Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

Improving The Efficacy Of Web-Based Educational Outreach In Ecology, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Andrew D. Fulton, Colin D. Witherill, Javier F. Espeleta

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Scientists are increasingly engaging the web to provide formal and informal science education opportunities. Despite the prolific growth of web-based resources, systematic evaluation and assessment of their efficacy remains limited. We used clickstream analytics, a widely available method for tracking website visitors and their behavior, to evaluate 60,000 visits over three years to an educational website focused on ecology. Visits originating from search engine queries were a small proportion of the traffic, suggesting the need to actively promote websites to drive visitation. However, the number of visits referred to the website per social media post varied depending on the social …

Online Simulations For Conceptual Understanding Of Thermoelectric Devices, Maria De Rosario Uribe

Open Access Theses

Computer simulations have been extensively used with educational purposes. However, the successful implementation in order to improve learning has been a matter of debate in research in education. The purpose of this case study is to analyze how a set of computer simulations can improve student understanding of thermoelectric devices. The study was developed in a learning context characterized by the advanced degree of difficulty of the topics treated, the high academic level of education of the students, and the online nature of the learning environment. As part of the course, students were provided with instructional materials that guided the …

The Indiana Cybersecurity Services Center (Incsc): A Cost-Benefit Analysis For K-12 Schools, Hans Christian Vargas Silva

Open Access Theses

The aim of this thesis is to determine if there are greater benefits than costs associated in the participation of public K-12 school corporations in the Indiana Cybersecurity Services Center (INCSC). This thesis is an ex-antecost-benefit analysis policy assessment of the INCSC. The study consisted of a sample of 6 school corporations from which 5 were classified as small and 1 was large. Three methods were considered for data collection; however conducting interviews was the most effective method due to the interaction with IT personnel from each organization in order to analyze current costs related to 4 areas of …

An Automatic Dialog System For Student Advising, Brian Mcmahan

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Automatic dialog systems are an implementation of natural language processing theory with the goal of allowing the use of natural sentences to communicate with a computer system. The general purpose of this project was to design and implement an automatic dialog system for augmenting university student advising. Student advising is a relatively narrow domain of possible questions and responses. The automatic dialog system focused on prescriptive advising rather than developmental advising to further narrow the domain to scheduling and registration matters. A student advisor was interviewed and recorded during a mock advising session in order to model the interaction between …

Gamification Of Education: A Review Of Literature, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Qing Zeng, Venkata R. Telaprolu, Abhishek Padmanabhuni Ayyappa, Brenda Eschenbrenner

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We synthesized the literature on gamification of education by conducting a review of the literature on gamification in the educational and learning context. Based on our review, we identified several game design elements that are used in education. These game design elements include points, levels/stages, badges, leaderboards, prizes, progress bars, storyline, and feedback. We provided examples from the literature to illustrate the application of gamification in the educational context.

A Computer-Based Approach For Identifying Student Conceptual Change, Junchao Yan

Open Access Theses

Misconceptions are commonly encountered in many areas of science and engineering where a to-be-learned concept conflicts with prior knowledge. Conceptual change is an approach for identifying and repairing the misconceptions. One of the ways to promote student conceptual change is providing students with ontological schema training. However, assessment of conceptual change relies on qualitative analysis of student responses. With the exponential growth of qualitative data in the form of graphical representations or written responses, the process of data analysis relying on human experts has become time-consuming and costly. This study took the advantages of natural language processing and machine learning …

Cleaning Data Helps Clean The Air, Kelley Donalds, Xiangrong Liu

Management Faculty Publications

In this project, students use a real-world, complex database and experience firsthand the consequences of inadequate data modeling. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created the database as part of a multimillion dollar data collection effort undertaken in order to set limits on air pollutants from electric power plants. First, students explore the database to identify design limitations from the perspective of a data analyst with a specific goal. Second, students create a new database design which overcomes identified problems. Through this case study, students develop the skill to infer usage implications by studying the design of an existing database. This …

Networks Of Users And Powers: Blackboard Software Roadmap As Cultural Practice, Diana Gellci

Wayne State University Dissertations

With the rapid growth of eLearning applications - the software providing for learning through the Internet - it has become commonplace to describe those technologies as both simple tools and user-friendly. These two vague yet suggestive terms make the operating of the technology appear as social value and any related issues as a user's problem. Interested neo-liberal groups take a step further when considering eLearning technologies as the solution for the problems faced in the field. STS studies recognize that technology fetishism is strategically employed to justify the latest developments of capitalism as technological and logical.

This doctoral study examines …

Workforce Preparedness Of Information Systems Students: Perceptions Of Students, Alumni, And Employers, Susan Bristow

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Employers of newly hired higher education graduates report their new workforce is not prepared. Further research was required to discover insights to the workforce readiness gap. This concurrent mixed methods study explored what competencies influenced employer's perceptions of the work-readiness of Information Systems (ISYS) undergraduate students and discovered ISYS graduates' and current ISYS students' perceptions of their work-readiness. Participants consisted of a convenience sample including 69 ISYS program upperclassmen, 20 ISYS program alumni, and 8 employers of the ISYS program graduates. ISYS program alumni completed an online Qualtrics survey to measure the participants' perception of their workforce preparedness. ISYS program …

Development Of A Jobs Database For Tracking Knowledge And Skills Expectations In The Workplace, Esa M. Rantanen, Christopher Claeys, Daniel Roder

Articles

The primary objective of college education in applied disciplines is that it is relevant to the expectations for new professionals entering the labor market. Academic institutions should therefore pay close attention to the ever-changing skills and knowledge expectations in the labor market. These trends are not easy to track, however. Surveys of new professionals about their experiences in their first jobs or surveys of employers about their experiences with new hires suffer from low response rates, nonresponse bias, and the one-time nature of survey research. A better way to track labor market trends is to continually analyze human factors job …

Has Safeer Improved Sacm's Work And Helped Saudi Students In The Usa Resolve Their Needs Quickly, Faisal M. Alzomily

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined efficiency of the Safeer by gathering and analyzing the perception of 131 Saudi students from Bowling Green, KY. The purpose of the study was to ensure that the system is able to perform its function as the bridge between different institutions and Saudi students studying in the US who require assistance in processing their academic requirements. A self-administered survey using five scale points was employed. Results were summarized using descriptive statistics at 95% confidence level. The result confirmed the hypothesis that the use of the Safeer program provides quality service delivery within SACM, which in turn benefits …

Gamification Of Education Using Computer Games, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Venkata Telaprolu, Shashank Rallapalli, Pavani R. Venkata

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We review the literature on gamification and identify principles of gamification and system design elements for gamifying computer educational games. Gamification of education is expected to increase learners’ engagement, which in turn increases learning achievement. We propose a gamification framework that synthesizes findings from the literature. The gamification framework is comprised of principles of gamification, system design elements for gamification, and dimensions of user engagement.

Session F-4: Using Web Tools And Strategies To Enhance Student Engagement, Jackie Naughton, Frank Tomsic

Professional Learning Day

Web tools and strategies will be introduced and modeled. Teachers will leave this session able to immediately implement the tools and strategies in their classrooms. Participants must bring their own devices.

Online Examination System, Yuvesh Kumar Singh

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project focused on how to implement a secure environment for online-examination in an academic and business environment without the need of any special network topologies and hardware devices. It will not only reduce the instructor's load, but will also enhance the system flexibility to fit every instructor's needs and from the examinees point of view. Contains source code.

Gradeboard: A Cloud-Based Solution For A Student Grading System, Manoj Kulkarni

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of the GradeBoard application is to develop a mobile application as a front end to interact with data stored in a cloud-based system. It leverages cloud computing features such as auto-scaling, load-balancing and NoSQL data stores. The GradeBoard application helps instructors keep track of student activities and gives students an opportunity to know how they are performing by comparing their grades with other students through a game-like leader board interface, thus creating a competitive environment in the class. Contains source code.

An Analysis Of Underlying Competencies And Computer And Information Technology Learning Objectives For Business Analysis, Ryan Thomas Quigley

Open Access Theses

This research examines whether the Computer and Information Technology (CIT) department at Purdue University should develop a business analyst concentration. The differences between system and business analysts, evolution of the business analyst profession, job demand and trends, and applicable model curricula were explored to support this research. Review of relevant literature regarding the topics suggested that a business analyst concentration should be developed. A gap analysis was performed to determine how well selected CIT courses address the skills and competencies required by today's business analysts. The primary finding, as a result of the analysis, was that CIT courses alone are …

Biodiversity Heritage Library, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Deanna Marcum

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), created in 2006, is the result of a collaboration of ten natural history museum and botanical garden libraries seeking to digitize core taxonomic literature and to make it free and openly available throughout the world. Today, the BHL includes fifteen member institutions whose efforts have shaped a collection of over 60,000 titles. It is supported through a combination of membership dues, in-kind support from member institutions, contributions from the user community, and direct support from the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, and it reaches tens of thousands of users each year. While managing the complex partnership has …

Do Personality Tests Have A Place In Academic Preparation Of Undergradute Hospitality Students, Gunce Malan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a descriptive study that poses the questions and discussion regarding use of personality tests in prediction of future job performance of the current undergraduate hospitality students. A gap exists between the perception of the skills and competencies of high performers and the perception of hospitality students (Berezina et al., 2011; Malan, Berezina & Cobanoglu, 2012). The purpose of this study is to investigate if personality tests will help in predicting the success of students in their preferred job setting as compared to current high performers (managers).

The use of personality tests increased substantially after 1988, when the government …

Effects Of Virtual Reality On The Cognitive Memory And Handgun Accuracy Development Of Law Enforcement Neophytes, Richard A. Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of virtual reality training on the development of cognitive memory and handgun accuracy by law enforcement neophytes. One hundred and six academy students from 6 different academy classes were divided into two groups, experimental and control. The experimental group was exposed to virtual reality training for a period of 8 hours. The control group was exposed to the traditional, non-interactive training that occurred on a gun range, also for a period of 8 hours. After exposing the groups to their respective training, a counter-balance technique was utilized to expose …

Understanding Engagement In Educational Computer Games, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Yunjie Zhou, Adeline Boey, Hanji Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents an empirical study to understand engagement in educational computer games. Engagement is defined as an experience that occupies an individual’s attention and captures one’s interest. The nature of engagement is viewed as comprising conditions, actions, and outcomes of engagement. The data collection method includes in-depth interviews with 12 educational computer game players who have experienced engagement in playing these games. We used the Grounded Theory (GT) approach to develop an understanding of user engagement in the computer game-based learning context.

User Expectations Of Library Genealogy Databases V. What They Actually Get, Rosemary L. Meszaros, Katherine Pennavaria

DLPS Faculty Publications

An analysis and comparison of two genealogical databases: Ancestry.com and Heritagequest.com.

Evaluating The Use Of A Mobile Annotation System For Geography Education, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Khasfariyati Razikin, Chei Sian Lee, Ee Peng Lim, Kalyani Chatterjea, Chew-Hung Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Mobile devices used in educational settings are usually employed within a collaborative learning activity in which learning takes place in the form of social interactions between team members while performing a shared task. The authors aim to introduce MobiTOP (Mobile Tagging of Objects and People), a mobile annotation system that allows users to contribute and share geospatial multimedia annotations via mobile devices. Field observations and interviews were conducted. A group of trainee teachers involved in a geography field study were instructed to identify rock formations by collaborating with each other using the MobiTOP system. The trainee teachers who were in …

Creating An International Joint Certificate In It Administration, Peter Wolcott

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and the University of Agder (UiA), Norway, are collaborating on the creation of an undergraduate certificate in Information Technology Administration. The certificate is designed for students who are interested in managing the complex technical infrastructure of today's organizations. The certificate will consist of approximately 15 credit hours of hands-on courses, covering such areas as systems administration, network administration, database administration, security administration, and distributed systems. All courses will be offered online, using a variety of collaboration tools and teaching techniques that reflect the best of current practice. Students will take courses taught by …

Empirical Methods For Predicting Student Retention- A Summary From The Literature, Matt Bogard

Economics Faculty Publications

The vast majority of the literature related to the empirical estimation of retention models includes a discussion of the theoretical retention framework established by Bean, Braxton, Tinto, Pascarella, Terenzini and others (see Bean, 1980; Bean, 2000; Braxton, 2000; Braxton et al, 2004; Chapman and Pascarella, 1983; Pascarell and Ternzini, 1978; St. John and Cabrera, 2000; Tinto, 1975) This body of research provides a starting point for the consideration of which explanatory variables to include in any model specification, as well as identifying possible data sources. The literature separates itself into two major camps including research related to the hypothesis testing …

Georgia Knowledge Repository: Potential For The State, Marlee Givens

Giving Undergraduate Research a Worldwide Voice: Institutional Repositories as Publishers

A presentation on the Georgia Knowledge Repository, a search engine of Georgia-based institutional repositories.

More information at http://www.library.gatech.edu/gkr/

Underfunded And Understaffed: A Ground-Level View Of Ir Creation In Difficult Times, John Davison

Giving Undergraduate Research a Worldwide Voice: Institutional Repositories as Publishers

A discussion of the creation of OhioLINK, the institutional repository system for the Ohio University system.

More information at http://drc.ohiolink.edu/

Ua3/9/2 I.T. Division Annual Report + Tactical Plan, Wku Information Technology

WKU Administration Documents

Annual report of WKU Information Technology Division submitted to WKU President Gary Ransdell. Report is housed in UA3/9/2 Subject Files.

Adopting Virtualized 10gbe Ethernet Iscsi San For Mission Critical Applications, Edward Aractingi, Allen Taylor, David Griggs

IT Research

The presentation will provide insight into the decision to move from a fibre channel SAN solution, the resulting performance metrics and financial savings seen by Marshall University. Presented at The Ohio Higher Education Computing Council (OHECC) March 23, 2011.

Investigating Student Gender And Grade Level Differences In Digital Citizenship Behavior, Robert Lyons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The rapid rise of technology, which has become embedded in all facets of 21st century society during the past decade, has fostered a corresponding rise in its misuse. Digital citizenship abuse, a relatively new phenomenon of this electronic age, is a rapidly growing global problem. Parents, schools, and society play roles in supporting appropriate online behavior. Schools must take the lead role to assess and address digital citizenship issues. This ex post facto study investigated the online actions of students in a medium-sized K-12 school district and explored possible causal relationships between online misbehavior and student grade and gender based …

The Effect Of Interactive Technology On Informal Learning And Performance In A Social Setting, Timothy Clay Boileau

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is based on a qualitative multiple case study research design using a mixed methods approach to provide insight into the effect of interactive technology on informal learning and performance in a social business setting inhabited by knowledge workers. The central phenomenon examined is the variance in behavioral intention towards interactive Web 2.0 technologies in learning and performance-related activities, depending on social and cultural setting, observable in individual and group usage patterns.

The theoretical foundation for this study is drawn primarily from the activity theory model developed by Engeström (1987) and related research enabled by an ongoing review of …