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A Metacognitive MOOC Framework

Author(s): Jennifer Roberts,Ignatius G.P Gous / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

MOOC completion rates are well documented as being very low, in most cases, between 5% to 15% (Greene, Oswald, & Pomerantz, 2015; Jordan, 2014). Many reasons have been suggested for the low completion rate. This paper investigates the thesis that one of the predictors of the low completion rates, is that students are not satisfied with the overall experience (structure, content, delivery, etc.) of the MOOC. According to the SERVQUAL measurement scale of satisfaction, service quality can be defined as the difference between expectations and actual experiences. The argument put forward in this paper is that service quality will be enhanced if students’ expectation of the MOOC is well understood and that they are properly prepared for what to expect when undertaking the MOOC. This paper follows from an already accepted research paper featuring an auto ethnographic journey of undertaking a MOOC. The author proposed a metacognitive MOOC framework, from a learner’s perspective, based on her MOOC journey. In this paper, this metacognitive MOOC framework is examined in terms of reflective as well as practical components, to assist prospective MOOC students to be prepared for the experience and enhance their satisfaction with their MOOC.

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A Model of Online Collaborative Project-Based Learning (OCPBL) within a Digital Competence Course in Higher Education

Author(s): Teresa Romeu,Montse Guitert Catasus,Marc Romero Carbonell / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Digital technologies are essential drivers of innovation, growth and job creation in a globaleconomy (European Commission, 2014), there is a Gap between the social need to be updatedin the use of these technologies and the training citizens receive to use them in a critical,collaborative and creative way. In that sense, digital competence is becoming a must foremployability and active citizenship.

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A MOOC Taxonomy Based on Classification Schemes of MOOCs

Author(s): Tharindu R. Liyanagunawardena,Karsten Lundqvist,Steven Warburton,Richard Mitchell,Steven Warburton,Shirley A. Williams / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

In recent years there has been a significant growth in the number of online courses known as MOOCs available via online providers such as edX and Coursera. The result has been a marked reduction in the clarity around the different course offerings and this has created a need to reconsider the classification schemes for MOOCs to help inform potential participants. Many classifications have been proposed which cover the needs of academics and providers but may not be suitable for learners choosing a course. In this paper, the various classifications used by MOOC providers and aggregator services to categorise MOOCs in presenting information to prospective learners are gathered and analysed. As a result, 13 different categories are identified, which cover information provided to learners before entering a course. These categories are then compared and combined with classifications from the literature to create a taxonomy centred round eight terms: Massive (e.g. enrolments), Open (e.g. pre-requisites), Online (e.g. Timings), Assessment, Pedagogy (e.g. instructor-led), Quality (e.g. reviews), Delivery (e.g. educators), Subject (e.g. Syllabus). Thus, producing a taxonomy capable of categorising MOOCs from a wider perspective.

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A Multi-Scale Approach to Learning Innovation Design

Author(s): Susanna Sancassani,Paolo Marenghi,Daniela Casiraghi / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

This paper presents the “Learning Innovation Network”, a learning innovation multi-scale design tool, developed by METID Politecnico di Milano, that provides a synoptic vision of the factors enabling a learning-teaching process. The decision makers at each level are stimulated in reflecting about actors, objectives and constraints, but also supported in designing in a creative and integrated context all the components (physical and digital) of a transformative collaborative experience (channels, activities, contents, relationships with the outside world, etc.), shifting the focus from the “content centred” approach, still deep-rooted in traditional academic institutions.

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A munkás-alkalmazotti népesség jövedelmi színvonala az egyes megyékben

Author(s): László Lengyel / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 01/2020

Unchanged reproduction of a study published on pages 53–60 of issue 2 in the twelfth volume of our journal.The study presents the results of the Labour Force Survey of 1959 in Budapest, 42 rural towns and 143 villages, covering a total of 18,577 households, broken down by county: the majority (81.8%) of the total income of working-class households (HUF 26,832 per year per household) came from employment. The combined average annual amount of income from social security and social insurance and the average annual income per household from backyard farms were more than HUF 2000 (7.3% and 6.6%, respectively).The average amount of other incomes was HUF 1404 (4.3%) per year.

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A Networked Learning Environment for the Education of an Architect

Author(s): Melis Baloglu Asut,Yuksel Demir / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

During a design process, a student of architecture learns how to communicate with various tools, understanding the problem and reflect his/her own solution and how to work together with his/her peers. To be able to examine how a student of architecture learn, communicate and act in a networked environment, this study analyses an architectural theory lesson as a case study in consideration of ACAD (Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014) framework. An online assistant acts as an observer of the online platform of the course used as a case study, analyses the 14-week course according to ACAD framework. As a conclusion, students can learn collaboratively by articulating and sharing their ideas while they follow their education if they have a chance to frame their own curriculum, and they also continue to share their experience and expertise through discussion and dialog with the help of online communities after they had graduated.

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A New Approach to Digital Competence Building for University Educators in Europe

Author(s): Fabio Nascimbeni,Daniel Villar-Onrubia,Katherine Wimpenny,Daniel Burgos / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Since the mid 1990’s, the exponentially growing adoption of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) in everyday life has resulted in new social dynamics and reconfigured opportunities for access to expertise and knowledge transfer. This has important implications for teaching and learning processes, for example through participatory cultures and open educational practices. The potential benefits of this include opportunities for informal and peer-to-peer learning, a new attitude toward intellectual property, diversification of cultural expression, a better dialogue around skills valued in the workplace, and a more proactive conception of citizenship.

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A New Approach to Teaching Introductory Computing and Information Technology by Distance Learning – Addressing Key Issues

Author(s): Elaine Thomas / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

New introductory level 1 curriculum has been developed for the open-entry Computing and information technology (IT) degree programme in the School of Computing and Communications in the Open University (OU UK). Three key issues in Computing and IT teaching had been identified, namely: student retention, declining participation by women in Computing and IT modules, and the teaching of introductory programming at level 1. Dealing with these issues formed part of the rationale for developing the new curriculum. Computing and IT students at the OU are part-time distance learners and there is a diverse student population with a range of learning needs. Two-thirds of students are in employment, so it is important their work-life balance is considered in the design of new curriculum.Retention of students is an important issue in distance education (Simpson, 2012) as drop-out rates are high. Students study the new level 1 course “TM111 Introduction to Computing and Information Technology 1” first followed by “TM112 Introduction to Computing and Information Technology 2”. Both module production teams engaged in a learning design process to assist with the management of student workload and to ensure coherence and consistency across both modules. The declining rate of participation by women in Computing and IT is a source of concern across both the employment and the higher education sectors (BCS, 2016). In developing TM111 care was taken in the selection of examples and images to ensure that female Computer Scientists were adequately represented so as to provide suitable role models for female students (Frieze & Quesenberry, 2019). Students often struggle with computer programming but easing “cognitive load” (Sweller, 1988) may be helpful, especially in a distance learning context. TM111 uses its own customised version of Scratch, called OUBuild, to assist students in acquiring foundational programming skills. TM111 is presented using a blend of traditional print materials plus online learning and also specialised software. The module is designed to appeal to a wide range of students with a variety of study intentions and learning needs, many of whom have few formal qualifications (or none at all).TM111 has proven to be very attractive to students and participation by female students has increased to 24%, at least four percentage points over the previous module. Student responses to the module as a whole and the teaching on programming has been positive overall. More work is needed to evaluate the impact of the new modules in equipping students with the necessary programming skills to succeed with programming at level 2.

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A new approach to the professional role of the school psychologist

Author(s): Ewa Sokołowska / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

The article is an invitation to discuss the role and tasks of the psychologist in the modern school. It advances the thesis that the primary role of the psychologist is to co-create the school environment and the educational process. Being a co-creator is the essence of the presented model of the psychologist’s work in the school system. The model covers psychological activities defined as monitoring promotion prevention, and intervention. It identifies the need to continually expand the possibilities of psychological influences and to create an autonomous vision of their realization. Adopting and performing this role in the way described in the model seems to be crucial to building the professional identity of the educational psychologist—and a well-defined and clarified professional identity is the basic regulator of a person’s functioning in his/her professional role.

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A New Field on the Making in Turkish Academia: a few Issues Regarding the Turkic World Literatures Teaching and Research

Author(s): Ertuğrul Karakuş / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

As a field and course, “Turkic World Literatures” covers Turkish literatures outside Turkey. However, in practice, it is seen to encompass new (contemporary-modern) literature field outside Turkey. This field is taught in Turkish higher education in different courses such as “Contemporary Turkic World Literatures”, “Turkic World Literatures”, “Comparative Turkic World Literatures” and “Azerbaijan/ Turkmenistan, etc. Literature Examples”. Nevertheless, there are some differences in practice and content when it comes to research in the field in general, and teaching in particular. This study discusses a few issues regarding Turkic World Literatures research and teaching and makes suggestions in conclusion. Within the framework of Turkic World Literatures course and research, “determination of the field’s scope”, “inter-field comparison” and “textual adaptation of contemporary literary theories and knowledge” are discussed.

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A New Model of Corporatism in States Governed by Populist Political Parties: The Cases of Poland and Hungary

Author(s): Maciej Olejnik / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Between 1945 and 2010 three main types of corporatism were discussed in the political science literature: the ‘classic’ and ‘lean’ corporatism that existed in the West European countries and the ‘illusory’ corporatism that dominated in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. The aim of the paper is to examine whether a new version of corporatism, which I call ‘patronage’ corporatism, emerged in Hungary and Poland during the first term of the governments formed by populist political parties (in Hungary between 2010 and 2014 and in Poland between 2015 and 2019). In patronage corporatism the authorities autonomously conduct heterodox economic policy. They enter into alliances only with ideologically close trade unions. While their cronies legitimize authorities’ decisions at the governmental level vis-à-vis the citizens and at the international level, the government fulfils some of their socio-economic and organizational demands. Furthermore, the government cooperates with its allies to destroy other trade unions that are perceived as hostile towards the authorities. The paper shows that the capture of power by populist parties in Hungary and Poland led to the development of patronage corporatism in these countries.

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A New Proof of the Feuerbach Theorem

Author(s): Sava Grozdev,Hiroshi Okumura / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

By using the Paskalev-Tchobanov distance formula, we give a new proof of the famous Feuerbach theorem.

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A Phenomenological Study of Employee Perceptions of Managerial Behaviors as Personal Enactments of Organizational Culture

Author(s): Joanna Małgorzata Michalak,Robert J. Ristino / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2013

Using a phenomenological methodology, this research study examines the phenomenon of organizational culture through the perceptions of those who experience it. Rather than studying how organizational culture affects organizational behavior and success, the researchers focus on employee perceptions of culture as a consequence of experiences with managerial behaviors as personal enactments of culture. The notion of personal enactments is drawn from the work of Edgar Schein. Schein [1985] has identified three levels of organizational culture: artifacts, values and beliefs. Among artifacts, Schein identifies the personal enactments of organizational values by senior managers as one of the more important. The researchers derived the data describing these personal enactments from 20 volunteer subjects reporting in self-administered questionnaires their experiences with managerial behaviors. Respondent perceptions are described in their own words, conveying their understandings, feelings, emotions and behaviors. Responses are categorized into units of relevant meaning, organized into clusters of similar meaning and then into themes. From these themes the researchers draw some insights and understanding of how system actors both live and experience culture in an organizational setting.

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A piacok és a munkaerő feletti kontroll a digitális kapitalizmusban

Author(s): Philipp Staab,Oliver Nachtwey / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 23/2018

Theorists of post capitalism have recently argued for a more or less inevitable end to capitalism. They assume that private accumulation is systematically blocked by the inability of capitalist corporations to create revenues by setting prices as they lose control over the reproduction of their commodities and that in this process, capitalist labour will eventually disappear. Drawing on a case study of Amazon and thoughts on the policies of other leading digital corporations, we challenge these assumptions. Key corporate players of digitization are trying to become powerful monopolies and have partly succeeded in doing so, using the network effects and scaling opportunities of digital goods and building socio-technical eco- systems. These strategies have led to the development of in part isomorphic structures, hence creating a situation of oligopolistic market competition. We draw on basic assumptions of monopoly capital theory to argue that in this situation labour process rationalization be- comes key to the corporation’s competitive strategies. We see the expansion of digital control and the organizational structures applied by key corporate players of the digital economy as evidence for the expansion of capitalist labour, not its reduction.

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A Pilot Study on the Implementation of the GENER@T Program

Author(s): Ainoa MATEOS INCHAURRONDO,Aida URREA MONCLUS,Juan LLANES ORDONEZ,Daniela COJOCARU / Language(s): English / Issue: 68/2020

This study analyses the effects of the "GENER@T" Program concerning the prevention of dating violence in adolescents. The study’s main aim is to know the impact of the program on students and teachers, assessing the effectiveness and adequacy of the program, as well as the satisfaction of the agents involved. A total number of 62 adolescents have participated in the study, all from 2nd year Secondary School classes, plus five teachers. The design of the evaluative study has followed a multi-method approach with a descriptive-comprehensive purpose. It combines techniques of quantitative data collection (pre-test and post-test) and qualitative one (students: portfolio and focus group, teachers: focus groups and diary). The implementation and evaluation of such a program in a secondary school, this has meant an educational innovation. The results point to high levels of satisfaction with the program, as well as a higher awareness of the implications of dating violence among adolescents.

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A Point where Science and Research Meet Young Students and Interested Stakeholders – The European Researchers’ Night

Author(s): Laura Monica Gorghiu,Ana Maria Aurelia Petrescu,Crinela Dumitrescu / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

As already known, one of the most attracting event organized for general public is represented by the European Researchers’ Night, which targets to bring near Science and Research all the interested actors, having actually a major coverage in more than 30 countries and almost 300 cities, being organized on the last Friday, in September.On the other hand, this event offers a good opportunity for disseminating the outputs designed in several projects that have as objective to promote science and scientific literacy to different target groups, starting from the young learners, to various stakeholders, less or not involved in research activities. In this respect, in the frame of the FP7 project called IRRESISTIBLE, in Romania, the European Researchers’ Night was organized at the National Complex Museum “Curtea Domnească” Târgovişte (History Museum & Museum of Romanian Police), gathering scientific demonstrations, interactive presentations, experimental activities and discussions, but also a dedicated Science exhibition, named: “The World of Nanomaterials and Solar Energy”. Most of the visitors were young students, but also general public was interested to participate to this event. The paper illustrates some aspects related to the participation to the event, but also the feedback recorded from the participants concerning responsible research and innovation aspects that have to be retrieved in the educational practice.

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A Political Act in the E-Society: Digital Vigilantism and Swarms

Author(s): Augustė Dementavičienė / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

The main aim of this article is, by using the case of digital vigilantism, to analyze what new challenges could occur in the E-society and how understanding of the self and self-act is changing during the process when more and more new technologies are integrated in people’s everyday life. The swarm is a metaphor which Zygmunt Bauman uses to show how the understanding of communities is changed in liquid modernity. Swarms are based on untied, uncontrolled, short-term relationships between consumers/users to achieve some goals. Swarms could be massive in numbers and have a lot of power for a very short period. One of the examples could be digital vigilantism, which is an act of punishing certain citizens (they are believed to deserve punishment) by other Internet users. One example of DV would be to put personal information on display to spread shaming acts. The problem is that people are interested in some actions for a very short time, but the political act/change requires an active and stable effort. Despite the phenomenon of DV not getting much attention from the field of political science or political philosophy, it provides us with some insights about the current changes in our understanding of politics and the concept of what is “political” as well as inviting us to reconsider the idea of swarms as put forward by Bauman.

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A Practice Orientated Framework to Support Successful Higher Education Online Learning

Author(s): Paula Shaw / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Since the year 2000 learning online has grown considerably and various models have evolved to support strategic planners and practitioners’ decision making. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) pedagogy strand helped to classify a wide range of models under six headings. These classifications have been further analysed and expanded to create a practice orientated framework for modelling online learning.The purpose of this study is to present practical examples of pedagogic and educational practices that support successful Higher Education online learning, using the classifications of the aforementioned practice orientated framework. It is hoped that the study will provide strategic planners and practitioners with a framework and examples of successful strategies with which to investigate their own organisational practices and shape their own successful online learning strategy.

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A preliminary Exploration of Operating Models of Second Cycle/Research Led Open Education Involving Industry Collaboration

Author(s): Ulf Olsson / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2014

Scientists from five Swedish universities were interviewed about open second cycle education. Research groups and scientists collaborate closely with industry, and the selection of scientists for the study was made in relation to an interest in developing technology-enhanced open education, indicated by applications for funding from the Knowledge Foundation 2013. The study is founded on Conole’s (2012) seven organizational purposes for open education, Coursera’s eight models (Daniel, 2012), and Clarke’s (2013) four strategies for open education, and raises the question whether open education and MOOCs might be a way to reinforce research collaborations and research environments. The researchers displayed a positive attitude towards expanding the technology-enhanced learning and openness, and foresee few problems with openness when industry participates in teaching. Nonetheless, the scientists’ operating models and strategies for developing technology-enhanced learning and open education, are vague. Conclusively: although the interest is obvious, in order to succeed with technology-enhanced open education and strengthening the research groups, the variables for purposes, operating models, strategies, pedagogic models, and obstacles need to be calibrated and made more deliberated, preferably in collaboration between the scientists and industry.

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A Semantic Description of the Combinability between Verbs and Nouns (on Material from Bulgarian and English)

Author(s): Svetlozara Leseva,Ivelina Stoyanova,Maria Todorova,Hristina Kukova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

This paper represents a methodology for defining restrictions on the semantic combinability between different semantic classes of verbs and the sets of nouns corresponding to the elements of their conceptual frame (i.e. the major participants in the situation described). Our observations focus on verb synsets from WordNet and their assigned FrameNet frames which mutually inform each other. We analyse the semantic information typical for each of the studied verb classes and define semantic restrictions on the nouns they combine with. The theoretical and empirical value of the provided semantic representations and restrictions lies in the enhanced modelling of verb-noun combinability which is universal enough to be applicable not only to the languages exemplified (English and Bulgarian), but (with possible modifications) to various other languages for which wordnets are available.

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