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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2020) | Viewed by 46771

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Miltiadis D. Lytras

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Guest Editor

Computer Science Department, College of Engineering, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Interests: cognitive computing; artificial intelligence; data science; bioinformatics; innovation; big data research; data mining; emerging technologies; information systems; technology driven innovation; knowledge management; semantic web
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Anna Visvizi

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Guest Editor

1. Institute of International Studies (ISM), SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Al. Niepodległości 162, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland
2. Effat College of Business, Effat University, Jeddah 21551, Saudi Arabia
Interests: smart cities; smart villages; international political economy (IPE); information and communication technology (ICT)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Akila Sarirete

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Guest Editor

Effat University, P.O. Box 34689, Jeddah 21478, Saudi Arabia
Interests: computer science; knowledge management; information retrieval; communities of practice

Prof. Linda Daniela

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art, University of Latvia, LV-1586 Rīga, Latvia
Interests: educational technologies; smart pedagogy; digital learning materials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It was a pleasure to have published various Special Issues the last years in the domain of “Technology-Enhanced Learning Research” in various journals. Building on our earlier work, drawing from our field research and driven by a genuine concern about the process and the implications of the rapid adoption of technology-enhanced research in education, we are interested in the opening of new avenues of research and a lively debate on diverse aspects of performance and efficiency in technology-enhanced learning initiatives.

To this end, the Guest Editors of this Special Issue seek papers that address, but are not limited to, the following issues and aspects related to the diverse aspects of pedagogical, learning, and technological issues of TEL adoption in education:

Policy design and policymaking for TEL research, and implications for education
The role of learning theories, pedagogical approaches and novel higher education administration innovations in streamlining the debate
The role of emerging technologies in the debate on TEL research
Comparative aspects of TEL research
Technology-enhanced learning innovative technologies
Smart learning services powered by emerging technologies
Artificial intelligence applications in TEL
Data mining, text mining, and sentiment analysis for advanced TEL solutions
Learning analytics and educational analytics
Case studies
Conceptual approaches of TEL
International collaboration
Best practices and lessons learnt
Micro-, mezzo- and macro-strategies, including applications, tools, and systems
Innovation networks in the context of TEL research
Recommended systems in the context of TEL research
Robotics and 3D printing learning initiatives
Virtual reality applications for TEL
Mobile learning
Social networks and TEL applications

Prof. Miltiadis D. Lytras
Prof. Anna Visvizi
Prof. Akila Sarirete
Prof. Linda Daniela
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

E-learning
Technology enhanced learning
Mobile learning
Social networks
Educational analytics
Learning analytics
Emerging technologies
Innovative technologies
Smart learning services
Artificial intelligence
Data mining, text mining, sentiment analysis
Learning analytics and educational analytics
Case studies
Conceptual approaches
International collaboration
Robotics
Virtual reality

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2138 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reflexive Skills in Teacher Education: A Tweet a Week

by Adolfina Pérez Garcias, Gemma Tur, Antònia Darder Mesquida and Victoria I. Marín

Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3161; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12083161 - 14 Apr 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3301

Abstract

Social media has been broadly used in the context of higher education for educational purposes due to students’ familiarity with this type of communication. As one of the most interesting cases, Twitter has often been used in teacher education for many purposes. One of the most unexplored themes is using Twitter for reflexive aims, in which discussions featuring ambiguous and contradictory results about whether the characteristics of such a short format can promote reflexive writing. This study is aimed at contributing to this research gap and explores the possibilities of using Twitter for reflective aims in teacher education, considering the reflective level of students’ tweets and students’ perceptions after engaging on Twitter. For the evaluation of this reflection, a content analysis of tweets texts and emojis has been carried out by coding their content and developing an instrument to assess their reflective level. Additionally, perceptions of students have been collected through an online survey. This study is embedded in a design-based research process that is already in its fourth cycle. Findings show that most tweets are descriptive or analytical, and that tweets are mainly text-based. Furthermore, the data show that low-level reflective tweets may include emojis, which are mainly positive and located at the end of a tweet. The conclusions suggest that Twitter could be more useful when reflections are made during learning rather than on learning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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12 pages, 1734 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predicting At-Risk Students Using Clickstream Data in the Virtual Learning Environment

by Naif Radi Aljohani, Ayman Fayoumi and Saeed-Ul Hassan

Sustainability 2019, 11(24), 7238; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11247238 - 17 Dec 2019

Cited by 52 | Viewed by 5520

Abstract

In higher education, predicting the academic performance of students is associated with formulating optimal educational policies that vehemently impact economic and financial development. In online educational platforms, the captured clickstream information of students can be exploited in ascertaining their performance. In the current study, the time-series sequential classification problem of students’ performance prediction is explored by deploying a deep long short-term memory (LSTM) model using the freely accessible Open University Learning Analytics dataset. In the pass/fail classification job, the deployed LSTM model outperformed the state-of-the-art approaches with 93.46% precision and 75.79% recall. Encouragingly, our model superseded the baseline logistic regression and artificial neural networks by 18.48% and 12.31%, respectively, with 95.23% learning accuracy. We demonstrated that the clickstream data generated due to the students’ interaction with the online learning platforms can be evaluated at a week-wise granularity to improve the early prediction of at-risk students. Interestingly, our model can predict pass/fail class with around 90% accuracy within the first 10 weeks of student interaction in a virtual learning environment (VLE). A contribution of our research is an informed approach to advanced higher education decision-making towards sustainable education. It is a bold effort for student-centric policies, promoting the trust and the loyalty of students in courses and programs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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16 pages, 11213 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Virtual Training Application by Use of Augmented and Virtual Reality under University Technology Enhanced Learning in Slovakia

by Gabriela Gabajová, Beáta Furmannová, Iveta Medvecká, Patrik Grznár, Martin Krajčovič and Radovan Furmann

Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6677; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11236677 - 26 Nov 2019

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 4331

Abstract

The use of modern information and communication technologies plays a key role in the current global competitive environment of long-term manufacturing company sustainability. Based on the requirements of Slovak industrial companies (both domestic and foreign companies), there is a need to implement these technologies into the university teaching process. Therefore, this article describes virtual and augmented reality applications into the teaching process of Digital Factory module at the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Zilina. The main aim of this study was to test and document how helpful immersive technologies could be in a teaching process. There were a group of students who took part in this study whose job was to assemble a specific assembly construction, first without the help of virtual technologies and second with the help of augmented and virtual reality. The results were collected through operation images and chronometry, these were then analyzed the conclusions stated in the article were obtained. In the conclusion, the final part of the article describes a general evaluation of virtual training use in the industrial practice of long-term industrial company sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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11 pages, 618 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Measuring the Scale and Scope of Workplace Bullying: An Alternative Workplace Bullying Scale

by Ambreen Anjum, Amina Muazzam, Farkhanda Manzoor, Anna Visvizi, Gary Pollock and Raheel Nawaz

Sustainability 2019, 11(17), 4634; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11174634 - 26 Aug 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 8733

Abstract

The toll of workplace bullying is immense, yet, similarly as with an iceberg, its scope, scale and implications tend to remain underestimated. Several ways of assessing the prevalence of workplace bullying have been proposed in the literature. The most frequently discussed are the ‘subjective method’ assessing individuals’ perceptions of being a victim and the questionnaire, i.e., criterion-based, methods, including Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ) and Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror (LIPT). Since in both cases culture plays a profound role as a mediating factor in the process of identifying, collecting, and processing data, the applicability of these methods across cultures and countries has several limitations. At this stage, it is impossible to determine the impact of the implicit cultural-bias that these methods entail on the research outcomes. This would be possible if an alternative workplace bullying scale (WBS) was at hand and, consequently, a comparative analysis was conducted. This paper, drawing from a study conducted at higher education institutions (HEI) across Pakistan, addresses this issue by devising an alternative WBS. The value added of this paper is three-fold, i.e., it elaborates on the study and the specific methods employed to prove the validity and relevance of the alternative WBS. Moreover, by so doing, it addresses some of the limitations that other methods measuring the prevalence of workplace bullying display. As a result, it adds to the researchers’ and administrators’ toolkit as regards research and policies aimed at mitigating the scope and scale of bullying at HEIs across cultures and countries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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22 pages, 6264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ontology-Enhanced Educational Annotation Activities

by Joaquín Gayoso-Cabada, María Goicoechea-de-Jorge, Mercedes Gómez-Albarrán, Amelia Sanz-Cabrerizo, Antonio Sarasa-Cabezuelo and José-Luis Sierra

Sustainability 2019, 11(16), 4455; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11164455 - 17 Aug 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2944

Abstract

Information and communications technology and technology-enhanced learning have unquestionably transformed traditional teaching–learning processes and are positioned as key factors to promote quality education, one of the basic sustainable development goals of the 2030 agenda. Document annotation, which was traditionally carried out with pencil and paper and currently benefits from digital document annotation tools, is a representative example of this transformation. Using document annotation tools, students can enrich the documents with annotations that highlight the most relevant aspects of these documents. As the conceptual complexity of the learning domain increases, the annotation of the documents may require comprehensive domain knowledge and an expert analysis capability that students usually lack. Consequently, a proliferation of irrelevant, incorrect, and/or poorly decontextualized annotations may appear, while other relevant aspects are completely ignored by the students. The main hypothesis proposed by this paper is that the use of a guiding annotation ontology in the annotation activities is a keystone aspect to alleviate these shortcomings. Consequently, comprehension is improved, exhaustive content analysis is promoted, and meta-reflective thinking is developed. To test this hypothesis, we describe our own annotation tool, @note, which fully implements this ontology-enhanced annotation paradigm, and we provide experimental evidence about how @note can improve academic performance via a pilot study concerning critical literary annotation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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20 pages, 1258 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Measuring Effectiveness of Mobile Application in Learning Basic Mathematical Concepts Using Sign Language

by Komal Parvez, Muzafar Khan, Javed Iqbal, Muhammad Tahir, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohammed Alqarni, Amer Awad Alzaidi and Nadeem Javaid

Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3064; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11113064 - 30 May 2019

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6799

Abstract

Technology plays an important role in our society, especially in the field of education. It is quite regrettable that people, particularly the deaf, still face a lot of challenges in acquiring an education. Their learning methods are different as compared to hearing people. They use Sign Language (SL) rather than natural language to communicate and learn. They are required to put a lot of effort into learning different concepts using conventional pedagogies. Therefore, there is a dire need for some assistive technology to improve their learn-ability and understandability. In the present study, 192 deaf participants aged 5–10 years were sampled from two special child institutes. The objective of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of a mobile interface through a developed mobile application for learning basic mathematical concepts using Pakistan Sign Language (PSL). The present study bridges the gap between the technology-based method and conventional teaching methods, which are used for teaching mathematical concepts using PSL. The participants were divided into two groups, that is, one group learned through conventional methods (flash cards and board) and the other group through the developed mobile application. The difference in the performance of both the groups was evaluated by conducting quizzes. The quiz results were analyzed by the Z-test and ANOVA. The findings revealed that the Experimental Group (EG) participants, who were instructed by our mobile application showed higher proficiency in the quizzes as compared to the Control Group (CG). EG participants performed better than CG by 12% in the quizzes. A gender based difference was also observed for the quiz scores. Male participants in category C (word problem learning) performed 2.7% better than females in the EG and 2.5% better in the CG. Moreover, a significant difference was also observed in the time taken by participants in both groups to complete the quizzes. CG participants took 20 min longer than EG participants to complete the quizzes. The results of the ANOVA showed that the quiz scores were directly affected by the mode of teaching used for participants in both groups. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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19 pages, 1907 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Computer-Based Concept Mapping as a Method for Enhancing the Effectiveness of Concept Learning in Technology-Enhanced Learning

by Gülsüm Aşıksoy

Sustainability 2019, 11(4), 1005; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11041005 - 15 Feb 2019

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 14040

Abstract

Technology enhanced learning is a wide area that covers all uses of digital technology to support learning and teaching activities. The computer-based concept mapping has shown potential in enhancing meaningful learning in education. Concept mapping is an important tool that is used in the field of education to help students in understanding the basic concepts and the relationships between them. This research proposes a computer-based concept mapping (CBCM) environment combined with Google classroom to help students reduce their misconceptions and to improve their problem solving skills. Furthermore, it examines the effect of CBCM on the sustainability of concept learning according to student views. The participants were first-year engineering students. The study was conducted in a physics class, and a true-experimental design was used. The experimental group students learned with the Google classroom combined with computer-based concept mapping (CBCM), while the concept group students learned with Google classroom and the traditional method. Data were collected from a physics concept test, problem solving inventory, and semi-structured interviews. The research results indicated that teaching in the CBCM environment combined with Google Classroom provides meaningful learning by correcting the misconceptions of the students. Moreover, there was a significant increase in the problem solving skills of the experimental group as compared to the control group. According to the students’ views, it was determined that CBCM enhances the sustainability of concept learning. The results of this study can help educators and researchers to integrate computer-based concept mapping (CBCM) techniques into Google Classroom. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technology Enhanced Learning Research)

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