Smart Timetable Organizer

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) students are given more flexibility in term of how they want to arrange their classes. Each student tends to have a uniquely different timetable according to their preferred curriculum structure and personal preferences. Smart Timetable Organizer is going to assist students in arranging their own timetable, depending on the courses they wish to enroll for that particular semester. The system will give a trial-and-error platform that can give students all the possible combinations of classes they can have. This platform will be able to reduce the hassle of trying to manually arrange the lectures, labs, and tutorial sessions. It will help to save time and effort of fixing the clash for both students and lecturers, as well as to provide a more reliable way of noting down the timetable rather than practiced in the old times (pen & paper). The project has delivered a working prototype that is currently hosted online for testing and to obtain feedbacks from user. Based on the small scale testing from real potential users, Smart Timetable Organizer has obtained many good feedbacks and satisfaction. Hopefully, with the support from UTP management, the project would be implemented for students’ use in the upcoming semester

Higher Education Faculty Members’ Experiences In Designing A Quality Syllabus For Online Education

Higher education is rapidly changing, and instructors are striving to match the needs of 21st-century digital learners. There is a growing demand and shift from traditional classes to the online mode of instruction for most post-secondary learning institutions. Additionally, with the recent pandemic (COVID-19), post-secondary institutions had to transform and revise their courses to online and hybrid models. Higher education institutions struggled with limited knowledge, skills, and resources to design syllabi and implement online education courses to meet the needs of their students to attain quality education. The purpose of this study was to explore higher education faculty members\u27 experiences in designing quality syllabi for online education. This study was grounded in the theoretical framework of Edmund Husserl\u27s descriptive phenomenology through interviews. Data obtained from interviews were recorded and stored on a flash drive reserved only for this research. The researcher analyzed interviews by carefully listening, reviewing, and reading the lived experiences of each participant. Then the researcher transcribed recorded interviews into written text using the FTW Transcriber software. This helped the researcher get a deep and rich understanding of the phenomenon (designing a quality syllabus) through finding “significant statements” and determining the “themes” of each participant\u27s experiences. Findings indicated that this phenomenological study about higher education faculty members’ lived experiences in teaching and learning will help faculty and researchers to understand how to design a quality syllabus for online education that will satisfy the needs of diverse students. Ten themes emerged from the in-depth interviews conducted to gain insights into higher education faculty members’ lived experiences. These themes included: title section, course description, learner outcomes, course organization, course evaluation, course accessibility, course policies and calendar, academic integrity, professional behavior, and equal opportunity. These themes are the components required in a quality syllabus for an online course. These research results will contribute to efficient pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning in online education setting

Engineering education and a lifetime of learning

The result of an eleven-week study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the American Society of Engineering Education is presented. The study was the ninth of a series of programs. The purposes of the programs were: (1) to introduce engineering school faculty members to system design and to a particular approach to teaching system design, (2) to introduce engineering faculty to NASA and to a specific NASA center, and (3) to produce a study of use to NASA and to the participants. The story was concerned with engineering education in the U.S., and concentrated upon undergraduate education and teaching, although this bias was not meant to imply that research and graduate study are less important to engineering education

7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)

Information and communication technologies together with new teaching paradigms are reshaping the learning environment.The International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd) aims to become a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences,opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students and the organization of educational systems.Doménech I De Soria, J.; Merello Giménez, P.; Poza Plaza, EDL. (2021). 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD21.2021.13621EDITORIA

Evaluation of mobile and communication technologies for language learning

Results from a study by the Ministry of Higher Education in Malaysia indicate that the English language performance of Malaysian university students and graduates is a cause of concern. The National Higher Education Strategic Plan was launched by the Malaysian government in 2007 as a response to the challenges of the education sector that needs to be more internationalised and industry driven. In the strategic plan, the English language is identified as a crucial element in the effort to achieve a developed country status by the year 2020. Therefore, academicians and researchers are actively finding ways to improve students English skills in reading, listening, writing and speaking. Mobile Learning (or m-learning) is a new approach to enhance the learning experience utilising mobile technologies. For example, in order to learn new words the brain requires repeated reminders. The use of mobile devices can help to reinforce the learning process. The use of mobile devices to deliver learning in chunks or nugget sizes, on the move, at any time and anywhere, have shown to engage the learners very effectively in some research projects. Communication technologies such as blogs and Wikis also hold promises for enhancing learning. For instance, writing for a wider audience encourages students' ownership and responsibility. Moreover, comments and feedback from peers can motivate and encourage students. This, in turn, will lead to more active participation. Recognising the potential of these technologies for language learning, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of using mobile phones and communication technologies for English language learning with Malaysian students. Two experiments were carried out in this study. The initial pilot experiment was carried out with a small group of students to determine the feasibility of using mobile and communication technologies for language learning for Malaysian students in higher education. The main experiment was conducted after addressing the lessons learned from the initial experiment. An experimental group and a control group from a public higher education institution in Malaysia took part in the study. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered and analysed. The quantitative results show that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in the post written test. The experimental group is in favour of receiving lesson reminders and quizzes that were sent to their mobile phones. However, they did not like receiving messages about web resources. They also did not like reading learning material on a wiki and updating wiki entries. Three themes are derived from the interviews and questionnaires: 1) access, 2) communication, and 3) usability. Access to learning focuses on the ease of use to access learning materials. Students agreed that mobile phones and wikis allowed them to access learning material easily. However, the use of wiki did not engage the students. In terms of communication, lecturers and students can use mobile phone and wiki platforms for communication. However, students were not keen to communicate with the lecturer. As for usability, the students have no problems using a mobile phone but the problem is with the small screen size and it is difficult to type long replies. The students did not want to invest time in learning how to use a wiki as they see it as being irrelevant because they did not want to publish and share their ideas with others. In conclusion, the use of a mobile phone and wiki for language learning is feasible, but further investigation is required regarding student engagement. The lessons learned from this study can help practitioners, in particular those in Malaysia, to adapt their language learning processes when integrating mobile and communication technologies

An investigation of the attitudes of South African Police Service management with respect to the viability of computer-assisted training in the Eastern Cape Province

The South African Police Service (SAPS) as a constituent part of the public service was established to deliver a specific category of services to the public. These services have to conform to requirements that are prescribed by various legislative provisions to promote effective and efficient delivery of public services. The implications of these provisions that are pursued by the study firstly, refer to the emphasis of government on the enhancement of public service delivery, with due consideration given to cost effectiveness and efficiency. Secondly, it refers to government's realisation of the important impact of education, development and training (EDT) on the competency of public service officials with an emphasis on the utilisation of information technology to enhance the effectiveness of EDT. Consequently, the study explores the viability of the utilisation of information technology as a measure to assist EDT interventions within the SAPS of the Eastern Cape Province to equip members of the institution to better fulfil their functions and duties. In this respect the study commenced to ascertain the levels of computer literacy of role-players, access to the appropriate facilities and what the general attitude in the organisation would be towards the utilisation of such an intervention. It was found that the computer literacy levels of role-players may be perceived as a problematic issue in this regard. However, access to suitable facilities was found to be more than sufficient for this intention. Furthermore, role-players agreed that information technology could be optimally applied in the EC SAPS for the mentioned use, thereby portraying an optimistic attitude towards the use thereof to harmonise EDT in the SAPS. The aim of the study has been to develop a model that will incorporate the use of information technology, given the strengths and weaknesses of the SAPS to enhance EDT and learning in the organization