Online-Journals.org (International Association of Online Engineering)
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Upskilling for the Modern Workplace: A Case Study on the Most Effective Training Methods and Tools for Bridging the Skills Gap
The skills gap represents a significant challenge in today’s ever-evolving workplace, affecting various industries and age groups. This gap leads to increased recruitment costs, hinders innovation and growth, and reduces productivity and efficiency. Leaders worldwide agree that upskilling is essential for addressing this issue and building a future-ready workforce. However, significant barriers persist, particularly budget constraints and low engagement in training programs. This article presents a case study on a non-profit organization that helps at-risk youth and vulnerable community members develop job readiness skills using the GoSkills course library and learning management system (LMS). Through interviews with the organization's program director and learners, and an analysis of the platform’s reports, the study identifies best practices for upskilling and assesses their effectiveness. The findings provide actionable recommendations for organizations to create a more engaging and effective upskilling strategy without necessarily increasing their training budget
Survey Paper on Cyber Warfare
Cyberspace warfare has emerged as a critical new front in national security, presenting complex challenges due to its multifaceted nature. This paper dissects cyber warfare across its physical, syntactic, and semantic layers, detailing common attack vectors such as reconnaissance, access, denial-of-service, and espionage. Motivations range from financial gain to political disruption, and attacks can take various forms, from preludes to conventional war to clandestine cold war tactics. Non-state actors such as cyber terrorists further complicate the landscape. Tools such as sniffers aid attackers, while firewalls offer some defense. The potential implications of cyberwar are stark, including disruption of essential services, economic damage, and national security threats. Understanding the ongoing discourse surrounding cyberwar, as reflected in the alarmist, skeptical, and realistic perspectives in the literature, is crucial for navigating this complex and evolving field
Effectiveness of Blended Learning for Civil Engineering Students’ Performance during COVID-19: A Case Study of a Rural University in South Africa
In this study, the effectiveness of blended learning on the learning of civil engineering students during the COVID-19 pandemic was evaluated at a rural university in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The imposition of lockdown due to the global spread of COVID-19 left educational institutions with no choice but to find alternative methods of teaching and learning. Students were sent home in order to control the spread of the virus. Secondary data were used to examine the students’ performance in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, primary data was obtained through questionnaires to assess the students’ opinions on blended learning. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine the extent of the difference in students’ performance before and during COVID-19. Descriptive analysis results indicated the superiority of blended learning over face-to-face teaching methods, with blended learning achieving a 67% success rate compared to the 33% achieved by face-to-face methods. Similarly, the Mann-Whitney U test also showed a significant difference between blended and face-to-face teaching methods. In contrast to the descriptive analysis and Mann-Whitney U test, students’ sentiments indicated otherwise. 80% of students neither agreed nor disagreed with blended learning methods as a preference over face-to-face teaching methods. The results of this study demonstrated the effectiveness of the teaching methods used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it revealed and, further, showed the sentiments of students regarding the teaching methods employed during this period
Blockchain Technology in Education: Opportunities, Challenges, and Beyond
Blockchain technology has gained significant attention for its decentralized, secure, transparent, and immutable characteristics. It has been adopted in various domains, including the financial and education sectors. This systematic review provides a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities, challenges, and future educational prospects of blockchain technology by examining published research from various disciplines. A bibliometric approach was adopted using R Studio. Datasets were sourced from the Scopus database, which included Scopusindexed articles from 2018 to 2022. The keywords “blockchain” and “education” were used to retrieve relevant articles. Specific criteria were applied to filter the literature sources, ensuring that our discussions focused on the applications and challenges of blockchain technology in education. We only considered articles written in English, specifically those published in proceedings and journals. The review identified that blockchain technology has the potential to transform education by enhancing data security, facilitating efficient verification and credentialing processes, and enabling peer-to-peer transactions. However, addressing challenges such as adoption, technical expertise, data privacy, security, and standardization is crucial. Therefore, the study concludes that implementing blockchain technology in education can yield significant benefits for future generations. These benefits include reducing the gap in global education and increasing transparency and accountability in the education sector
An In-Depth Review of ChatGPT’s Pros and Cons for Learning and Teaching in Education
As technology progresses, there has been an increasing interest in using Chatbot GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) in education. Chatbot GPT, or ChatGPT, gained one million users within the first week of launching in November 2022 and had amassed over 100 million active users by February 2023. This type of artificial intelligence uses natural language processing to convert it into a user. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis and review of 34 articles published on ChatGPT and its potential impact on education by utilizing the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology. This review analyzed various studies and articles to examine the strengths and limitations of GPT language models in education from 2018 to the present. The advantages of ChatGPT include its capacity to provide personalized and adaptive learning, instant feedback, and improved accessibility. However, there are potential drawbacks, such as the lack of emotional intelligence, the risk of overreliance on technology, and privacy concerns. This review suggests that ChatGPT has significant promise for education yet reinforces the necessity for further research and careful consideration of possible risks and limitations. Specifically, it pointed out potential invisible manipulations by instructing ChatGPT to answer educationrelated topics. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of ChatGPT for the future of education and emphasizing the need for further research in this field
Global Growth and Trends of In-Body Communication Research—Insight From Bibliometric Analysis
A bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine research on in-body communication. This study aimed to assess the research growth in different countries, identify influential authors for potential international collaboration, investigate research challenges, and explore future prospects for in-body communication. A total of 148 articles written in English from journals and conference proceedings were gathered from the Scopus database. These articles cover the period from 2006 until August 2023. VOS Viewer 1.6.19 and Tableau Cloud were used to analyze the data. The analysis reveals that research on in-body communication has shown fluctuations but overall tends to increase. The United States, Finland, and Japan were identified as the leading countries (top three) in terms of publication quantity, while researchers from Norway, Finland, and Morocco received the highest number of citations. The University of Oulu in Finland has emerged as a productive institution in this field. Collaborative research opportunities exist with the countries mentioned above or with authors who have expertise in this topic. The dominant research topic within this field pertains to ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. One of the future challenges in this field is the exploration of optical wireless communication (OWC) as a potential communication medium for in-body devices, such as electronic devices implanted in the human body. This includes improving performance to meet the requirements for in-body communication devices. Additionally, this paper provides further insights into the progress of research on OWC for in-body communication conducted in our laboratory
Virtualization and Online Engineering of the Administrative Services in Universities
Virtualization and online engineering of services are emerging as key themes that will profoundly influence society and industry in the near and distant future. This paper focuses on the transformation of administrative services in universities into virtual services through online engineering. This transition presents challenges not only to universities in Bulgaria but also worldwide. Given the significant impact of technology on the daily operations of universities, it is evident that the digital divide is an issue worthy of investigation. Disparities in the adoption of online administrative services can and will lead to inconsistencies in the economic development of universities. This article aims to explore some of the challenges associated with virtualization and online engineering of administrative services in universities and offers insights into how to address them
Ways of Being Smart in Engineering: Beliefs, Values, and Introductory Engineering Experiences
Common discourse conveys that to be an engineer, one must be “smart.” Our individual and collective beliefs about what constitutes smart behavior are shaped by our participation in the complex cultural practice of smartness. From the literature, we know that the criteria for being considered “smart” in our educational systems are biased. The emphasis on selecting and retaining only those who are deemed “smart enough” to be engineers perpetuates inequity in undergraduate engineering education. Less is known about what undergraduate students explicitly believe are the different ways of being smart in engineering or how those different ways of being a smart engineer are valued in introductory engineering classrooms. In this study, we explored the common beliefs of undergraduate engineering students regarding what it means to be smart in engineering. We also explored how the students personally valued those ways of being smart versus what they perceived as being valued in introductory engineering classrooms. Through our multi-phase, multi-method approach, we initially qualitatively characterized their beliefs into 11 different ways to be smart in engineering, based on a sample of 36 engineering students enrolled in first-year engineering courses. We then employed quantitative methods to uncover significant differences, with a 95% confidence interval, in six of the 11 ways of being smart between the values personally held by engineering students and what they perceived to be valued in their classrooms. Additionally, we qualitatively found that 1) students described grades as central to their classroom experience, 2) students described the classroom as a context where effortless achievement is associated with being smart, and 3) students described a lack of reward in the classroom for showing initiative and for considerations of social impact or helping others. As engineering educators strive to be more inclusive, it is essential to have a clear understanding and reflect on how students value different ways of being smart in engineering as well as consider how these values are embedded into teaching praxis
The Impact of Two Proposed Strategies Based on Active Learning on Students' Achievement at the Computer and Their Social Intelligence
Active learning is a teaching method that involves students actively participating in activities, exercises, and projects within a rich and diverse educational environment. The teacher plays a role in encouraging students to take responsibility for their own education under their scientific and pedagogical supervision and motivates them to achieve ambitious educational goals that focus on developing an integrated personality for today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders. It is important to understand the impact of two proposed strategies based on active learning on the academic performance of first-class intermediate students in computer subjects and their social intelligence. The research sample was intentionally selected, consisting of 99 students. The experimental group comprised 33 students from division (B) who were taught according to the first proposed strategy, while the second experimental group, represented by division (A), and also consisted of 33 students. The control group, made up of 33 students from division (C), was taught using the usual method. Two tools have been prepared: an achievement test with 40 items and a measure of social intelligence consisting of 20 items. The research results indicated that the experimental groups, which utilized the first and second proposed strategies based on active learning, outperformed the control group. As a result, several conclusions, recommendations, and proposals were made
Web System to Support the Teaching of an Undergraduate Distributed Systems Course
This paper introduces a web-based system that supports the teaching of an undergraduate (UG) distributed systems course. It specifically describes a web system that was developed to complement the functionality of web objects in the XML (WOX) framework. It allows for storing and visualizing the state of distributed objects, as well as displaying and executing methods through a web interface. Users can provide values for each of the parameters. The WOX framework is essential to note as it facilitates the development of distributed applications that are object-based and can interoperate among different object-oriented programming languages. WOX employs the XML format to represent objects and uses HTTP as the communication protocol