Search results for " MANAGEMENT"
showing 10 items of 14671 documents
Semantic Portal as a Tool for Structural Reform of the Ukrainian Educational System
2014
Education is recognized as a fundamental enabler of human development. The adoption of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by education (especially in developing countries) contributes to educational system reforms, in addition to the traditional advantages, such as social openness and accessibility. Yet the academic community has not studied sufficiently the challenging context in which ICTs are used as instruments for the reform of inefficient, and sometimes even corrupted, educational systems rather than just as means for smarter classrooms, remote access, or content management. The object of this study is Ukrainian higher education (HE) and its quality assurance (QA) syst…
Supporting Institutional Awareness and Academic Advising using Clustered Study Profiles
2017
The purpose of academic advising is to help students with developing educational plans that support their academic career and personal goals, and to provide information and guidance on studies. Planning and management of the students’ study path is the main joint activity in advising. Based on a study log of passed courses, we propose to use robust, prototype-based clustering to identify a set of actual study path profiles. Such profiles identify groups of students with similar progress of studies, whose analysis and interpretation can be used for better institutional awareness and to support evidence-based academic advising. A model of automated academic advising system utilizing the possi…
Short-Time Non-work-related Computing and Creative Performance
2014
It has been argued that non-work-related computing (NWRC) takes time away from work and, hence, decreases work productivity. On the other hand, it has also been claimed that short-time non-work-related computing (STNWRC) (a maximum of 15 minutes), has a positive impact on work productivity, including relief from boredom, higher creativity, and the underlying recovery mechanisms. To examine the impact of STNWRC on creative performance, we draw on Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory, the concept of recovery with mental well-being and low cognitive effort. A 2 × 2 factorial experiment with 40 subjects was conducted. The results indicate that STNWRC has a positive effect on creative performa…
Modelling Recurrent Events for Improving Online Change Detection
2016
The task of online change point detection in sensor data streams is often complicated due to presence of noise that can be mistaken for real changes and therefore affecting performance of change detectors. Most of the existing change detection methods assume that changes are independent from each other and occur at random in time. In this paper we study how performance of detectors can be improved in case of recurrent changes. We analytically demonstrate under which conditions and for how long recurrence information is useful for improving the detection accuracy. We propose a simple computationally efficient message passing procedure for calculating a predictive probability distribution of …
CONSIDERING VARIOUS STAKEHOLDERS’ VIEWS IN THE DESIGN OF A HYBRID STEM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT - PERCEPTIONS FROM FINLAND AND GREECE
2017
Raising young people’s interest in studies and careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM) is an important societal concern both at European and global level. We argue that the creation of attractive and engaging STEM learning environments necessitates involvement of learners, educators, parents, and STEM professionals in their design. In this paper, we will present a study in which primary, lower and upper secondary school students, teachers, school directors, parents, and STEM professionals in Finland (n = 27) and Greece (n = 24) were invited in the participatory co-design of a hybrid (virtual, physical, formal, and informal) STEM learning environment…
Customer Perception Driven Product Evolution - Facilitation of Structured Feedback Collection
2016
Competitive environment not only requires effective advertising strategies from the product producers and service providers, but also to do comprehensive and sufficient analysis of their customers to understand their needs and expectations. Successfully involving customers into a product/service co-creation process, companies more likely increase their future revenue. Customer feedback analysis is widely applied in marketing and product development. Among other challenges (e.g. customer engagement, feedback collection, etc.) automation of customer feedback analysis becomes very demanding task and requires advance intelligent tools to understand customers’ product perception and preferences.…
Application of information and communication technology for internationalization of Nigerian small- and medium-sized enterprises
2019
Information and communication technology (ICT) has fundamentally transformed business transactions. While its uses have become ubiquitous in the advanced economies, emerging and developing economies are still struggling with the mode and manner of the deployment of ICT for business. Thus, this study seeks to investigate how small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) utilize ICT in Nigeria for business internationalization. To achieve the goal of the study, a mixed‐method was employed. A questionnaire was administered to 265 people consisting of SMEs staff, managers, and owners. Similarly, interviews were conducted with seven SME decision makers. Findings revealed that Nigerian SMEs used ICT…
INTEGRATED VIRTUAL CINETCAMPUS STUDIES ENVIRONMENT
2016
Rapid growth of data communications and technologies has created favorable conditions for a strong increase in the number of videos produced for education especially in higher education institutes. New technologies make the production of videos suitable for teaching very easy. With the help of videos, it is possible to improve flexibility and diversity in teaching. On the other hand, the management and distribution of videos has often been realized separately from other applications (e.g., learning management systems) which are used in teaching. This makes their full utilization difficult and creates extra work. This article introduces the CiNetCampus environment designed for teaching with …
Agricultural potential of anaerobically digested industrial orange waste with and without aerobic posttreatment
2012
The potential of anaerobically digested orange waste with (AAD) and without (AD) aerobic post-treatment for use in agriculture was evaluated through chemical analyses, short-term phytotoxicity and long-term plant assays. Chemical analyses showed that AD contained ammonia and organic acids, and aerobic post-treatment did not significantly remove these phytotoxins. The N:P2O5:K2O ratio in AD was 1:0.26:0.96 and aerobic post-treatment did not change the composition in AAD except for K2O (1:0.26:1.24). Heavy metal contents in AD and AAD were more or less the same and were below the upper limit recommended for non-sewage sludge application on agricultural soils. Short-term phytotoxicity tests sh…
Multicriteria evaluation of alternatives for remote monitoring systems of municipal buildings
2014
Abstract Conservation of natural resources drives municipalities to monitor their heat, power and water consumption more accurately. The objective of this study was to evaluate different implementation possibilities for remote monitoring systems for the municipal buildings of two medium-sized municipalities, Hollola and Nastola in Southern Finland. Four different alternatives were considered: (1) a system by an external service provider, (2) a system provided by the local energy distribution company, (3) a system built by the municipalities themselves, and (4) using the current manual system but with more frequent data collection. The alternatives were evaluated in terms of multiple functio…