This article seeks to provide a view on the process of curricular integration of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in higher education, throughout the submission of proposals of how... Show More

This article seeks to provide a view on the process of curricular integration of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in higher education, throughout the submission of proposals of how to use some of these resources, with practical examples of its implementation in the learning process of students in subjects from the Initial Teacher Training and Geological Civil Engineering major at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción in Chile. Furthermore, the innovative and educational experiences mediated by ICT, described in this paper, allow us to visualize the important role that institutions of higher education play, not only in the training of future professionals making an emphasis on the digital skills necessary for their development in the XXI century, but also as suitable spaces for development and ongoing training of teachers with innovative methodological strategies that facilitate and enhance the educational process.

This paper presents the author's experiences building a virtual campus named Deep Think designed to support a postgraduate program named MPhil. The MPhil is a formal and recognized Open University... Show More

This paper presents the author's experiences building a virtual campus named Deep Think designed to support a postgraduate program named MPhil. The MPhil is a formal and recognized Open University degree delivered to a distance. The virtual campus integrates Second Life, Moodle and several Web 2.0 technologies like Elluminate (online conferencing tool), MyStuff (e-Portfolio) Skype and Ning (Social network). This integration between second life and web 2.0 technologies has provoked the enthusiasm of tutors at the Open University which saw the benefit of using DeepThink in their courses. Finally, the author discusses experiences on second life and its limitations.

As technology has advanced, educational establishments are faced with this question: Are we investing enough funds and resources to provide college students with effective learning tools that could... Show More

As technology has advanced, educational establishments are faced with this question: Are we investing enough funds and resources to provide college students with effective learning tools that could help them succeed not only by alerting them when they are at risk, but also providing them with personalized remedies while studying? Recently, students became more familiar with the notion of recommendation systems through their experience with social media tools, but does education fit this paradigm? In this paper, the authors review the recent advancement of technologies in personalized learning. They also examine the role of course redesigning where instructors can teach students what they need to learn as effectively as possible while tailoring their feedback to students based on automated performance dashboards with the highest granularity level as needed.

This study uses the participatory research approach to investigate how college instructors feel about the use of PowerPoint presentations when teaching an introductory course of computer information... Show More

This study uses the participatory research approach to investigate how college instructors feel about the use of PowerPoint presentations when teaching an introductory course of computer information systems. Nine college instructors participated in this research project by exchanging their views through an online discussion forum. The findings revealed that the instructors' preferred teaching method was to combine PowerPoint presentations with other techniques; that there was a shared concern about the changing role of the instructor because of the use of PowerPoint presentations; that the instructors perceived that students' attention and participation is affected by the use of PowerPoint presentations, whereas their performance is not.

In recent years, student outcomes in higher education has captured the interest and concern of accreditation communities, governments, employers as well as international organizations. Student... Show More

In recent years, student outcomes in higher education has captured the interest and concern of accreditation communities, governments, employers as well as international organizations. Student outcomes is becoming the principal gauge of higher education's effectiveness and accreditation bodies expect learning outcomes to be well defined, articulated, assessed, verified, and used as a guide for future improvement. The paper investigates the impact of accreditation on student outcomes in higher education and examines the impact of two accreditation bodies on student outcomes, namely: The National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) established by the Higher Council of Education in Saudi Arabia and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Inc. (ABET). Results from a course in Mathematics at Effat University, Jeddah, KSA, showed how important the learning outcome is in the process of re-evaluating strategies and methodologies used in the learning process.

This paper introduces the use of propositional logic calculus in the elaboration of educational quizzes to assess the level understanding of students in a specific theme of their courses. The... Show More

This paper introduces the use of propositional logic calculus in the elaboration of educational quizzes to assess the level understanding of students in a specific theme of their courses. The technique introduced in this paper goes beyond multiple-choice quizzes. The technique requires several steps like a) to give a phrase, b) to re-order words of the given phrase in order to form a propositional logic formula, c) to make use of background knowledge for performing substitutions, d) to answer questions from one of the person in the team, e) to change synonyms/antonyms (if this is feasible), f) to perform actions in order to give value to both or at least one operand of the logic formula and g) to conclude the final answer of the logic formula (true or false) depending of the logic values of the operands in the logic formula. As a working example, the author shows a quiz for universal history, however, the same technique could be used to assess students in different courses.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have earned much attention since the beginning in 2011 and students who signed up for at least one course has crossed 35 million in 2015. Yet, there has been a... Show More

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have earned much attention since the beginning in 2011 and students who signed up for at least one course has crossed 35 million in 2015. Yet, there has been a lack of research conducted to study the design of learning materials and tasks of MOOCs. Moreover, there are limited researches that focus on implementing recommendation systems in MOOCs to predict what students want more aiming to increase their profitability. In this paper, the authors present the algorithm they are creating. The main purpose of this algorithm is to create automatic mechanisms as the recommendation system to give such assistance and personalized guidance to students.

The aim of this work is to review a specific learning analytics method - sentiment analysis - in the field of Higher Education, showing how it is employed to monitor student satisfaction on... Show More

The aim of this work is to review a specific learning analytics method - sentiment analysis - in the field of Higher Education, showing how it is employed to monitor student satisfaction on different platforms, and to propose an architecture of Sentiment Analysis for Higher Education purposes, which trace and unify what emerges from the literature review. First, a literature review is carried out, which proves the widespread and increasing interest of the communities, of both scholars and practitioners, in the use of sentiment analysis in the field of Higher Education. The analysis, focused on three different e-learning domains, identifies weaknesses and gaps, and in particular the lack of a unifying approach which is able to deal with the different domains. Secondly, a prototype architecture – LADEL (Learning Analytics Dashboard for E-Learning) - is introduced, which is able to deal with the different e-learning domains. Some preliminary experiments are carried out, highlighting some limitations and open issues, as stimulus to continue the development of the platform.