Accountability and Project-based Learning

We offer a review of the publications concerning accountability of instructors and students for project-based learning (PBL) in an educational institution. At first, the PBL approach, its methodological justification, and the characteristics of the PBL environment that promotes taking accountability for learning are examined. Then, the publications are reviewed regarding their potential contribution to determination, creation, and development of accountability for PBL. Determination of accountability demonstrates its constructive role in improvement of teaching and learning. Creation of accountability is considered through collaborative knowledge building and using the comprehensive assessment of students’ learning while execution of study projects. Development of accountability for PBL is encouraged by PBL enhancement. It caused analysis of a computer-mediated adaptive support for PBL stimulating and facilitating collaborative knowledge building by students while learning by doing. The adaptive support provides adaptive formation of the collaborative groups, the adaptive assessment of the PBL to correspond with the progress of students’ knowledge, and adaptive management of a collaborative learning based on execution of the projects. Keywords: project-based learning, accountability, adaptive suppor

A Three-Component Model for Change Planning through Employees’ Accountability

The suggested model shapes change planning based on the employees’ accountability. Change planning is accompanied by building accountability and determining the quantitative measures of accountability. It is resulted by the peers and management assessments of the employees’ change proposals and readiness to participate in realization of peer proposals. The change planning is performed by consistent performance three model components. The components are Create, Assess, and Determine. In Create component managers determine goals and directions of change, form requirements and conditions for qualitative and motivated creation of change proposals, and familiarize employees with goals, directions, requirements and conditions. Then, the employees create change proposals and disseminate their proposals to the co-workers. In Assess component the managers and employees assess the presented proposals according to the types, requirements, and conditions of assessment. Along with that, readiness including interest, opportunity, and ability, to participate in realization of the proposed changes is also assessed. It allows building collaborative teams and assessing the employees’ involvement in change process. In Determine component the measure of the team’ mutual accountability for the change proposal realization is determined and it is divided among team members on the basis of quantitative assessment of personal readiness to participate in the change. Then, change planning guided by the accountability measures are performed. The most accountable team leader, the most accountability significant proposal in the change direction, and the most accountability significant direction are identified. The employees’ compensation for participation in the change planning adapted to measures of the employees’ accountability for realization change is calculated. Key words: change planning, accountability for change DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-12-14 Publication date: April 30th 202

Effectiveness of Online Learning during the COVID -19 Pandemic in Mizoram

Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, most schools in Mizoram shifted to online learning platforms to continue with their academic activities. A survey was carried out using a questionnaire to identify the effectiveness of online learning. 356 students and 60 teachers from different secondary and higher secondary schools in Mizoram responded to this survey. To find the effectiveness of online learning, percentages were calculated to analyze the data and the mathematical consensus (Cns) were calculated. Students’ preferences and perceptions on various attributes of online classes were analyzed. The results indicated that most of the students and teachers were not quite ready to shift to online learning platforms. Bad internet connectivity, low data limits, slow data speed, demand for costly devices such as smart phones and related software and connectivity were problems faced in conducting online classes. It was found that the students preferred using smart phones to follow online classes, and mathematics was the most difficult subject to learn or teach in online classes

Dengue: pathogenesis, prevention and treatment – A mini review

Dengue is a threatening tropical disease which has become the cause of significant mortality, morbidity and economic burden. Dengue is an epidemic in over 100 countries, and it causes up to 25000 deaths every year. There is no specific cure available for the disease, hence fluid resuscitation is the only ultimate treatment given to patients in severe conditions. Dengue is more threatening in Southeast Asia, where it is the leading cause of deaths in children, and where all four serotypes of the dengue virus and the vector, Aedes aegypti, are endemic. In last few decades, an overwhelming increase was seen in dengue infections around the world and it is estimated that two fifths of the world's population is now at risk from dengue with the mortality rate of about 5%. To control dengue infection, combination of care measures are utilized which depends on the symptoms and severity of the fever, including oral rehydration solution or isotonic intravenous fluids and/or blood transfusions. Currently, the only effective way of preventing the dengue epidemics is eliminating the vector. This review covers pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of dengue infection

The relationship between affective and normative organizational commitments on job satisfaction among technical staff at Universiti Utara Malaysia

The study was conducted to examine the relationship between affective and normative organization commitments with job satisfaction among technical staff in Universiti Utara Malaysia. The questionnaires were sent randomly to 150 technical staff at UUM and a total of 121 responses were used for analysis giving an effective response rate of 81.33%. The findings of this study showed that affective and normative organizational commitments have positive and significant relationships with job satisfaction. The findings are also expected to make significant contributions to existing research and literature in the field of organizational behavior and human resource management. This study was also important as a reference to policy makers and administrators at public universities in better managing their staff, specifically the technical staff group. The study was concluded with a discussion and suggestions for future research

Enabling Secure Trustworthiness Assessment and Privacy Protection in Integrating Data for Trading Person-Specific Information

IEEE With increasing adoption of cloud services in the e-market, collaboration between stakeholders is easier than ever. Consumer stakeholders demand data from various sources to analyze trends and improve customer services. Data-as-a-service enables data integration to serve the demands of data consumers. However, the data must be of good quality and trustful for accurate analysis and effective decision making. In addition, a data custodian or provider must conform to privacy policies to avoid potential penalties for privacy breaches. To address these challenges, we propose a twofold solution: 1) we present the first information entropy-based trust computation algorithm, IEB_Trust, that allows a semitrusted arbitrator to detect the covert behavior of a dishonest data provider and chooses the qualified providers for a data mashup and 2) we incorporate the Vickrey–Clarke–Groves (VCG) auction mechanism for the valuation of data providers’ attributes into the data mashup process. Experiments on real-life data demonstrate the robustness of our approach in restricting dishonest providers from participation in the data mashup and improving the efficiency in comparison to provenance-based approaches. Furthermore, we derive the monetary shares for the chosen providers from their information utility and trust scores over the differentially private release of the integrated dataset under their joint privacy requirements

School Principals' Perceptions of Teacher Evaluation in the Arab Education System in Israel

The objective of this research is to examine how principals of Arab schools view the evaluation of teachers and to determine whether and to what extent their perceptions of teacher evaluation differ. The Arab educational system in Israel is an integral part of the general educational system. For the most part it is run by Jewish administrators. Fundamental decisions are determined by officials who are not Arabs, despite the fact that the Arab citizens of Israel possess unique national and cultural characteristics. This systemic control has prevented Arabs in Israel from controlling the objectives of education or from shaping and directing the Arab educational system according to the collective interests of the Arab public. The findings of the study can contribute to research knowledge about school principals and can help in making decisions regarding how to introduce, adapt and make more intelligent use of teacher evaluation. School principals' perceptions of teacher evaluation are an expression of their leadership style. These perceptions also have an impact upon patterns of using teacher evaluation. Principals can view evaluation as part of their administrative functions or as part of their pedagogical and leadership roles. Thus it can be assumed successful use of teacher evaluation is also related to the principals' perceptions of this evaluation. The way in which principals view teacher evaluation is defined by how they see the objectives of this evaluation. To what extent do they see teacher evaluation as a systematic means for determining teacher compensation, promotions and continued employment? Alternatively, do they see it as a way to empower teachers by helping them develop and improve their teaching performance? The data were collected from 100 school principals. The results indicate that most of the principals saw the evaluation process as transformational and constructive. In their view, the objective of teacher evaluation is to help teachers improve their work. The principals who did not participate in the in-service training saw teacher evaluation as a means of exercising control, offering compensation and demonstrating authority

A Model of Adaptive Accountability for Innovations in an Academic Institution

An academic institution has to encourage an innovation activity in order to meet the requirements of a modern, dynamic, and competitive environment. The innovation activity of the institution is engendered by instructors’ innovative intentions to create and assess the innovation proposals. However, there are challenges that prevents realization of the innovative intentions. The challenges are caused by lack a model that would shape process of revealing the effective proposals and building accountability for their development. The ASVA model including components “Accountability”, “Submission”, “Valuation”, and “Awarding” is suggested. The model provides: creation and assessment of the innovation proposals by the instructors, determination of the instructors’ accountability measures  for development of the innovation proposals, adaptation of the instructors’ accountability measures to the values of the innovation proposals, revelation of the key instructors who are creators the most valuable innovation proposals for attaining the current aim of the institution, formation of flexible collaboration groups by taking into consideration of willingness and ability of the proposal’s valuators to share accountability for the innovation proposal development with the proposal creator, and adjustment of the size of award received by the instructors to the values of the innovation proposals