Improving the use of e-learning in health care curricula

E-learning is nowadays included in different health care curricula. However, this learning and teaching approach is still relatively underused in the health care study programmes. Hence, the goal of this article is to present three e-learning best practices in health care, which were validated in our previous projects/studies.First best practice, e-learning practice contents for the development of critical thinking, presents the approach which resulted in significant (p<0.001) raise in the number of discussion posts (+12.2%) for which the opinions and conclusions of the participants were justified with valid arguments. Furthermore, also the survey results showed that students achieve critical thinking skills with these contents. Second best practice, inclusion of the health care students in the development of e-contents, also resulted as a valid approach for improving the use of e-learning in health care curricula, which was confirmed by the expert opinion and e-contents final users. Finally, third best practice, our approach for evaluation and comparison of e-learning and traditional pedagogical elements value by health care students and teachers, was confirmed in the interview with the management as a valid approach that helps the management to identify whether previous elearning initiatives and activities were successful. Best practices, presented in this paper, represent the evidence that the use of modern information and communication technologies should be considered in the future as a serious requisite in health care study programmes. The broader community interested in the e-learning initiative should prepare a list of similar best practices, validate its effectiveness and prepare guidelines for their optimal implementation.

A comparative evaluation of E-learning and traditional pedagogical process elements

A comparative evaluation of E-learning and traditional pedagogical process element

Exploring the Relations Between Net Benefits of IT Projects and CIOs’ Perception of Quality of Software Development Disciplines

Software development enterprises are under consistent pressure to improve their management techniques and development processes. These are comprised of several software development methodology (SDM) disciplines such as requirements acquisition, design, coding, testing, etc. that must be continuously improved and individually tailored to suit specific software development projects. The paper proposes a methodology that enables the identification of SDM discipline quality categories and the evaluation of SDM disciplines’ net benefits. It advances the evaluation of software process quality from single quality category evaluation to multiple quality categories evaluation as proposed by the Kano model. An exploratory study was conducted to test the proposed methodology. The exploratory study results show that different types of Kano quality are present in individual SDM disciplines and that applications of individual SDM disciplines vary considerably in their relation to net benefits of IT projects. Consequently, software process quality evaluation models should start evaluating multiple categories of quality instead of just one and should not assume that the application of every individual SDM discipline has the same effect on the enterprise’s net benefits

Software Process Evaluation from User Perceptions and Log Data

Companies often claim to follow specific software development methodologies (SDM) when performing their software development process. These methodologies are often supported by dedicated tools that keep track of work activities carried out by developers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a novel approach that integrates analytical insights from both the perceptions of SDM stakeholders and software development tools logs to provide SDM improvement recommendations. This paper develops a new process improvement approach that combines two significantly different sources of data on the same phenomenon. First, it uses a questionnaire to gather software development stakeholder SDM perceptions (managers and developers). Second, it leverages process mining to analyze software development tools logs to obtain additional information on software development activities. Finally, it develops recommendations based on concurrent analysis of both sources. Our novel process improvement approach is evaluated in three directions: Does the presented approach (RQ1) enable managers to gain additional insights into employees' performance, (RQ2) deliver additional insights into project performance, and (RQ3) enable development of additional SDM improvement recommendations? We find that integrated analysis of software development perception data and software development tools logs opens new possibilities to more precisely identify and improve specific SDM elements. The evaluation of our novel process improvement approach follows a single case study design. Our approach can only be used in enterprises in which software development tools logs are available. The study should be repeated in different cultural settings. We practically show how concurrently analyzing data about developer SDM perceptions and event log data from software development tools enables management to gain additional insights in the software development process regarding the performance of individual developers. The main theoretical contribution of our paper is a novel process improvement approach that effectively integrates data from management and developer perspectives and software development tools logs.Einstein Foundation Berlin http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100006188Peer Reviewe

Exploring the influences of the use of elements comprising information system development methodologies on strategic business goals

As the competitive pressure of the global market for information systems (IS) continues to increase, IS development enterprises should start to consider if and how the use of IS development methodologies (ISDM) influences their main strategic business goals. More precisely, they should start to consider two different dimensions of the actual use of ISDM: the number of times an opportunity for ISDM use arises and the number of times the ISDM is actually used. Otherwise, they run the risk of mismanaging their ISDM-related investments. The goal of this study is to develop a model that would enable academics and IS practitioners to better examine and understand how different dimensions of the use of ISDM influence strategic business goals of cost leadership, differentiation and cornering niche markets in IS development enterprises. Given the limited literature on the research topic, this study was considered exploratory and theory building in nature. The main result of the presented exploratory study is a clearly defined model for examining how different dimensions of ISDM influence strategic business goals. Exploratory results show that the actual use of ISDM has a significantly positive influence on strategic business goals of differentiation and cornering of niche markets, but not the cost leadership. First published online: 22 Sep 201

Definition of the basis for measuring and improving technical efficiency and social adoption of software development methodologies

Software development methodology can be briefly defined as a recommended means to achieve the development of program systems, based on a set of rationales and an underlying philosophy. It usually includes the definition of phases, procedures, tasks, rules, techniques, guidelines, documentation and tools. Today, many different methodologies exist that should pave the way for more efficient software development and higher quality software. However, in practice not many organizations use formally defined software development methodologies. Three important causes can be identified that at lest partially explain the phenomenon: methodologies are not attuned to the actual organisation and project needs, methodologies do not fit the specific social and cultural characteristics of the development team and the organisation, and the approaches to the introduction of methodologies are often inappropriate. In the past, researchers dealt mostly with technical aspects of methodologies, almost completely omitting their social dimension. That resulted in the methodology rejection as many researchers nowadays recognize. Consequently, in the recent years, the importance of people and their attitude towards methodologies is being stressed, and the research dealing with the methodology adoption is gaining more and more recognition. Unfortunately, the two research areas, one dealing with technical aspects and another dealing with social aspects, remain almost completely unrelated. The primary objective of the dissertation is to define the basis for measuring and improving technical efficiency and social adoption of software development methodologies. The main contribution is a framework for evaluation and improvement of methodologies that merges both technical and social aspects. The framework defines all steps necessary for evaluation and improvement of methodologies. The particularity of the framework is its ability to consider a methodology at different levels of granularity: from single elements to larger methodology parts. The framework is designed in a way that allows for adaptation to the organisation needs and enables further improvements and enhancements. The framework comprises of four main components: a model for the evaluation of methodology efficiency and adoption, a model for the evaluation of changeability of a methodology and its environment, scenarios for methodology improvements, and a process for continuous maintenance and improvement of a methodology. The framework enables an organisation to precisely evaluate the efficiency and the adoption of each part of its methodology. Using the results of the evaluation the organisation can create suitable scenarios for improvement of the methodology efficiency and acceptability, and scenarios for introduction of the improved methodology parts. The framework enables organisation to continuously evaluate and improve its methodology. The dissertation also defines the basis for development of a software tool to support the framework. The tool is especially important for evaluation of methodologies on the level of a single element. The tool comprises of: an evaluation module, an analysis module and a module for the creation of improvement scenarios. Prototypes of two modules were developed: a prototype of the evaluation module and a prototype of the analysis module. The framework was partially tested in two Slovenian organisations dealing with software development. In the first case, using previously mentioned prototypes, every single element of the organisation's methodology was evaluated. In the second case classical paper questionnaires were used to evaluate larger parts of the methodology. Both tests confirmed the practical value of the framework

Balancing software and training requirements for information security

Information security is one of the key areas of consideration to assure reliable and dependable information systems (IS). Achieving an appropriate level of IS security requires concurrent consideration of the technical aspects of IS and the human aspects related to the end users of IS. These aspects can be described in the form of information security requirements. We propose an approach that helps select and balance information security software requirements (iSSR) and information security training requirements (iSTR) according to the information security performance of end users. The approach was tested in an experiment involving 128 IS professionals. The results showed that using the proposed approach helps IS professionals with limited experience in information security make significantly better decisions regarding iSSR and iSTR

Bibliometric Mapping of Research on User Training for Secure Use of Information Systems

Information systems are pervasive in organizations of all sizes. To use them securely, users must be properly trained. Because of the pervasiveness of information systems the number of scientific publications reporting on user training for secure use of information systems is increasing year by year. To overcome the issue of manually surveying such a vast body of knowledge and to keep up with research trends, we conducted bibliometric mapping of research on user training for secure use of information systems. A total of N = 1955 records published between 1991 and 2019 were retrieved from the Web of Science bibliographic database on 21 November 2019. Top contributing authors, organizations, countries and research field were identified with the Web of Science built-in results analysis tool. Additionally, keyword mapping was performed with VOSviewer software. The analysis of the network and overlay keyword maps revealed six clusters: healthcare, technology adoption, management, information security, technical solutions and physical security. The results of this study suggest attractive research directions to be pursued in the future, such as information security training in healthcare and individualized user training alternatives to one-size-fits-all user training approach