Journal of
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
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 ISSN: 1690-4524 (Online)




SPECIAL ISSUE



TABLE OF CONTENTS





Editorial Board

Trans-Disciplinary Communication
Nagib Callaos
Pages: 1-44
ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this article is to provide a short description of what is Tran-Disciplinary Communication, why it is important, and how it may be achieved. The article will also insert editorial notes related to the special issue in which it is included. Consequently, we will try:

  1. To describe the objective of this Special Issue FOR Trans-disciplinary Communication,
  2. To provide a short description of the meaning in which “Trans-disciplinary Communications” is used here,
  3. To describe the multi-methodical reviewing methodology used in this special issue, i.e.
    1. the Dual Peer-Review used, for the initial submissions, in the process for the acceptance for the presentation of the accepted papers at conferences organized by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, and
    2. the Participative Peer-to-Peer Reviewing (PPPR) used for the required additional reviewing for this special issue of the journal, and
  4. To show the personal and the common goods that are (or, at least may be generated by and to both: a) the write, b) the potential readers, and 3) to academy, in general, and to Society at large.


Does Learning Multidisciplinary Field of Biomedical Engineering Help Pandemic of COVID-19?
Shigehiro Hashimoto
Pages: 45-64
ABSTRACT:
The global community has accelerated the spread of the virus. Medicine alone cannot solve the pandemic. Changes of lifestyle enabled by new technology helps to coexist with viruses. The academic field has been divided into each specialized field. Modern communication tools (internet and cloud databases), on the other hand, promote multidisciplinary academic fields. The multidisciplinary field is not just a collection of fields, but a fusion among fields. Many problems in global society cannot be solved by a single disciplinarian. The global society is waiting for a multi-disciplinarian. For students, it is not easy to find the way to learn a multidisciplinary field. This depends on the curriculum, the textbook, the learning team, and the teacher (the adviser). “Biomedical Engineering” is one of the multidisciplinary fields. It has many related fields: biology, medicine, informatics, and engineering. The topic includes case studies related to COVID-19 in 2020 (education for the undergraduate and the graduate courses in Japan and Thailand) based on the author’s experiences: from cross cultural to symbiosis.


A Transdisciplinary Approach to Differentiated Instruction
Russell Jay Hendel
Pages: 65-85
ABSTRACT:
Differentiated instruction (DI) improves student performance and student satisfaction especially when preliminary instructor training is provided. However, the DI literature is overwhelming, excessively challenging many instructors to create a DI for multiple learning styles. This paper employs a transdisciplinary approach to address this gap between theory and challenging operational implementation. #1) The discipline of architecture introduced the approach of universal design, advocating that new buildings be initially built to allow universal access; this contrasts with the prior method of attempting to comply with regulations after building completion, which is often costly and wasteful. #2) The discipline of neuro-psychology identifies higher cognitive brain function with (performance) executive function which in turn is simply implemented using a multiple-modality approach. This suggests that pedagogic emphasis should be given to initial universal instruction addressing several modalities in contrast to one current DI approach requiring a costly continual monitoring and evaluation of individual student learning styles. This multiple modality approach, derived from neuropsychology is consistent with a wide variety of learning theories. #3) The discipline of industrial psychology emphasizes goal-setting, the skillful breaking up of a complex task into component tasks each of which is clearly defined, achievable timely, but challenging. #4) Goal setting coupled with the self-efficacy approach introduced by the discipline of social psychology, with an emphasis on perceptions of the self as a key motivating factor in learning, advocate that use of software technology, with numerically differentiated difficulty levels, allowing each student to both self-assess and self-improve with their own actions (self-regulation) The transdisciplinary approach advocates numerous innovations for DI which it is hoped that other researchers and instructors will pursue.


Human Vis-à-Vis Artificial Intelligence in Trans-Disciplinary Research
Ekaterini Nikolarea
Pages: 86-101
ABSTRACT:
Based on the claim that only human mind/intelligence (nous) (HI) - with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) and through different mental/cognitive processes (noesis) - can communicate an inter-disciplinary and a trans-disciplinary research to an international scientific community, my discussion will develop around three axes. First, what happens when English and non-English scientists (noes), who carry out an inter-disciplinary and a trans-disciplinary research project, “hit” on polysemy of scientific discourse (issues of inter-scientificity and reverse inter-scientificity, as discussed in Section 3) and have difficulty to communicate with each other. Second, how terms such as the “grid” in English and “αποτίμη” (: valuation, evaluation or assessment] in Greek), become examples of inter-scientificity and reverse inter-scientificity respectively (i.e. terms that are used in different scientific domains with totally different semantics), and can lead to a possible total breakdown of communication, when scientists (noes) from different scientific domains, being unaware of the complexity of the polysemy of these terms, try to communicate their inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research project. The interconnectedness of inter-scientificity and reverse inter-scientificity with inter-disciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity will also be discussed. Finally, I will try to establish certain criteria in choosing appropriate terms, so that an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research can be communicated properly, and thus (international) scientific communication can be achieved effectively.


Exploring the Context of Converged Learning: A Case Study in a Polytechnic University
James Lipuma, Cristo Leon
Pages: 102-121
ABSTRACT:
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), a four-year polytechnic R01 research university in the United States utilized a participatory strategic planning process to implement an innovative approach to the modes of delivery for instruction that exist between face-to-face and online instruction. NJIT defines the spectrum of integration of online and on-ground instruction as Converged Education. This spectrum allows students to either participate face to face, join remotely through real-time video conferencing technology synchronously, or watch classroom instruction asynchronously.

The article opens with a general background of NJIT’s approach to the new idea of converged instructional delivery. It provides a brief history, context, and explanation of its interdisciplinary participatory strategic planning process. Then the paper describes the process of pilot testing that was conducted to determine how best to adopt the new modes of instruction across all disciplines. Next, the process for defining and clarifying the terms and conceptions of the various modes to be adopted is presented. After this, the paper discusses the impact of the shift of Web 1.0 to web 6.0 and how the different departments and sectors of NJIT worked on strategic planning together. Finally, the resulting implementation of the new policy and its reflection in course offerings is shown and discussed.


Strategic Data Pattern Visualisation
Carol E. Cuthbert, Noel J. Pearse
Pages: 122-141
ABSTRACT:
Data visualisation reveals patterns and provides insights that lead to actions from management, thereby playing a mediating role in the relationship between the internal resources of a firm and its financial performance. In this chapter, contingent resource-based theory is applied to the analysis of big data, treating its visualisation as a mode of interdisciplinary communication. In service industries in general and the legal industry in particular, big data analytics (BDA) is emerging as a decision-making tool for management to achieve competitive advantage. Traditionally, data scientists have delved into data armed with a hypothesis, but increasingly they explore data to discern patterns that lead to hypotheses that are then tested. These big data analytics tools in the hands of data scientists have the potential to unlock firm value and increase revenue and profits, through pattern identification, analysis, and strategic action. This exploratory mode of working can increase complexity and thereby diminish efficient management decision-making and action. However, data pattern visualisation reduces complexity, as it enables interdisciplinary communication between data scientists and managers through the translation of statistical patterns into visualisations that enable actionable management decisions. When data scientists visualise data patterns for managers, this translates uncertainty into reliable conclusions, resulting in effective management decision-making and action.

Informed by contingent resource theory and viewing these primary and secondary resources as independent variables and performance outcomes such as revenue and profitability as dependent variables, a conceptual framework is developed. The contingent resource-based theory highlights capabilities emerging from the interrelationship between primary and secondary resources as being central to competitiveness and profitability. Data decision-making systems are viewed as a primary resource, while complementary resources are (1) their completeness of vision (i.e., strategy and innovation) and (2) their ability to execute (i.e., operational capabilities). Data visualisation is therefore crucial as a resource facilitating actionable decisions by management, which in turn enhances firm performance. The balance between expert agents’ self-reliance and central control, the entity’s values, task attributes, and risk appetite all moderate the type of data visualisation produced by data scientists.


Evaluation of the Economic Impact of Higher Educational Institutions on the National Economy
Elina Gaile-Sarkane, Arturs Zeps, Vija Kinna, Davis Liberts
Pages: 142-162
ABSTRACT:
The article gives an insight in the economic impact of a higher educational institution (Riga Technical University, Latvia) on the national economy. The role of universities is changing through decades and the number of ways to evaluate university impact increases. Today, tools for the evaluation of higher educational institutions are mainly related to typology and rankings. This research is devoted to finding out the possible ways for calculation which allows to evaluate the added value of higher education and science in the national economy. Results were achieved by choosing a methodology for the evaluation of higher educational institution impact on the national economy. Calculations were made on the example of Riga Technical University and new ways of adjustment of the calculations and the methodology were discovered. The authors concluded that in 2019 one euro invested in Riga Technical University returned to the national economy in the amount of 10.8 euros


Education and Technology
Rossella Marzullo
Pages: 163-173
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this paper is to explore what we know about the difficulties from comprehension of digital texts in comparison with traditional texts with a particular focus on new readers. The question we want to investigate is whether the reading of an electronic text is more (or less) difficult than that of a paper text. In the first part of the paper, the object of the study is presented; in the second part research studies in the field are examined through an analysis of the evidence-based literature; in the third and final part, we try to draw some conclusions from data.

Do we read more or read less in the time of digital media? Does reading on the screen change the way we understand meanings? And does the way we write change? These are some of the questions that parents and teachers ask themselves to understand what are the correct spaces and times to leave for devices at home, at school, in free time. Research suggests that the question of time is crucial. Maryanne Wolf, a neuroscientist who has been studying the brain that reads for years, noted that reading on the screen ends up inhibiting deep reading in the long run. We run away, looking for some articulations of the text that allow us to synthetically grasp its meaning without taking the time to weigh every single part: the risk is that the ability to understand exactly the meaning of what is being read is compromised.

Fast thoughts and slow thoughts should both belong to our cognitive economy: the former are useful in some cases, the latter in others. In fact, however, the speed at which we are progressively more and more required in everyday life, at home as well as in organizations, can mean that we tend to resort more and more frequently, especially to quick thoughts.

The real problem, therefore, is not digital, but speed. We need to find a way to slow down because only by slowing down is it possible to activate our slow thoughts.


Software Methodologies and War Strategies
Cătălin Tudose
Pages: 174-190
ABSTRACT:
Innovation is permanent in all fields of human activity. Strategy and tactics adopted by one discipline may be used to communicate through disciplines or may be transposed and adapted in other fields. The contemporary activity of software development brought to emerging different methodologies that exercise their influence to other fields and may be applied in other disciplines. On the other hand, as people showed the highest inventiveness in attacking and conquering others, the basic military notions are used across disciplines. Adapting the attacking and war strategies to different fields resulted naturally.

The article will examine the trans-disciplinary communication through the Agile incremental methodology and similarities between its application in software development and adopting it in different fields. We'll analyze how to transpose to other fields Agile concepts as adding business value and getting to the business goals, conducting the work the incremental and non-incremental way, and how the basic concepts from Agile are used beyond their original creation, through other disciplines.

The article also analyzes war strategies and the possibility to apply them to other disciplines, with extended references to one of the most renowned military treaties, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. We’ll investigate what things as initial estimations, attack by stratagem, tactical dispositions, energy, weak points, and strong points, maneuvering, variation in tactics, the army on the march, terrain, arriving on unknown ground, concrete situations on the ground, the use of spies or the attack by fire may mean to communicate across disciplines.


Production Quality of Shaped Surfaces During Milling
Marek Sadilek, Robert Cep, Lenka Cepova, Lukas Kusnir, Patrik Sniehotta, Hana Stverkova, Katarzyna Czerna
Pages: 191-208
ABSTRACT:
In the context of the development of continuous improvement, increasing the level of quality, safety and protection of the ecological environment, it is necessary to deal with the sensitive phases of the production process and to evaluate the efficiency in terms of time and cost. In the paper, the quality of production in milling (method that is using rotary cutters to remove material) of shaped surfaces is pursued. The quality of the production process leads to the satisfaction of customer needs, and it is essential to focus on the quality/price ratio due to non-conformities. In the paper, the authors use the quality method to provide effective solutions and improve production activities, processes, and systems. This approach stands for a quality management system applied as a perpetual improvement tool, where individual activities consist of four steps: Plan, Do, Check, and Action, with returned stages developing a cycle. This cycle starts with minor to examine potential effects on systems and progresses to more extensive and precise improvements. The results of the implementation of effective solution method can be practiced for constant improvement and as a working model in developing a process or system in an organization. The different stages of the method are applied to set the path tolerance in relation to precision in 3-axis milling. The paper describes area computer numeric control milling center programming during 3-axis finishing milling. The article is focusing on setting the tolerance of tool paths during finishing milling in Computer Aided Manufacturing systems to recommend specific tolerance settings in computer aided Manufacturing systems concerning achieved accuracy, machining time, surface roughness, and quantity of blocks of machine tool control program. Finding suitable tool paths during finishing is very time-consuming and can be expensive. The aim is also to compare the practical results of machining with predicted simulation. The methodology for evaluating this problem is based on the following steps: experimental sample design for production, accuracy prediction of machined samples, production of samples using Computer Numeric Control milling center, analysis of accuracy, and surface roughness for the shape of the workpiece. The result is the variance of the shape accuracy deviations from the specified computer-aided design model of the workpiece, focusing on individual areas of its shape. The workpiece (aluminium alloy), focusing on individual areas of its shape. The research results show milled surface errors depending on the tool path tolerances. Using the effective solution method, it is possible to efficiently set up individual processes to improve the quality of production processes for time and cost.


An Intervention Program Cultivating Emotional Social Skills in Israeli Arab Adolescents
Sehrab Masri, Ihab Zubeidat, Waleed Dallasheh, Haggai Kupermintz
Pages: 209-224
ABSTRACT:
Arab society in Israel is a traditional patriarchal culture holding collectivistic, interdependent values. Arabs in Israel receive basic human rights and privileges, but the Israeli society treats them as a separate minority group. The basic premise of the current study was that improving the emotional intelligence and the empathy abilities of adolescent Arabs in general – through a uni-national group program – would result in stronger empathy towards Jews in Israel – a change that would improve the Arab participant's attitudes and behaviors towards the Jews in Israel.

The research accompanying the implementation of the program was quasi-experimental. The main goals of the current intervention were to improve the intra-personal, interpersonal and inter-group skills and functioning, to strengthen awareness and skills in identifying and understanding emotions in themselves and other people – their causes and effects, to improve emotion regulation and ability to manage other people's emotions, to improve empathy towards members of the in-group (Arabs) and the out-group (Jews), to reduce stereotypes against minority groups, and to improve Jewish-Arab relations. The sample included 172 Arab 10th and 11th grade adolescents in northern Israel. The main research hypotheses were: 1) The participants' emotional intelligence and empathy towards Arabs will be higher at the end of the program than at its beginning; 2) The participants' empathy towards Jews will be higher at the end of the program than at its beginning.



Student Choices and Perceptions of Online-Only Courses During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Jana M. Thomas Coffman
Pages: 225-239
ABSTRACT:
Online learning is a growing phenomenon in higher education (Chem, Home, Florell, & Thomas, 2002; Reagan, Evmenova, & Baker, 2014). This study explored the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence upon undergraduate university students’ decisions to take courses in a traditional in-person format or an online-only format, an issue that has impacted education around the globe (Besser, Gordon, & Zeigler-Hill, 2020). Understanding this issue is a growing convern during the COVID-19 pandemic and understanding it has implications for future K-12 and higher-eduacation online enrollment projections for the future. The study utilized a survey with multiple-choice questions and the opportunity for participants to select “other” and write their own answers. The survey also included open-ended questions soliciting participant beliefs on the advantage and disadvantes of online-only learning formats. The results of this study indicate that students take online-only classes for many reasons, including the need for a more flexible schedule, the ability to work at their own pace, the physical distance from the university, and, in 2020, concerns about health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Borders and Bridges – Boundaries as an Opportunity
Stefano Follesa, Francesco Armato, Sabrina Cesaretti, Yao Peian
Pages: 240-248
ABSTRACT:
The boundary is an ephemeral concept, an imaginary line that marks the terms of a territory. The term boundary is related to the concept of limit that indicates both a sign not to be exceeded and, by extension, a value that conditions a behavior or a performance. The Italian word “confine” that means boundary comes from the Latin cum-finis; the etymology of the term indicates something that separates but, at the same time, that unites, something that has an end but that creates the presuppositions for something else.

The border, therefore, is not only a limit but an opportunity; crossing the border is a gesture that gives us the awareness that nothing is taken for granted, immutable and that everything can change in the relationship with otherness.

Cultural wealth is built first in a direct relationship with the material and immaterial resources of a place but also through "contaminations" that come from external knowledge and are acquired and made their own through a local reinterpretation. Globalization has cut the threads of such contaminations, drying the sources of diversity in the project and giving us back the shared universal languages that guide the aesthetics of objects. The recent pandemic has shown us how the creation of virtual connections has contributed to enrich the scenarios of research by giving it a multiplicity of views. The same mode can be used for applied research.

Borders and Bridges is a pilot project of exchange between international universities that is born with the aim of developing practices of transdisciplinary cultural contamination in the context of an exchange through the internet between international universities. The design discipline has in its D.N.A the ability to connect and develop proposals that create synthesis between the vision of project activities and that of social sciences. The idea of the project is to work on borders as lines of opportunity for the elaboration of elements of innovation through the tools of the design discipline. The dual objective is, on the one hand, to promote new methods of exchange in the educational field, and on the other to promote the encounter between cultural systems.

The design, in fact, is free from borders, "has always had the ability to look at different fields and disciplines favoring cross-contamination" (Cappellieri A. Tenuta L. 2019).


Information Retrieval Based on Brazilian Portuguese Texts
Victor Hayashi, Mateus Carvalho, João Carlos Néto, Felipe Pinna, Rosangela Marquesone, Wilson Ruggiero, Maisa Duarte
Pages: 249-269
ABSTRACT:
Knowledge-based intelligent systems might be used in the banking sector to automate customer service. One of the ways to represent knowledge that is both understandable by humans and readable by machines is by using ontologies. Whenever a customer queries its bank regarding specific products or services, the existing knowledge modeled in an ontology might be used by a customer service chatbot to answer it in an automated way. The existing manual information retrieval process from banking specialists is laborious and time-consuming. Specialists use natural language, visual representations, and common sense, often overlooking details. It is a great challenge to make a specialist’s knowledge explicit, formal, precise, and completely scalable, which is the format required by a customer service chatbot. We propose a semi-automatic approach to retrieving banking information in Brazilian Portuguese texts with minimal specialist support. By combining Natural Language Processing techniques (e.g., syntactic analysis to obtain the logical meaning of sentences based on rules and its structure) and an ontology constructor library, it was possible to build a tool that receives texts from the banking domain and constructs an ontology that knowledge-based intelligent systems can use. Specialist support is only needed in intermediate refinement steps, thus optimizing the banking specialist’s time. The use cases for investments, opening a banking account, and the comparison of the proposed approach show how we reduced manual labor in the information retrieval process by a factor of 40%. Our approach can identify more information in each sentence compared to a similar method found in the literature. The resulting ontologies can be used in a chatbot that automates customer support for a large Brazilian bank.


Articulating Methodology – Weaving a Trans-Disciplinary Knowledge
Maria Edna Moura Vieira, Simone Alves-Hopf, José Tomás Real Collado, Maria da Graça Luderitz Hoefel
Pages: 270-295
ABSTRACT:
Background: With the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the educational context became more complex, and other challenges were added to the already-existing ones. The way of doing and thinking about education mediated by digital technologies emerged suddenly. It put our view of the world into question because the world has changed, we are no longer the same, and the need for humanitarian health and transdisciplinary education has expanded in all contexts. The new educational reality is evidenced by the social distancing and the teaching and learning processes, requiring prepared teachers and committed to the act of educating. The current pandemic exposed some needs that foster policies, projects and actions with innovative strategies, which enhance learning, so that participants are immersed in an inclusive, trans-disciplinary, dialogic, free and universal education, with a view to unraveling the complexity of social interactions. The new reality aspires to generate a transforming awareness of society, in which people recognize themselves as part of the problems, but above all as part of the solutions. In the education and health sectors, it is essential to reconstruct dynamics, processes, participatory methodologies, and forms of democratic management, which are reaffirmed in the daily practice of educators and health professionals. Objective: Systematize the concepts of the Articulating Methodology (AM) with the Permanent Health Education principles in a perspective that promotes transdisciplinarity, multiple identities, knowledge exchanges and singularities that configure the subjects involved in the education and learning act. Method: This is a descriptive-exploratory study carried out in three stages: description of the authors' personal and professional experiences; conducting of bibliographic research; conducting of an integrative review for a broad discussion on the contextualization of active methodologies in the education and health sectors. Results: We identified important elements in the bibliographic and integrative review that can be added to the Articulating Methodology. In addition, we note that information technology can facilitate trans-disciplinary, as well as a fast, effective and inclusive communication, as long as some dimensions brought by the Articulating Methodology (e.g. lovingness, humanization, intersectoriality, for example, articulation of education and health sectors), interculturality and internationalization of knowledge. Conclusion: We emphasize that it is essential to reaffirm the importance of the role of the educator in the construction of knowledge, whether in the education and health sectors, however, it is necessary to develop a “sensitive reason” for a more humanized practice filled with meanings, emotions and motivation. The applicability of AM, as a device that enhances Permanent Health Education, reinforces dialogue, exchanges of experiences, trans-disciplinary, intersectoral and intercultural actions. In addition, Articulating Methodology, through Proactive Agendas, encourages social participation, the use of information technologies and the creation of bridges between policy maker, managers, inter-disciplinary professionals and social environment, allowing the tone of the narratives and propositions to emerge from the experiences, voices and intercommunication of the participants, thus, enabling a direct impact on the practice of educators and health professionals.


A Formal Model for the Business Innovation Case Description
Masaaki Kunigami, Takamasa Kikuchi, Takao Terano
Pages: 296-318
ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this paper is to formalize the plural business innovation cases to compare each other. In case method learning, class discussions are based on cases that summarize actual business processes. This paper presents a model to re-description formally business innovation cases written in natural language. The model we named Managerial Decision-making Description Model (MDDM). MDDM consists of less than ten kinds of symbolic components and a simple syntax, for ease of writing and reading. In MDDM we define the structure of a business as layered relationship between objectives and resources. Then MDDM illustrates business innovation as a transition in the objectives-resources relationship and expresses the role of decision making in that transition. By formally describing business innovation cases in this way, it is possible to visually compare the characteristics of individual innovation processes. The model also allows us to compare the understandings between a facilitator and learners for the same case in a case study classroom. This formal description can be applied to the outcomes of organizational simulations and business games as well as to actual business innovations. In this paper, we introduce MDDM and its examples of cases descriptions derived from an actual business case and an organizational simulation.


Factors Influencing Collaboration in Creative Industries
Peter Micak, Alena Kocmanova
Pages: 319-333
ABSTRACT:
The field of creative industries is an area that has recently become the subject of gradually increasing scientific interest. This growing attention is mainly linked to the fact that they are inherently associated with the modern way of life, economic development, and innovation. At the same time, the creative industries are also perceived as a sustainable concept of modern development. In addition to the direct positive effects on the country's GDP growth, the reduction of unemployment, the creation of social cohesion among the population, the promotion of creativity and innovation, the creative industries also have additional positive outcomes in the form of the so-called positive spillover effects. We consider it necessary to examine the creative industries not only from a macroeconomic or regional development point of view, which are the prevailing approaches to their research but also from a microeconomic point of view. Only by understanding the internal logic of companies in creative industries will it be possible to understand the benefits and functionality of their internal processes. The paper aims to analyse the influence of selected factors on a company's willingness to collaborate. Because through such collaboration, it is possible to effectively share knowledge and experience in this sector of the economy, which impacts companies' innovative performance. The research in this paper is based on a statistical analysis of data obtained from the publishing industry, a subsector of the creative industries. The results show a positive impact of strategic management's existence on the company's willingness to collaborate with other companies and institutions, especially with foreign, public, and multinational companies. The influence of a more liberal management approach on its willingness to cooperate with its surroundings was not confirmed in the analysis. The validity of these results must also be verified in other subsectors of the creative industries, as the creative industries cannot be considered a homogeneous sector, given the large number of subsectors they cover.


Acceptance of Technology and e-Learning Among Undergraduate Business Students
Safaa A. M. Shaaban, Rehab G. Rabie
Pages: 334-350
ABSTRACT:
Recently, e-Learning during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected all academic institutes all around the world. Academic institutes are facing challenges in keeping the education process in place. In order to keep the education system running at its capacity, academic institutions have had to quickly find solutions to adapt to the situation and overcome delays in many approaches and systems. The increased impact of the World Wide Web are leading to new and innovative ways of learning and education. educators and technology lead assumed that new e-learning system technologies and services enable activities that allow users to be active learners, actively participating in the on-line learning process. The objective of this paper is to examine the acceptance of e-education from the perspective of students and to raise their points of view. The methodology used is a self-reported survey and the PLA approach to confirm the findings. The main finding was that more training for teachers and students are essential to better implement technology in the education. Furthermore, the acceptance of e-Learning technology by students in higher education based on their training and orientations for the concept, while some students confirmed that their face-to-face education is more interaction.


Collaborating Toward Convergence Efforts for K-20 STEM Education
James Lipuma, Cristo Leon
Pages: 351-389
ABSTRACT:
The paper examines the use of NSF’s Collaborative Infrastructure and the Convergence Research approach for complex social innovation challenges used by the authors in their NSF INCLUDES project (#1744490). The paper clarified terminologies related to Convergence Research for multi-, co- inter- and trans-disciplinary. This paper defines and describe collaborative research at each of these interfaces. Then it discussed key factors for engaging in collaborative partnerships as individuals, with teams, and as organizations. Then, it presented concepts tied to individual factors for engagement with the attitude, investment, motivation, and scenario analysis method. Next, by drawing on business and management research, the Availability, Interest, and Knowledge methodology provided a simple way to identify the alignment of the vision, mission, and theory of change by understanding the why, what, and how of your actions. Following this, the authors integrated the concepts of strategic planning and logic models with the Universal Model of Strategic Planning. The authors discuss the double diamond model to represent the complex web of partnerships and the framework developed for communication and collaboration amongst stakeholders. The result is the Collaborative Convergence Pyramid framework for negotiating understanding within a new common space being generated together. Finally, the work concluded with a discussion of the vital roles collaborative infrastructure and strategic planning played in facilitating the Convergence Research approach with a multi-stakeholder coalition.


Interdisciplinary Background of Biomedical Engineering Helps Communication in Pandemic
Shigehiro Hashimoto
Pages: 390-406
ABSTRACT:
The global community has accelerated the spread of the virus. Medicine alone cannot solve the pandemic. Understanding information from specialists is not easy. Information is overflowing due to the progress of networks. Individuals are required to have the ability to sort huge amounts of information. How do you use information for your personal behavior? Following social campaign can lead to inconsistencies in individual behavior. The field of biomedical engineering is not limited to the fusion of medicine and engineering, but is a complex field including various fields: biology, informatics, etc. In their courses, students have the opportunity to learn pandemic-related techniques: for example, air purification techniques (clean room), and sterilization techniques (cell culture). Multi-disciplinary fields supply education to understand complex issues. They improve communication skills of students on global problems.


An Educative Systemic Solution to COVID-19 Pandemic
Francisco Atl Aceves-Bernal, Jorge Rojas-Ramírez, Francisco Javier Aceves-Hernández
Pages: 407-420
ABSTRACT:
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a great impact on public health all over the world. In order to control it, many strategies had been adopted. Nevertheless, not enough emphasis has been given to improving the immune system of the persons, which is, probably, a better solution to this and other pandemics. With this purpose, an educative systemic solution has been developed. A Sustainable Systemic Health diploma course has been created and taught online during the 2020-2021 scholar year to students who learned about the following themes: 1- Health in Mexico and the world, 2- Food and Nutrition, 3- Physical Activity, 4- Hygienic Habits, 5- Systemic Health, and 6- Final work, where the students wrote a personal Healthy Habits Handbook, with the purpose of helping them to apply the healthy recommendations of this diploma course. The premises, objectives, and methods of this educative systemic experience (which has the purpose of improving the immune system of the students through the substitution of unhealthy for healthy habits) are explained in this paper. This experience has been applied at the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico during the 2020-2021 scholar year, with 23 graduate students.