The State of Practice of Mobile Learning in Universitas Terbuka Indonesia

As a distance learning university, Universitas Terbuka (UT) uses mobile technology as an integral part of its online learning system. In addition to its mobile-interfacewebsite, online tutorials are also made accessible through mobile as well as handheld devices. In other words, UT students can literally study through their mobile devices from thevery first activity of registering for courses, paying the tuition fee, obtaining digital learning materials, accessing the digital library, reading online journals, as well as participating in online tutorials.With the continuous development of increasingly sophisticated smartphone technologies, it is important for UT to continuously improve its online learning system. The development of UT’s mobile learning, which was started in 2013, has gone through several phases. The first phase was the preparation of infrastructure, which includes the development of applications and frameworks. The second phase wasthe content development, which wasdone by the faculty using various media including text, audio, video, multimedia, and the utilisation of Open Education Resources (OER). The last and third phase wasthe program delivery, which involves tutors, technical/IT assistants, and other support systems to allow studentswith seamless accessto mobile learning using various mobile devices. This seems to be effective as shown by the data that demonstratesUT mobile learning is being accessed by students using different mobile devices with variousoperating systems.This chapter will give a glance on the state of practice of mobile learning in Indonesia as well as elaborate on the process and practice of mobile learning at Universitas Terbuka (The Indonesia Open University) as a dedicated distance learning university

Prediction of Length of Hospital Stay in Preterm Infants - A Case-Based Reasoning View

The length of stay of preterm infants in a neonatology service has become an issue of a growing concern, namely considering, on the one hand, the mothers and infants health conditions and, on the other hand, the scarce healthcare facilities own resources. Thus, a pro-active strategy for problem solving has to be put in place, either to improve the quality-of-service provided or to reduce the inherent financial costs. Therefore, this work will focus on the development of a diagnosis decision support system in terms of a formal agenda built on a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with a case-based problem solving methodology to computing, that caters for the handling of incomplete, unknown, or even contradictory in-formation. The proposed model has been quite accurate in predicting the length of stay (overall accuracy of 84.9%) and by reducing the computational time with values around 21.3%

Mobile learning in southeast Asia: opportunities and challenges

Mobile learning has been adopted to a varying extent across the countries of Southeast Asia. Though mobile learning initiatives in the UK, Europe, the United States and Australia are well-documented, much less in known is known about mobile learning initiatives in Southeast Asia. This region is culturally and economically diverse, containing both developed countries such as Singapore and developing countries including East Timor. This range of economic development means that the penetration of telecommunications technologies, including infrastructure to support mobile and internet networks, varies vastly and the extent to which this technology is used for learning, similarly varies. This chapter begins with an examination of the mobile device market penetration in the various countries of Southeast Asia and the particular demographics of those users. Internet censorship potentially will impact on mobile learning initiatives in some countries and this is examined briefly. The status of mobile learning in a cross-section of Southeast Asian countries will be examined, with a particular focus on government policies, critical infrastructure and notable mobile learning initiatives. The chapter concludes with a review of the enablers and barriers to mobile learning in Southeast Asia and a look at future directions

Learning, Communication and Interaction via Wiki: An Australian Perspective

This chapter examines the opportunities and barriers of promoting students’ learning skills, including communication, cooperation, collaboration and connection using the Wiki tool under the blackboard platform. A Wiki tool was implemented in two postgraduate units in an Australian university to develop and improve students’ professional and personal skills, i.e. communication, leadership, time management, problem-solving and decision-making. A Wiki tool becomes essential in teaching and learning, to promote students’ skills, and control their own learning and access to knowledge, cutting-edge technology and news nationally and internationally. To implement this for students in developed and developing countries, universities and the higher education sector must recognize and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which were signed by 189 United Nation member states in September 2000, the second goal of which is related to education. This chapter provides empirical evidence, gathered through mixed methods, from 88 students who have been exposed to Wiki as a teaching tool. Student’s feedback indicates that the use of Wiki in the higher education setting is valuable and gratifying as it enables students to develop and enhance several skills, including communication, collaboration, interpersonal, writing, reading, and search/research, problem-solving and decision-making, all of which are required for both their current studies and their futures in the real-world workplace. In addition, students show their satisfaction with the Wiki’s tool, as it develops specific skills for the current study and for the future workplace, i.e. cultural awareness and cutting edge