Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

User Adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in the Public Sector

The importance of aligning information technology and business strategies to exploit capabilities and change business practices has increased as firms strive for competitive advantage in a diverse and changing marketplace. Nevertheless, over 50% of firms implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems ranked expected process and value enhancements as inadequate, whereas only 13% indicated that implementations met their needs. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model formed the conceptual framework of this single case study. The study comprised a purposeful sampling of 8 business managers in Southeast Alabama working in related job roles and based on established eligibility criteria. Data collection involved semistructured interviews, casual observations, and document analysis. Through method triangulation and predetermined themes directly related to the UTAUT conceptual framework, 5 themes emerged: management endorsement, change management, training and education, dedicated resources, and governance. Results of this research may influence the elimination of key barriers central in the deployment and adoption of ERP systems by the public sector. The study\u27s implications for positive social change include the potential to enhance social and intellectual capital formation through recognizing strategies that mitigate employees\u27 gender and age variances during an ERP implementation

The determinants of customer internet banking resistance and the role of mediating variables in Yemeni Universities

Although internet banking has been widely adopted in developed countries, there is still a low percentage of internet banking adoption in Yemen, indicating a probable high resistance to internet banking. Hence, the objective of this research was to determine the direct predictors (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control (PBC), credibility, trust, compatibility, self-efficacy and government support) of customer resistance, attitude, subjective norm, PBC and credibility towards internet banking. Additionally, this study examined the mediating effects of attitude, subjective norm, PBC, and credibility on the relationship between predictors and customer resistance to internet-banking behavior using Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB). A quantitative research survey was used whereby 900 questionnaires were distributed randomly to University employees. 451questionnaires were returned, representing a 50% response rate. After screening, 372 useable data sets were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The study found five significant predictors of customer resistance (attitude, credibility, compatibility, selfefficacy, and government support); three significant factors predicting attitude (government support, subjective norm and PBC); two significant predictors of SN (government support and self-efficacy); two significant predictors of PBC (compatibility and self-efficacy); and three predictors of credibility (trust, government support and PBC). It was also found that attitude fully mediated the relationship between subjective norm and customer resistance as well as between PBC and customer resistance. Contrastingly, attitude was a partial mediator between the relationship of government support and customer resistance. Likewise, credibility is a full mediator on the relationship between trust and customer resistance; PBC and customer resistance. Credibility also partially mediated the relationship between government support and customer resistance. Finally, the study contributes empirically by validating DTBP as an effective underpinning theory in explaining the internet banking resistance and that government should enact more stringent laws and policies to control the internet banking in Yemen

Acceptance of Interoperable Electronic Health Record (EHRs) Systems: A Tanzanian e-Health Perspective

The study assessed factors that influence the acceptance of interoperable electronic Health Records (EHRs) Systems in Tanzania Public Hospitals. The study applied a hybrid model that combined the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE). Snowball sampling technique was applied and a total of 340 questionnaires were distributed to selected clinics, polyclinics and hospitals, of which 261 (77%) received questionnaires were considered to be valid and reliable for subsequent data analysis. IBM SPSS software version 27.0 was employed for data analysis. Findings indicated that relative advantage, compatibility, management support, organizational competency, training and education, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, privacy and security concerns, competitive pressure and regulatory framework have positive and significant effects on acceptance of interoperable EHRs. However, complexity and trading & vendor support were found to have non-significant effects on acceptance of interoperable electronic health records. The study has further provided implications that may assist scholars and policy makers in the implementation of interoperable electronic health systems in the health sector

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia