Investigating Social Media Management, Adoption and Challenges - The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Social media and innovative Web Services and solutions are offering new possibilities for innovative use in different aspects our lives. Being apart from getting involved in using social media would add more challenges to our daily activities, as we are becoming more reliable on their use. Social media platforms are offering its users new means of communications, where users who post, share and comment on online published information have the potential of reaching a large mass of people in a very short time when compared with traditional use of media. Such use of social media platforms makes it very useful and important to be adequately consider as means for better preparing and responding to a critical event and may offer many benefits in terms of protection and rescue for agencies dealing with civil protection, as they provide wider opportunities for people to engage in warning and informing others in a response to crisis events. This study is part of a wider research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it will focus on discussing the current views of governmental officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina when it comes to the use of social media in the field of protection and rescue activities. The findings are presented in order to pinpoint challenges that will be used as a roadmap for any future solutions in this regard. Keywords: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Flood Crisis, Situation Awareness, Natural Disaster, Social Media, Civil protection

Social media platforms and its applications in natural disaster and crisis events – the case of Bosnia & Herzegovina

Social media platforms are providing opportunities for people to easily engage in warning and informing others in response to natural disaster and crisis events. They are considered more effective and faster to spread among people than traditional media do, and as such make them very important for governments’ civil protection authorities to consider using social media in a framework that will help people to better prepare and response to threats. The importance of this study is that it brings attention to the case of crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it enriches the literature with current status and trends of effective using of SM to early prepare for and mitigate the consequences of disaster impact. This paper discusses some of the major challenges identified during the May 2014 flood in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the public use of social media that enabled the exploitation of new opportunities for facing flood threats and mitigate its effects. Keywords: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Flood Crisis, Flood Challenges, Natural Disaster, Social Medi

Defining E-Learning Level of Use in Jordanian Universities Using CBAM Framework

This paper presents a continuous work related to the status and engagement with e-learning systems by faculty members in Jordanian universities. Previous research study entitled (Evaluating E-Learning System Use by CBAM-Stages of Concern Methodology in Jordanian Universities, 2015) focused on defining stages of concern using one tool that is presented by CBAM Framework. The CBAM Framework provides another tool that is used specifically for measuring level of use of any educational technology. This research focused on using CBAM framework for the first time in Jordanian Higher educational context in order to present a systematic and well-defined methodology for evaluation that will be used for defining the exact engagement with e-learning. It is believed that the results of this research can be reflected positively on universities future policies and practices for developing the use of this educational technology in Jorda

A Predictive Model for Students Admission Uncertainty Using Naïve Bayes Classifier and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE)

Uncertainty of getting admission into universities / institutions is one of the global challenges in academic environment. The students are having good marks with high credential but not sure about getting their admission into universities / institutions.  In this research study the researcher built a predictive model using Naïve Bayes Classifiers –machine learning algorithm to extract and analyze hidden pattern in students’ academic records and their credentials. The main objective of this research study is to reduce uncertainty for getting admission into universities / institutions on the basis of their previous credentials and some other essentials parameters. This research study presents a joint venture of Naïve Bayes Classification and Kernel Density Estimations (KDE) approach to predict student’s admission into universities or any higher institutions.  The predictive model is built on training dataset of students’ examination score such as GPA, GRE, RANK and some other essential features that offered the admission with a predictor accuracy rate of 72% and has been experimentally verified.  To improve the quality of accuracy of predictive model the researcher used the Shapiro-Walk Normality Test and Gaussian distribution on large datasets. The predictive model helps in reducing the admission uncertainty and enhances the universities decision making capabilities. The significance of this research study is to reduce human intervention for making decisions with respect to students’ admission into universities or any higher academic institutions, and it demonstrates that many universities and higher-level institutions could use this predictive model to improve their admission process without human intervention

Factors Affecting Behavioral Intentions towards Cloud Computing in the Workplace: A Case Analysis for Jordanian Universities

Adopting new technologies in Jordanian universities, namely cloud services, represents change in practices that needs to be investigated, as it is expected to face resistance in adoption by faculty members and staff that are used to old practices. A dedicated questionnaire was constructed based on the UTAUT model in order to identify the factors affecting the behavioral intentions leading to use new technologies. Five Jordanian universities participated in this study, and the results showed that there is a high behavioral intention (BI) among staff and faculty members to use cloud services and solutions within their workplace. This research showed that there are factors positively affecting the adoption of cloud services in Jordanian universities, and negative factors have been identified too. University management and staff members needs to be introduced to these factors in order to have better judgement on the future investment and practices of using new technologies