The Enhancement of Academic Performance in Online Environments

Distance education has been gaining popularity for the last years. The proficiency in online environments of both learners and teachers explains the success of this methodology. An evaluation of graduate students’ performance within numerical analysis is discussed. In order to improve the marks obtained by the students, specific actions have been performed over the years and data from different classes has been analyzed using statistical tools. The results show that the actions proposed seemed to help the students in their learning process

A Rule-Based Expert System for Teachers’ Certification in the Use of Learning Management Systems

In recent years and accelerated by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, Learning Management Systems (LMS) are increasingly used as a complement to university teaching. LMS provide an important number of resources and activities that teachers can freely select to complement their teaching, which means courses with different usage patterns difficult to characterize. This study proposes an expert system to automatically classify courses and certify teachers’ LMS competence from LMS logs. The proposed system uses clustering to stablish the classification scheme. From the output of this algorithm, it defines the rules used to classify courses. Data registered from a university virtual campus with 3,303 courses and two million interactive events have been used to obtain the classification scheme and rules. The system has been validated against a group of experts. Results show that it performs successfully. Therefore, it can be concluded that the system can automatically and satisfactorily evaluate and certify the teachers’ LMS competence evidenced in their courses

Learning Analytics to Detect Evidence of Fraudulent Behaviour in Online Examinations

Lecturers are often reluctant to set examinations online because of the potential problems of fraudulent behaviour from their students. This concern has increased during the coronavirus pandemic because courses that were previously designed to be taken face-to-face have to be conducted online. The courses have had to be redesigned, including seminars, laboratory sessions and evaluation activities. This has brought lecturers and students into conflict because, according to the students, the activities and examinations that have been redesigned to avoid cheating are also harder. The lecturers' concern is that students can collaborate in taking examinations that must be taken individually without the lecturers being able to do anything to prevent it, i.e. fraudulent collaboration. This research proposes a process model to obtain evidence of students who attempt to fraudulently collaborate, based on the information in the learning environment logs. It is automated in a software tool that checks how the students took the examinations and the grades that they obtained. It is applied in a case study with more than 100 undergraduate students. The results are positive and its use allowed lecturers to detect evidence of fraudulent collaboration by several clusters of students from their submission timestamps and the grades obtained.This research was funded by Spanish National Research Agency (AEI), through the project VISAIGLE (TIN2017-85797-R) with ERDF funds

Learning Analytics to Detect Evidence of Fraudulent Behaviour in Online Examinations

Lecturers are often reluctant to set examinations online because of the potential problems of fraudulent behaviour from their students. This concern has increased during the coronavirus pandemic because courses that were previously designed to be taken face-to-face have to be conducted online. The courses have had to be redesigned, including seminars, laboratory sessions and evaluation activities. This has brought lecturers and students into conflict because, according to the students, the activities and examinations that have been redesigned to avoid cheating are also harder. The lecturers’ concern is that students can collaborate in taking examinations that must be taken individually without the lecturers being able to do anything to prevent it, i.e. fraudulent collaboration. This research proposes a process model to obtain evidence of students who attempt to fraudulently collaborate, based on the information in the learning environment logs. It is automated in a software tool that checks how the students took the examinations and the grades that they obtained. It is applied in a case study with more than 100 undergraduate students. The results are positive and its use allowed lecturers to detect evidence of fraudulent collaboration by several clusters of students from their submission timestamps and the grades obtained

Computación creativa y desarrollo centrado en el usuario para el aprendizaje

Se describen las líneas de investigación del grupo Mejora del Proceso Software y Métodos Formales de la Universidad de Cádiz, en relación a las tecnologías del aprendizaje e informática educativa.Research lines of the Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods research group of the University of Cadiz are described, in relation to learning technologies and computing in education

Measuring students' generic skills through national assessment

This study aims to measure the generic skills (GS) of Madrasah Aliyah (MA) students in Indonesia. Respondents who participated in this study were madrasah students scattered in East Java and Central Java as representatives of MAs in Indonesia. The method used in this research is a survey distributed via Google Form. Three dimensions are mentioned in the research instrument for measuring GS: religious moderation, critical and creative thinking skills, and interpersonal skills. Using SPPS version 16 software, a descriptive analysis was employed as the data analysis technique. The results of this study showed that the GS of students with religious moderation indicators obtained the highest average of 54.03% on the Likert scale 4. Critical and creative thinking skills indicators obtained the highest average results, 67.99%, on the Likert scale 4. The indicator of interpersonal skill obtained the highest average of 55.88% on the Likert 4 scale. Hence, it is expected of educational institutions to implement policies to enhance the GS of MA students, particularly in creating a more student-oriented learning model, also known as student-centered learning

Digital literacy : an investigation into perceived competencies of open distance learning students in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa

The aim of this study was to investigate and describe the perceived digital literacy competencies of Unisa Open Distance Learning students in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The association between the socio-demographic variables of the students and their perceived digital literacy competencies was statistically tested. The study examined whether there is a statistically significant relationship between the independent variables: attitudes towards digital technology for academic purposes, usage of the Learner Management System and attendance at regional digital literacy workshops, and the dependent variable, perceived digital literacy competencies. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional survey design was adopted using a census sampling method. The study concluded that the majority of students have high self-perceived digital literacy competencies. Statistically significant positive relationships were found between attitude towards digital technology for educational purposes, usage of the Learner Management System and attendance at regional digital literacy workshops and perceived digital literacy competencies.Educational Management and LeadershipM. Ed. (Education Management

Learning Management Systems Activity Records for Students' Assessment of Generic Skills

Students' acquisition of generic skills is a key to their incorporation into the job world. However, teachers encounter several difficulties when measuring their students' performance in generic skills. These difficulties increase in online courses based on learning management systems, where there is no direct contact between teachers and their students. To address this problem, this paper adopts a solution based on the use of activity records from learning management systems as indicators of the students' performance in generic skills. After conducting a survey among teachers of online courses on the suitability of the solution, an artefact was developed and applied within four online courses. Interviews conducted with teachers and the results of a survey for mapping skills and activities provide positive evidence of this solution's potential