakeholders of all universities. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v33i4.12

Redesigning the Assessment of an Entrepreneurship Course in an Information Technology Degree Program: Embedding Assessment for Learning Practices

Entrepreneurship is a novel course in the curriculum for students in the Information Technology (IT) degree program at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia. In comparison to other IT-related courses, the Entrepreneurship course seeks to develop business management knowledge and skills; its learning design is thus different to that of other courses in the IT program. The concept of constructive alignment for curriculum renewal suggests that there are several components of good course design. In this paper, we use the principles of constructive alignment to analyze and redesign several components of the Entrepreneurship course. The focus is on reviewing and aligning the assessment tasks to ensure an effective evaluation and the achievement of student learning outcomes. Since assessment drives student learning, we describe the innovative assessment tasks that were implemented to enhance student learning, provide the rationale for the design of these tasks as supported by the current literature, and reflect on possible future improvements. The course redesign process and the constructive alignment and innovative assessment can be applied to other courses in the field, and more broadly to curriculum, teaching, and learning in higher education.

Setting up a low-cost lab management system for a multi-purpose computing laboratory using virtualisation technology

<span>This paper describes how a generic computer laboratory equipped with 52 workstations is set up for teaching IT-related courses and other general purpose usage. The authors have successfully constructed a lab management system based on decentralised, client-side software virtualisation technology using Linux and free software tools from VMware that fulfils the requirements of fast "switch over" time between consecutive lab sessions, the ability to support a wide range of IT courses and usage scenarios, low cost, easy maintenance, and a sandboxed environment for potentially disruptive IT security lab exercises. Sufficient implementation details are provided so that readers can build a similar lab management system. The objective is to share ideas and experiences that may be useful for lab administrators in academic institutions facing the same requirements and budgetary constraints.</span>

Training to persist in computing careers

Funded by a SIGCSE Special Project grant, Training to Persist in Computing Careers is a hands-on resource for faculty interested in incorporating soft skills training in IT-related courses. Soft skills include such abilities as controlling and using one's emotions (emotional intelligence), dealing with team issues and stress (coping strategies) and using business-appropriate language. These skills are increasingly recognized as key to success in IT-related disciplines [1, 5].

Information Technology Education in Nepal: An Inner Perspective

AbstractThe Information Technology revolution is going on. It has been making significant impacts on our day lives and has changed the very landscape of human existence. The IT industry today stands as the maximum growth industry and demand for core IT professionals have been on the rise and is growing worldwide. The demand of these professionals has been so huge worldwide that at present the demand simply outnumbers the supply of these professionals. As a result of the same, rapid growth in highly skilled IT occupations, low unemployment rate, rising salaries etc. have become typical attributes of this profession. With regards to the opportunities available in the IT profession, of recent there has been an extraordinary demand for IT related courses from students worldwide. Nepal is no exception to the same and demand for IT related courses have been on the rise here as well. To cater to this demand, like their counterparts abroad, universities and colleges in Nepal have also come out extensively with IT related courses and programs. In this paper, an attempt has been made to critically investigate the prevailing IT education scenario in Nepal. The paper also provides key recommendations with regards to the steps that need to be taken to enhance the overall quality of IT education in Nepal.