Traditional Online Research Articles

Innovation and entrepreneurship in dental curriculum: from practice to creativity in the face of pandemic

COVID-19 virus spread has resulted in the most dramatic changes for all of us. The purpose of this article is to develop a curriculum and share teaching experience in innovation and entrepreneurship for dental students during the pandemic, in order to help train future dentists. This article made extensive use of the adaptive design thinking model, which included brainstorming, classroom presentation, reflection, and revision. Sixth year dental students from the academic years 2020 and 2021 attended, with 26 and 29 students, respectively. Students of both classes were divided into five groups. Each group was tasked with creating an innovative research proposal related to clinical dental issues encountered during the pandemic. After a 6 h team-based discussion that included a 2-time presentation, all dental students were able to develop an innovation research proposal and present it in front of the class. This study reveals the process of developing dental curricula and sharing teaching experiences in innovation and entrepreneurship with dental students during a pandemic. Future research should compare traditional study, online teaching, and blended learning in innovation-related topics among dental students. The application of this novel method to multidisciplinary student teams as well as clinical subjects is also a challenge.

Increase digital health literacy with the practical implementation of an e-learning system according to WCAG compliance standards

Individuals with cognitive difficulties (CD) have very limited access to appropriate learning resources. Their unique individual needs and requirements prevent them from accessing traditional online formal and informal learning methods, and resources are usually inadequate. We develop an e-learning platform with health content as an opportunity for all to increase digital health literacy, including people with cognitive disabilities. The paper aims to present some feature's settings important for people with a wide range of cognitive disabilities.

The Impact of Live-Streaming Shopping Characteristics on Behavioral Intention of Shoppers

Currently, live-streaming shopping has become one of the popular approaches to conducting business. Businesses shift from traditional online shopping to live-streaming shopping approach because of the benefits that live-streaming shopping could offer. This paper aims to study the impact of live-streaming shopping characteristics on behavioral intention among shoppers. Researchers used literature analysis and a Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework as the methods of the study. The findings showed that all characteristics had a positive impact on the behavioral intention of shoppers. The limitation of the study was the researcher focused only on the Stimulus and Response of the framework; the Organism factor of the framework was omitted.

Short- and Long-Term Retentivity of Knowledge by Various Teaching Methods in Medical Education and Perception of Students Towards Them: A Comparative Study in a Medical University Hospital of Northern India.

To develop doctors with appropriate knowledge of health and diseases, reasonable medical abilities, and a positive attitude toward patients and their families, it is important to reexamine the methods used to educate and train medical school students. To establish which is best for both medical students and professors, the various teaching and learning methodologies must be compared and analyzed. This study attempts to determine the preferred medical education techniques among medical students as well as the caliber of the classes they attend. This is a before-and-after study conducted among 480 first- (240) and second-year (240) undergraduate students. Students were divided into three groups. Each group was assigned a teacher who was responsible for teaching four short topics according to the common understanding and knowledge level of both year students in four different ways: traditional blackboard method, offline PowerPoint presentation, online PowerPoint presentation, and online annotative. Application-based learning and self-learning were the other two teaching methods conducted in a monitored environment. An MCQ-based pre- and post-test were taken to assess the improvement, and a feedback form was filled out by each student to assess their perception. To assess long-term retention, a surprise follow-up test was conducted after 15 days. For all the teaching methods except for traditional blackboard and online presentation, there was a significant improvement in the post-test scores as compared to the pre-test scores (p<0.05). Retentivity was more remarkable in online application-based and self-learning methods. 77.2% of the study participants preferred offline presentation as the mode of teaching. Retention was found to be highest in self-directed and application-based learning. So, students should be encouraged and motivated for self-study after every lecture, whatever the teaching method used by teachers.

Empowering Diverse Learners through Design-Based Data Literacy Education: the Data Design Cycle Framework

Data literacy is a vital life-skill that is becoming increasingly necessary in today's society. As such, public data literacy education must become a substantive component in teaching, requiring an appropriate pedagogical model. This paper aims to present a new definition for data literacy, as well as conceptual framework for public data literacy education, drawing from tenets of design-based education and synthesized principles of data literacy education from literature. The resulting framework is termed the Data Design Cycle, and emphasizes collaboration, communication, and the development of problem-solving skills. The model is highly adaptable to different educational environments and learning styles, making it easily integrable into a variety of educational settings, including traditional classroom-based learning, online learning, and experiential learning programs. Furthermore, by promoting the principles of public teaching of data literacy and a learner-centred approach, the Data Design Cycle ensures that data literacy education is accessible to heterogeneous learners from diverse educational and socioeconomical settings.

A Study on Social Engagement of RPGs

As the game industry has developed, fresh and fashionable games continue to emerge. With the emergence of VR technology, VR games have changed entertainment for many people but also exposed many drawbacks of online games. One of the drawbacks is the lack of social connections with other players. This study mainly focuses on role-playing games (RPGs). The literature review and the survey summarize reasons for the lack of social attributes on online RPGs. The goal is to propose solutions based on the survey findings. The comparison between traditional online RPGs and VR RPGs indicates that VR RPGs have more room for improvement in terms of social connection. Four suggestions are listed and a simple analysis of their feasibilities are also discussed in the article. Moreover, this study finds two unique characteristics of VR games that may successfully encourage people to embrace new technology, even in a world full of uncertainty.

Skills4 Health Literacy– Nordic project promoting capacity building on health literacy and dementia

Abstract Background An increasing proportion of the population is living with dementia and need health- and social care. People with limited health literacy have difficulties with accessing, understanding, appraising, and applying health information to promote and maintain health. Knowledge about how to promote health literacy is limited among health- and social care providers although such knowledge is important to be able to work person-centered and to reduce the risk of unequitable health and health care. As a response to this, the Erasmus+ project Skills 4 Health Literacy is conducted in the period 2022-2025. The project's overall aim is to meet the needs of higher education institutions in training future and current health and social care professionals, through digital education technologies, to promote health literacy capacity-building when supporting persons at risk of dementia to deliver relevant and personalized interventions. Methods A review of research, policies, and curriculums, and four focus group discussions and 14 individual interviews with experts from with a wide range of social and health care sites in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Results We developed a competence profile for health- and social care workers highlighting which knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to promote and take health literacy into account when working with people at risk of dementia and relatives to those. Thereafter, we developed, and pilot tested health literacy courses (1 classroom-based, 1 traditional online and 1 MOOC) based on this competence profile, in three of the Nordic countries. Conclusions There is a need for health literacy training among health- and social care workers in the Nordic countries. This project suggests a consensus-build competency profile to further develop the capacity building within health and social care and dementia with regards to health literacy training. Key messages • Health- and social care workers in the Nordics who meet elderly need training in health literacy. • A competence profile and health literacy courses have been developed to meet those needs.

Evaluation of Blended Teaching in STEAM Education Using Structural Equation Model Questionnaire Technology

Science-technology-engineering-arts-mathematics (STEAM) education is an interdisciplinary education model that breaks the barriers between disciplines and comprehensively cultivates the problem-solving ability of students. Online education has been increasingly recognized by learners by virtue of its unlimited time and space, repeatability, and rich teaching resources. Based on the concept of STEAM education, the blended teaching model integrates the advantages of traditional teaching and online education, sustainably innovating classroom teaching and exerting a far-reaching effect on the current education and teaching reform. In this study, the related questionnaires regarding the evaluation of blended teaching effect under the perspective of the STEAM concept were combed, and questionnaire measurement questions with regard to the evaluation of blended teaching effect were then designed. The effects of online-offline teaching environment, online teaching resource, and offline teaching process in blended teaching on the learning satisfaction of college students were measured via the Structural Equation Model (SEM) questionnaire technology. Results show that the overall Cronbach’s α coefficient of this questionnaire is 0.796, and the KMO value is 0.828, which is greater than 0.8, indicating the excellent reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Under the blended teaching model, the online-offline teaching environment and offline teaching process generate significantly positive effects on learning satisfaction. Online teaching resources exhibit a positive, yet insignificant, promoting effect on learning satisfaction. The study results are of important reference values for understanding and analyzing the online-offline interactions in blended teaching and identifying the main problems therein. Ultimately, the goal is to clarify the direction for improving blended teaching and designing blended teaching strategies that promote students’ learning engagement, leading to practical interventions.

An automated analysis of topic distributions and features approach to promoting group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation in online collaborative learning

Online collaborative learning has been widely used in the field of education. However, unrelated or off-topic information is often included in online collaborative learning. Furthermore, the content of online discussion is often too shallow or narrow. To achieve productive collaborative learning, this study proposed and validated an automated analysis of topic distributions and features (AATDF) approach. In total, 189 college students in China participated in this study and were assigned to one of two experimental groups or a control group. Experimental Group 1 participated in online collaborative learning with the AATDF approach. Experimental Group 2 participated in online collaborative learning with the automated analysis of topic distributions (AATD) approach. The control group participated in traditional online collaborative learning without any specified approach. The results indicate that the AATDF approach can significantly promote group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation compared with the AATD and traditional online collaborative learning approaches. The results and implications are also discussed in depth. The main contribution of this study is that the AATDF approach can improve learning performance and bring online collaborative learning onto new ground. Implications for practice: The AATDF approach is very useful and effective for promoting group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation. Teachers and practitioners can provide personalised interventions and optimise collaborative learning design based on the analysis results of topic distributions and features. Developers can adopt deep neural network models to develop intelligent online

Foreign Language Anxiety in Online and In-person Learning Environments: A Case from Chile

Foreign language anxiety (FLA) is a distinct form of anxiety that plays a significant role in the process of acquiring a foreign language. This study aimed to assess the anxiety levels of Chilean undergraduate learners and investigate the potential correlations between foreign language anxiety and oral performance in two distinct learning settings: traditional in-person instruction and online learning. Employing a mixed methods research design, the study incorporated an adapted version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) survey, an oral task, and semi-structured interviews. By triangulating the quantitative and qualitative findings, it was found that there were moderate discrepancies in anxiety levels, with in-person students exhibiting higher levels of anxiety. Furthermore, negative correlations were observed between oral performance and foreign language anxiety, primarily in the context of foreign language learning situations and processes. The outcomes of this study augment the existing body of research on foreign language anxiety in diverse learning environments and hold potential to enrich future pedagogical practices.

A Study on Awareness, Adaptation and Perception of Blended Mode of Teaching-Learning with Special Reference to College Teachers of Golaghat District, Assam

Blended learning has got prominence after Covid-19 pandemic. New Education Policy 2020 is also emphasizing on the similar teaching-learning process for greater students’ participation and improvement in learning outcomes. Blended learning is the combination of traditional classroom teaching and online computer mediated classroom activities. With the emergence of digital technology and constant change in learning environment, this method of learning becomes very relevant. In this paper, a study among the college teachers of Golaghat districts was made to analyze the awareness, adaptation and perception of Blended Teaching-Learning Process among the college teachers. The sampling method used was convenience sampling. Primary data was collected through an online questionnaire. A structured questionnaire, designed using Google Forms was used for the collection for the survey. The sample size was 56 respondents from different college of Golaghat district. SPSS 20 was used to perform the data analysis. The study indicates that most of the teachers in the study area are aware of Blended teaching-learning process, female teachers are more aware and more adapted in teaching-learning process than the male teachers. Perceptions of teachers about the colleges have adequate infrastructural facilities for adapting Blended teaching-learning process are neutral and disagree. Most of the teachers strongly agree that as a result of Blended teaching-learning method students engagement in the classrooms is increased and students get positive impact on their progression.

GestureTeach: A gesture guided online teaching interactive model

AbstractOnline education has become more popular and effective due to the availability of high‐speed internet and technological innovations, which allow people from different locations to access educational resources and opportunities. However, online classes often face challenges such as limited interactivity and display options, which can affect the quality and effectiveness of the online learning experience. In this article, we propose GestureTeach, a new pedagogical paradigm that enables free handwriting interaction and animation generation for online teaching. GestureTeach uses gestures as a natural and intuitive way of interaction, which enhances the teacher's intention expression and the student's engagement. GestureTeach also generates animations from handwritten sketches, which improves the display effects of the interaction and the student's knowledge comprehension. We conducted a two‐stage study with 15 teachers and 90 students to evaluate the effectiveness of GestureTeach in facilitating classroom interaction. The results show that GestureTeach is preferred by both teachers and students over traditional online teaching methods and has the potential to transform the online teaching landscape by providing a seamless and interactive experience.

Will ChatGPT pass the online quizzes? Adapting an assessment strategy in the age of generative AI

As generative AI (artificial intelligence) technologies, such as ChatGPT, become increasingly available, traditional online assessments must be re-evaluated to maintain their educational value. Open-book online quizzes have long been an effective tool for engaging students, effectively supporting learning, and reinforcing fundamental knowledge and skills. However, the ease of using AI to complete these quizzes may undermine their intended purpose. This article explores the initial findings of using ChatGPT to answer twelve online quizzes used for continuous assessment in two first-year quantitative techniques modules on business programmes in an Irish technological university. ChatGPT, along with suitable plugins, is increasingly accurate in answering the online quizzes, with ChatGPT-3.5 scoring an average of 35%, ChatGPT-4 47% and ChatGPT-4 with Wolfram plugin 78%. Most of the incorrect responses are due to calculation errors; if these are corrected by simply checking the arithmetic with a calculator, the averages increase to ChatGPT-3.5 scoring 72%, ChatGPT-4 76% and ChatGPT-4 with Wolfram plugin 80%. Thus, the online quizzes on these modules can be quickly completed with the assistance of ChatGPT with a high level of success. The implications of this for using online quizzes as an assessment strategy are discussed; potential assessment redesigns are outlined, including how to integrate generative AI into the learning and assessment process in an ethical and constructive manner. Although generative AI provides a challenge to traditional online quizzes, it also has the potential to aid student comprehension and learning, and the skills of prompt engineering are likely to become increasingly relevant and useful.

Research on Innovation in Nescafe's Marketing Strategy

Coffee has become one of the world's most famous beverages, and more engineers are edging towards designing more coffee products. The high demand has attracted more people to build their own coffee brands, which makes the competition in the coffee industry more intense. Despite such fierce competition, Nescafe is earning high revenues. This paper will discuss the innovation in the marketing strategy of Nescafe. Firstly, through the website search, we have analyzed the characteristics of most coffee types, and the comparison can highlight the advantages of the coffee types introduced by Nescafe. Secondly, based on the information collected from some articles, more about the marketing model of different coffee shops is unearthed. However, when compared to traditional online and offline marketing of coffee shops, Nescafe's innovative marketing strategy is superior. In conclusion, the high revenue gained by Nescafe is attributed to mainly two reasons, product design innovation, and marketing strategy innovation. Also these two innovation can be conclude as disruptive innovation.

Construction of an innovative model of English online teaching based on a multimedia English learning system model

Abstract This paper explores a multimedia learning system suitable for students’ independent English learning through the current development of assisted English learning systems, university-level English teaching requirements, and learner characteristics. Based on the model of the proposed multimedia English learning system, in the endpoint detection stage of speech, short-time excess rate and short-time energy are combined to process the endpoint detection of speech. In the final speech comparison stage, the dynamic time planning algorithm DTW is analyzed and improved before the similarity recognition of speech. We also complete the requirement analysis of the English-speaking learning system by combining the relevant theories and applying the speech signal processing technology and template matching technology to realize a multimedia-assisted learning system suitable for college students to conduct independent English learning. Through the English-speaking test of two classes, the control class using traditional online teaching had many failures reaching 25%, while the experimental class using the English-assisted learning platform passed all of them. 80 points or more were achieved by only 5% of the control class, while 20% of the experimental class. The average score of the control class was 63.4, while the experimental class was 72.1, and the experimental class was 8.7 points higher than the control class. Therefore, teaching English-assisted learning platforms can improve students’ English-speaking abilities.

The assessment model of online vocal music teaching quality under the optimized DL model

In recent years, art disciplines have flourished in response to the requirements of the times, and online vocal music courses have been offered by major colleges and universities. The quality of education in colleges and universities is a key indicator of the quality of a school's talents, and improving its quality is the most important part of modernizing education. In this study, a new education index system is constructed to address the problems of traditional online vocal teaching quality evaluation methods, and a vocal teaching quality evaluation model based on an adaptive variant Genetic Algorithm improved Back Propagation neural network is proposed. The model is combined with the established new index system and used in the evaluation of vocal music teaching quality. Comparing the performance between the model and the model constructed by the traditional algorithm, the experimental results showed that the convergence speed of the optimized model was improved by 79.32%. The model adaptation reached convergence in the 19th time, and the adaptation value was stabilized at 1.34, which can be seen that the improved model has a stronger adaptive ability and a faster convergence speed. In summary, the results predicted by the model basically coincide with the trend of the actual evaluation results, and the existence of the error is small, indicating that the model can achieve a more comprehensive and scientific evaluation of education quality.

Distributed One-Pass Online AUC Maximization

AUC (Area Under ROC curve) is a widely used metric for measuring classification performance. Recently, due to the efficiency and scalability of online learning in handling large-scale problems, it attracts lots of interests to maximize AUC in online setting. Traditional online learning algorithms require a computation node to process all the data sequentially. However, due to the explosion in volume and velocity of modern data generated from distributed sources such as sensor network and Internet, it is not efficient to send all the data to one node for processing and updating model sequentially. To address this challenge, we explore the distributed learning techniques for maximizing AUC in online setting with a linear model. Specifically, we propose two different algorithms for solving the distributed online AUC maximization problem: (i) the Centralized Distributed One-Pass Online AUC Maximization (C-DOPOAM) algorithm in which the server updates the global model with the gradients computed from workers; and (ii) the Decentralized Distributed One-Pass Online AUC Maximization (D-DOPOAM) algorithm in which each worker updates its local model and exchanges information with its neighbors to achieve consensus. Moreover, we establish the regret bounds of the two proposed algorithms. They achieve the similar convergence rate with the state-of-the-art non-distributed online AUC maximization algorithms. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments to validate our theoretical result on different computation platforms and network configurations. We also make a comparison between C-DOPOAM and D-DOPOAM in poor network condition. The results show D-DOPOAM is more robust than C-DOPOAM against low bandwidth or high latency.

Effect of Digital Game-Based Learning on Student Engagement and Motivation

Currently, academia is grappling with a significant problem—a lack of engagement. Humankind has gone too far into exploring entertainment options, while the education system has not really kept up. Millennials love playing games, and this addiction can be used to engage and motivate them in the learning process. This study examines the effect of digital game-based learning on student engagement and motivation levels and the gender differences in online learning settings. This study was conducted in two distinct phases. A game-based and traditional online quizzing tools were used to compare levels of engagement and motivation, as well as to assess the additional parameter of gender difference. During the first phase of the study, 276 male and female undergraduate students were recruited from Sophomore Seminar classes, and 101 participated in the survey, of which 83 were male and 18 were female. In the second phase, 126 participants were recruited, of which 107 (63 females and 44 males) participated in the anonymous feedback surveys. The results revealed that digital game-based learning has a more positive impact on student engagement and motivation compared to traditional online activities. The incorporation of a leaderboard as a gaming element in the study was found to positively impact the academic performance of certain students, but it could also demotivate some students. Furthermore, female students generally showed a slightly higher level of enjoyment toward the games compared to male students, but they did not prefer a comparison with other students as much as male students did. The favorable response from students toward digital game-based activities indicates that enhancing instruction with such activities will not only make learning an enjoyable experience for learners but also enhance their engagement.

Research on the Innovation Path of Network Ideological and Political Education in Colleges and Universities in the New Media Era

With the development of network information technology, new media technology has improved the disadvantages of the interaction and timeliness of traditional online ideological and political education, and improved the efficiency of college students' online ideological and political education. However, at the same time, under the impact of new media, online ideological and political education for college students presents new problems such as the urgent need for reform of the traditional ideological and political work model, the weakening of the discourse power of colleges and universities, and the imperfect public opinion supervision mechanism and response mechanism. In the face of the complex and changeable network environment, colleges and universities should dialectically use new media platforms, through adhering to the principles of party spirit, paying attention to positive publicity and value guidance for students, strengthening the construction of new media network ideological and political education platforms, optimizing ideological and political education teams, establishing and improving the network public opinion response mechanism of colleges and universities, etc., to promote the sharing of ideological and political education resources, improve the quality of ideological and political educators, create a healthy and harmonious campus network environment, and improve the quality and level of college students' online ideological and political education, so as to effectively guide college students to correctly understand society. Actively participate in social practice activities to promote the all-round development of college students.

Augmented reality in the metaverse market: the role of multimodal sensory interaction

PurposeIn the growing information systems (IS) literature on metaverse, augmented reality (AR) technology is regarded as a cornerstone of the metaverse which enables interaction services. Interaction has been identified as a core technology characteristic of metaverse shopping environments. Based on previous human–technology interaction research, the authors further explicate interaction to be multimodal sensory. The purpose of this study is thus to better understand the unique nature of interaction in AR technology and highlight the technology's benefits for shopping in metaverse spaces.Design/methodology/approachAn experiment has been conducted to empirically examine the authors' research model. The authors use the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to analyze the collected data.FindingsThis study conceptualizes image, motion and touchscreen interactions as the three dimensions of multimodal sensory interaction, which can reflect visual-, kinesthetic- and haptic-based sensation stimulation. The authors' findings show that multimodal sensory interaction of AR activates consumers' intention to purchase via a psychological process. To delineate this psychological process, the authors use feelings-as-information theory to posit that experiential factors can influence cognitive factors. More specifically, multimodal sensory interaction is shown to increase multisensory experience and spatial presence, which can effectively reduce product uncertainty and information overload. The two outcomes have been considered to be key issues in online shopping environments.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first ones that shed light on the multimodal sensory peculiarity of AR interactions in the extant IS literature. The authors further highlight the benefits of AR in addressing major online shopping concerns about product uncertainty and information overload, which are largely overlooked by prior research. This study uses feelings-as-information theory to explain the impacts of AR interactions, which reveal the essential role of the experiential process in sensory-enabling technologies. This study enriches the existing theoretical frameworks that mostly focus on the cognitive process. The authors' findings about AR interactions provide noteworthy guidelines for the design of metaverse environments and extend the authors' understanding of how the metaverse may bring benefits beyond traditional online shopping settings.