Student Engagement in Fostering Quality Teaching in Higher Education

Student engagement should be one of the most powerful drivers for improvement of quality teaching in higher education. As students are direct beneficiaries of quality teaching, they are able to provide crucial feedback not only on what works well but also on what they would like to be done differently and how. The paper presents results of research related to students' perception of course Accounting Information Systems (AIS) and way of its implementation at the Faculty of Economic - University of Mostar. At this course lectures include many opportunities for active student engagement through cooperative learning activities (debates, team work, and presentation of project results). The authors developed two questionnaires in order to investigate the students' understanding of AIS course at the beginning and at the end of lectures. At the first class students completed a questionnaire about their expectations from AIS lectures (content, their engagement, learning activities, learning outcomes, assessment) and at the last class they completed another questionnaire about their real experiences related to AIS lectures. Research has been conducted for last two years and it enabled authors to use its results to tailor lectures in accordance with student's expectation and accordingly to improve teaching process. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2015.v5n1s1p14

Do Higher Education Institutions Foster Critical Thinking? – Students’ Perspective

The paper presents the results of research related to students’ perception of enhancing their critical thinking during studies at higher education institutions (HEIs). The authors developed a questionnaire and conducted the research at the public universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) in order to investigate students’ perception of enhancing their critical thinking during studies at the university. Namely, in a 21st century, the employability of fresh graduates highly depends on their soft skills, especially their ability to think critically in solving the problems. The aim of the presented research is to find if BH students are aware of the necessity to enhance their critical thinking abilities during their studies in order to be better prepared for their future jobs. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

NoSQL Databases as Social Networks Storage Systems

The paper presents analysis of the storage systems used by social network sites. Namely, the social networks are one of the main driving forces behind the NoSQL database development. Facebook and Twitter were, together with other the Big Data players like Google and Amazon, first faced with the limitations of relational databases in solving their needs related to unprecedented transaction volumes, expectations of low-latency access to massive datasets, and nearly perfect service availability while operating in an unreliable environment. The first NoSQL databases arose as internal solutions created out of necessity, and not with the intention to abandon relational databases. But the main question is if, after more than ten years of development, NoSQL databases proved that they could be valuable storage solutions for social networks’ data. The paper shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the use of NoSQL in social networks and provides some suggestions on how NoSQL databases can bring additional value to social network sites. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Open Government, Social Media and Western Balkan Countries

This article analyses the presence and activity on the field of social media in the countries that belonged to the same state in the past: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – these named as Western Balkan Countries (WBCs) – and, Slovenia and Croatia as EU member states. The authors have analysed the official profiles of the respective countries on social media and calculated the Facebook Assessment Index (FAI) for WBCs, and Croatia and Slovenia as a benchmark. The results show that Twitter and Facebook are the most used social media. In WBCs group, the FAI index could not be calculated for BIH and Serbia, while the other two countries had high index values. Benchmark countries have lower values but they are significantly highlighted by individual sub-indices. The governments of the researched countries mostly publish promotional information about their work. Consequently, they have a relatively small number of friends/followers/subscribers and comments/shares/likes on social media. Therefore, these countries fail to use the full potential of social media to increase visibility and transparency of their work and to ensure communication channel for idea and information exchange between government and citizens, making the public policies design more inclusive and increasing trust between government and citizens. The findings provide an insight into the nature of activity on social media in WBCs. While FAI scores show that WBCs do not lag far behind established benchmarks, the research proves that some of the weights proposed in the literature and used in the calculation of FAI index are too simplified to adequately evaluate posts on the Facebook pages. Hence, this article contributes above all to the awareness regarding further potentials and the interdisciplinary aspects of stately social media usage, in theory and practice alike

Risk Management Software – Standpoints of Users

The paper presents results of research related to the standpoints of users about the main attributes that risk management software should have. This research was based on a survey of appropriate number of companies in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors developed the questionnaire in order to investigate the standpoints of risk managers, quality managers and others in charge of risk management, about functionality they expect risk management software should support. Namely, in today\u27s global environment, managers and risk managers across all lines of business are accountable for a sustainable risk framework. Adequate software support enables them to take an innovative, risk-based approach to governance and compliance, to gain a holistic, enterprisewide view of risk exposure and near-real-time risk management and monitoring.Software support for risk management process should enable organisations with efficient risk evaluation and assessment, continuous monitoring, reporting and easier improvement of the process. Results of research show the main attributes that risk management software should have in order to fulfill user expectations. Finally, the paper provides some important guidelines and suggestions for risk management software development and improvement. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

How Banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina Use Social Networks?

The paper presents results of research related to the presence and activities of banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina on social networks. The results of research show that banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina mostly use Facebook, mainly as a marketing tool. Although customer engagement is essential in the banking industry, banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still not very successful in using social networks as a real communication tool. Namely, social networks are a very powerful channel through which banks could reach out to their customers in order to find what products their customers want, what decisions they can make to improve relations with customers and what they may be doing that annoys their customers. But, it seems that banks do not understand that they need to be willing to implement some of customers suggestions posted on social networks, otherwise customers will not come back, will not become fans or loyal friends of the tribe. The paper shows that there is a lot of room for improvement in the use of social networks in banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina and provides some important guidelines and suggestions on how banks could use social networks to enhance relationships with customers and develop mutual trust. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Is Information Technology boosting Creativity in Higher Education Institutions during Covid-19?

The global pandemic of the virus COVID-19 dramatically has impacted Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and worldwide. HEIs were forced to switch overnight to online lectures and exams without almost any teachers\u27 and students\u27 preparation and education. After one year of online classes at the University of Mostar (SUM), whether that kind of teaching impacts creativity. In order to find the answer to the research question, the authors used a questionnaire they developed and applied in 2015 to investigate students\u27 perceptions about creativity at the University of Mostar. The research presented in this paper is limited to SUM students who have had online classes since March 2020. The primary research goal is to investigate whether there are any significant changes in students\u27 perceptions of creativity compared to research from 2015. Namely, the authors investigate whether the enhanced use of IT and online platforms (Google Meet, SUMARUM – the University of Mostar’s variant of Moodle) affected students\u27 creativity

Higher Education Institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina use Social Network Sites?

The paper presents the research of the current state of the presence and activities of higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on social network sites (SNS). Although higher education institutions in BiH have recognized the necessity of using social networks for communications with their stakeholders, especially students, they still struggle with the content posted on SNS and its frequency. The authors use content analysis to examine SNS posts from BiH higher education institutions and engagement from their constituents on these posts. Results show that there are significant differences in engagement received on posts across institution type and according to content and type of posts. The aim of the paper is to analyze if HEIs in BiH use SNS and to what degree, as well as if there is any difference between public and private institutions related to the usage of SNS. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p