Virtual Campus Research Articles

Early Prediction of Dropout and Final Exam Performance in an Online Statistics Course

Higher education students who either do not complete the courses they have enrolled on or interrupt their studies indefinitely remain a major concern for practitioners and researchers. Within each course, early prediction of student dropout helps teachers to intervene in time to reduce dropout rates. Early prediction of course achievement helps teachers suggest new learning materials aimed at preventing at-risk students from failing or not completing the course. Several machine learning techniques have been used to classify or predict at-risk students, including tree-based methods, which, though not the best performers, are easy to interpret. This study presents two procedures for identifying at-risk students (dropout-prone and non-achievers) early on in an online university statistics course. These enable us to understand how classifiers work. We found that student dropout and course performance prediction was only determined by their performance in the first half of the formative quizzes. Nevertheless, other elements of participation on the virtual campus were initially considered. The classifiers will serve as a reference for intervention, despite their moderate performance metrics.

Data-driven decision-making for equipment maintenance

Industrial parks, science parks, university campuses, tourist complexes are springing up greatly in developing countries. Decision-making on equipment maintenance of these areas where facilities intensively locate differs from that of industrial systems or plants in two features: 1) it needs regular repetition and update because equipment replacements, facility renovations and equipment condition changes often happen during the operation phase, 2) the accumulated maintenance data in these areas are large enough to be used for decision-making. However, existing approaches to decision-making on equipment maintenance have not considered such features. To fill this gap, this research aims to propose a data-driven approach for decision-making on equipment maintenance by integrating three technologies: Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS). By implementing quantitative decision-making models and Monte-Carlo simulation, a data-driven RCM process is proposed. BIM and GIS are integrated to support the acquisition and update of data required for the proposed RCM process. Based on requirement analysis and architecture design, a prototype system is developed and verified by using a virtual campus. The results show that the proposed approach reduces labor cost and diminishes difficulties of decision-making on equipment maintenance. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in that it provides an objective approach for the decision-making on equipment maintenance. For future improvements, the approach is compatible with the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to support more efficient data acquisition as a basis for decision-making on maintenance.

Development of Serious Games (Equit'Game) to Address Health and Environmental Inequalities: Protocol for an App-Delivered Program to Perform a Territorial Diagnosis.

BackgroundTerritorial diagnosis is a prerequisite for local actions concerning public health and for the reduction of social, environmental, and health-related inequalities. To orient local programs or initiatives targeting health inequalities, policymakers need a simulation of territorial diagnosis tools. Yet, very few platforms have been developed for the purpose of guiding public authorities as they seek to reduce these social inequalities.ObjectiveThis study aimed to describe the design and methods of the development process of a territorial diagnosis tool based on a serious game named Equit’Game that puts learners at the heart of the territorial diagnosis process, asking them to review the current state of health, environmental state, and socioeconomic state of their territory.MethodsThe realistic situations employed in our serious game should encourage players, in a fun and playful manner, to (1) appropriate the data of their own territory, (2) apply their methodological knowledge in a practical way, (3) reflect on the most pertinent statistical or spatial tools for their situation, and (4) ultimately, to acquire new knowledge and skills in the use of territorial diagnosis tools with a spatial dynamic. Equit’Game was deployed over the course of a week’s training and structured into 4 levels: level 1, Dataminer (identifying relevant information to respond to the question); level 2, Analyst (selecting the appropriate method of analysis); level 3, Atlas (mapping the data); and level 4, Cluster (extraction of statistical and spatial information). Equit’Game has also been designed as a sort of virtual campus, creating a fun learning environment in which each door represents a level. Users can access Equit’Game via a platform compatible with tablets, PCs, and mobile phones.ResultsIn the first step, we tested our application interface designed especially for adults among a panel of local health professionals. The following are some of the most relevant points: font size and colors used, voice accompaniment in texts and messages guiding the user, clear and easy interfaces, and the change between successive game levels. In the second step, we used our application, Equit’Game, with postgraduate students from the School of Public Health (École des hautes études en santé publique). At the end of the game session, we conducted a satisfaction survey, including several items covering both the application interface and the execution of the game.ConclusionsEquit’Game was developed to help learners with the techniques of territorial diagnosis, with the aim of creating an innovative tool for public health capable of conveying educational messages and providing a structure for training.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/11786

Stepping Out of the Classroom

While three-dimensional virtual learning environments have attracted plenty of research interest, mirror-world-like virtual campuses have been used mainly for virtual tours, promotions, or for simulation purposes. In this article, the authors investigate the use of geographically accurate mirror-world-like virtual campus models as an interactive learning environment. The initial prototype of the virtual campus covers about 2,300 m2 of a university campus and contains basic pedagogical, communicational, and content creation functionalities. A qualitative study with 14 participants explored their anticipated user experiences as well as their needs for the services and functionalities of the virtual campus. The findings suggest that a more profound link of reality and virtuality than just mirroring physical spaces in the virtual realm is needed. A hybrid reality approach is required to foster social community building and collaboration, 3D space design, and service integration. Finally, stepping out of the classroom introduces privacy issues that should be considered carefully.

Design and Research of Virtual Payment System in Colleges and Universities

With the development of mobile payment and intelligent technologies, virtual payment system has been introduced to campus to improve the campus payment environment and the degree of intelligence on campus, so that online and offline campus payment can be combined, and payment by scanning QR code and card can be simultaneously achieved to greatly facilitate the learning and life of teachers and students, meet their diverse payment needs and enhance the service level and payment efficiency. Based on summarizing the problems faced by traditional campus card system in application, functions, and services, this paper analyzes the goals of building a virtual payment system, and builds a virtual payment system integrating applications, such as virtual campus card, electronic payment, and aggregation payment.

Factors Affecting Student Satisfaction in Distance Learning: A Case Study

Generally, In Pakistan, people perceived that the quality of distance learning education is poor. Therefore, we decided to study to see if it's only people's opinion or legend. The study aims to analyze the association between instructor performance (IP), student-instructor interaction (SII), course evaluation (CE), and student satisfaction (SS) variables in distance education by taking Virtual COMSATS as a Case study. The target population of this research was the COMSATS (VIRTUAL CAMPUS). Students out of which 251 graduate and undergraduate students were selected as sample for current research. The purpose of this research study was to understand the key factors affecting student satisfaction in distance learning. Researchers also collect information through primary data using a survey questionnaire distributed through email to all the students of VCOMSAT. The literature review found that in distance learning education, student satisfaction is based on instructor performance, student-instructor interaction, course evaluation, Learning management system use, instructor attitude, etc. From the literature review, we found that course evaluation and instructor performance is very important for student satisfaction in distance learning. Researchers need to compare student's satisfaction with the subject wise. A comparison of practical subjects and without practical subjects needs to identify with student satisfaction. There is also required to compare lecturer motivation with student satisfaction and performance. Future research is also needed to compare the satisfaction of rural areas and urban areas students in distance learning education and the need to compare them with traditional education.

Exploring the effects of designing a role-playing game with single and peer mode for campus learning

This study aims to extend the learning advantages of game-based learning from formal education to informal learning, and to develop a role-playing game (RPG) to help students familiarize themselves with a new school. Several game elements and principles were considered during the design stage, and the tasks were embedded into a macro-context to simulate a virtual campus. A total of 110 junior high school students participated in the experiment, playing the game via two modes, single and peer mode. Overall, the findings showed that most students gave positive feedback on the game design regarding the dimensions of playability, usability, challenge, and gamefulness. Besides, the learners who used the single mode performed better on the post-tests than those who used peer mode. Despite learners in peer mode engaging in discussion and interaction during gameplay, without appropriate collaborative guidance, they may not have been able to achieve the expected learning goals. The study concludes that participation in the game activity captivated the students’ learning attention and helped them learn in a more enjoyable way. Furthermore, the use of RPG in informal learning provided the students with opportunities to be exposed to an authentic campus, making it a good way to trigger effective learning through applying learned knowledge to solve the problems in the game. Future research work is also discussed.

Design of Virtual Campus Card System Based on Micro-Service Architecture

Based on the analysis of the application status of campus card and aiming at the design of virtual campus card system under the architecture of micro-service, taking the newly-built campus card system of New Cape as an example, this paper analyses the overall requirements, system architecture, data center, system network and system performance, etc. By vertical splitting of the monolithic application, the platform's concurrent capability is greatly improved, the complexity of the monolithic application is solved, and the business response is more agile and fast. The application of the micro-service architecture will greatly improve the service capability and security level of the virtual campus card system, which can provide important reference function for the research and construction of the new generation campus card system.

Design of Virtual Campus Card System Based on Micro-Service Architecture

Design of Virtual Campus Card System Based on Micro-Service Architecture

Using 3D Virtual Environment as an Educational Tool in a Middle Eastern University

A virtual environment can be anything the users desire it to be; it is their personal, virtual life. Many people cannot physically attend college to undertake their degrees. Even though many educational institutions are providing online courses and degrees, these are still not as interactive as in real life. By using a 3-D virtual environment for educational purposes, users can interact via their own graphical and humanoid self-representations, known as ‘avatars’. The virtual world Second Life is used in this research as instructors can use SL to communicate with students and to create objects that can be used to teach course content and skills. The idea of using a virtual environment for educational purposes will involve building a virtual land for the Faculty of IT at one of the universities in Jordan (Petra University). This will enable anyone to virtually access and communicate with the faculty from anywhere in the world. This virtual campus will help solve students’ problems, providing details about the content and services the faculty provides, support the social awareness of students and increase communication and discussions on a wide scale.

Exploring Student Activity with Learning Analytics in the Digital Environments of the Nebrija University

The main objective of educational institutions is to achieve the integral development of their students in their learning and knowledge construction process. One way to achieve these objectives is the accompaniment and continuous monitoring of students in this process, adapting the methods to their training needs. In online and mixed teaching modalities (eLearning methodology), this monitoring is carried out through the digital platforms in which it is carried out in the academic activity, such as the learning management system platforms. These virtual teaching and learning environments (EVA) allow access to learners’ fingerprints, generating a large volume of data, that analysis allows a deep way of their behavior in those policies. This article collects the results of the exploration of student activity in the virtual campus (Blackboard Learn), which is in the first phase of Learning Analytics project carried out by the Nebrija University and discusses its implications for educational institutions. The data extracted correspond to the 2016–2017 course and have been analyzed around four blocks of information: user behavior, user activity, activity in the content areas and activity in the forums.

System Architecture for Virtual Team Campus on Cloud to Support Internal Quality Assurance of Rajamangala University of Technology

This research has a purpose to study and design the system architecture for virtual team campus on Cloud to support the internal quality assurance of Rajamangala University of Technology. The research was divided into two steps as follows: 1) system architecture design and 2) system architecture assessment. The samples of this research consisted of 10 experts involved in internal quality assurance and information and communication technology chosen by using a specific selection method. The assessment form was used as a research instrument to assess the system architecture for virtual team campus on Cloud to support internal quality assurance work of Rajamangala University of Technology. The statistics used in this study were Arithmetic Mean and Standard Deviation. The results of the research showed that the Cloud system architecture processing model in the form of software services which demonstrated the systems and modules that worked together under the context of Rajamangala University in internal quality assurance work in this research consisted of 2 main systems, 11 sub-modules that each system and module was important for system development. The assessment of the system architecture from experts found that the system architecture designed by the researcher was at very good level which showed that the architecture that the researcher has designed can be used to develop the system of virtual team campus on Cloud to support the internal quality assurance of Rajamangala University of Technology.

Virtual Campus Assistant Application (CampusMitra)

Campus is the integral part of any college or university there are number of issues, doubts, queries student have regarding what’s going on in the college. There may be a thing or two which every student does not like or does not want in their campus but there is no centralize way to report it to authority issues like Bad Infrastructure, Sanitation, Sexual Harassment, Ragging, Parking space. There are many students who does not read notice boards and they miss most of the important notice sometimes. Also, students who are suffering from stress and depression have stuff they cannot share with their parents or friends there should be a facility for students where they can share and get advised properly. There is a need to develop a companion for students an Android app which will keep them updated with latest notices give them notifications, connect them with concerned authorities regarding issues report an issue get the status of their report. Also, we aim to design our application with features which is woman friendly a feature where female users will be able to send their live location to their dear ones. A Chabot which will be designed such a way it will be able to communicate with the stressed and depressed students.

Roadmap for a competency-based educational curriculum in epileptology: report of the Epilepsy Education Task Force of the International League Against Epilepsy.

Teaching competency in the diagnosis and clinical management of epilepsy is of utmost importance for the ILAE. To achieve this mission, the Task Force for Epilepsy Education (EpiEd) developed a competency-based curriculum for epileptology, covering the spectrum of skills and knowledge for best medical practice. The curriculum encompasses seven domains, 42 competencies, and 124 learning objectives, divided into three levels: entry (Level 1), proficiency (Level 2), and advanced proficiency (Level 3). A survey of the currently existing ILAE-endorsed teaching activities identified a significant gap in education of basic knowledge of epileptology (Level 1). To bridge this gap, a web-based educational tool is being developed. A virtual campus will be constructed around the curriculum, integrating the various educational activities of the ILAE. This paper describes the development of the curriculum and future tasks necessary to achieve the educational goal of the ILAE.

UCF’S EXEMPLARY FACULTY SUPPORT: AN INSTITUTIONALIZED ECOSYSTEM

The University of Central Florida was honored to receive the 2003 Sloan-C Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning Award for Faculty Development. The environment at UCF has doubled in the last ten years with the number of students, faculty, and developing campus locations. Rapid growth in brick and mortar on campus has not deterred the creation of a robust virtual campus where students and faculty interact essentially, but in different ways. Producing the faculty support architecture to achieve UCF’s instructional potential as a metropolitan research university is a constant struggle for staff. This article describes the dynamic interplay of UCF’s emerging ecosystem of institutionalized faculty support.

Short Message Service (SMS) e promoção do autocuidado em DM2: revisão integrativa

Resumo Objetivo: Sintetizar e analisar as evidências disponíveis na literatura científica sobre os efeitos do uso de Short Message Service (SMS) na promoção do autocuidado em diabetes mellitus tipo 2. Métodos: Foi desenvolvida uma revisão integrativa da literatura, no período de 2007 a 2017, utilizando para a busca dos estudos as seguintes bases de dados: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Web of Science, Base de dados de enfermagem, Campus Virtual de Saúde Pública, Coleção Nacional das Fontes de Informação do Sistema Único de Saúde, Coordenadoria Regional de Saúde Sul, Índice Bibliográfico Español en Ciencias de la Salud (iBECS), Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde e PubMed. Para isso, utilizou-se descritores como: mensagem de texto, autocuidado, educação em saúde, promoção em saúde e diabetes mellitus, bem como os respectivos descritores em inglês e espanhol, e os Medical Subject Headings associados. Foi identificada uma amostra inicial de 739 artigos, dos quais 23 foram classificados como elegíveis para compor a amostra final. Resultados: Em geral, os trabalhos reportaram resultados positivos. Dentre estes, destacam-se: melhora significativa dos níveis de hemoglobina glicada, maior adesão aos medicamentos, melhora das práticas de autocuidado, aumento do conhecimento acerca do diabetes e melhor cuidado com os pés. Conclusão: Evidências científicas na literatura mostram que o uso de SMS como estratégia metodológica pode favorecer a melhora das práticas de autocuidado em diabetes tipo 2.

Co-Design of a 3D Virtual Campus for Synchronous Distance Teaching Based on Student Satisfaction: Experience at the University of Almería (Spain)

This study presents the main advances made in recent years by an innovative teaching group at the University of Almeria, who are attempting to incorporate alternative spaces for teaching–learning interaction. This group is developing a new line of study to obtain the main vectors for creating an accessible 3D virtual campus on the Second Life platform, recognized as a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). The goal of this work was to measure the satisfaction and perception of a group of university students. To do this, a co-design approach based on student opinions by relating methodological procedures with an adaptation of the Kano model usually used for product design has been followed. The results found by a panel of postgraduate students in the second stage of the educational project, suggest that the synchronous distance teaching proposal developed can effectively facilitate conciliation of family, work and personal life with online teaching–learning. In the case of undergraduate students with class attendance, the use of the 3D virtual campus is perceived as something more complementary.

Analysis of existing gender differences in the effect of using the Virtual Campus platform of the Politehnica University of Timisoara

Admitting the increasing interest for education delivered by the means of technology is relevant if we consider all the aspects, including features related to gender. Several studies point out that women and men differ in their way of interacting with technology, ICT being traditionally associated with men [1]. In the context of blended learning settings, there are several existing gender differences, which means a statistical analysis focused on differences between men and women users of the Virtual Campus platform is needed. The main objective of this study is to provide evidence of significant gender differences in the effect of using certain platform tools by both genders. A subsequent objective is to test if the efficiency of both manners of working with e-learning tools eventually converge around similar results (in case the results point to scarce differences). The research was conducted by looking at the final number of students following the Distance Learning program run by the eLearning Center at UPT, during the first semester of the academic year 2017-2018. Distance learning students enrolled at Politehnica University Timisoara are mostly digital natives, consumers of technology in order to support the teaching and learning processes. The aim of this paper is to analyze the gender differences in using the platform, based on the students’ online activity statistics from Moodle and all the resulting data.

Clustering Analysis for Automatic Certification of LMS Strategies in a University Virtual Campus

In recent years, the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) has grown considerably. This has had a strong effect on the learning process, particularly in higher education. Most universities incorporate LMS as a complement to face-to-face classes in order to improve the student learning process. However, not all teachers use LMS in the same way and universities lack the tools to measure and quantify their use effectively. This study proposes a method to automatically classify and certify teacher competence in LMS from the LMS data. Objective knowledge of actual LMS use will help the university and its faculty to make strategic decisions. The information produced will be used to support teachers and institutions in the classification and design of courses by showing the different LMS usage patterns of teachers and students. In this study, we processed the structure of 3,303 courses and two million interactive events to obtain a classification model based on LMS usage patterns in blended learning. Three clustering methods were compared to find which one was best suited to our problem. The resulting model is clearly related to different course archetypes that can be used to describe the actual use of LMS. We also performed analyses of prediction accuracy and of course typologies across course attributes (academic disciplines and level and academic performance indicators). The results of this study will be used as the basis for an automatic expert system that automatically certifies teacher competence in LMS as evidenced in each course.

Calidad de la comunicación y actitud de los empleados ante procesos de cambio organizacional

It has been confirmed that the organizations have faced various changes and challenges generated in the market, which have originated a new focus of study focused on people to execute the processes, emphasizing the creation of work methodologies that support the efforts of the employees to generate the changes, in such a way that the organizations can become global, flexible, productive, in addition to generate strategies oriented to the employee and the strategy to the client. In this sense, it is necessary to apply methods or techniques that allow optimizing the development of prod-uction processes, as well as the administration of organizations, by virtue of improving work activities and production processes. In this context, for the execution of organizational processes, a human talent is required that is committed and identified with the culture of the company, which is why the role played by the individual within any organization is highlighted. generate attitudes that promote communication, as a promoter of the functioning of the activities inherent to organizational change.The main of this research was to determine the relationship between the quality of the communication and the attitude of the employees towards processes of organizational chang. This objetive is proposed because some organizations treat all the changes as nonplanned change; that involves organizational change product of proactive and purposeful activities; inside in the business environment the human being define the attitudes as a process in which more is obtained than expected; adjusting the work, the objectives, purposes and goals established in the company. In this context, the organizational success or failure is caused by the employees do at the organization, the attitudes that they assume, the planned change that employees propose, also how they deal with the individuals and groups behavior. According to what has been said, make this research in relevant because it contributes to the scientific knowledge in the organizational change area. The study was carried out under an experimental design applying the resistance to change scale of Oreg (2006) in a sample collected online (n = 174) and composed of two random groups. To carry out this re- search, it was necessary to establish the sample criterion: we worked from an integrated sample with a total of 174 people, which were randomly selected, through social networks and the virtual campus of a distance university in Germany. The stratification of the sample was made up of women (53%) and men (47%), employees with ages mainly between 21 and 40 years of age (60%), between 40 and 60 years of age (36%) and others (4%). Regarding the level of education, we found that 70% of the participants had a bachelor's degree, 26% had a university degree and 4% others. The majority of the participants (68%) had a time of belonging to the company from 1 to 5 years and 32% had more than 10 years.In this research, a scale was used that differentiates three dimensions of resistance to change (affective, cognitive and behavioral). To investigate the possible links between the quality of the arguments (strong or weak) and the three dimensions of resistance to change, a Student's t test was carried out for each of the dimensions. Because multiple comparisons were made, the likelihood of committing type I error increased. In order to adjust the statistical results, the Bonferroni correction was applied (Buhner & Ziegler, 2009). The results confirm that the group of participants exposed to a communication with high quality arguments showed less resistance to organizational change than the group of participants exposed to a communication with low quality arguments. Finally, the importance of the findings for future research and practical implications for the management of organizational changes are discussed.