Predicting College Student’ Use of E-Learning Systems: an Attempt to Extend Technology Acceptance Model

This study makes an attempt to extend technology acceptance model (TAM) and presents a respecified conceptual model to examine the factors associated with college students’ use of asynchronous e-learning systems. A web-based learning platform was employed to assist the learning of an undergraduate-level course, management information systems (MIS), in a well-known institute of technology in the southern part of Taiwan. A cross-sectional survey was conducted. The partial least squares method was applied to validate the reliability and validity of the measurement model and assess the proposed conceptual model in this study. The empirical results indicated that college students showed great readiness and positive intentions towards the use of such e-learning system for the professional courses and suggested potential benefits from its use in the long term. The findings of this study not only can proffer practical implications for on-line professional course learning and teaching in business education, but also may serve as instrumental guidelines for e-learning system to be designed effectively to improve students’ interests and motivations in virtual learning environments

A conference key distribution system based on cross-product

AbstractExtended from the Diffie-Hellman public key distribution system (PKDS), we propose a conference key distribution system (CKDS) based on the cross-product operations on row vectors over a Galois field GF(P), where P is a prime number. In our CKDS, the chairperson computes a conference key CK and then embeds it to some public interpolating polynomials to let only the legal intended principals recover CK, while the illegal intended principals can not. From the public parameters, an intruder or any intended principal in the network does not know how many and who are the legal intended principals in the conference. Furthermore, since the construction of the CK does not interfere with the secret keys of the intended principals, any intended principals in the network has no useful information for revealing any other principals' secret keys. Besides, our CKDS can be implemented practically

Examining Factors Influencing Behavioral Intentions to Use Asynchronous Web-Based Language Learning

Over the past few years, the prevalence of web-based applications in school and at home makes learning and teaching through the Internet become an inevitable way in education. With great potentials for enriching all kinds of educational applications, web-based instruction is becoming an impressive apparatus for learning resource delivering. In this study, an asynchronous web-based language learning (AWBLL) system is employed in a vocational-technical college in Taiwan to support undergraduate English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. Drawing on the concepts from theory of reasoned action, technology acceptance model and social cognitive theory, this study proposed a comprehensive model and developed an instrument for measuring students’ intentions to use AWBLL Systems. The research findings indicate that students in EFL show great readiness to and positive intentions towards the system for EFL courses and exposed a possible benefit from its use in the long run. However, they also convey some negative opinions of the AWBLL system, suggesting additional improvement of the relative underlying factors of AWBLL technology. The results can proffer useful suggestions for web-based language learning, as well as serve as instrumental guidelines for web-based system to be effectively implemented with care to avoid attenuating students’ interests and activations