How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution

FORGE: An eLearning Framework for Remote Laboratory Experimentation on FIRE Testbed Infrastructure

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes

Approaches for Developing Generic Skills in Building Technology Graduates for Global Competitiveness

The need to inculcate generic skills into graduates to meet the demands of the ever dynamic workplace has been of concern to stakeholders in education and the world of work. This concept of a global competitiveness, and generic skills were reviewed and discussed. This paper also examined the importance of generic skills; and factors influencing generic skills development among graduates were highlighted. This factors calls for different approaches and shift in pedagogy in developing generic skills for global competitiveness which include: change in instructional delivery, from the traditional method of instruction to cooperative learning model. It also involves integration and contextualized learning, creating world class spaces for learning, enhanced utilization of technology and inclusive learning and teaching environment for producing global workers in building technology

A Living Lab Approach towards Promoting Innovation

The transformation projects developed in the context of digital education, sustainable development research and social innovation, and social entrepreneurship have turned the West University of Timişoara (WUT) into an active contributor to the Smart Specialization Strategy at local, regional, and national levels, from its previous status of a passive receiver of policy and R&D strategies. By exploiting open innovation tools integrated into entrepreneurship and aimed at relevant community research, WUT is currently actively involved in the incubation and/or acceleration of more than 200 start-ups, meant to enhance research relevance to actively promote higher technology readiness levels (TRLs) and social acceptance of research results. Building on top of three priority pillars - Digital, Green, and Well-Being, WUT has reconsidered its open innovation strategy and action plan to benefit the community, using a multistakeholder approach. In this context, the Digital & Green Living Lab, with cross-cutting priorities such as entrepreneurship and Culture and Creative Industries, focuses on meaningful transformation projects that contribute to enhanced community well-being. In this direction, important contributions were already achieved toward the digital transformation of educational programs and administrative sectors. Through its sustainable development vision, WUT acts on functional teams working in circular economy consortia, renewable energies, and environmental research

Securing Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programming exams

Traditional pen and paper exams are inadequate for modern university programming courses as they are misaligned with pedagogies and learning objectives that target practical coding ability. Unfortunately, many institutions lack the resources or space to be able to run assessments in dedicated computer labs. This has motivated the development of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) exam formats, allowing students to program in a similar environment to how they learnt, but presenting instructors with significant additional challenges in preventing plagiarism and cheating. In this paper, we describe a BYOD exam solution based on lockdown browsers, software which temporarily turns students' laptops into secure workstations with limited system or internet access. We combine the use of this technology with a learning management system and cloud-based programming tool to facilitate conceptual and practical programming questions that can be tackled in an interactive but controlled environment. We reflect on our experience of implementing this solution for a major undergraduate programming course, highlighting our principal lesson that policies and support mechanisms are as important to consider as the technology itself.Comment: Accepted by SIGCSE 202

Co-design process for upskilling the workforce in the factories of the future

The digital transformation that the world is facing has a strong impact in the professional occupations and job profiles in the factories of the future context, requiring the need of upskilling and re-qualification of the workforce. Taking this into account, an Industrial Collaborative Educational Design (ICoED) is presented comprising three stages and eight steps, and considering a democratic and collaborative participation of the different stakeholders, namely the managers, educators and learners, each one providing its own perspective on the design of the training programme. In this co-design process, the analysis of the skills’ gap is a crucial task to prepare the initial stage of the process, particularly identifying the needs in terms of soft and hard skills. The proposed ICoED process was applied to solve an upskilling problem of an industrial metal stamping company, with the participants performing three workshops to execute the eight steps, reaching a training programme with five modules, each one settled with proper activities, resources and infrastructures.This work is part of the FIT4FoF project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n. 820701.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio