Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of the studies in terms of country, participant profile and methodology, as well as to determine what the Internet of Things (IoT) is currently contributing to higher education. Design/methodology/approach: The study was developed following the methodology supported by the…

Purpose: This paper aims to present findings of a study that was carried out to identify strategies of enabling learners in developing countries to fully exploit the potential of learning management systems (LMSs). The study set out to: identify the services of learning management systems that are most needed and desired by university learners in…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine socio-cultural differences in internet use (Digital Divide) among 14-year-old Austrian pupils, in particular usage scenarios and research competences. It is based on a paper presented at the International Association for the Development of the Information Society e-Society conference, 10-13 March 2011, Spain…

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore the perspectives of students, teachers, and parents in using Web 2.0 technologies. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the focus group interview data collected from two groups of students, two groups of teachers, and one group of parents in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Findings:…

Purpose: The paper comprises an extended discussion of the possibilities that Web 2.0 applications offer to doctoral researchers, and where such applications fit in the early twenty-first century in the research environment. It explores the main issues associated with their use by doctoral researchers, and how these factors have influenced the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is describing the seamless integration of the question-answer interaction into automatic lecture recordings (ALRs). This includes the design and implementation of the question management (QM) software for a virtual camera team. Design/methodology/approach: Coming from the human role model the interaction and its…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present ReProTool Version 2.0, a software tool that is used for the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) and the Bologna Process re-engineering of academic programmes. The tool is the result of an 18 months project (February 2012-July 2013) project, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund…

Purpose: The present paper aims to describe an approach for building the Semantic Web rules for interoperation between heterogeneous learning objects, namely course outlines from different universities, and one of the rule uses: identifying (in)compatibilities between course descriptions. Design/methodology/approach: As proof of concept, a rule…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to make a scientific contribution to web information retrieval (IR). Design/methodology/approach: A multiagent system for web IR is proposed based on new technologies: Hierarchical Small-Worlds (HSW) and Possibilistic Networks (PN). This system is based on a possibilistic qualitative approach which extends the…

Purpose: Playing back recorded lectures on handheld devices offers interesting perspectives for learning, but suffers from small screen sizes. The purpose of this paper is to propose several semi-automatic post-processing steps in order to improve usability by providing a better readability and additional navigation functionality.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Opencast Community, a global community of individuals, institutions, and commercial stakeholders exchanging knowledge about all matters relevant in the context of academic video and promoting projects in this context. It also gives an overview of the most prominent of these projects, Opencast…

Purpose: Keeping track of users' communication activities in web-based environments has always been considered a complex task. It requires tracking systems that are capable of efficiently tracking users' activities and producing tracking data that can be useful to various users. The objectives of this paper are two-fold: to present an approach for…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability and interface design of e-learning portal developed for primary schools in Singapore. Design/methodology/approach: Using Singapore-based learning EDvantage (LEAD) portal as a case study, this paper reviews and analyses the usability and usefulness of embedded learning objects (LOs)…

Purpose: At many universities, web lectures have become an integral part of the e-learning portfolio over the last few years. While many aspects of the technology involved, like automatic recording techniques or innovative interfaces for replay, have evolved at a rapid pace, web lecturing has remained independent of other important developments…

Purpose: Student dropout rates have been a source of contention throughout many Universities worldwide. Universities recognize this fact and many have acted to improve their induction process for students joining the University in the first year. However, student dropout rates continue to be higher than acceptable and it is in this context that…