There are two primary challenges for instructors in offering a high-quality course at large scale. The first is scaling educational experiences to such a large audience. The second major challenge encountered is that of enabling adaptivity of the educational experience. This thesis addresses both major challenges in the way of high-quality…

The purpose of this mixed methods study is to test teachers' capacity towards understanding of mathematical pedagogy and their willingness to utilize interactive whiteboard software to provide visual representations through virtual manipulatives and to understand how teachers are using interactive whiteboard software during instruction. Based Upon…

Software vulnerabilities have been regarded as one of the key reasons for computer security breaches that have resulted in billions of dollars in losses per year (Telang and Wattal 2005). With the growth of the software industry and the Internet, the number of vulnerability attacks and the ease with which an attack can be made have increased. From…

In this dissertation, two interrelated problems of service-based systems (SBS) are addressed: protecting users' data confidentiality from service providers, and managing performance of multiple workflows in SBS. Current SBSs pose serious limitations to protecting users' data confidentiality. Since users' sensitive data is sent in…

Due to their low cost of implementation and considerable elasticity, cloud-based IT solutions are being widely adopted or considered in organizations across various industries. However, such IT solutions bring forth several unique challenges--challenges that make it difficult for organizations to achieve successful utilization of cloud-based…

The speech of non-native (L2) speakers of a language contains phonological rules that differentiate them from native speakers. These phonological rules characterize or distinguish accents in an L2. The Shibboleth program creates combinatorial rule-sets to describe the phonological pattern of these accents and classifies L2 speakers into their…

Learning occurs when content is accessed in a recursive process of awareness, exploration, reflection and resolution within one's social context. With the rapid adoption of mobile technologies, mobile learning (m-Learning) researchers should incorporate aspects of mobile human-computer interaction research into the instructional design process.…

Because data access may be perceived by principals as overwhelming or irrelevant rather than helpful (Wayman, Spikes, & Volonnino, 2013), data access does not guarantee effective data use. The data-based decision making literature has largely focused on teacher use of data, considering less often data-based organizational improvements for the…

The purpose of this study was to develop and psychometrically test the Collaboration in the Clinical Learning Environment (CCLE) Tool. The researcher acknowledged two distinct populations that required input into this particular tool development: staff nurses who work on floors that are considered clinical learning environments for students, and…

As accountability measures continue to increase within education, public school systems have integrated standards-based evaluation systems to formally assess professional practices among educators. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent in which the communication process between evaluators and teachers impacts teacher performance…

This study analyzes Achieve3000, Lexia Core 5, and Imagine Learning software programs designed to increase student literacy levels in a six-week summer school program. The Brainology program was also used with 4th to 6th grade students to determine if there was an increase in growth mindset. Three elementary schools with the highest percentages of…

This quantitative causal comparative ex post facto study compared the performance and persistence of undergraduate English Language Learners (ELL) in a private institution of higher education in Puerto Rico. The sample of convenience consisted of 1,281 freshmen students who were divided into two groups: (a) Group A (n = 339), students that…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover whether relationships exist between leadership styles and innovation commitment and innovation output at commercial software companies. The leadership styles included transformational and transactional, and the innovation variables included (a) the percentage of expenses allocated to…

Open source projects do have requirements; they are, however, mostly informal, text descriptions found in requests, forums, and other correspondence. Understanding such requirements provides insight into the nature of open source projects. Unfortunately, manual analysis of natural language requirements is time-consuming, and for large projects,…

To facilitate everyday activities, context-aware applications use sensors to detect what is happening and use increasingly complex mechanisms ( e.g., by using big rule-sets or machine learning) to infer the user's context and intent. For example, a mobile application can recognize that the user is in a conversation and suppress any incoming…