Search results for: educational games
474 Developing the Personal, Dissolving the Political
Authors: James Moir
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The emergence of person-centred discourse based around notions of 'personal development planning- and 'work'life balance' has taken hold in education and the workplace in recent years. This paper examines this discourse with regard to recent developments in higher education as well as the inter-related issue of work-life balance in occupational careers. In both cases there have been national and trans-national policy initiatives directed towards improving both personal opportunities and competitive advantage in a global knowledge-based economy. However, despite an increasing concern with looking outward at this globalised educational and employment marketplace, there is something of a paradox in encouraging people to look inward at themselves in order to become more self-determined. This apparent paradox is considered from a discourse analytic perspective in terms of the ideological effects of an increasing concern with the personal world. Specifically, it is argued that there are tensions that emerge from a concern with an innerdirected process of self-reflection that dissolve any engagement with wider political issues that impact upon educational and career development.Keywords: Personal development planning, higher education, work-life balance, career.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1400473 Practices of Self-Directed Professional Development of Teachers in South African Public Schools
Authors: Rosaline Govender
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This research study is an exploration of the selfdirected professional development of teachers who teach in public schools in an era of democracy and educational change in South Africa. Amidst an ever-changing educational system, the teachers in this study position themselves as self-directed teacher-learners where they adopt particular learning practices which enable change within the broader discourses of public schooling. Life-story interviews were used to enter into the private and public spaces of five teachers which offer glimpses of how particular systems shaped their identities, and how the meanings of self-directed teacher-learner shaped their learning practices. Through the Multidimensional Framework of Analysis and Interpretation the teachers’ stories were analysed through three lenses: restorying the field texts - the self through story; the teacher-learner in relation to social contexts, and practices of self-directed learning. This study shows that as teacherlearners learn for change through self-directed learning practices, they develop their agency as transformative intellectuals, which is necessary for the reworking of South African public schools.
Keywords: Professional development, professionality, professionalism, self-directed learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2544472 Virtual Reality Models used on the Visualization of Construction Activities in Civil Engineering Education
Authors: Alcínia Z. Sampaio, Pedro G. Henriques
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Three-dimensional geometric models have been used to present architectural and engineering works, showing their final configuration. When the clarification of a detail or the constitution of a construction step in needed, these models are not appropriate. They do not allow the observation of the construction progress of a building. Models that could present dynamically changes of the building geometry are a good support to the elaboration of projects. Techniques of geometric modeling and virtual reality were used to obtain models that could visually simulate the construction activity. The applications explain the construction work of a cavity wall and a bridge. These models allow the visualization of the physical progression of the work following a planned construction sequence, the observation of details of the form of every component of the works and support the study of the type and method of operation of the equipment applied in the construction. These models presented distinct advantage as educational aids in first-degree courses in Civil Engineering. The use of Virtual Reality techniques in the development of educational applications brings new perspectives to the teaching of subjects related to the field of civil construction.Keywords: Education, Engineering, virtual reality, visualsimulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2163471 Assessing Students’ Attitudinal Response towards the Use of Virtual Reality in a Mandatory English Class at a Women’s University in Japan
Authors: Felix David
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The use of virtual reality (VR) technology is still in its infancy. This is especially true in a Japanese educational context with very little to no exposition of VR technology inside classrooms. Technology is growing and changing rapidly in America, but Japan seems to be lagging behind in integrating VR into its curriculum. The aim of this research was to expose 111 students from Hiroshima Jogakuin University (HJU) to seven classes that involved VR content and assess students’ attitudinal responses toward this new technology. The students are all female, and they are taking the “Kiso Eigo/基礎英語” or Foundation English course, which is mandatory for all first- and second-year students. Two surveys were given, one before the treatment and a second survey after the treatment, which in this case means the seven VR classes. These surveys first established that the technical environment could accommodate VR activities in terms of internet connection, VR headsets, and the quality of the smartphone’s screen. Based on the attitudinal responses gathered in this research, VR is perceived by students as “fun,” useful to “learn about the world,” as well as being useful to “learn about English.” This research validates VR as a worthy educational tool and it should therefore continue being an integral part of the mandatory English course curriculum at HJU.
Keywords: Virtual Reality, smartphone, English Learning, curriculum.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 173470 Effect of the Internet on Social Capital
Authors: Safaee Safiollah , Javadi Alimohammad, Javadi Maryam
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Internet access is a vital part of the modern world and an important tool in the education of our children. It is present in schools, homes and even shopping malls. Mastering the use of the internet is likely to be an important skill for those entering the job markets of the future. An internet user can be anyone he or she wants to be in an online chat room, or play thrilling and challenging games against other players from all corners of the globe. It seems at present time (or near future) for many people relationships in the real world may be neglected as those in the virtual world increase in importance. Internet is provided a fast mode of transportation caused freedom from family bonds and mixing with different cultures and new communities. This research is an attempt to study effect of Internet on Social capital. For this purpose a survey technique on the sample size amounted 168 students of Payame Noor University of Kermanshah city in country of Iran were considered. Degree of social capital is moderate. With the help of the Multi-variable Regression, variables of Iranian message attractive, Interest to internet with effect of positive and variable Creating a cordial atmosphere with negative effect be significant.
Keywords: Internet, Social Capital, social participation Social trust
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1572469 3D Face Modeling based on 3D Dense Morphable Face Shape Model
Authors: Yongsuk Jang Kim, Sun-Tae Chung, Boogyun Kim, Seongwon Cho
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Realistic 3D face model is more precise in representing pose, illumination, and expression of face than 2D face model so that it can be utilized usefully in various applications such as face recognition, games, avatars, animations, and etc. In this paper, we propose a 3D face modeling method based on 3D dense morphable shape model. The proposed 3D modeling method first constructs a 3D dense morphable shape model from 3D face scan data obtained using a 3D scanner. Next, the proposed method extracts and matches facial landmarks from 2D image sequence containing a face to be modeled, and then reconstructs 3D vertices coordinates of the landmarks using a factorization-based SfM technique. Then, the proposed method obtains a 3D dense shape model of the face to be modeled by fitting the constructed 3D dense morphable shape model into the reconstructed 3D vertices. Also, the proposed method makes a cylindrical texture map using 2D face image sequence. Finally, the proposed method generates a 3D face model by rendering the 3D dense face shape model using the cylindrical texture map. Through building processes of 3D face model by the proposed method, it is shown that the proposed method is relatively easy, fast and precise.Keywords: 3D Face Modeling, 3D Morphable Shape Model, 3DReconstruction, 3D Correspondence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2427468 Affective Adaptation Design for Better Gaming Experiences
Authors: Ollie Hall, Salma ElSayed
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Affective adaptation is a creative way for game designers to add an extra layer of engagement to their productions. When player’s emotions are an explicit factor in mechanics design, endless possibilities for imaginative gameplay emerge. Whilst gaining popularity, existing affective game research mostly runs controlled experiments in restrictive settings and rely on one or more specialist devices for measuring player’s emotional state. These conditions albeit effective, are not necessarily realistic. Moreover, the simplified narrative and intrusive wearables may not be suitable for players. This exploratory study investigates delivering an immersive affective experience in the wild with minimal requirements, in an attempt for the average developer to reach the average player. A puzzle game is created with rich narrative and creative mechanics. It employs both explicit and implicit adaptation and only requires a web camera. Participants played the game on their own machines in various settings. Whilst it was rated feasible, very engaging and enjoyable, it remains questionable whether a fully immersive experience was delivered due to the limited sample size.
Keywords: affective games, dynamic adaptation, emotion recognition, game design
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 845467 Mobile Mediated Learning and Teachers Education in Less Resourced Region
Authors: Abdul Rashid Ahmadi, Samiullah Paracha, Hamidullah Sokout, Mohammad Hanif Gharanai
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Conventional educational practices, do not offer all the required skills for teachers to successfully survive in today’s workplace. Due to poor professional training, a big gap exists across the curriculum plan and the teacher practices in the classroom. As such, raising the quality of teaching through ICT-enabled training and professional development of teachers should be an urgent priority. ‘Mobile Learning’, in that vein, is an increasingly growing field of educational research and practice across schools and work places. In this paper, we propose a novel Mobile learning system that allows the users to learn through an intelligent mobile learning in cooperatively every-time and every-where. The system will reduce the training cost and increase consistency, efficiency, and data reliability. To establish that our system will display neither functional nor performance failure, the evaluation strategy is based on formal observation of users interacting with system followed by questionnaires and structured interviews.
Keywords: Computer Assisted Learning, Intelligent Tutoring system, Learner Centered Design, Mobile Mediated Learning and Teacher education (MMLTE).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2241466 Humanoid Personalized Avatar Through Multiple Natural Language Processing
Authors: Jin Hou, Xia Wang, Fang Xu, Viet Dung Nguyen, Ling Wu
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There has been a growing interest in implementing humanoid avatars in networked virtual environment. However, most existing avatar communication systems do not take avatars- social backgrounds into consideration. This paper proposes a novel humanoid avatar animation system to represent personalities and facial emotions of avatars based on culture, profession, mood, age, taste, and so forth. We extract semantic keywords from the input text through natural language processing, and then the animations of personalized avatars are retrieved and displayed according to the order of the keywords. Our primary work is focused on giving avatars runtime instruction from multiple natural languages. Experiments with Chinese, Japanese and English input based on the prototype show that interactive avatar animations can be displayed in real time and be made available online. This system provides a more natural and interesting means of human communication, and therefore is expected to be used for cross-cultural communication, multiuser online games, and other entertainment applications.
Keywords: personalized avatar, mutiple natural luanguage processing, social backgrounds, anmimation, human computer interaction
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1969465 Factors that Contribute to the Improvement of the Sense of Self-Efficacy of Special Educators in Inclusive Settings in Greece
Authors: Sotiria Tzivinikou, Dimitra Kagkara
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Teacher’s sense of self-efficacy can affect significantly both teacher’s and student’s performance. More specific, self-efficacy is associated with the learning outcomes as well as student’s motivation and self-efficacy. For example, teachers with high sense of self-efficacy are more open to innovations and invest more effort in teaching. In addition to this, effective inclusive education is associated with higher levels of teacher’s self-efficacy. Pre-service teachers with high levels of self-efficacy could handle student’s behavior better and more effectively assist students with special educational needs. Teacher preparation programs are also important, because teacher’s efficacy beliefs are shaped early in learning, as a result the quality of teacher’s education programs can affect the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service teachers. Usually, a number of pre-service teachers do not consider themselves well prepared to work with students with special educational needs and do not have the appropriate sense of self-efficacy. This study aims to investigate the factors that contribute to the improvement of the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service special educators by using an academic practicum training program. The sample of this study is 159 pre-service special educators, who also participated in the academic practicum training program. For the purpose of this study were used quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. Teacher’s self-efficacy was assessed by the teachers themselves with the completion of a questionnaire which was based on the scale of Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale. Pre and post measurements of teacher’s self-efficacy were taken. The results of the survey are consistent with those of the international literature. The results indicate that a significant number of pre-service special educators do not hold the appropriate sense of self-efficacy regarding teaching students with special educational needs. Moreover, a quality academic training program constitutes a crucial factor for the improvement of the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service special educators, as additional for the provision of high quality inclusive education.
Keywords: Inclusive education, pre-service, self-efficacy, training program.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 901464 Impact of Quality Assurance Mechanisms on the Work Efficiency of Staff in the Educational Space of Georgia
Authors: B. Gechbaia, K. Goletiani, G. Gabedava, N. Mikeltadze
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At this stage, Georgia is a country which is actively involved in the European integration process, for which the primary priority is effective integration in the European education system. The modern Georgian higher education system is the process of establishing a new sociocultural reality, whose main priorities are determined by the Quality System as a continuous cycle of planning, implementation, checking and acting. Obviously, in this situation, the issue of management of education institutions comes out in the foreground, since the proper planning and implementation of personnel management processes is one of the main determinants of the company's performance. At the same time, one of the most important factors is the psychological comfort of the personnel, ensuring their protection and efficiency of stress management policy.
The purpose of this research is to determine how intensely the relationship is between the psychological comfort of the personnel and the efficiency of the quality system in the institution as the quality assurance mechanisms of educational institutions affect the stability of personnel, prevention and management of the stressful situation. The research was carried out within the framework of the Internal Grant Project «The Role of Organizational Culture in the Process of Settlement of Management of Stress and Conflict, Georgian Reality and European Experience » of the Batumi Navigation Teaching University, based on the analysis of the survey results of target groups. The small-scale research conducted by us has revealed that the introduction of quality assurance system and its active implementation increased the quality of management of Georgian educational institutions, increased the level of universal engagement in internal and external processes and as a result, it has improved the quality of education as well as social and psychological comfort indicators of the society.
Keywords: Quality assurance, effective management, stability of personnel, psychological comfort, stress management.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1143463 The Dialectic between Effectiveness and Humanity in the Era of Open Knowledge from the Perspective of Pedagogy
Authors: Sophia Ming Lee Wen, Chao-Ching Kuo, Yu-Line Hu, Yu-Lung Ho, Chih-Cheng Huang, Yi-Hwa Lee
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Teaching and learning should involve social issues by which effectiveness and humanity is due consideration as a guideline for sharing and co-creating knowledge. A qualitative method was used after a pioneer study to confirm pre-service teachers’ awareness of open knowledge. There are 17 in-service teacher candidates sampling from 181 schools in Taiwan. Two questions are to resolve: a) How did teachers change their educational ideas, in particular, their attitudes to meet the needs of knowledge sharing and co-creativity; and b) How did they acknowledge the necessity of working out an appropriate way between the educational efficiency and the nature of education for high performance management. This interview investigated teachers’ attitude of sharing and co-creating knowledge. The results show two facts in Taiwan: A) Individuals who must be able to express themselves will be capable of taking part in an open learning environment; and B) Teachers must lead the direction to inspire high performance and improve students’ capacity via knowledge sharing and co-creating knowledge, according to the student-centered philosophy. Collected data from interviewing showed that the teachers were well aware of changing their teaching methods and make some improvements to balance the educational efficiency and the nature of education. Almost all teachers acknowledge that ICT is helpful to motivate learning enthusiasm. Further, teaching integrated with ICT saves teachers’ time and energy on teaching preparation and promoting effectiveness. Teachers are willing to co-create knowledge with students, though using information is not easy due to the lack of operating skills of the website and ICT. Some teachers are against to co-create knowledge in the informational background since they hold that is not feasible for there being a knowledge gap between teachers and students. Technology would easily mislead teachers and students to the goal of instrumental rationality, which makes pedagogy dysfunctional and inhumane; however, any high quality of teaching should take a dialectical balance between effectiveness and humanity.Keywords: Open knowledge, dialect between effectiveness and humanity, pedagogy, critical thinking.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1385462 Student Perceptions of Defense Acquisition University Courses: An Explanatory Data Collection Approach
Authors: Melissa C. LaDuke
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The overarching purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the current format of online delivery for Defense Acquisition University (DAU) courses and Air Force Acquisition (AFA) personnel participation. AFA personnel (hereafter named “student”) were particularly of interest, as they have been mandated to take anywhere from 3 to 30 online courses to earn various DAU specialization certifications. Participants in this qualitative case study were AFA personnel who pursued DAU certifications in science and technology management, program/contract management, and other related fields. Air Force personnel were interviewed about their experiences with online courses. The data gathered were analyzed and grouped into 12 major themes. The themes tied into the theoretical framework and addressed either teacher-centered or student-centered educational practices within DAU. Based on the results of the data analysis, various factors contributed to student perceptions of DAU courses to include the online course construct and relevance to their job. The analysis also found students want to learn the information presented but would like to be able to apply the information learned in meaningful ways.
Keywords: Educational theory, computer-based training, interview, student perceptions, online course design, teacher positionality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 198461 Understanding the Programming Techniques Using a Complex Case Study to Teach Advanced Object-Oriented Programming
Authors: M. Al-Jepoori, D. Bennett
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Teaching Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) as part of a Computing-related university degree is a very difficult task; the road to ensuring that students are actually learning object oriented concepts is unclear, as students often find it difficult to understand the concept of objects and their behavior. This problem is especially obvious in advanced programming modules where Design Pattern and advanced programming features such as Multi-threading and animated GUI are introduced. Looking at the students’ performance at their final year on a university course, it was obvious that the level of students’ understanding of OOP varies to a high degree from one student to another. Students who aim at the production of Games do very well in the advanced programming module. However, the students’ assessment results of the last few years were relatively low; for example, in 2016-2017, the first quartile of marks were as low as 24.5 and the third quartile was 63.5. It is obvious that many students were not confident or competent enough in their programming skills. In this paper, the reasons behind poor performance in Advanced OOP modules are investigated, and a suggested practice for teaching OOP based on a complex case study is described and evaluated.
Keywords: Complex programming case study, design pattern, learning advanced programming, object oriented programming.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 783460 Animation of Objects on the Website by Application of CSS3 Language
Authors: Vladimir Simovic, Matija Varga, Robert Svetlacic
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Scientific work analytically explores and demonstrates techniques that can animate objects and geometric characters using CSS3 language by applying proper formatting and positioning of elements. This paper presents examples of optimum application of the CSS3 descriptive language when generating general web animations (e.g., billiards and movement of geometric characters, etc.). The paper presents analytically, the optimal development and animation design with the frames within which the animated objects are. The originally developed content is based on the upgrading of existing CSS3 descriptive language animations with more complex syntax and project-oriented work. The purpose of the developed animations is to provide an overview of the interactive features of CSS3 descriptive language design for computer games and the animation of important analytical data based on the web view. It has been analytically demonstrated that CSS3 as a descriptive language allows inserting of various multimedia elements into websites for public and internal sites.
Keywords: Animation recording, web page graphics, HTML5 forms, Cascading Style Sheets 3 - CSS3, man-computer interaction, KML animation presenting format, GML, Google Earth Professional.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 807459 Cloud Computing for E-Learning with More Emphasis on Security Issues
Authors: Sajjad Hashemi, Seyyed Yasser Hashemi
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In today's world, success of most systems depend on the use of new technologies and information technology (IT) which aimed to increase efficiency and satisfaction of users. One of the most important systems that use information technology to deliver services is the education system. But for educational services in the form of E-learning systems, hardware and software equipment should be containing high quality, which requires substantial investment. Because the vast majority of educational establishments can not invest in this area so the best way for them is reducing the costs and providing the E-learning services by using cloud computing. But according to the novelty of the cloud technology, it can create challenges and concerns that the most noted among them are security issues. Security concerns about cloud-based E-learning products are critical and security measures essential to protect valuable data of users from security vulnerabilities in products. Thus, the success of these products happened if customers meet security requirements then can overcome security threats. In this paper tried to explore cloud computing and its positive impact on E- learning and put main focus to identify security issues that related to cloud-based E-learning efforts which have been improve security and provide solutions in management challenges.
Keywords: Cloud computing, E-Learning, Security.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3220458 A Simple Epidemiological Model for Typhoid with Saturated Incidence Rate and Treatment Effect
Authors: Steady Mushayabasa
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Typhoid fever is a communicable disease, found only in man and occurs due to systemic infection mainly by Salmonella typhi organism. The disease is endemic in many developing countries and remains a substantial public health problem despite recent progress in water and sanitation coverage. Globally, it is estimated that typhoid causes over 16 million cases of illness each year, resulting in over 600,000 deaths. A mathematical model for assessing the impact of educational campaigns on controlling the transmission dynamics of typhoid in the community, has been formulated and analyzed. The reproductive number has been computed. Stability of the model steady-states has been examined. The impact of educational campaigns on controlling the transmission dynamics of typhoid has been discussed through the basic reproductive number and numerical simulations. At its best the study suggests that targeted education campaigns, which are effective at stopping transmission of typhoid more than 40% of the time, will be highly effective at controlling the disease in the community.
Keywords: Mathematical model, Typhoid, saturated incidence rate, treatment, reproductive number, sensitivity analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3516457 Effective Factors Increasing the Students’ Interest in Mathematics in the Opinion of Mathematic Teachers of Zahedan
Authors: Safiyeh Khayati, Ali Payan
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The main objective of this study was to identify factors and conditions that motivated and encouraged students towards the math class and the factors that made this class an attractive and lovely one. To do this end, questionnaires consisting of 15 questions were distributed among 85 math teachers working in schools of Zahedan. Having collected and reviewed these questionnaires, it was shown that doing activity in math class (activity of students while teaching) and previous math teachers' behaviors have had much impact on encouraging the students towards mathematics. Separation of educational classroom of mathematics from the main classroom (which is decorated with crafts created by students themselves with regard to math book including article, wall newspaper, figures and formulas), peers, size and appearance of math book, first grade teachers in each educational level, among whom the Elementary first grade teachers had more importance and impact, were among the most influential and important factors in this regard. Then, school environment, family, conducting research related to mathematics, its application in daily life and other courses and studying the history of mathematics were categorized as important factors that would increase the students’ interest in mathematics.
Keywords: Interest, motivation, mathematical learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8746456 Sustainability: An Ethical Approach Towards Project Business Success
Authors: G. S. Dangayach
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For any country the project management has been a vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony, trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members. This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists linking the project success with an ethical approach.Keywords: Ethics, Loyalty, Morality, Project success
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2767455 Laboratory Experimentation for Supporting Collaborative Working in Engineering Education over the Internet
Authors: S. Odeh, E. Abdelghani
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Collaborative working environments for distance education can be considered as a more generic form of contemporary remote labs. At present, the majority of existing real laboratories are not constructed to allow the involved participants to collaborate in real time. To make this revolutionary learning environment possible we must allow the different users to carry out an experiment simultaneously. In recent times, multi-user environments are successfully applied in many applications such as air traffic control systems, team-oriented military systems, chat-text tools, multi-player games etc. Thus, understanding the ideas and techniques behind these systems could be of great importance in the contribution of ideas to our e-learning environment for collaborative working. In this investigation, collaborative working environments from theoretical and practical perspectives are considered in order to build an effective collaborative real laboratory, which allows two students or more to conduct remote experiments at the same time as a team. In order to achieve this goal, we have implemented distributed system architecture, enabling students to obtain an automated help by either a human tutor or a rule-based e-tutor.Keywords: Collaboration environment, e-tutor, multi-user environments, socio-technical system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1482454 Multiplayer Game System for Therapeutic Exercise in Which Players with Different Athletic Abilities Can Participate on an Even Competitive Footing
Authors: Kazumoto Tanaka, Takayuki Fujino
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Sports games conducted as a group are a form of therapeutic exercise for aged people with decreased strength and for people suffering from permanent damage of stroke and other conditions. However, it is difficult for patients with different athletic abilities to play a game on an equal footing. This study specifically examines a computer video game designed for therapeutic exercise, and a game system with support given depending on athletic ability. Thereby, anyone playing the game can participate equally. This video-game, to be specific, is a popular variant of balloon volleyball, in which players hit a balloon by hand before it falls to the floor. In this game system, each player plays the game watching a monitor on which the system displays tailor-made video-game images adjusted to the person’s athletic ability, providing players with player-adaptive assist support. We have developed a multiplayer game system with an image generation technique for the tailor-made video-game and conducted tests to evaluate it.
Keywords: Therapeutic exercise, computer video game, disability-adaptive assist, tailor-made video-game image.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2107453 The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Foreign Students Studying in Hungary
Authors: Anita Kéri
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Satisfying foreign student needs has been in the center of research interest in the past several years. Higher education institutions have been exploring factors influencing foreign student satisfaction to stay competitive on the educational market. Even though foreign student satisfaction and loyalty are topics investigated deeply in the literature, the academic years of 2020 and 2021 have revealed challenges never experienced before. With the COVID-19 pandemic, new factors have emerged that might influence foreign student satisfaction and loyalty in higher education. The aim of the current research is to shed lights on what factors influence foreign student satisfaction and loyalty in the post-pandemic educational era, and to reveal if the effects of factors influencing satisfaction and loyalty have changed compared to previous findings. Initial results show that students are less willing to participate in online surveys during and after the pandemic. The return rate of the survey instrument is below 5%. Results also reveal that there is a slight difference in what factors students deem important during pandemic times regarding their satisfaction and loyalty. The results of the current study help us determine what factors higher education institutions need to consider, when planning the future service affordances for their foreign students, that might influence their satisfaction and loyalty.
Keywords: COVID-19, foreign students, loyalty, pandemic, satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 319452 Employing QR Code as an Effective Educational Tool for Quick Access to Sources of Kindergarten Concepts
Authors: Ahmed Amin Mousa, M. Abd El-Salam
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This study discusses a simple solution for the problem of shortage in learning resources for kindergarten teachers. Occasionally, kindergarten teachers cannot access proper resources by usual search methods as libraries or search engines. Furthermore, these methods require a long time and efforts for preparing. The study is expected to facilitate accessing learning resources. Moreover, it suggests a potential direction for using QR code inside the classroom. The present work proposes that QR code can be used for digitizing kindergarten curriculums and accessing various learning resources. It investigates using QR code for saving information related to the concepts which kindergarten teachers use in the current educational situation. The researchers have established a guide for kindergarten teachers based on the Egyptian official curriculum. The guide provides different learning resources for each scientific and mathematical concept in the curriculum, and each learning resource is represented as a QR code image that contains its URL. Therefore, kindergarten teachers can use smartphone applications for reading QR codes and displaying the related learning resources for students immediately. The guide has been provided to a group of 108 teachers for using inside their classrooms. The results showed that the teachers approved the guide, and gave a good response.
Keywords: Kindergarten, child, learning resources, QR code, smart phone, mobile.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1555451 Determinants of Students- Intentions to Use a Mobile Messaging Service in Educational Institutions: a Theoretical Model
Authors: Boonlert Watjatrakul
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Mobile marketing through mobile messaging service has highly impressive growth as it enables e-business firms to communicate with their customers effectively. Educational institutions hence start using this service to enhance communication with their students. Previous studies, however, have limited understanding of applying mobile messaging service in education. This study proposes a theoretical model to understand the drivers of students- intentions to use the university-s mobile messaging service. The model indicates that social influence, perceived control and attitudes affect students- intention to use the university-s mobile messaging service. It also provides five antecedents of students- attitudes–perceived utility (information utility, entertainment utility, and social utility), innovativeness, information seeking, transaction specificity (content specificity, sender specificity, and time specificity) and privacy concern. The proposed model enables universities to understand what students concern about the use of a mobile messaging service in universities and handle the service more effectively. The paper discusses the model development and concludes with limitations and implications of the proposed model.Keywords: education, intention, mobile marketing, mobile messaging.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1683450 An Investigation into the Role of School Social Workers and Psychologists with Children Experiencing Special Educational Needs in Libya
Authors: Abdelbasit Gadour
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This study explores the function of schools’ psychosocial services within Libyan mainstream schools in relation to children’s special educational needs (SEN). This is with the aim to examine the role of school social workers and psychologists in the assessment procedure of children with SEN. A semi-structured interview was used in this study, with 21 professionals working in the schools’ psychosocial services, of whom 13 were school social workers (SSWs) and eight were school psychologists (SPs). The results of the interviews with SSWs and SPs provided insights into how SEN children are identified, assessed, and dealt with by school professionals. It appears from the results that what constitutes a problem has not changed significantly, and the link between learning difficulties and behavioural difficulties is also evident from this study. Children with behaviour difficulties are more likely to be referred to school psychosocial services than children with learning difficulties. Yet, it is not clear from the interviews with SSWs and SPs whether children are excluded merely because of their behaviour problems. Instead, they would surely be expelled from the school if they failed academically. Furthermore, the interviews with SSWs and SPs yield a rather unusual source accountable for children’s SEN; school-related difficulties were a major factor in which almost all participants attributed children’s learning and behaviour problems to teachers’ deficiencies, followed by school lack of resources.
Keywords: Special education, school, social workers, psychologist.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 690449 Digital Privacy Legislation Awareness
Authors: Henry Foulds, Magda Huisman, Gunther R. Drevin
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Privacy is regarded as a fundamental human right and it is clear that the study of digital privacy is an important field. Digital privacy is influenced by new and constantly evolving technologies and this continuous change makes it hard to create legislation to protect people’s privacy from being exploited by misuse of these technologies.
This study aims to benefit digital privacy legislation efforts by evaluating the awareness and perceived importance of digital privacy legislation among computer science students. The chosen fixed variables for the population are study year and gamer classification.
The use of location based services in mobile applications and games are a concern for digital privacy. For this reason the study focused on computer science students as they have a high likelihood to use and develop this type of software. Surveys were used to evaluate awareness and perceived importance of digital privacy legislation.
The results of the study show that privacy legislation and awareness of privacy legislation are important to people. The perception of the importance of privacy legislation increases with academic experience. Awareness of privacy legislation increases from non-gamers to pro gamers.
Keywords: Digital privacy, Legislation awareness, Gaming.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1994448 The Influence of Transformational Leadership on Knowledge Sharing in Iraq’s Public and Private Higher Education: A Comparison Study
Authors: Sawsan J. Al-Husseini
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Transformational leadership (TL) has been found to have an important influence on knowledge and knowledge management (KM). It can contribute to organizational learning, employees’ creativity, encourage followers to participate in educational programs and develop the skills needed to achieve exceptional performance. This research sought to examine the impact of TL on knowledge donating and collecting and the differences between these impacts in public and private higher education institutes (HEIs) in Iraq. A mixed method approach was taken and 580 valid responses were collected to test the causal relationships between the factors, then 12 interviews were conducted with the leaders of HEIs to give more insight of the findings from quantitative stage. Employing structural equation modelling with AMOS v.24, the research found that TL would be ideal in an educational context, promoting knowledge sharing activities in both sectors. The interviews revealed differences between public and private HEIs in terms of the effects relationships. Guidelines are developed for academics as well as leaders and provided evidence to support the use of TL to encourage knowledge sharing activities within higher education in developing countries particularly Iraq.Keywords: Transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, higher education, multi-groups.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 989447 Review and Evaluation of Trending Canonical Correlation Analyses-Based Brain-Computer Interface Methods
Authors: Bayar Shahab
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The fast development of technology that has advanced neuroscience and human interaction with computers has enabled solutions to various problems and issues of this new era. The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) has opened the door to several new research areas and have been able to provide solutions to critical and vital issues such as supporting a paralyzed patient to interact with the outside world, controlling a robot arm, playing games in VR with the brain, driving a wheelchair. This review presents the state-of-the-art methods and improvements of canonical correlation analyses (CCA), an SSVEP-based BCI method. These are the methods used to extract EEG signal features or, to be said differently, the features of interest that we are looking for in the EEG analyses. Each of the methods from oldest to newest has been discussed while comparing their advantages and disadvantages. This would create a great context and help researchers understand the most state-of-the-art methods available in this field, their pros and cons, and their mathematical representations and usage. This work makes a vital contribution to the existing field of study. It differs from other similar recently published works by providing the following: (1) stating most of the main methods used in this field in a hierarchical way, (2) explaining the pros and cons of each method and their performance, (3) presenting the gaps that exist at the end of each method that can improve the understanding and open doors to new researches or improvements.
Keywords: BCI, CCA, SSVEP, EEG
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 590446 Pure Scalar Equilibria for Normal-Form Games
Authors: H. W. Corley
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A scalar equilibrium (SE) is an alternative type of equilibrium in pure strategies for an n-person normal-form game G. It is defined using optimization techniques to obtain a pure strategy for each player of G by maximizing an appropriate utility function over the acceptable joint actions. The players’ actions are determined by the choice of the utility function. Such a utility function could be agreed upon by the players or chosen by an arbitrator. An SE is an equilibrium since no players of G can increase the value of this utility function by changing their strategies. SEs are formally defined, and examples are given. In a greedy SE, the goal is to assign actions to the players giving them the largest individual payoffs jointly possible. In a weighted SE, each player is assigned weights modeling the degree to which he helps every player, including himself, achieve as large a payoff as jointly possible. In a compromise SE, each player wants a fair payoff for a reasonable interpretation of fairness. In a parity SE, the players want their payoffs to be as nearly equal as jointly possible. Finally, a satisficing SE achieves a personal target payoff value for each player. The vector payoffs associated with each of these SEs are shown to be Pareto optimal among all such acceptable vectors, as well as computationally tractable.
Keywords: Compromise equilibrium, greedy equilibrium, normal-form game, parity equilibrium, pure strategies, satisficing equilibrium, scalar equilibria, utility function, weighted equilibrium.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 248445 The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Human Resources Management in Schools
Authors: Alexandra Aslanidou
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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), concerning the protection of natural persons within the European Union with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, became applicable in the European Union (EU) on 25 May 2018 and transformed the way personal data were being treated under the Data Protection Directive (DPD) regime, generating sweeping organizational changes to both public sector and business. A social practice that is considerably influenced in the way of its day-to-day operations is Human Resource (HR) management, for which the importance of GDPR cannot be underestimated. That is because HR processes personal data coming in all shapes and sizes from many different systems and sources. The significance of the proper functioning of an HR department, specifically in human-centered, service-oriented environments such as the education field, is decisive due to the fact that HR operations in schools, conducted effectively, determine the quality of the provided services and consequently have a considerable impact on the success of the educational system. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the decisive role that GDPR plays in HR departments that operate in schools and in order to practically evaluate the aftermath of the Regulation during the first months of its applicability; a comparative use cases analysis in five highly dynamic schools, across three EU Member States, was attempted.
Keywords: General data protection regulation, human resource management, educational system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 751