DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR ELEARNING DURING LOCKDOWN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Higher education institutions, globally, had to transform their approach dramatically and suddenly to the delivery of their educational programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent ‘lockdown’. The different countries’ responses to the pandemic were quite unique, based on their specific circumstances at the time, influencing each country’s approach to the continuation of education. It was thus interesting to conduct this cross-country, international, comparative, quantitative research project at three universities in digitally diverse countries—South Africa, Wales, and Hungary. The study was aimed at investigating and exploring the challenges and experiences of higher education students at three universities in these countries, especially in terms of how access to digital technologies influenced their online learning experience during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was collected using an online survey with research questions categorised into two sections, namely:1) their access to a digital learning management environment, and 2) the digital technologies used by the students. The experiences of students were evaluated in terms of three dimensions: 1) Dimension of system access, 2) Dimension of digital technologies used, 3) Dimension of ease of transition to online learning

Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Café's: A Case Study in Higher Education

Higher Education Institutions are knowledge intensive institutions. Academics are considered knowledge workers within a knowledge society, with a remit to create and transfer knowledge to their students, as well as to distribute and share the knowledge created from research undertaken. These forms of knowledge sharing within Higher Education Institutions happen as part of the role of an educator and an academic. Knowledge sharing between academics is not as commonplace as sharing explicit knowledge. The academic culture within Higher Education can be quite hierarchical, competitive, and individualistic, where the focus for career advancement is on research and publishing, although a renewed focus on teaching quality, is also a performance measurement tool. For new and relatively new staff, the academic context can be perceived as highly individualised, and self‐directed. Most newcomers to academia initially operate not being aware of the complexity of its rules of interaction. There are several barriers to knowledge sharing at a personal level within this context. Given these challenges, it is important for new academics, as well as seasoned academics in the United Kingdom context, to understand the value of sharing practices through informal conversations, which inspired this project. As a funded project titled, “Improving student engagement and satisfaction by sharing best practices”, the project had a three-fold set of objectives: 1). To undertake initial research to understand knowledge sharing practices at Higher Education institutions, 2). To provide opportunities for knowledge sharing via the implementation of three Knowledge Cafés, and 3). To disseminate research and lessons learnt around the sharing of teaching best practices. This case study presents one of the three arms of the project, which is the implementation of the Knowledge Cafés within a Higher Education Institution, at Swansea University. The impact of the radical shift from a face-to-face environment to a virtual space, the perception of the personal value of the Knowledge Cafés, and how it was experienced by the Desireé J Cranfield et al30participants, is explored. The idea of the knowledge café progressed and further developed into special sessions being delivered at two international conferences: 1) The 14th Annual International Conference of Education, Research, and Innovation 2021 (virtual), and 2) The 14th Annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (face-to-face, Spain). Initial surveys conducted of the Knowledge Cafés suggests that these opportunities to informally have conversations around teaching best practice and their experience of online teaching was valued, and its benefits understood. Several determinants for the success of knowledge sharing, within this context, are revealed

Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Cafés: A Case Study in Higher Education

Higher Education Institutions are knowledge intensive institutions. Academics are considered knowledge workers within a knowledge society, with a remit to create and transfer knowledge to their students, as well as to distribute and share the knowledge created from research undertaken. These forms of knowledge sharing within Higher Education Institutions happen as part of the role of an educator and an academic. Knowledge sharing between academics is not as commonplace as sharing explicit knowledge. The academic culture within Higher Education can be quite hierarchical, competitive, and individualistic, where the focus for career advancement is on research and publishing, although a renewed focus on teaching quality, is also a performance measurement tool. For new and relatively new staff, the academic context can be perceived as highly individualised, and self‐directed. Most newcomers to academia initially operate not being aware of the complexity of its rules of interaction. There are several barriers to knowledge sharing at a personal level within this context. Given these challenges, it is important for new academics, as well as seasoned academics in the United Kingdom context, to understand the value of sharing practices through informal conversations, which inspired this project. As a funded project titled, “Improving student engagement and satisfaction by sharing best practices”, the project had a three-fold set of objectives: 1). To undertake initial research to understand knowledge sharing practices at Higher Education institutions, 2). To provide opportunities for knowledge sharing via the implementation of three Knowledge Cafés, and 3). To disseminate research and lessons learnt around the sharing of teaching best practices. This case study presents one of the three arms of the project, which is the implementation of the Knowledge Cafés within a Higher Education Institution, at Swansea University. The impact of the radical shift from a face-to-face environment to a virtual space, the perception of the personal value of the Knowledge Cafés, and how it was experienced by the participants, is explored. The idea of the knowledge café progressed and further developed into special sessions being delivered at two international conferences: 1) The 14th Annual International Conference of Education, Research, and Innovation 2021 (virtual), and 2) The 14th Annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (face-to-face, Spain). Initial surveys conducted of the Knowledge Cafés suggests that these opportunities to informally have conversations around teaching best practice and their experience of online teaching was valued, and its benefits understood. Several determinants for the success of knowledge sharing, within this context, are revealed

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19—A Comparative Study

The pandemic and subsequent ‘lockdown’ has dramatically changed the educational landscape of higher education institutions. Pre-covid-19, traditional universities had choices in pedagogical practice, which included a variety of teaching delivery modes. Overnight, a single mode of delivery became the only option for traditional higher education institutions. All services had to be migrated to digital platforms, leading to a period of “emergency eLearning”. The full impact of this sudden shift to digital platforms on all cohorts of students is still uncertain. A measure of disruption to the normal student learning experience, especially for those attending traditional universities, was inevitable. Moreover, this disruption was varied depending on the University’s country and the country’s lockdown rules. This international, comparative, quantitative research project aimed to investigate and understand the higher education students’ perceptions of emergency eLearning during the first wave of COVID-19. Experiences of students at universities in three countries were evaluated in terms of four dimensions: 1) home learning environment, 2) engagement, 3) participation preference, and 4) impact on learning skills. The research revealed significant differences between the participating universities. The most important differences were in the ‘home learning environment’, followed by ‘engagement’ and the perception of ‘impact on learning skills’. The differences in the ‘home learning environment’ can be attributed to the differing economic and digital development of the surveyed countries: South Africa, Wales, and Hungary. Finally, different cultural backgrounds suggest a noticeable difference in student engagement, participation, and learning skills

Comparing Three Countries’ Higher Education Students’ Cyber Related Perceptions and Behaviours during COVID-19

In 2020, a global pandemic led to lockdowns, and subsequent social and business restrictions. These required overnight implementation of emergency measures to permit continued functioning of vital industries. Digital technologies and platforms made this switch feasible, but it also introduced several cyber related vulnerabilities, which students might not have known how to mitigate. For this study, the Global Cyber Security Index and the Cyber Risk literacy and education index were used to provide a cyber security context for each country. This research project—an international, cross-university, comparative, quantitative project—aimed to explore the risk attitudes and concerns, as well as protective behaviours adopted by, students at a South African, a Welsh and a Hungarian University, during the pandemic. This study’s findings align with the relative rankings of the Oliver Wyman Risk Literacy and Education Index for the countries in which the universities reside. This study revealed significant differences between the student behaviours of students within these universities. The most important differences were identified between students’ risk attitudes and concerns. It was also discovered that South African students reported having changed their protective online behaviours to the greatest extent, since the pandemic commenced. Recommendations are made suggesting that cyber security training and education, as well as improving the digital trust and confidence in digital platforms, are critical

Knowledge Café’s, informal conversations, sharing teaching best practice

Since March 2020, the pandemic has changed the way teaching within Higher Education in the UK and indeed the world, is conducted. A sudden shift to online teaching necessitated a rethink of the best teaching approaches and methods to engage students and support good student experience while using the digital teaching platform as a sole means for teaching. This sudden shift in teaching methods required academics to transfer their teaching and learning materials to an online platform without any formal training in best practices. Academics needed to quickly understand and develop different ways of teaching, using this new digital platform, in the absence of face to face teaching, and ways in which to accommodate the challenges and opportunities the new platform presented. Research suggests that sharing of experiences and best practices would be a way to tackle challenges and contentious issues. An online Knowledge Café was used to bring together academics to share experiences and best practices. This research explores the role of Knowledge Cafes, introduced over a 3-month period within the School of Management at Swansea University

Intellectual Capital and Financial results: A Case Study

Knowledge has become the primary ingredient of a company's performance and its competitive advantage. Knowledge assets therefore, and the potential of what it represents, has become an increasing concern for companies, and as a consequence, the concept of Intellectual Capital arises. If a company aims to succeed at developing its competitive advantage, knowledge assets should be considered an important resource as it is the raw material from which financial results are obtained. This Case Study aims to determine whether Intellectual Capital is presented and valuated in a small company working in the logistics sector, and if it has an impact on the financial performance. The Case Study utilises a pragmatic and unique, holistic and exploratory approach. Data collection was carried out mainly through interviews and observation centred on the Intellectual Capital elements (Human Capital, Structural Capital and Relational Capital) and on the financial performance, conducted on two elements from different levels of authority and responsibility within the company, a director and an operation employee. A Likert scale of 5 points was used, and the study concluded that both participants interviewed, shared a similar view of Intellectual Capital and financial performance. It was also concluded that the company evaluated Intellectual Capital, in general, and the different capitals in particular, as follows: 1) In terms of the Human Capital element, the employee's formation and training, skills, teamwork, internal relations and knowledge share was valuated; 2) In terms of the Structural Capital element, the company exhibited a supportive culture, critical to motivate employees to perform well, and the company exhibited, as well, a low hierarchical distance, with bureaucracy being practically non-existent and the company is focusing on innovation for competitive advantage; 3) In terms of the Relational Capital element, the company cares about customer satisfaction, but this Intellectual Capital component was less valued; 4) Finally, with regards to financial performance, the company had a positive result over the years, although yields have stagnated recently, and expenses have increased due to the current international crisis. Consequently, it was concluded that in this company, Intellectual Capital was valuated and the case study suggests that there is a relationship with financial performance