Challenges and opportunities of low-code platforms for software development

The current energy and climate crisis emphasize the energy-efficiency knowledge gap as a pressing problem. This is addressed in the report and the mobile application called EnMo, which was developed as part of this field lab. Topics regarding gamification, big data analytics, and low-code development were investigated. The findings provide the foundation for developing the app and its mission as a solution to the problem. EnMo incentivizes users to reduce their household energy consumption, by collecting user information and providing educational and gamified content. Thus, EnMo enables consumers to change their behavior and reduce their energy-efficiency knowledge gap. This exposition discusses the challenges and opportunity of low-code platforms for software development specifically. While speedy development, low maintenance and cost as well as low transparency and customization were filtered out as advantages of low-code, potential vendor lock-ins, black box issues and the fear of replacing software developers might present pitfalls of the technology

Airline E-commerce user experience experiment: An investigation of Thai LCCs passengers' purchasing behaviour among different online platforms

Purpose: This study examines the current state of the airline’s e-commerce platforms and seek to identify their benefits and disadvantages in the aspect of user experience. Design/methodology/approach: The study commenced by first reviewing the literatures on actual sale figure from the studied Thai LCC, user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). It then proceeded to gather the empirical evidences using questionnaires from 135 active air passengers who have online purchasing experience. The composite findings from literature review and surveys were then used to design and apply for the final phase which is a series of in-depth interviews of air passengers on their usability test sessions and experts from the related industries. Coding and clustering was utilised to analyse the qualitative data obtained. Findings: The study examines the differences in online ticket purchasing platforms including airline's website, mobile-site and mobile application. The results identified five areas of factors: physical, trust, willingness to learn, context of use and adjustment. With regard to these factors, there are no single platform that outperform others. Airlines need to ensure that UX/UI of all platforms meet the users’ requirements in all circumstances. Originality/value: The study reveals the customer thinking processes on online purchasing behaviour. It focuses on web-usability and user experience of different booking platforms. The findings allow the subjected LCC to improve customer experience and optimise its platforms. The paper could also benefit other entrepreneurs who are in the related industry or similar contexts. In addition, the study of user-experience in the context of airline industry, particularly in the emerging countries like Thailand is limited.Peer Reviewe

Is internet an acceleration factor in voluntary lifelong learning ?

IT Technologies are said to make access to learning easier and cheaper. Virtually all theorical knowledge is available in one form or another on the web, with possibilities for beginners as well as, in certain cases, for extremely sophisticated users.informal learning; lifelong learning; e-learning; Internet; Knowledge, quantitative methodology

An e-learning platform for delivering educational contents in a school environment

Learning is a continuous process, without end, which takes place throughout life, and is the result of the interaction of an individual with a physical external environment, a social context or with herself. In what new technologies may help improving and making more effective the interaction of an individual during his learning process? This paper describes the use of a platform for delivering educational contents to students, to put theories into practice through the use of an LMS and highlight the strengths and weaknesses that have these learning tools in a school environment, in which - besides its formative aspect - upbringing is important.learning management system, digital contents.

Gestational diabetes self-management and remote monitoring mobile platform

There is a high prevalence of gestational diabetes (GD) in South Africa, which is continually growing. South African women with GD are not effectively managed or educated about selfcare, do not self-monitor frequently enough and, therefore, often succumb to various GD induced complications. The ineffective management of GD is largely due to financial and time constraints caused by the regularly required outpatient services. On the other hand, healthcare professionals do not monitor their patients frequently enough because of accessibility issues, which means they cannot intervene timeously to prevent diabetes complications. The aim of this project was to develop a mobile health (mHealth) platform for GD self-management and for remote monitoring to improve the GD cycle of care in South Africa. The objectives were to assess the current GD management practices in South Africa, to assess the existing mHealth solutions for GD and to design, develop and test a GD mHealth platform. The existing GD management practices and current GD mHealth solutions were investigated. The results of the investigation informed the design of low-fidelity and high-fidelity mock-ups of the platform. The high-fidelity mock-up underwent usability testing and the insights gained were used to develop a working prototype of the new mHealth platform, which was then ready for in-lab testing. It was found that GD had a prevalence of up to 25% in parts of South Africa. Over 70% of patients in both private and public healthcare sectors did not meet their diabetic goals, which directly correlated with diabetes induced complications. However, previous research found that using mHealth as an intervention caused a statistically significant decrease of 0.38 mmol/L (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.52 mmol/L to 0.23 mmol/L) in overall blood glucose levels during pregnancy when compared to a control group. There was a higher probability of vaginal deliveries in the intervention group than in the control group (risk ratio = 1.18). It was less likely for new-borns from the intervention group to be diagnosed with hypoglycaemia than new-borns from the control group (risk ratio = 0.67). Based on the research and usability studies conducted, an alpha version of the GD mHealth platform was developed, including a mobile app used to track the patient’s blood glucose levels via a Bluetooth-enabled glucose meter. The food intake, exercise and weight gain during pregnancy were manually captured by the patient. The app reminded the patient to take medication, measure glucose levels and attend appointments. A GD educational component was available for the patient throughout the pregnancy. The platform included a web app which allowed healthcare professionals to remotely monitor and communicate with their patients so that they could analyse trends in the data and intervene when necessary. The testing done on the prototype resulted in positive feedback with 60% of participants saying that they would use the GooDMoM mobile app to manage their GD and 70% of participants saying that they would use the GooDMoM web app to manage their patients with GD. This put the platform in a good position for beta development. The solution has the potential to benefit patients both financially and timewise, by reducing the frequency of hospital visits required. It also has the potential to positively impact the healthcare professionals by reducing the tediousness of their workload and allowing for remote monitoring of patients. The platform can, thus, optimise the GD management process in South Africa and worldwide

Motivación y mejora académica utilizando realidad aumentada para el estudio de modelos tridimensionales arquitectónicos

En el presente artículo discutimos los resultados de evaluar el grado de motivación, el perfil y el nivel de satisfacción de los estudiantes en flujos de trabajo que utilizan la visualización aumentada de modelos complejos en 3D. El estudio muestra los resultados de experimentos realizados con alumnos de grado a lo largo de los dos primeros cursos de Arquitectura y el actual grado de Ciencias y Tecnologías de la Construcción (antiguo grado español de Ingeniería de la Construcción, y con cuyo nombre se reconoce a nivel europeo). Hemos utilizado un método mixto que combina el uso de técnicas cuantitativas y cualitativas de evaluación de la respuesta del estudiante, con el fin de completar una visión más global del uso de nuevas tecnologías, dispositivos móviles y métodos visuales avanzados en campos académicos. Los resultados nos muestran cómo los estudiantes partícipes de dichos experimentos han mejorado sus resultados académicos y su implicación con la materia, un punto clave en el actual marco educativo compuesto por estudiantes nativos digitales y un gran número de aplicaciones y dispositivos para la enseñanza y el aprendizajePostprint (published version

Models for Learning (Mod4L) Final Report: Representing Learning Designs

The Mod4L Models of Practice project is part of the JISC-funded Design for Learning Programme. It ran from 1 May – 31 December 2006. The philosophy underlying the project was that a general split is evident in the e-learning community between development of e-learning tools, services and standards, and research into how teachers can use these most effectively, and is impeding uptake of new tools and methods by teachers. To help overcome this barrier and bridge the gap, a need is felt for practitioner-focused resources which describe a range of learning designs and offer guidance on how these may be chosen and applied, how they can support effective practice in design for learning, and how they can support the development of effective tools, standards and systems with a learning design capability (see, for example, Griffiths and Blat 2005, JISC 2006). Practice models, it was suggested, were such a resource. The aim of the project was to: develop a range of practice models that could be used by practitioners in real life contexts and have a high impact on improving teaching and learning practice. We worked with two definitions of practice models. Practice models are: 1. generic approaches to the structuring and orchestration of learning activities. They express elements of pedagogic principle and allow practitioners to make informed choices (JISC 2006) However, however effective a learning design may be, it can only be shared with others through a representation. The issue of representation of learning designs is, then, central to the concept of sharing and reuse at the heart of JISC’s Design for Learning programme. Thus practice models should be both representations of effective practice, and effective representations of practice. Hence we arrived at the project working definition of practice models as: 2. Common, but decontextualised, learning designs that are represented in a way that is usable by practitioners (teachers, managers, etc).(Mod4L working definition, Falconer & Littlejohn 2006). A learning design is defined as the outcome of the process of designing, planning and orchestrating learning activities as part of a learning session or programme (JISC 2006). Practice models have many potential uses: they describe a range of learning designs that are found to be effective, and offer guidance on their use; they support sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning designs by teachers, and also the development of tools, standards and systems for planning, editing and running the designs. The project took a practitioner-centred approach, working in close collaboration with a focus group of 12 teachers recruited across a range of disciplines and from both FE and HE. Focus group members are listed in Appendix 1. Information was gathered from the focus group through two face to face workshops, and through their contributions to discussions on the project wiki. This was supplemented by an activity at a JISC pedagogy experts meeting in October 2006, and a part workshop at ALT-C in September 2006. The project interim report of August 2006 contained the outcomes of the first workshop (Falconer and Littlejohn, 2006). The current report refines the discussion of issues of representing learning designs for sharing and reuse evidenced in the interim report and highlights problems with the concept of practice models (section 2), characterises the requirements teachers have of effective representations (section 3), evaluates a number of types of representation against these requirements (section 4), explores the more technically focused role of sequencing representations and controlled vocabularies (sections 5 & 6), documents some generic learning designs (section 8.2) and suggests ways forward for bridging the gap between teachers and developers (section 2.6). All quotations are taken from the Mod4L wiki unless otherwise stated

Oii-web: An interactive online programming contest training system

In this paper we report our experience, related to the online training for the Italian and International Olympiads in Informatics. We developed an interactive online system, based on CMS, the grading system used in several major programming contests including the International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI), and used it in three distinct context: training students for the Italian Olympiads in Informatics (OII), training teachers in order to be able to assist students for the OII, and training the Italian team for the IOI. The system, that is freely available, proved to be a game changer for the whole italian olympiads in informatics ecosystem: in one year, we almost doubled the participation to OII, from 13k to 21k secondary school students. The system is developed basing on the Contest Management System (CMS, http://cms- dev.github.io/), so it is highly available to extensions supporting, for instance, the pro- duction of feedback on problems solutions submitted by trainees. The system is also freely available, with the idea of allowing for support to alternative necessities and developmen

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 3 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor.........................3 Division News Science-Technology Division....5 Chemistry Division....................8 Conference Report, Marion E, Sparks Professional Development Award Recipient..9 Engineering Division................10 Engineering Division Award, Winners Reflect on their Conference Experience..15 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division .....18 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction, and Design Section of the Engineering Division................20 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews...22 Advertisements IEEE..........................................