Global Educational Opportunities in the Emerging Information Society

This paper addresses the issues of new educational opportunities available through the growing variety of web services. The study’s objective is to explore the perspectives of the global and regional educational projects with regard to the emerging global information society. Summarizing key characteristics of Web 2.0, the researchers raise questions that should be answered by the new pedagogy. Virtual educational communities, open e-learning resources, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and educational online competitions are discussed in terms of their influence on education. Describing global opportunities, the authors cover challenges for traditional educational systems

Perspectives of GIS education in High Schools : an Evaluation of uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) education in South Africa and elsewhere has been envisioned to be a strategy that can contribute to new ways of teaching, learning and understanding. However, very few studies have assessed how GIS is taught in South African high schools. Consequently, this study aims to analyze GIS education dynamics and perspectives in uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. A survey with both open and close-ended questions was conducted with geography educators and geography students. Questions focused on GIS content, how the content is taught, challenges in GIS education, educators’ GIS proficiency and GIS education perspectives. The sample was guided by purposive sampling that intentionally selected schools with the desired qualities. From the results, it was evident that GIS is progressively taught in secondary schools. However, the full potential of GIS education has been restricted by challenges such as inadequate resources and limited exposure of students to GIS’s practical uses. Subsequently, the study recommends that GIS education in South African schools should be accompanied by appropriate hardware, software and opportunities for exposing students and educators to practical methods of teaching and learning GIS. Furthermore, educators should also be trained to be able to adequately equip students with GIS skills and knowledge

Emerging Learning Perspectives: Technology as the driving force

The great advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have made it possible for individuals to live, learn, work, communicate and undertake leisure activities in a different and better way. In addition, the current world order requires quality systems which are efficient, accurate, and fast for operation and service delivery. For this reason, technologies and especially the ICTs open up new horizons that provide avenues and strategies leading to the emergence of new perspectives and approaches. In education, some of the emerging perspectives considered in the paper include: the changing learning environments, learner profiles, and roles of the teacher; adoption and integration of educational technologies; emphasis on quality; and the institutional ranking systems. Technology isbeing used to enhance learning as well as facilitate teaching in the classroom and virtually at a distance across all disciplines and levels. The impact of technology on the quality of education delivery has been tremendous. The development of self -learning instructional materials and use of learner/content management systems through blended and e-learning have enhanced the quality, structure, delivery, monitoring, evaluation, flexibility and access to content. By levering into the multiple technological tools that are available for teaching and learning today, we are better equipped to enhance learning and teaching at the same time. However, despite the positive impact, there are issues and challenges which must be addressed, ranging from costs associated with development and maintenance of infrastructure, sustainability especially with the high rate of obsolescence and training of staff to acquire the appropriate skills, to changing the mind-set of those responsible for the provision of education to accommodate and appropriately invest in emerging trends. Examples used in the paper are drawn mainly from our experiences through interactions with colleagues from different institutions and within our work environments. Key words:Education technology, Quality, Emerging perspective

The Next Decade of Online Learning in Higher Education: Blue Ocean Strategies for the Design and Delivery of Graduate IS Programs

The market demand for online learning continues to increase and so do online enrollments in higher education. Online learning is gaining a strategic focus among academic leaders while at the same time we are seeing an emergence of new and innovative models of information systems (IS) graduate programs and instruction delivery methods. Given these trends, what does the future hold? What are our “blue oceans”? The objective is to engage in a conversation about how technology is changing teaching and learning in higher education and specifically, in the design and delivery of graduate degree programs in IS. An international panel with members representing academic administrators, faculty, and online learning researchers will share their perspectives about the progress and direction of online learning. The overarching questions are: How are online technologies transforming higher education for the better or worse? As IS educators, what are our blue oceans

Virtual Applications and Real Problem: Education and Higher Education in Iran

Important aspects of Education and Higher Education such as Flexibility, Access, Relevance, Privatization, Human Resources, National Development, Innovation, and Globalization are all subject to a radical transformation as a result of substantial changes and new circumstances occurred and are occurring with the introduction into and application of information technologies (IT) in this realm. It was justifiably expected that these transformations would also occur in the Iranian Education and especially Higher Education. The paper, after outlining the new expectations from and challenges in Education and Higher Education throughout the world and the rise of new perspectives for them, will focus on major developments in virtual Education and Higher Education in Iran—considering the framework of recent socio-economic demands and expectations. Based on a descriptive method, and with the use of available official data, though critically, an overview of e-learning in Iran will be portrayed and its recent developments, quantitatively and qualitatively, resulted from the introduction of IT into the pre-university and university systems (as an important part of national TAKFA plan and its aftermath) would be reviewed, and the achievements and shortcomings during the last ten years analyzed and discussed. It will be demonstrated in this paper that the aptitude for and expectation from virtual education is very high in the country. The paper tries to shed light on why the gap between what is realized and what is expected is so deep

The Doctor is in, but is Academia? Re-Tooling IT Education for a New Era in Healthcare

Healthcare information technology is at a crossroads today. As legacy data systems converge with bleeding edge technologies, the technology environments of today’s hospitals and clinics are evolving rapidly, producing new care delivery models. As a result, we need to reassess how information technology education is meeting the needs of healthcare practitioners and institutions. The recent push to adopt Health Information Technology (HIT) with financial incentives and penalties attached was a bold move, but establishing policies is easier to pen than implement. The challenge faced by many healthcare organizations is the lack of technical and organizational infrastructure, as well as skilled man power. This special issue seeks to bring new approaches to the IT classroom, particularly with HIT curriculum, training, and education. Students entering the workforce or completing professional programs will have more career options with an understanding of how to leverage enabling technologies. Those in a healthcare management and leadership capacities will also benefit from this special edition as each of the articles presented address strategic level issues and the need for IT leadership in the planning and implementation of enterprise level systems, to ensure the safety, privacy and security off all patients are protected. The authors of this special issue offer interdisciplinary perspectives on key topics shaping HIT around the world. As members of academia, curriculum is at the heart of the matter and our authors offer justification and case studies on areas where academia needs to continue its growth to serve the healthcare industry

Higher Education in Sweden -Between "Rolling Reforms" and Stable Patterns

Both gender equality and education policy are important priorities on the political agenda in Europe. The Research and Training Network ”Women in European Universities” focuses on higher education and women’s career-perspectives in systems of higher education of seven European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). The main focus of the project is to explore the ”glass-ceiling” that women meet when they chose a career in academia and strive for top rank positions such as professorships. As a first step in our research, it is important to understand the different systems of higher education, as well as recent changes and challenges to women in academia. This contextual analysis is one result of the first phase of the research project and shall provide information about the Swedish system of higher education. The Swedish system of higher education underwent fundamental changes in both organisational form and ideological practice during the last thirty years. Especially the three reforms in the 90’s gave the higher education system in Sweden a new face: They gave more weight to management structures, fixed-term contracts and focused more on an Anglo-American model of higher education than on the ”old” Humboldtian model. The reforms brought important changes for the Swedish system of higher education, but certain patterns remain untouched. One can still find the ”hidden binary system” within university colleges representing institutions to undergraduate education and universities that offer post-graduate education and research. And to a certain extent, this builds the ground for the remaining persistence of sex-specific divisions in both fields of study and different posts on the academic career ladder

Making sense of information systems failures

Information systems (IS) are used almost everywhere around us and we cannot even conceive of a world without computerised systems. IS support essential functions in most areas and levels of society. These include education, business, leisure, and medical and scientific areas. Moreover, IS add to the competitiveness of companies and support the continuous change that takes place in business and its environment. Literature frequently reports on Information systems that fail or are abandoned in many domains and in many countries. Often IS are seen by users as underperforming, failing to meet expectations and not delivering value to customers. In order to reduce IS failures numerous studies have been conducted resulting in solutions being offered to improve the situation. Post-project reviews are often used to learn from mistakes. Social sciences regularly use narrative analysis methods to analyse stories to understand the experiences of people in settings such as psychology and education. This study borrows from the social sciences and proposes the use of narrative analysis in investigating IS failure research. A case history was identified in which IS stakeholders were asked to share their experiences regarding the development and use of the IS. Three narrative analysis approaches were applied in this study to analyse the accounts of the stakeholders taking into account the perspectives of multiple user groups. This was done in order to study the thesis statement: narrative analysis methods can be useful to make sense of Information systems’ failures. A multi-perspective framework for analysing IS stakeholders’ accounts was constructed, during the study, which could be used by developers to gain insight from the users of previous systems in order to learn from mistakes for subsequent systems. It is shown in this qualitative study, where narrative approaches were followed to gather, analyse and interpret the rich, multi-voiced and incoherent stories of IS stakeholders, that each approach helps to make sense from the accounts of stakeholders in different ways and highlight important elements. It is shown that narrative analysis methods that were used in this study can produce deeper insights into the experience of involved stakeholders. The insights obtained from applying narrative methods can be used for internal learning within organisations as well as externally within the discipline. It is shown in this study that all voices must be heard; the small stories of stakeholders should also be taken into account when listening to users. Reading between the lines reveals information that cannot be ignored if IS are to be developed to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. Indeed, systems become alive and take on a character of their own when the accounts are analysed on a deeper level and systems can therefore be designed in new ways that enable developers to address a wider set of constraints representing multiple groups of stakeholders. The contribution of this work is on more than one level. Information systems development practice can be influenced and enriched by gaining deeper insights that address the concerns of the diverse groups of stakeholders. The research methodology field of IS has also been impacted upon by the successful importing of methods from another domain and has thereby also given back to the discipline it has borrowed from. Narrative practice and theory can make use of the new insights gained in a new area of application, namely IS failures. The conclusion of this study is that narrative approaches and storytelling can be useful and applicable when investigating IS failures and improves the understanding of IS development and users’ concerns taking into account multiple perspectives of stakeholders

Educating for professional capability in the field of information technology: integrating industry-based learning with the academic curriculum

In response to the forces of globalisation, societies and organisations have had to adapt and even proactively transform themselves. Universities, as knowledge-based organisations, have recognised that there are now many other important sites of knowledge construction and use. The apparent monopoly over valued forms of knowledge making and knowledge certification is disappearing. Universities have had to recognise the value of practical working knowledge developed in workplace settings beyond university domains, and promote the value of academic forms of knowledge making to the practical concerns of everyday learning. It is within this broader systems view that professional curriculum development undertaken by universities needs to be examined.University educational planning responds to these external forces in ways that are drawing together formal academic capability/competence and practice-based capability/competence. Both forms of academic and practice-based knowledge and knowing are being equally valued and related one to the other. University planning in turn gives impetus to the development of new forms of professional education curricula. This paper presents a contemporary case of a designed professional curriculum in the field of information technology that situates workplace learning as a central element in the education of Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS) professionals.The key dimensions of the learning environment of Deakin University&rsquo;s BIT (Hons) program are considered with a view to identifying areas of strong integration between the worlds of academic and workplace learning from the perspectives of major stakeholders. The dynamic interplay between forms of theorising and practising is seen as critical in educating students for professional capability in their chosen field. From this analysis, an applied research agenda, relating to desired forms of professional learning in higher education, is outlined, with specific reference to the information and communication technology professions.<br /