Automation of discussion board evaluation through keyword extraction techniques: a comparative study

Many researchers investigated university students’ behavioural intention to undertake online courses during COVID. However, few examined how students’ intention might change throughout COVID by incorporating their learning capability and approaches. The universities in China went through a process from lockdown in February to reopening in September 2020. It provided a unique context for university students in China to experience emergent online learning for approximately six months before returning to normal face-to-face or blended learning on campus. The researchers conducted a questionnaire survey among 193 Chinese university students to investigate the changes in their behavioral intention to learn online throughout COVID. Additionally, the researchers explored the relationships between the participants’ behavioral intention and the factors of learning capability in general, application of specific online learning strategies, online course engagement levels, and academic performance. It was found that the participants’ intention to study online significantly increased during COVID and then slightly decreased after the university reopened. The participants’ intention of online learning after COVID was predicted by their prior intention, learning capability, application of online learning strategies, and online course engagement. The participants’ perceptions about online learning revealed that, when choosing future course delivery modes, they would a) reflect on their own disposition, capability, and needs, b) compare different learning modes, and c) examine course quality and teachers’ competency. The participants also shared advice regarding their expectation of future online courses which may help shape university educators’ pedagogical practices and provide insights for university online and blended course delivery from learners’ perspectives.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-022-11320-0.

Purpose: The purpose of this poster is to explore various types of discussion formats in order to find ones that keep the students thoughtfully engaged and motivated. • Methods: The poster will compare and contrast several different types of Discussion Forums utilized by this Midwestern Institution. • Background: Online learning is growing rapidly especially with the COVID-19 crisis. Discussion Boards have been a part of online courses for years as a means of discussion and participation. Do they stimulate the learning process? Students often see Discussions as a “have to do”. They often do not learn from the discussion process. Learning management systems (LMS) have used discussion forums in online courses, which evolved over time. • Student introductions was the initial use of discussion forums. Designated students completed the discussion forums while the rest of the class observed. Next, discussion forums addressed topics covered in reading assignments for that week. Many students still were not interested in discussion forums. Today all students do participate in Discussion Boards; but many times quality is missing. Online course should enhance student participation and build a sense of community (Sharoff, 2019). Discussions need to provide a meaningful online learning experience. It is imperative that the online program incorporates successful strategies in the discussion to allow online learners to understand the nursing concepts and apply their ideas. • Implications: The discussion forum should encourage indepth student interaction, reflections on the course and module objectives. Objective assessment measures the students learning in the discussion by utilizing a grading rubric. • Conflict of Interest: No Conflict of Interest.

Harman & Koohang (2005) stated that a learning object “ .. is not merely a chunk of information packaged to be used in instructional settings. A learning object, therefore, can include anything that has pedagogical value - digital or non-digital such as a case study, a film, a simulation, an audio, a video, an animation, a graphic image, a map, a book, or a discussion board so long as the object can be contextualized by individual learners. The learner must be able to make meaningful connections between the learning object and his/her experiences or knowledge he/she previously mastered. “ The above definition asserts that a learning object must have “pedagogical value” and that a learning object is 1) anything digital or non-digital such as a film, a simulation, or a case study, and 2) the ability of the learner to contextualize the object, i.e., the learner is capable of making “meaningful connections” between the object and his/her previous experiences and/or knowledge. Once the contextualization occurs, the object will have “pedagogical value” and it no longer merely an object, it is a learning object. Can all objects be contextualized? Is it necessary for all objects to be contextualized? What shall one call an “object” that is retrieved (and may even have some value other than pedagogical value and/or use) from an open access or commercial learning objects repository labeled as a “learning object” with no pedagogical value? If these objects are not learning objects, but have some sort of value and use, how shall one refer to these objects? Perhaps “informing objects”?

The process of condensing and organizing a longer text is called text summarization. Summarizing lengthy documents, reports, and academic writings can be challenging. Selecting the important sentences and concepts from a text requires using a variety of text summarizing techniques, which reduces the time and effort required to read an entire article. In comparison to other cutting-edge approaches, the combined common extracted keywords employing the most popular techniques (Text Rank, Sentence Score, and Gensim Keyword Extraction) present only the important sentences that are briefer and more similar to human summary. For enhanced output summarization, a combination strategy of these cutting-edge approaches has been proposed in this thesis.

In general, video-based learning contains rich media information, but displaying an entire video linearly is time-consuming. As an alternative, video summarization techniques extract important content provides short but informative fragments. In this paper, a video learning platform (KVSUM: Keyword-based Video Summarization) is presented that integrates image processing, text summarization, and keyword extraction techniques. Without human annotators, the learning platform can process an input video and transform it into online learning materials automatically. The video frames are first split from a given video while the transcription is used to generate the text summary and keywords. In the current study, the video surrogates are composed of extracted keywords, text and video summaries, and video frames. In other words, KVSUM is able to provide both visual and verbal surrogates. In order to validate the effect of surrogates in the KVSUM, a comparison with another video surrogate, the fast forward (FF), to evaluate learners' comprehension to video contents. Sixty undergraduate students took part in examining two different video surrogates. The experimental results show that KVSUM had a more positive effect than FF in comprehension to videos. In terms of system usage and satisfaction, KVSUM is significantly more attractive than FF to learners.

The appropriate technology enhanced pedagogical approaches ultilising mobile and flexible technologies would generate better learning and teaching experiences in workplaces. However, there is a lack of in-depth study of Vocational and Professional Education and Training’s (VPET) students, teachers and workplace mentors’ teaching needs. With an aim to identify suitable pedagogical practices to devise suitable e-learning means for more effective learning and teaching in VPET’s workplaces, 26 interviews with students, teachers and workplace mentors were conducted to identify the support and training needs that may be required by students and teachers for the identification of specific instructional strategies to derive innovative pedagogical practices. Findings of this study revealed that due to the advances in technology, blending face-to-face teaching with e-learning or mobile learning is the current trend in VPET’s learning and teaching to accommodate flexible learning, enhance motivation and interaction. It is also suggested that Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) together with guidance, collaboration and training would able to accommodate VPET students, teachers and workplace mentors’ learning and teaching needs. Implications are on the resources, timely technical support and updating of innovative pedagogies, training for teacher and mentor and the acceptances of the ‘new’ by the students, teachers and workplace mentors.

BackgroundThe completion rates for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) generally are low (5-10%) and have been reported to favour participants with higher (typically tertiary-level) education. Despite these factors, the flexible learning offered by a MOOC has the potential to provide an accessible educational environment for a broad spectrum of participants. In this regard, the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre has developed a MOOC on dementia that is evidence-based and intended to address this emerging major global public health issue by providing educational resources to a broad range of caregivers, people with dementia, and health care professionals.MethodsThe Understanding Dementia MOOC was designed specifically to appeal to, and support, adult learners with a limited educational background. The nine-week course was presented in three units. Participants passed a quiz at the end of each unit to continue through the course. A series of discussion boards facilitated peer-to-peer interactions. A separate “Ask an Expert” discussion board also was established for each unit where participants posted questions and faculty with expertise in the area responded.ResultsAlmost 10,000 people from 65 countries registered; 4,409 registrants engaged in the discussion boards, and 3,624 (38%) completed the course. Participants’ level of education ranged from postgraduate study to a primary (elementary) school education. Participants without a university education (vocational certificate and below) were as likely as those with a university education to complete the course (χ2 = 2.35, df = 6, p = 0.88) and to engage in the online discussions (F[6, 3799] = 0.85, p = 0.54). Further, participants who completed the MOOC engaged in significantly more discussion board posts than participants who did not complete the course (t = 39.60, df = 4407, p <0.001).ConclusionsThe high completion rate and level of engagement of participants across a broad spectrum of levels of education suggest that MOOCs can be successfully developed and delivered to students from diverse educational backgrounds. The high participation rate also highlights the combination of MOOC design as well as the scale of unmet need for quality dementia education.

Contents: Does frequency really matter?, Dawn Archer Word frequency use or misuse?, John M. Kirk Word frequency, statistical stylistics and authorship attribution, David L. Hoover Word frequency in context: alternative architectures for examining related words, register variation and historical change, Mark Davies Issues for historical and regional corpora: first catch your word, Christian Kay In search of a bad reference corpus, Mike Scott Keywords and moral panics: Mary Whitehouse and media censorship, Tony McEnery 'The question is, how cruel is it?' Keywords, foxhunting and the House of Commons, Paul Baker Love - 'a familiar or a devil'? An exploration of key domains in Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, Dawn Archer, Jonathan Culpeper and Paul Rayson Promoting the wider use of word frequency and keyword extraction techniques, Dawn Archer Appendices Bibliography Index.

Background: Online learning or E-learning are approaches to broadcasting teaching by the means of internet technology and software applications. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is likewise embarking on the rapid growth in online education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the student’s perceptions regarding online teaching and learning during COVID 19. Methods: An online computer-based cross-sectional study was conducted between May and June 2020. A pre-validated questionnaire was used and administrated to health sciences students studying at Dammam Universities through online software QuestionPro. Results: Out of total 281, 68% of the participants were females (n=188) while 31.9% (n=88) were male students with an average age of 23.1(4.5) years. Overall, 176 (62%) of the students expressed their satisfaction with online learning. Conclusion: Findings will help academicians to identify strengths, areas of improvement, and encourage faculty to think deeply to restructure course learning objectives, teaching techniques to engage students and improve learning process.

Background:Online learning or E-learning are approaches to broadcasting teaching by the means of internet technology and software applications. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is likewise embarking on the rapid growth in online education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the student's perceptions regarding online teaching and learning during COVID 19. Methods:An online computer-based cross-sectional study was conducted between May and June 2020. A pre-validated questionnaire was used and administrated to health sciences students studying at Dammam Universities through online software QuestionPro. Results:Out of total 281, 68% of the participants were females (n=188) while 31.9% (n=88) were male students with an average age of 23.1(4.5) years. Overall, 176 (62%) of the students expressed their satisfaction with online learning. Conclusion:Findings will help academicians to identify strengths, areas of improvement, and encourage faculty to think deeply to restructure course learning objectives, teaching techniques to engage students and improve learning process.

Media-comparative research-that is, the comparison of computer-based learning (CBL) to noncomputer instruction-is logically impossible because there are no valid comparison groups. Results from media-comparative studies are thus confounded and difficult to meaningfully interpret. In 1994, Friedman proposed that such research be supplanted by investigations into CBL designs, usage patterns, assessment methods, and integration. His proposal appears to have largely been ignored. In this article, the author updates the agenda for research in CBL (including Web-based learning). While media-comparative studies are confounded, CBL-CBL comparisons are often not. CBL instructional designs vary in configuration (e.g., discussion board or tutorial), instructional method (e.g., case-based learning, personalized feedback, or simulation), and presentation (e.g., screen layout, hyperlinks, or multimedia). Comparisons within one level (for example, comparing two instructional methods) facilitate evidence-based improvements, but comparisons between levels are confounded. Additional research questions within the CBL-CBL framework might include: Does adaptation of CBL in response to individual differences such as prior knowledge, computer experience, or learning style improve learning outcomes? Will integrating CBL with everyday clinical practice facilitate learning? How can simulations augment clinical training? And, how can CBL be integrated within and between institutions? In addressing these questions it is important to remember the most important outcome-effect on patients and practice-and outcomes specific to CBL including costs, cognitive structuring, and learning unique to the computer-based environment. CBL is not a panacea, but holds great promise. Realization of this potential requires that media-comparative studies be replaced by rigorous, theory-guided comparisons of CBL interventions.

&lt;span&gt;The best method for determining the size of learning objects (LOs) so as to optimise their reusability has been a topic of debate for years now. Although there appears to be agreement on basic assumptions, developed guidelines and principles are often in conflict. This study shows that this confusion stems from the fact that in the literature, hardly any attention is paid to different types of reusability. This study not only shows that there are different types of reusability, but also that different types of reusability go together with different principles for developing LOs and for determining LO size. A grounded theory analysis was performed on separate statements on LO development in 71 selected publications from LO literature. This resulted in the development of four scenarios for LO development, each with their own definition of reusability and their own principle for determining the size of LOs. A field test with 11 experts showed that the scenarios are recognisable. In higher education, educational technologists often assist amateur LO developers. Educational technologists can use the scenarios to determine which definition of reusability is applicable to their situation and which principle for determining the size of LOs should be applied.&lt;/span&gt;

Online teaching and learning for the professional development of workers in service is ever pervasive and continually growing. Yet, studies of teaching and learning with technology are mostly conducted in K-12, pre-service, or higher education contexts resulting in a lack of attention given to the in-service or professional development field. This study aims to alleviate the issue by investigating online courses in a professional development context, particularly in a government institution such as the Financial Education and Training Agency (FETA) under the Indonesian Ministry of Finance. By conducting a study in the institution providing online professional development courses, this study focuses on adult learners. There are also more studies investigating learners compared to instructors, even though the latter are reportedly struggling in conducting online courses. One of the struggles instructor faces includes choosing relevant technologically enhanced andragogy that are in line with the learning contents and intents. This happened amidst the growth of online professional development courses due to increasing demand accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Online learning needs to be improved not only in terms of quantity but also quality. By analysing 148 curriculum documents known as the course syllabi, followed by interviewing three gatekeepers and seven instructors conducting online courses at FETA, and informed by prevailing theories of education and educational technology adoption, the present study aimed to uncover practice-based considerations in crafting online course curricula for professional development. Frameworks used in this study include the adult learning principles of andragogy, the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model. The study found the distinction between various types of online courses for professional development: distance learning, webinars, and web-based learning courses. Distance learning can be supplemented with prerequisite and/or action learning. Web-based learning can be limited to specific learners or opened to the general population of learners depending on the learning content. The study also found connections between learning objectives and the use of technology in online courses. The considerations in choosing internet-assisted course types and relevant technologies for online courses include learning content. Characteristics of learning content are considered, such as range, specificity, and confidentiality. These characters correspond to the specification of learners which are adult learners. Both content and audience are considered in crafting online course curricula. The findings gathered through this study may not only sharpen the crafting of online course curricula but also assist in providing effective support for online teaching and learning. It provides a better understanding of the connection between learning content and the use of technology for online courses in a professional development context meant for adult learners. Such a better understanding of instructors’ considerations helped explain why online course curricula are crafted with certain approaches. It is hoped that the considerations borne by this study can be useful in guiding the practice of designing the curricula for online courses in professional development contexts for adult learners while assisting in providing relevant support for instructors.

This study analyzes the integration of digital technologies in Macuxi indigenous education, focusing on the challenges, strategies and teacher training necessary for effective implementation. The research examines how Information and Digital Communication Technologies (DIT) can be incorporated into the indigenous educational context, respecting their cultural particularities and specific needs. The methodology is based on a systematic review of the literature and analysis of practical experiences, identifying the main barriers and opportunities in the digital inclusion of this community. The results indicate that the integration of digital technologies in education depends on a participatory and meaningful teacher training process, in addition to a review of curricula and pedagogical practices. The study reveals that the use of educational technologies constitutes a fundamental human right, although there are important limitations in terms of infrastructure and adequate conditions for its use. The research also identifies the need to develop didactic-pedagogical and technical-digital skills in teachers. The conclusions point to the importance of a balanced approach that combines teacher training, digital educational resources and adequate infrastructure, integrated into the school curriculum. The study recommends the development of more robust and coordinated public policies to guarantee access and full participation of the Macuxi community in the digital era, promoting more inclusive and culturally sensitive education.

Abstract: This is an era marked by rapid developments in three different educational arenas -- access, lifelong learning and e-learning. In both developed and developing countries there is a growing demand for access to education... Alongside this growing demand for access, increased numbers of adults are returning to colleges and universities for additional education and training (CIHE, 2002). Lifelong learning has come of age, brought about by changes in attitudes to learning and in employment patterns, where jobs and careers are recast many times during a lifespan. Permeating and supporting these first two developments, in access and lifelong learning, are developments in information and communication technologies (ICT). New technologies are beginning to transform how higher education is organized and delivered both on campus and at a distance. E-learning affords new opportunities to increase flexibility in time and location of study, in forms of communication (for example, asynchronous discussions) and types of interaction... Although e-learning has the potential to provide the kinds of flexibility required by wider access and lifelong learning there are some major obstacles. On the one hand, wider access and lifelong learning require vast increases in specially designed course materials to satisfy the greater range of demands for learning. On the other hand, creating the digital resources necessary for online course delivery requires considerable investment, a factor that makes resource development only viable for courses with large student numbers or sizeable budgets. In order to address this difficulty, numerous national and international initiatives have been funded to investigate ways in which digital learning resources might be developed, shared and reused by teachers and learners around the world (so as to benefit from economies of scale). Behind these initiatives lies a vision of a future in which reusable resources (or 'learning objects' as they are called) could comprise a new currency of exchange within a learning economy. Learning objects, produced by publishers, teachers, support staff and students themselves, would be stored in digital repositories, where they could be easily accessed, recombined and reused within online courses. However, despite this vision, the idea of reusing electronic resources is more complex than the object economy scenario, outlined above, may suggest. The next section identifies seven issues associated with the reuse and sharing of resources. These sections focus on educational design, the need for standards, and on the culture and organization that would be necessary in institutions (and across institutions) if reuse were to become a reality.Editors: Allison Littlejohn (Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1QE) Reviewers: Allison Littlejohn & Simon Buckingham Shum Notes: Reprinted with permission from: 'Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning', (Ed.) Allison Littlejohn. Kogan Page, London. ISBN 0749439491.