Gamified mobile/online learning for personal care givers for people with disabilities and older people

The paper examines how a gamification approach can enhance and enrich the learning experience of personal care givers (PCGs) for people with disabilities and older people (potential or in active employment). Using game elements that pervade the M-Care mobile PCG training application, users are given the opportunity to self-assess their newly acquired knowledge and through a rewards system they are motivated to follow further training courses. The gamified experience is embedded in a broader educational logic including an extensive training curriculum and innovative online and mobile training platforms

An Emotional Rally: Exploring Commenters' Responses to Online News Coverage of the COVID-19 Crisis in Austria

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unparalleled global crisis impacting both public and private life. In the situation of uncertainty, emotions run high and might compromise the public acceptance of and compliance with countermeasures tackling the crisis. Mass media play an integral part in communicating crisis measures and provide an institutionalised channel to diffuse relevant information to a broad audience. This is especially true for digital outlets of legacy media given the greater immediacy of coverage. In addition, digital news offers the unique opportunity for readers to engage with the news contents, allowing an analysis of the dynamics of emotional reactions to crisis news coverage. We explore the case of Austria as an early COVID-19 hotspot. We analyse digital news coverage of two high-circulation newspapers and the emotionality it prompted in user comments, based on a unique dataset comprising 38,253 articles and around 1.6 Million comments from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2020. Results show increased emotionality during lockdown and towards the government. With reference to the rally around-the-flag literature, we interpret this as emotional rallying behind the responsible political crisis managers

Performance measurement systems in Universities: A critical review of the Italian System

This research focuses on the development of performance measurement systems (PMS) in universities and discusses a possible move toward international harmonization. To this end, the case of Italy is examined. In particular, the new regulation issued by the National Evaluation Agency (ANVUR) is examined and compared with the guidelines provided by the IPSASB, in the aim of shedding light on the gap between the Italian guidelines and the approach proposed at international level by the IPSASB. The analysis demonstrates that the approach followed by the Italian agency, while still grounded on a rules-based standard setting, has taken the first steps towards a management approach. Moreover, the ANVUR guidelines do not take into account the need for international comparison and the consequent harmonization problem

New Public Management: Promote the Public Sector Modernization Through Service Quality. Current Experiences and Future Challenges

New Public Management, Service, Quality, SERVQUAL, IPA, Inland Revenue office, Greece,