Social Media in Education: A Case Study Regarding Higher Education Students’ Viewpoints

The digital prevalence on everyday life caused by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has drastically impacted the whole world. The educational domain was no exception and has been affected by this rapid shift to online and virtual learning environments. Social media are widely used as a means to share ideas and opinions, acquire knowledge, get informed about news, communicate and collaborate. Moreover, social media are in line with several learning theories. Therefore, their integration in educational settings has the potential to yield several benefits. The aim of the study is to examine this digital shift by analyzing and comprehending higher education students’ experiences and viewpoints regarding the use of social media in education. In total 130 students participated in this study. Based on the results, the majority of students viewed the integration of social media in education positively and regarded it as a means that promotes and enhances communication, group work, collaboration as well as knowledge and ideas sharing with both fellow students and educators. Moreover, students considered social media to be an invaluable teaching tool that when used in a student-centered manner can increase their productivity, engagement, motivation and academic performance as well as improve the teaching and learning process. Finally, social media was assessed as essential for today’s life and as a promising tool that will be more widely used in educational settings in the near future.©2022 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Mobility for Smart Cities and Regional Development - Challenges for Higher Education: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2021). The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93904-5_73fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Connecting services to product (goods) development : a study based on 2 strategic orientation and customer experience

This paper provides the preliminary analysis based on the survey which we conducted on Strategic Orientation (SO) and Customer eXperience (CX) issues. The results indicated that both understanding, and business perspectives are important. The findings also show that especially in designing human-based services, the view based CX should be emphasized. In addition, regarding goods design, CX was considered more important than the comprehension of the SO.©2022 The authors. Published by Universitat Politècnica de València. Please cite the original version: Makkonen, P., Lampropoulos, G. & Siakas, K. (2022). Connecting services to product (goods) development : a study based on 2 strategic orientation and customer experience. In: Tracey, B., Heinonen, K., Trull-Domínguez, O. & Peiró-Signes, Á. (eds.) Proceedings of the QUIS17 : The 17th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management. València: Universitat Politècnica de València. http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/QUIS17.2022.15169fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

The Impact of Personality Traits on Social Media Use and Engagement: An Overview

Social media have become an integral part of everyday life and are used in numerous domains. Hence, it is essential to comprehend how and why users use and engage themselves in social media. Personality traits are patterns of thinking, feeling or behaving that could potentially affect an individual's social media use. This paper aims at enhancing the understanding of the role that personality traits play in the psychological dynamics underlying social media use and engagement. Therefore, this paper conducts an extensive literature review regarding personality, trait theory and personality traits taxonomies and puts emphasis on Big Five Personality Traits – Five Factor Model (FFM). Furthermore, it presents a literature review of recent studies regarding the impact of personality traits on social media use and compares their results. Based on the findings, there is a close interconnection between social media use and engagement and personality traits with some traits affecting it more drastically. Openness and extraversion emerged as the two most significant positive predictors of social media use while conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism were also considered important but at a lesser degree. Consequently, it was concluded that personality traits have an immense impact on social media use and engagement

Open Innovation Maturity in Companies

Using open innovation approach instead of closed innovation approach improves productivity. To successfully implement the open innovation approach in a company, it is important to evaluate its maturity and readiness to use this approach. The aim of this study is to explore the open innovation maturity and readiness of Finnish and Greek companies. Hence, this study follows a quantitative approach and uses a 13-item survey to explore the open innovation maturity levels. A total of 81 participants from different companies and with different expertise and backgrounds participated in the survey. In addition to the survey, to examine the open innovation maturity of the companies the maturity model for open innovation which consist of five levels with level 5 depicting the highest maturity level was used. The aim was to examine the open innovation maturity of the companies participating in the study. Based on the results, the studied companies were found to mainly achieve level 3 regarding open innovation thinking. More attention and effort should be given to achieve levels 4 and 5. Due to the importance of achieving maturity levels 4 and 5 and their complexity, the need for companies to understand the significance of strategic thinking and for aligning their general strategy with their innovation strategy was highlighted. Additionally, it was evident that to achieve higher levels of maturity, open innovation approaches should be followed and changes in the organizational management should be implemented. Concluding we claim that for companies to adopt an effective open innovation culture, it is essential to integrate appropriate models, methods, and practices starting from lower maturity levels.© 2023 Pekka Makkonen, Kerstin Siakas, Georgios Lampropoulos. Published by Academic Publishing.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Aspects of party systems’ changes in the third wave of democratization: exploring the anti - establishment parties in Greece and Czech Republic

This doctoral dissertation explores new party phenomena and especially the “anti-establishment” party, a new kind of party that emerged during the years of crisis and party-systems’ changes. Anti-establishment parties actively oppose current political elites, parties and political actors but they defense rigorously liberal democracy, the rule of law and democratic institutions. So, what defines anti-establishment parties, what are their main characteristics, their differences among other parties of the same party-system, how they enter into the party system and which is their left-right axis position? The comparative methodology sets the framework under which this thesis defines anti-establishment parties. More specifically it illustrates their political manifesto, their organizational structure and their placement into the political system. Additionally, it explores similarities with established parties -products of the classic cleavages- and also differences with anti-system parties -parties that try to decompose the current structure liberal democratic system-. Further, it explores the “River” party from Greece and the “ANO 2011” party from Czech Republic, which both emerged after major domestic political crisis. Conclusively, anti-establishment parties are crisis-products and their emergence is favored by party system fragmentation and high electoral variability. They incorporate political protest, by attacking the current political establishment, parties’ elites and current political personnel, but the defend liberal democracy. Despite they reject any self-placement into the left-right axis and choosing in contrary the forward-backwards distinction, their political manifesto offers political suggestions with left or right origination. Although they oppose established political parties, they show a relatively high degree of coalition potential. Their leader is a prominent figure, without past party-experience, whose previous successful professional experience is presented as an asset that guarantees political success.Στόχος της διατριβής είναι η διερεύνηση νέων κομματικών φαινομένων που αναπτύσσονται την περίοδο της κρίσης στο πλαίσιο μεταβολών των κομματικών συστημάτων, τα οποίο ορίζουμε ως «αντι-κατεστημένα κόμματα». Τα αντί-κατεστημένα κόμματα ασκούν κριτική στο υφιστάμενο «κατεστημένο», τα υπόλοιπα κόμματα και τις πολιτικές ελίτ, υπερασπίζονται όμως τη φιλελεύθερη δημοκρατία, το κράτος δικαίου και τους θεσμούς του. Ποια είναι τα χαρακτηριστικά των αντί-κατεστημένων κομμάτων, ποιες οι ομοιότητες και ποιες οι διαφορές με τα υπόλοιπα κόμματα, πως ενσωματώνονται στα κομματικά συστήματα, πως τοποθετούνται έναντι των υπολοίπων κομμάτων και ποια είναι η τοποθέτησή τους στον άξονα αριστερά-δεξιά ; Αξιοποιώντας τη συγκριτική μέθοδο επιχειρείται η θεωρητική ανάλυση των αντί-κατεστημένων κομμάτων, με έμφαση σε στοιχεία του πολιτικού τους μηνύματος, της οργανωτικής τους δομής και της τοποθέτησής τους εντός του κομματικού συστήματος. Συγκεκριμένα, επιχειρείται σε συγκριτικό επίπεδο η ανάλυση ομοιοτήτων και διαφορών σε σχέση με βασικές κατηγορίες υφιστάμενων κομμάτων, όπως τα εδραιωμένα, δηλαδή κομμάτων που βασίζονται στις κλασικές διαιρετικές τομές αλλά και η αποτύπωση των διαφορών τους με τα αντί-συστημικά, κόμματα που επιθυμούν τη διάλυση του υφιστάμενου πλαισίου της φιλελεύθερης δημοκρατίας. Η σύγκριση εκτείνεται με την τοποθέτηση, από τη μία πλευρά, του κόμματος «Το Ποτάμι» από την Ελλάδα και από την άλλη του «ΑΝΟ 2011» από την Τσεχία τα οποία αναδείχθηκαν κατόπιν σημαντικών μεταβολών στα κομματικά συστήματα της χώρας τους. Συμπερασματικά, τα αντί-κατεστημένα κόμματα αποτελούν προϊόντα της κρίσης, η εμφάνισή τους ευνοείται από τον κατακερματισμό του κομματικού συστήματος και την υψηλή εκλογική μεταβλητότητα, ενώ τα ίδια ενσωματώνουν τη διαμαρτυρία επιτιθέμενα στις πολιτικές ελίτ και το πολιτικό προσωπικό των υφιστάμενων κομμάτων, υπερασπιζόμενα όμως παράλληλα το οικοδόμημα της φιλελεύθερης δημοκρατίας και τους θεσμούς της. Αρνούνται την κατάταξη στον άξονα αριστερά-δεξιά, επιλέγοντας περισσότερο τη διάκριση μεταξύ «εμπρός και πίσω», ενώ στο πολιτικό τους πρόγραμμα διατηρούν προτάσεις τόσο αριστερής όσο και δεξιάς προέλευσης. Παρά τις διαφορές τους με τα εδραιωμένα κόμματα, εμφανίζονται θετικά στην προοπτική συμμαχιών, ενώ τέλος σημαντικό ρόλο στην επιτυχία τους διαδραματίζει ο ηγέτης τους, ο οποίος εμφανίζεται ως εξωτερικός παίκτης (outsider), χωρίς προηγούμενη κομματική συμμετοχή, με την προηγούμενη όμως επιτυχημένη κοινωνική και επαγγελματική του πορεία να προβάλλεται ως εχέγγυο πολιτικής επιτυχίας του κόμματος

Emerging Technologies Enabling the Transition Toward a Sustainable and Circular Economy : The 4R Sustainability Framework

A Circular Economy (CE) is an emerging economic model, restorative and regenerative by both intention and design. The CE evolves in a repetitive cycle, where waste is returned back into the of a new product by recycling and reusing materials. Thus, CE represents a sustainable and productive economy model that is financially, economically, and socially feasible. It is increasingly regarded as an acceptable and desirable solution to achieving prosperity whilst acknowledging ecological and social boundaries. Opposed to the unsustainable Linear Economy, it draws on complexity and systems thinking by imitating nature that does not produce any waste. However, the implementation of CE in industry is slow paced, mainly due to barriers caused by complex sustainability transitions and innovations needed to cover a systemic and systems thinking approach. In the last few years, the concept of a CE and the transition from a linear, take-make-waste system to a cyclic system that reuses, remanufactures, and recycles materials, have gained increased importance, and have attracted considerable attention from both scholars and practitioners. Research that examines the role of emerging technologies in supporting this transition is therefore imperative. The CE has also become a key policy objective due to increased frequency of natural disasters which have been caused by human activity and social pressure on policymakers and governments to introduce measures in order to ensure sustainability, bio-based products and sustainable processing. This study discusses the concept of the CE as well as the transition from a Linear to a closed-loop Circular Economy based on resource regeneration and ecosystem restoration. It unfolds the role and importance of emerging technologies related to Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 in this transition by analyzing their adoption and implementation in the context of the CE. The key benefits of transformational change include increased engagement, improved performance, and higher levels of creativity and innovation. The ultimate and implicit aim of this paper is to increase awareness of the required actions ideally from every single individual on earth. Through increasing understanding of the fact that the use of emerging technologies is not a magic wand for addressing the ecological challenges but a tool for supporting the transition to a cleaner environment. In order to obtain an authentic and genuine transition, a fundamental social and cultural shift needs to pave the way.© 2023 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement: 30th European Conference, EuroSPI 2023, Grenoble, France, August 30 – September 1, 2023, Proceedings, Part II. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42310-9_12fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Reconsidering a Sustainable Future Through Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) in the Context of Circular Economy

To assure a sustainable future for current and future generations, the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was set by the United Nations is imperative. Hence, a fundamental social and cultural shift toward resource efficiency and more sustainable lifestyles is required. In this context, the need for a circular economy is becoming more evident. New technologies can assist in meeting SDGs and achieving an effective circular economy. Particularly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) are critical technologies for fulfilling these goals. The combination of AI with IoT leads to the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) which has the potential to further facilitate the transition toward and amplify the benefits for a sustainable future. This chapter aims to examine how AI can support the achievement of SDGs and realization of a circular economy. Additionally, the 4R sustainability framework (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rethink) is presented as a proposed extension of the 3R principles. To assess its suitability, a Sociocultural, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical, and Demographic (STEEPLED) analysis is conducted. The need to educate the younger generations and re-educate adults to achieve changes in attitudes and mindsets toward sustainability was highlighted as a vital process. The need to further improve adaptability and reusability of resources emerged as a requirement to effectively maximize the 4Rs. AI emerged as a determining factor in achieving SDGs and creating a circular economy.©2024 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published Artificial Intelligence of Things for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53433-1_1fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed