Towards an empirical development of critical value factors of online learning activities

Activities are at the center of human behavior. Extensive attention has been given in literature to the success and effectiveness of online learning programs. Value theory suggests that human perceived value is a critical construct in investigating what is important to individuals. However, very limited attention has been given in literature to the role of users’ perceived value of learning activities in educational settings. Scholars suggest that additional studies on learning activities are needed in order to progress the current knowledge of the use of information systems in education. Therefore, this study investigated issues related to learners’ perceived value by uncovering the critical value factors (CVFs) of online learning activities. Participants in this study included 209 graduate students attending an online learning program. This study extended the first phase done in a prior research to uncover the CVFs of online learning activities. Results of this research study produced five reliable CVFs: (a) Collaborative, Social, and Passive Learning Activities; (b) Formal Communication Activities; (c) Formal Learning Activities; (d) Logistic Activities; and (e) Printing Activities

Students’ perceived ethical severity of e-learning security attacks

Over the past 15 years there has been a sharp increase in the use of e-learning systems both in education for degree delivery as well as corporate environment for training and certification purposes. Information systems security has been an important concern for most organizations. However, very little attention has been given to information security in the context of elearning systems. In this study, we conducted an investigation into students’ perceptions of ethical severity related to five common information security attacks in the context of e-learning. We have concentrated our investigation specifically in testing for differences over these five e-learning security attacks based on gender, age, and academic rank (undergraduate/graduate). Our findings indicate that majority of the students appears to self-report their perceptions as ethically driven across all five e-learning security attacks. However, we were somewhat alarmed to find that, although a small percentage, indeed some students reported these security attacks to be ethical. Our results indicated that overall males find these security attacks less severe than females. We also found that undergraduate students appear to perceive these attacks only slightly less severe than graduate. Age wise, our results indicated that there is an increase trend where the older the student is, the more severe s/he ranks the attacks. The paper concludes with a summary of the results and implication of this study for practice and research

Towards a development of a users’ ratified acceptance of multi-biometrics intentions model (RAMIM): Initial empirical results

User authentication is a continuous balance between the level of invasiveness and system security. Password protection has been the most widely user authentication approach used, however, it is easily compromised. Biometrics authentication devices have been implemented as less compromised approach. This paper reports on initial results of user perceptions about their acceptance of a multi-biometrics authentication approach in the context of elearning systems. Specifically, this paper reports on the initial empirical results on the development of a learners’ Ratified Acceptance of Multibiometrics Intentions Model (RAMIM). The model proposed look at the contributions of learners’ code of conduct awareness, perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, and ethical decision making to their intention to use multi-biometrics for authentication during e-learning exams. The study participants included 97 managers from service oriented organization and government agencies who attended e-learning courses. Results demonstrated high reliability for all constructs measured and indicated that perceived easeof-use and perceived usefulness are significant contributors to learners’ intention to use multi-biometrics. Conversely, code of conduct awareness appears to have little or no contribution on learners’ intention to use multibiometrics, while learners’ ethical decision making appears to have marginal contribution

The effect of competence-based simulations on management skills enhancements in e-learning courses

There is a growing interest in the assessment of tangible skills and competence among higher education in the United States. Specifically, there is an increase in the offerings of competency-based assessments, and some academic institutions are offering college credits for individuals who can demonstrate adequate level of competency on such assessments. An increased interest has been placed on competence-based computer simulations that can assist learners in traditional and online-courses to gain tangible skills. There has been an acceptable instrument used to measure a set of 12 management skills, as part of business and management courses. While computer simulations and competency-based projects, in general and in management in particular, have demonstrated great value, there are still limited empirical results on their impact in online learning courses. Thus, we have developed a quasi-experimental research, using such instrument on preand post-tests, to collect the set of 12 management skills from online learners attending courses that included both competence-based computer simulations and those that didn’t. Our data included a total of 253 responses. All 12 management skill measures demonstrated very high reliability, results consistent with prior literature. Our results indicate that all 12 skills of the competence-based computer simulations had higher increase than those that didn’t. A t-test on the mean increases indicated an overall statistically significant difference for six of the 12 management skills enhancements between the experimental and control groups. Our findings appear to demonstrate that overall computer simulations and competency-based projects do provide added value when it comes to management skill enhancements

Emerging Educational Technology: Assessing the Factors that Influence Instructors’ Acceptance in Information Systems and Other Classrooms

Over the past decade there has been a shift in the emphasis of Internet-based emerging educational technology from use in online settings to supporting face-to-face and mixed delivery classes. Although emerging educational technology integration in the classroom has been led by information systems (IS) instructors, the technology acceptance and usage of other instructors continue to be problematic for educational institutions. The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate factors influencing instructors’ intention to use Tegrity®, an emerging educational technology in traditional IS classes and other non-IS classes. Specifically, the factors studied were computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and experience with the use of technology. Responses from 56 instructors from a small, private university were used to formulate a predictive model using ordinal logistic regression. Results showed that computer self-efficacy had the greatest influence on intention to use. As computer self-efficacy appears to be high among IS instructors, administrators of other subjects are urged to pursue avenues to increase their instructors’ computer self-efficacy when attempting to increase the acceptance of emerging educational technology in non-IS classrooms

Towards Assessing Organizational Cybersecurity Risks via Remote Workers’ Cyberslacking and Their Computer Security Posture

Cyberslacking is conducted by employees who are using their companies’ equipment and network for personal purposes instead of performing their work duties during work hours. Cyberslacking has a significant adverse effect on overall employee productivity, however, recently, due to COVID19 pandemic move to remote working also pose a cybersecurity risk to organizations networks and infrastructure. In this work-in-progress research study, we are developing, validating, and will empirically test taxonomy to assess an organization’s remote workers’ risk level of cybersecurity threats. This study includes a three-phased developmental approach in developing the Remote Worker Cyberslacking Security Risk Taxonomy. With feedback from cybersecurity Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on the taxonomy and measures, we then plan to use the taxonomy to assess organizational remote workers’ risk level of cybersecurity threats by using actual system indicators of productivity measures to estimate their cyberslacking along with assessing the computer security posture of the remote device being used to access organizational resources. Anticipated results from 125 anonymous employees will then be assessed on the proposed novel taxonomy where recommendation to the organizational cybersecurity leadership will be provided

Towards a framework of literature review process in support of information systems research

This paper introduces an initial effort towards developing a framework for writing an effective literature review. The target audience for the framework are novice IS researchers or other researchers who are constantly struggling with the development of an effective literature-based foundation for the proposed research. The proposed framework follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three major stages: 1) inputs (literature gathering and screening), 2) processing (Blooms Taxonomy), and 3) outputs (writing the review). This paper provides the rationale for developing a solid literature review and addresses the central stage, processing the literature. The paper concludes by providing arguments for the value of an effective literature review as well as implications for future work in this proposed framework

A study on the success of group formation and cohesiveness in virtual teams using computer-mediated communications

While the Internet is a major business tool nowadays, individuals are still challenged to form team s and collaboration virtually. To evaluate the success of team formation in a virtual setting, this research study assessed the role of different computer – mediated communications (CMC) employed on the success of team formation measured by task performance (TP), team cohesiveness (TC), computer skills (CS) and social bond (SB), while assessing the differences on such relationships when controlled for gender, age, education level, academic major, as well as academic year. This research used analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to address the hypotheses proposed. Using three teams and 140 participants, the results indicated that there is a significance difference in the role of CMC levels employed on the level of perception of CS in team formation. Also, there is a significance difference in the role of CMC levels employed on the levels of TP, when controlled for gender .In addition, there is a significance difference in the role of CMC levels employed (No - CMS/F2F,OLS,&OLS+SNS) on the levels of CS, when controlled for education, academic major and academic year. The results of this study contribute to the body of knowledge by helping organizations identify ways to support effective team formations

A study of online exams procrastination using data analytics techniques

Procrastination appears to be an inevitable part of daily life, especially for activities that are bounded by deadlines. It has implications for performance and is known to be linked to poor personal time management. Although research related to procrastination as a general behavior has been well established, studies assessing procrastination in the context of online learning activities are scarce. In the exploratory investigative phase of this study, advanced data analytic techniques were used to gather information about online exams. The dataset included 1,629 online exam records over a period of five terms in an academic institution in the southeastern United States. The online exams were provided during a weeklong timeframe where students were asked to take them based on material they studied the previous week. Task performance time and task performance window were fixed for all records extracted. Results of this study indicate that when it comes to online exams, over half (58%) of the students tend to procrastinate, while the rest (42%) stage their work to avoid procrastination. However, those who procrastinated appeared to perform significantly lower than those who staged their work. Clear trends were also observed based on whether the students attempted exams in the morning or the evening, their academic level, and gender

Initial development of a learners’ ratified acceptance of multibiometrics intentions model (RAMIM)

Authenticating users is a continuous tradeoff between the level of invasiveness and the degree of system security. Password protection has been the most widely authentication approach used, however, it is easily compromised. Biometric authentication devices have been implemented as a more robust approach. This paper reports on initial results of student perceptions about their acceptance of a multibiometrics authentication approach in the context of e-learning systems. Specifically, this paper reports on the initial empirical development of a learners’ Ratified Acceptance of Multibiometrics Intentions Model (RAMIM). The model proposed investigates the impact of students’ code of conduct awareness, perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, and ethical decision making on learners’ intention to use multibiometrics for authentication during elearning exams. The study’s participants included 97 non-information technology (IT) students who attended e-learning courses. Additionally, results of a path analysis using Partial Least Square (PLS) indicate that perceived usefulness has the most significant impact on learners’ intention to use multibiometrics during e-learning exams. Students’ ethical decision making and perceived usefulness demonstrated significant impact on their intention to use multibiometrics. Additionally, students’ code of conduct awareness appears to have a positive impact on their ethical decision making. Conclusions are discussed including recommendations for future research on extending this initial research into applied experiments to address e-learning security issues