Teaching Online Courses Research Articles

Web based 4G Drive Tests Post Processing Software for Educational and Enterprise Purpose

In the world of digital communications, we usually use terms as processing and network optimization. Because mobile operators continuously want to provide the best network experience and quality of service to their subscribers, they continuously seek to improve their network performance both in Coverage, Quality and performance. When mobile technology such as LTE is offered to the public, operators need to be certain that it satisfies their customers. The technology then needs to be tested and optimized if it does not meet the purpose. In this context, one will propose a tool for the processing of drive test data. The proposed tool can be used for enterprises and academic purposes. In fact, online educational courses have brought great dynamics in the field of education and research. It has revolutionized the way learning is being done and perceived in our society compare to traditional learning method. During this period of Covid-19 e-learning is developing faster than before and new solutions to improve it are proposed. For many sub-Saharan African countries, it is very scarce to find telecommunication lecturers with a PhD grade and this has an impact on quality of the training provided to students in telecommunications engineering fields. Another problem is the lack of means to buy and install telecommunication equipments for laboratory experimentations where students can learn and improve their skills during their training program in a university or college. To overcome these problems, a possible solution could be the design of efficient web based tool like the one proposed in this paper and implement labs and e-labs in other to enable students to have a better understanding of mobile network,  drive test data post processing, network quality of service analysis and network optimization. The tool proposed will provide detail analytical results using drive test data. Also optimization techniques and solutions after processing Drive Test data obtained from a live LTE network shall be proposed. For this study, DT data from a mobile operator will be analyzed in details using the poposed tool, and how this analysis results can be used to identify poor performance and quality of service areas in the network. Then following optimization techniques proposed, how defined solutions and strategies can be applied to improve performance of these areas based on current network configurations.

ONLINE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Online instructional strategies refer to the methods and approaches that guide the organization of learning activities, course content, and student engagement in online courses. Strategies frequently adopted in online courses include (1) promoting interactivity through asynchronous and synchronous communication or delivery (2) facilitating the application of concepts; (3) using video demonstrations, such as screencasts for demonstrating tools and programs; and (4) conveying a strong social presence or a sense of belonging to a learning community. Online course design refers to the features that shape the overall structure of the course, including learning activities, sequence of content and communication, and structure of assignments. Research showed that students perceptions of their overall learning experience with instructional strategies and online course design not only affected their perceived learning but also their overall satisfaction with an online course. Online education, including innovative and responsive online course designs, as well as research on student opportunities to interact with online course content, continues to grow in education. Although the demand for online (Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses have never been higher, little has been done to develop effective instructional and online course design strategies for teaching STEM courses online. However, considering the reality that many online students seek online courses to avoid fixed meeting times and traveling to campus, it is practical to adopt asynchronous communication for online courses. The study results can be used to guide online teaching and learning as well as online course design for instructors, course designers, and students in STEM fields. This paper reports the effectiveness of the instructional strategies adopted and the online course design features in a fully online course from the students perspectives. Instructional strategies and course design for teaching online as explained and discussed in this paper. KEYWORDS: teaching, strategies, instruction, online teaching strategies and learning.

Online Education Portal

The online education Course System is a website that will be useful for students, teachers and professionals to improve their knowledge. Now-a-days everything has become digitalised. Online education is becoming one of the major growing fields now. Many websites provides online education but we are tend to pay money to get certified. But this paper focuses on providing the free educational course and free certificates for those who completes the course and the quiz properly will be given with the certificate at the end of the course.

Using Digital Technologies for Testing Online Teaching Skills and Competencies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study examines the online teaching abilities and competencies needed to teach online courses in Saudi Arabia’s higher education system. As a result, the goal of this study was to examine and expand the technology acceptance model (TAM) to assess online teaching abilities and competences utilizing digital technologies in higher education during the COVID-19 epidemic. Therefore, it aimed to develop a new model to measure and explore critical factors that influence online teaching skills, competencies, and actual use of digital tools in higher education. The participants in the study were 350 lecturers at King Faisal University. The research data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (AMOS-SEM). The findings revealed that: (a) perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on using digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic has a direct positive impact on perceived teaching self-efficacy, perceived enjoyment, online teaching skills, and digital tools access; (b) perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of using digital tools have a direct positive impact on lecturers’ attitude toward use and lecturers’ behavioral intention to use digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (c) perceived ease of use. As a consequence of the findings, a validated instrument was designed to assess and investigate crucial elements that impact lecturers’ real usage of digital technologies for teaching and learning in Saudi Arabia’s higher education.

TPACK leveraged: A redesigned online educational technology course for STEM preservice teachers

Integration of computational thinking and programming into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes is needed to promote students’ learning of twenty-first century skills. Yet, teachers are not equipped to achieve this integration successfully as teacher education curricula do not generally align with this need. With the Covid-19 outbreak, curricula also need to be adapted for online environments. This qualitative study presents the redesign of an educational technology course that introduces programming and computational thinking to STEM preservice teachers for online settings, and explores learning experiences of preservice teachers, in terms of how they combine technological knowledge with pedagogy and content. Data were collected from course artifacts, such as reading responses, coding challenges, and lesson designs and implementations. The findings showed the online course design was helpful in enhancing preservice STEM teachers’ pedagogical approaches of how to teach computational thinking and programming. Offering hands-on coding practices in the course allowed preservice teachers to improve their technological knowledge (programming), and they were able to integrate their technological pedagogical knowledge into their content area and design meaningful lessons. The study offers implications for design of online teacher education courses that promote preservice teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge for computational thinking and programming. Implications for practice or policy: The online course design implemented in this study can be adjusted into different contexts, considering that fully-online or blended teacher education courses will still be needed in the future. The design guidelines used in this study can be utilised to develop online teacher education modules for educational technology topics other than programming. The question prompts given to preservice teachers in the study can be refined to trigger deeper reflection on pedagogy of computing education.

Statistical modelling of the impact of online courses in higher education on sustainable development

PurposeThe concept of sustainable development (SD) is a popular response to society’s need to preserve and extend the life span of natural resources. One of the 17 goals of the SD is “education quality” (Fourth Goal of Sustainable Development [SDG-4]). Education quality is an important goal because education is a powerful force that can influence social policies and social change. The SDG-4 must be measured in different contexts, and the tools to quantify its effects require exploration. So, this study aims to propose a statistical model to measure the impact of higher education online courses on SD and a structural equation model (SEM) to find constructs or factors that help us explain a sustainability benefits rate. These proposed models integrate the three areas of sustainability: social, economic and environmental.Design/methodology/approachA beta regression model suggests features that include the academic and economic opportunities offered by the institution, the involvement in research activities and the quality of the online courses. A structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis allowed selecting the key variables and constructs that are strongly linked to the SD.FindingsOne of the key findings showed that the benefit provided by online courses in terms of SD is 62.99% higher than that of offline courses in aspects such as transportation, photocopies, printouts, books, food, clothing, enrolment fees and connectivity.Research limitations/implicationsThe SEM model needs large sample sizes to have consistent estimations. Thus, despite the obtained estimations in the proposed SEM model being reliable, the authors consider that a limitation of this study was the required time to collect data corresponding to the estimated sample size.Originality/valueThis study proposes two novel and different ways to estimate the sustainability benefits rate focused on SDG-4, and machine learning tools are implemented to validate and gain robustness in the estimations of the beta model. Additionally, the SEM model allows us to identify new constructs associated with SDG-4.

Internet of Things Online Course Construction of Multimedia Technology

The advancement of modern multimedia and internet education systems has enriched the presentation and dissemination methods of educational resources and changed people’s learning methods and behavior habits. Online learning has become a way of life and a hotspot of the times, and optimizing the quality of online education services has gradually become a common demand of society. IoT is the sense of relating all things to the Internet. It is another type of network that has been extended and expanded by accelerated improvements in network infrastructure. It has powerful communication, data storage, modification, and computing functions for related logic and data. From the perspective of online course construction, this paper proposes a research direction of IoT online courses based on multimedia technology. Firstly, a brief introduction to the theoretical overview of online courses is given, and then, an in-depth study of the IoT technology is carried out. Then, through the theoretical analysis of the online course mode, combined with the characteristics and functions of the IoT of multimedia technology, the design method of the online course system is proposed. Finally, a comparative experiment is conducted between the IoT online course of multimedia technology and the traditional online course. The experimental results show that the overall mean of the students’ two test scores under the IoT online course teaching of multimedia technology is 6.675 points higher than that under the traditional online course teaching. It shows that the teaching of IoT online courses based on multimedia technology is more conducive to improving students’ learning ability and level, thereby improving the quality of teaching.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA THROUGH MOOCs AND ONLINE COURSES

Online education has seen a rapid and significant growth in the 21st century. Online courses and MOOCs have had an extremely positive impact on higher education in India. Herein, is an attempt to study the growing sphere of online education in India, with special reference to developments in the past decade. In the study, the authors have examined the role of the public and private sector in the field of education. SWAYAM is an indigenous platform of the Government of India which hosts numerous courses and has attracted learners from all age groups and across different streams. Simultaneous growth of educational start-ups in the last decade has enhanced employment generation as well as opened up new avenues for professional growth. Growing collaborations between educational start-ups and foreign universities is helping in globalization of education. The paper compares private and public online courses and discusses how online education has positively impacted employability across various sectors. The various challenges posed in online education have also been elaborated.

Variation in Student Perceptions of Higher Education Course Quality and Difficulty as a Result of Widespread Implementation of Online Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic affected higher education in a myriad of ways. One of the most notable effects however was the rapid and sudden transition of nearly all courses at most institutions to an online environment. And while there are a growing number of courses offered online already, this transition to nearly 100% remote education presented numerous challenges for instructors and students of face-to-face and hybrid style courses. Since student perceptions are closely tied to recruitment and retention, it is important to know if there are differences in student perceptions present in the way different courses are taught. This study extends the work of other authors that have investigated student perceptions by looking specifically at how the COVID-19 pandemic may have changed student views of course difficulty and quality both overall and across discipline or institution categories. Course evaluations from 837 courses from 191 different schools archived on RateMyProfessors.com were used in a general linear model where a statistically significant overall decline of 6% in perceived course difficulty and 4% decline in perceived quality was detected. In addition to calculating this mean decrease, courses were also categorized on the basis of academic discipline (Business, Engineering and Mathematics, Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences), institution type (2-Year, 4-Year), and whether instructors had previous experience teaching online courses (No, Yes) to determine any variation in differences that may have appeared as a result of more nuanced details in course type or delivery. Most notably, declines in course difficulty were slightly more apparent with instructors that had no previous online teaching experience. No other discipline, institution type, or teaching experience interactions were detected with either difficulty or quality variation. These data suggest that there were very real changes in perceived quality and difficulty but that these changes were largely universal irrespective of discipline, institution type, or prior experience teaching online (with exception of course difficulty).

Effects of resistance exercise on blood glucose level and pregnancy outcome in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus: a randomized controlled trial

IntroductionTo date, the effects of resistance exercise on diabetes-related parameters (blood glucose level and insulin use) and pregnancy outcome in participants with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have not been compared...

UI/UX design of educational on-line courses

This paper considers the problem of an interface for educational platform, which is fully effective for achieving the outcomes of educational activity. The current research is a theoretical analysis of existing recommendations on UI/UX design, applied when creating educational systems, as well as of research papers that study user interface (UI) usability and evaluate user experience (UX) in designing on-line platforms. This article describes a mechanism for evaluating usability with the help of baseline and final evaluation tool. It also studies UX components, that ensure its high quality. A list of standard components of web-design is being discussed in the present paper; modern trends in web-design of educational platforms are identified. The paper provides the description of an on-line course model, which is built on the basis of analysis of the prerequisites for existing and functioning of educational on-line systems and which is aimed at achieving outcomes of educational activity. There is ground to believe that the design of educational on-line courses will contribute to achieving the outcomes of educational activity, if user interface components comply with a list of criteria, such as easy-to-perceive content, no extra information, easy and simple navigation on the pages of the course, following the principles of usability.

Online Teaching in COVID-19 Pandemic: Secondary School Teachers’ Beliefs on Teaching Presence and School Support

The COVID-19 pandemic, with the consecutive lockdowns, has led schools around the world to transition suddenly from face-to-face education to online teaching. The purpose of this paper was to investigate secondary school teachers’ beliefs on online teaching presence and school support for online learning during the pandemic. The sample was 238 teachers in Greece who are interested in e-learning and received some preparation to teach online courses. An online questionnaire was administered and three factors were revealed: instruction and organization, facilitation and cognitive activation, and school support. Teachers’ perceived online teaching presence was strong (over 63% expressed agreement), and the highest percentages of agreement were linked to clear instruction, communication of time frames and course topics, and facilitation and encouragement that could help students learn. On the other hand, perceived school support for online learning was weak (over 50% expressed disagreement and neutral views), and the highest percentages of disagreement regarded the existence of a professional development strategy and of clear objectives/vision towards online learning. Gender, years of teaching experience, and experience with online teaching had a small effect on teachers’ beliefs. Implications for teacher professional development, educational policy, and the design of educational technology applications are discussed.

Realtime online courses mutated amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Empirical study in hospitality program

Real-time online courses (RTOCs), a new online learning mode, have been developed because of a longitudinal suspension of classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. We explore an information model to review the learning process and outcomes of RTOCs, which conducted educational activities via social media. Results show that social media can be a potent mediation factor with the moderation of structural differentiation to facilitate online learning outcomes. Conclusions imply that the life-changing impact of COVID-19 has caused an evolutionary online education mode that can be hybridized with face-to-face education and massive open online courses to flourish education approaches and pedagogies.

A common framework for MOOC curricular development in climate change education - Findings and adaptations under the BECK project for higher education institutions in Europe and Asia

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction has identified the climate change education as a key motivation for improving energy efficiency, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction by encouraging changes in the attitudes and behaviour and helping adapt to climate change-related trends. Delivering climate change education via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in higher education is considered as an effective method for wider community engagement, scientific networking, and knowledge sharing. The BECK project funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme is aimed to address this approach by introducing new harmonized MOOC modules to the higher education curricular of 4 European, 5 Russian and 5 Asian higher education institutions (HEI). Based on the cross-institutional capacity needs assessment survey, the project adapted a common framework for the MOOC development and implementation across the partner institutions. The aim of this research is to develop a framework to ensure the curricular development is followed by pedagogical principles while adhering to the quality benchmarks in its implementation. This framework establishes common grounds for BECK MOOC while assisting the partner institutions with necessary capacity building for teaching and learning measures. The BECK project continues to disseminate the MOOC modules via the BECK virtual interuniversity and support the effective implementation of the developed framework.

A Meta-Analysis on the Community of Inquiry Presences and Learning Outcomes in Online and Blended Learning Environments

The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework describes three essential presences (i.e., teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence) and how these presences interact in providing an educational experience in online and blended learning environments. This meta-analysis examined 19 empirical studies on the CoI Presences (Teaching Presence, Social Presence, and Cognitive Presence) and their correlations with learning outcomes, including actual learning, perceived learning, and satisfaction. It was found that teaching presence and actual learning were moderately positively correlated, (r = .353). There was a weak correlation between cognitive presence and actual learning, (r = .250) and social presence and actual learning, (r = .199). For the correlation between the presences and perceived learning, cognitive presence and perceived learning was found to be strongly correlated, (r = .663), followed by the moderate correlation between social presence and perceived learning (r = .432), and teaching presence and perceived learning, (r = .392). With respect to satisfaction, the correlation between cognitive presence and satisfaction, (r = .586) and between teaching presence and satisfaction was strong, (r = .510), but the correlation between social presence and satisfaction was moderate, (r = .447). The findings have implications for designers and instructors who design and teach online and blended courses to include these presences.

Empirical analysis of factors influencing student satisfaction with online learning systems during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand

Starting in early 2020, Thailand's education system came to a grinding halt due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, which created a fervor-like effort to move from traditional classrooms to online education. However, the process has experienced significant troubles. Therefore, starting in June 2021, multiple-stage random sampling and simple random sampling were used to select a sample of 270 Thai high school students across nine Thai provinces. Using a network of Thai teachers, students were assisted with their questionnaire input using Google Form. LISREL 9.1 software was used to conduct the subsequent goodness-of-fit (GOF) assessment and the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A structural equation model (SEM) was used for the 53-item questionnaire, which contained eight latent variables, 18 observed variables, and ten hypotheses. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the SEM's output and ten hypotheses. After that, it was calculated that the model's causal variables had a positive effect on SS, which had an R2 of 54%. The analysis also revealed that when ranked by total effect (TE) values, performance expectancy (PE = 0.43) was most significant, followed by actual use (AU = 0.30), learner interaction (LI = 0.18), and behavioral intention (BI = 0.12). Overall, hypotheses testing established three moderately strong correlations, four weak correlations, and three unsupported hypotheses. The novelty of our study is the growing concern of stakeholders for how online learning affects student satisfaction due to the deadly global COVID-19 pandemic. This study's research contribution is that it is unique in that it was conducted during the pandemic lockdown while students were participating in Thai Ministry of Education (MOE) online courses. This paper contributes to the online education domain by providing research directions and implications for future researchers. In conclusion, the study confirmed that the model adequately explained causal relationships between variables and presented direct and indirect significant impacts on online SS, promoting learners' better academic performance and knowledge acquisition.

Factors Influencing Teachers' Online Teaching Competence in Higher Education

The purpose of this research was to determine Ghanaian teachers' competencies in delivering online lessons. Transitioning face-to-face instructions to an online environment presents difficulties for instructors, particularly teachers and students doing so for the first time. The researchers explore how teachers in disrupted schools use information and communications technology (ICT) in their classrooms that differ in several ways from the regular classroom. The researchers investigated the factors influencing teachers' online instruction competence. A questionnaire was used to collect data from teachers in three teacher training colleges in Ghana in the 2021 academic year. Results showed that teachers had adequate knowledge of ICT. Also, ICT knowledge was strongly correlated to ICT usage. Regression analysis revealed that teachers could become competent and effectively teach online courses by having adequate knowledge, regularly using ICT, and receiving technical support from the institution. These findings suggest that teachers need sufficient knowledge and support to use computers to become competent in integrating ICT into their online course delivery.

The Reform of Engineering Professional Online Education Courses by Artificial Intelligence and Wireless Network Technology in the Context of Engineering Certification

The problems existing in the online education courses of engineering majors in colleges and universities are studied, and the online education platform under the background of engineering certification is designed and researched. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology and wireless network technology are used in the in-depth study of online education courses. In terms of AI, the storage of data is specifically divided into three levels, namely, the source layer (operational data layer), the historical storage layer, and the data model layer. Data analysis includes the total number of data, spatial scope, and period, etc. The results show that the overall response time of the designed platform to the operation of university teachers and students is controlled within 3 s. The test results of two online education platforms show that the performance of the designed online education platform is relatively stable. It provides hardware support for online curriculum reform. In addition, in terms of the platform test pass rate, after many tests, the online education platform security test pass rate is above 98%. In the end, these conclusions are drawn: AI technology and wireless network technology can effectively improve the performance of online education platforms. Meanwhile, this can also further improve the learning efficiency of online education courses for college engineering students.

Ready or Not: Gulf Country Teachers’ Challenges toward Teaching Online Courses in Emergency Cases in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to determine the challenges faced by teachers from the Arabian Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait while teaching virtual online courses. Because online learning in higher education in these countries had not occurred before the current pandemic, the teachers and students faced new challenges for the first time, including online communication, inadequate training, insufficient practice, and incompetence in online assessment. Seventy-six teachers of higher education in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia participated in this study, which was a survey created by the first author to determine the effectiveness of communication, training, practicing and assessing students’ performance during the pandemic. Results indicated that no differences were found between the two countries; while participants felt that training was adequate for the task of converting to remote teaching, they were concerned about nonverbal aspects of communication and assessing online work. Suggestions included obtaining participants from other Gulf countries, refining the survey, and involving different types of institutions such as private colleges. The results of this study imply that for many teachers, improvements in communication and assessment are necessary to improve online teaching, which is likely to continue in these countries after the pandemic is over.

The Construction of Online Course Learning Model of Piano Education from the Perspective of Deep Learning.

This exploration aims at solving multiple teaching problems in piano online education course. On the premise of collaborative filtering, the K-means clustering algorithm is employed to apply the time data to the neural collaborative filtering algorithm, and the Improved Neu Matrix Factorization (Improved Neu MF) algorithm model is implemented. After the experiment, the relevant evaluation indexes are selected and the simulation test is operated on the relevant dataset. The test results show that root mean square error (RMSE) reaches 1.251 and mean absolute error (MAE) is 0.625. Indexes are adopted to evaluate the order of the model. The results suggest that the designed algorithm is better than the comparison algorithm, proving that the optimized model has better performance and can be used to construct an online course model. Based on deep learning, using the designed algorithm to build the online learning model of piano education can provide better, dynamic, and personalized online course recommendations for piano education. In this way, it can improve students' learning efficiency, promote the online learning development of piano education, and have vital practical significance for disseminating art and culture.