The Fifth International Conference On E-Learning and E-Technologies in Education (ICEEE2016)

Conference Title
The Fifth International Conference on E-Learning and

E-Technologies in Education (ICEEE2016)
Conference Dates
September 6-8, 2016

Conference Venue
Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU),

Malaysia
ISBN
978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Published by
The Society of Digital Information and Wireless

Communications (SDIWC)
Wilmington, New Castle, DE 19801, USA
www.sdiwc.net
Table of Contents
Explorations in Learning Management System Adoption . 1

Reaching the Unreached through Blended Learning: A Case Study from the Maldives National
University ........14
Exploring Blended Learning for Professional Development of Teachers: The Experience of Two
Singaporean Chinese Language Teachers ..........22
Performance Evaluation for Higher Educational Institutions within Data Envelopment Analysis
...................37
Nationality Based Context-Aware Scenario of Cultural Heritage Guidance as Informal Learning
......................44
The Concept of Self-Adaptive Integrated Web Based Learning Environment for STEM ...........50
Youth Behaviors Toward Social Networking Service (SNS) and its Effect on their Learning
Environment as Study Tool - A Case Study of Nepalese Youth in Japan ................55
A Scheme of Resource Discovery in Reproductive Design Education ............68
Exploration of New Methods of Ideological and Political Education for College Students:
Integration of New Media and Construction of Micro-environment ............77
A Scheme of Resource Discovery in Reproductive Design Education ............86
Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on E-Learning and E-Technologies in Education (ICEEE2016), Malaysia 2016
Explorations in Learning Management System Adoption

Qian Liu and Susan Geertshuis
The University of Auckland Business School
Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland, New Zealand
s.geertshuis@auckland.ac.nz
ABSTRACT
The take-up of learning technologies across
organisations is rarely uniform despite apparent
equity in access to training and support. This
research aims to explore the origins of differential
adoption in the context of the introduction of a
learning management system. Two exploratory
studies are described, both conducted as parts of a
longitudinal insider action research project. The first
draws on one of the authors reflective journal that
transcends
the
introduction,
launch,
and
implementation of a pan-university Learning
Management System. The second analyses focus
group data, firstly, from technology staff supporting
the adoption process and, secondly, from teaching
staff who adopted the new system. By triangulating
data from these two approaches and three sources,
we provide insights into the antecedent attitudes and
capacities which shape the adoption of learning
technologies by academic teaching staff. The
implications for supporting learning technology
adoption will be outlined.
KEYWORDS
Educational technology, Learning technologies,
Learning management
system, Technology
adoption, Higher education
1 INTRODUCTION
The term, Learning Management System
(LMS), refers to the infrastructure that allows
teaching staff to design and deliver instructional
content, supervise learning progress, and
communicate with learners in the online
environment [1-3]. LMSs have been
extensively implemented by universities in
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
recent years [4, 5], often with the assumption

that an LMS will stimulate change in teaching
practice to better meet students learning needs
and enhance a universitys competitiveness [2,
3]. However, researchers [4, 6, 7] have argued
that an LMS may not achieve its potential in
transforming education, as studies have
consistently demonstrated that LMSs are used
primarily for material distribution rather than as
a means of enhancing communication or
interaction [8-10]. This may not be too much of
a surprise since not only has information
systems research documented various resistance
behaviours when organisations implement IT
innovations [11], but change management
research has also indicated that only 30% of
organisational changes will be adopted by
employees [12]. Similarly, in the field of
educational change and teacher development,
the underuse of educational technologies and
teachers resistance to change has been reported
[13, 14].
The research explores the origins of differential
adoption in the context of the introduction of an
LMS in a New Zealand university. Specifically,
our research emphasizes the human and
contextual aspects of LMS adoption.
The remainder of the paper unfolds in the
following way. We first briefly review the
literature on innovation diffusion, information
systems, and educational technologies. Second,
we describe our research approach and context.
Then, we present our findings from analyses of
journal and focus group data. We conclude by
discussing our research findings and suggesting
directions for future research and the
implications for supporting learning technology

adoption.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Influenced by Rogers [15] seminal work on
innovation
diffusion,
researchers
view
technology adoption as a behavioural change
resulting from individuals decision making
[16]. The assumption of adoption as a decision
made by the adopter has been accepted in many
fields, such as medical and healthcare [17],
education [18], and sociology [19]. In addition,
innovation diffusion theory primarily deals with
diffusion, which describes how innovations
spread through a whole population rather than
explaining adoption at the individual level [15,
16]. However, this assumption may not explain
technology adoption in organisations where
employees adoption is mandated. Employees
technology adoption in organisations may be
reflected as a process of learning about and
making use of the technology to achieve work
tasks [16]. Therefore, adoption research
following the tradition of innovation diffusion
theory
may
not
provide
sufficient
understanding of differential adoption among
employees in organisational context.
Research in the discipline of information
systems has studied the use of computers and
information systems [20, 21]. Some of the most
significant theories and models, such as Theory
of Planned Behaviour [22, 23], Technology
Acceptance Model [24, 25], and Unified
Technology Acceptance and Use Theory [21]
have been applied to various settings. Cognitive
factors, such as perceived ease of use[20],
usefulness[20], performance expectation[21],
efforts expectation[21], and self-efficacy[26],
as well as contextual factors, such as social
influence[27],
behavioural
control[28],
facilitating conditions and support[27], are
identified as predictors of intention to use and
actual use of technologies. However, this
stream of research views the use in a
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dichotomous manner: use or non-use. The use

of computers or information systems is
measured by the number of features used and
use frequencies [27, 29, 30]. While this
approach provides an assessment of use, it does
not enable us to understand how the use came
about or the purpose to which it is put.
Researchers have realised that the use of
technologies may occur at different levels and a
dichotomous view may not represent reality.
For instance, Burton-Jones and Straub [31]
suggested that, instead of measuring the
frequency of use, system use should encompass
three elements: the system, the work tasks, and
the people. Jasperson and Carter [32] described
three types of use behaviours: individual feature
adoption decision, individual feature use, and
individual feature extension. Saeed and
Abdinnour [33] developed this idea and
identified three stages of use: routinization
stage, infusion stage, and extension stage.
However, this research still takes a featurecentric view, which concerns the actual usage
of system features, but fails to represent the
dynamics of human behaviour in the process of
learning to use technologies.
Within educational settings, attempts have been
made to understand the use of LMSs. For
instance, Cigdem and Topcu [34] combined the
Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory
of Planned Behaviour to explore the use of an
LMS. Janossy [35] proposed a five-level model
to capture the richness of LMS use. However,
the former only measures the intention to use
which is an over-simplification, whereas the
latter remains within a feature-centric view that
cannot capture the differential behaviour of
individuals engaging with technologies.
Research on technology integration and
classroom technology has shown some unique
findings
regarding
teachers
use
of
technologies. First, teachers beliefs about
technology have been suggested in shaping
their subsequent use of technologies [36-39].
This is similar to information systems research
where general computer self-efficacy, and

attitude towards computers are predictive of
specific software-related self-efficacy and use
[40-43]. Second, teachers beliefs about
teaching are identified as having a positive
influence on technology use [44-46]. Anderson
and Groulx [47] and Petko [48] both found that
constructive
beliefs
were
significant
antecedents of teachers technology integration.
Information systems researchers [49-51] have
suggested that the fit between work practice
and information systems predicts system use.
Further, teachers beliefs about teaching, which
is reflected in teachers work practice, may
influence their use of technology. Third,
teachers identity and openness to change have
also been found to affect use of learning
technologies [52-54].
3 METHOD
We take an insider action research approach.
Action research is viewed as a collaborative,
reflexive, and interventionist process concerned
with developing practical knowledge [55, 56].
It is characterised as a participatory and
democratic process that seeks solutions to
practical problems with the combination of
theory and practice, as well as action and
reflection [57, 58]. Insider action research
refers to situations where members of an
organisation seek to inquire into the working of
their own organizational system [59], and it has
become an important way of understanding and
changing organisations [60]. We select this
approach because insider action research can
generate useful knowledge about how
organisations manage change, and how key
actors perceive and enact their roles concerning
change [61]. We believe that in contexts where
change is implemented as a top-down decision,
a bottom-up, democratic research approach may
provide additional insights that might have been
overlooked by the organisation.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
The research took place at the Business School

of a New Zealand university. A new LMS was
implemented university-wide to replace the
existing LMS. The idea of introducing a new
LMS was to improve students learning
experience and enhance the universitys
teaching practice. The new LMS is perceived to
be excellent at enabling interaction between
teachers and students, supporting various forms
of learning and teaching, as well as integrating
other educational technologies currently used
by teaching staff. The decision to replace the
current LMS was made in early 2014, and the
new LMS was chosen by the university
management in early 2015. In June 2015, the
university formally announced the decision, and
LMS facilitators were recruited two months
later from Schools and Faculties within the
university. LMS facilitators were provided with
initial training in the middle of August 2015
and they were assigned to each Faculty to
provide training and support. By the end of
March 2016, university staff have used the new
LMS for designing and delivering courses.
Within the Business School, the Learning and
Teaching Team was tasked with supporting the
LMS adoption, and around 150 Business
School staff attended two-hour foundation
sessions, special topic sessions, one-on-one
sessions, and were provided with email and
24/7 phone support. The LMS project team
consisted of nine technology staff members: a
project manager, a learning designer, a media
producer, four LMS facilitators, and two
undergraduate students who worked part-time
to support training and staff inquires, as well as
the Director of Learning and Teaching. The
first author was employed as one of LMS
facilitators by the project team.
We obtained qualitative data through two
approaches and three sources. The first source
was a reflective journal, which was written in
the first person, aimed at developing
understanding, and making connections [62]. It
emphasizes the importance of learning from
practice, which accords with practical-oriented
action research. Written reflection has always

had a place within ethnographic methods [62]
and has been considered as a form of qualitative
data, especially for action research [63].
However, different from field notes, reflective
journals are more subjective as they aim to seek
practical solutions through reflexivity [64].
used Nvivo 11 to conduct conventional content

analysis.
The first author worked as a technology staff

member within the Business School, and, as
part of his team role, he compiled a reflective
journal. Content from the researchers reflective
journal used in this research covers the period
from July 2015 to March 2016, encompassing
the introduction, launch, and implementation of
the LMS. Jasper [62] indicated that analysis of
reflective writing can be approached in the
same ways as any other narrative data. We used
conventional content analysis [65] to analyse
the reflective journal, with the assistance of
data analysis software Nvivo 11.
Four barriers and enablers were identified

through analysis of the journal. They were
computer skills, emotions, conceptions of the
role of an LMS, and the desire to re-create old
work practice in the new environment.
We also conducted focus groups from two

sources. Focus groups are considered
appropriate to elicit participants attitudes and
perceptions [66] and are commonly used for
exploratory research [67].
The two focus groups were held after the
launch of the first wave of courses. We used the
same interview guideline which was based on
findings from existing literature, the reflective
journal, and issues encountered by technology
staff. The project manager sent the invitations
to the participants and arranged the focus
groups. The second author, the Director of
Learning and Teaching, facilitated the focus
groups. Discussions in both sessions were
recorded and transcribed.
The first focus group was held in early March
2016 with the aim of capturing perceptions
from technology staff. Nine technology staff
members participated in the focus group. The
second focus group was conducted one month
later, and the participants comprised seven
teaching staff members. Both focus groups
were around one hour in duration. Similarly, we
4 RESULTS
4.1 Results from Reflective Journal
Computer skills were identified repeatedly in

the journal as barriers to mastering the LMS
functionality. The journal referred to teaching
staffs difficulties with simple tasks, such as
copy and paste; when you dont know how to
copy and paste through keyboard shortcuts, it
is natural to spend 5 minutes to create 1
question (line1851), saving; she did not save
the edit. It happened a few times so we ended
up editing again and again (line556), finding
downloaded files; some staff did not know
where to find the document downloaded from
the old LMS when the facilitator was
introducing the new LMS (line298), filing
conventions and collaboration protocols; the
skill set should include work-related skills such
as document skills and collaboration skills
(line216), and inability to locate buttons and
features; it was the locating of specific buttons
that troubled us (line 225), that may reflect a
lack of familiarity with website and system
layouts in general. The lack of computer skills
was posited as a distractor, an additional
cognitive load, a hindrance; these basic skills
might hinder ones learning in terms of using
advanced information systems (line559) and
time wastage. If it takes 5 minutes to create a
single question I do not think they will have
enough time to do it (line189-193).
Reflections include the observation that some
teaching staff were unaware that their skills
1 Refers to the line number of the text from the reflective journal
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were limited; they did not realise that they

needed to develop their computer skills
(line199) and erroneously attributed their
frustration to the LMS. The lack of computer
skills hindered their use of the LMS, but they
would not necessarily know. When they found
that the new LMS consumed too much of their
time, they would complain that the LMS was
too demanding and try to avoid using it: If I
could go offline, I would not make it an online
activity (line201-203).
Conversely, advanced computer skills, and high
levels
of
engagement
with
learning
technologies seemed to facilitate independence
and a willingness to click around. For those
who are quite tech-savvy, they just need to
know what features are available. They cover in
their mind it can do this and they have got
some idea of how to plan their course (line461464).
It was apparent from the journal that the
process of adopting new technologies could be
emotionally charged and anxiety provoking.
The journal made a number of references to the
emotions of teaching staff. These ranged from a
reluctance to change and frustration with the
uncertainty; here was some reluctance. They
just wanted to upload files (line399) to angry
outbursts; The member of staff started to
complain how ridiculous and meaningless the
feature was (line463), and panic when the
unexpected happened. He told me that he was
in a panic about using the LMS (line 407); a
minor problem would cause a huge panic
(line540).
Patience and the willingness to work with
individuals on a one-to-one and on-call basis
facilitated the process. He did not understand
why he needed to use this feature because he
only had two readings for this course. He kept
complaining for several minutes. I thought it
was not polite to interrupt him to explain the
significant purpose. When he was done, I just
explained that other staff might need to use this
feature as their course had many readings He
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then recomposed himself and thanked me for

my help. (line 467).
While a safe and private space to learn about
the LMS was valued; they can ask in a safe
place (line 447), high levels of anxiety created
a sense of urgency and a willingness to seek
help. It was an emergency when a member of
administration staff forwarded an email in
which a student said that he could not submit
assignment (line 535). Having time to listen to
teachers personal experiences and relate them
to the LMS not only eased anxieties, it also
served as a motivator. Although practical
solutions and strategies did not come up either,
conversations went to personal feelings about
technologies, and associations with personal
experience were made from time to time. For
instance, when introduced to the Discussion
feature, trainees commented how amazing
technological innovations could be and how
easy the LMS was (line 453-456).
One dominant approach to adopting the new
LMSsupported by commentary in the journal
noteswas an effort to recreate previous work
practices; trainees in my training session
constantly asked questions in terms of their
work practice (line270), rather than to
embrace new possibilities. They would, during
the training, ask if there was any change in
work practice (line358). Teaching staff
appeared to reject new features if they did not
fit with existing practices. She constantly
commented the inappropriateness that was
brought by the new LMS because it did not fit
with the teaching practice here (line 496).
Similarly, if teaching staff could not replicate
their old practice, they were reported as being
frustrated even though best practice but
different solutions existed. She was extremely
unhappy because she thought this added
workload to lecturers and administration staff.
When I suggested that the university actually
encouraged all communication with students
being made within the LMS instead of using
university email, she remarked that the
university did not understand how they taught

(line505-510).
Attempts to replicate past practices were selflimiting, but were also suggested as a potential
means of easing the adoption process. The
journal recorded events where training
approached teaching practice or shifted towards
making the relevance of functionality explicit.
You may tell them what this function actually
does within the systembut this is not enough.
Trainees will come to you, asking what it means
to their teaching practice (line274-276);
Training should also incorporate work process
knowledge (line361); I was trying to tell them
the consequences of the feature and used some
practical examples. This strategy seemed to
work very well (line348-350).
The journal noted differences between teaching
staff in conceptions of the role of the LMS and
its centrality to their role as teachers. Some
members of staff appeared to regard the LMS
as merely a repository; they just wanted to
upload files (line400), some were reluctant to
provide instruction to students; I think she
generally does not like to get involved too much
with students (line504), others regarded the
communication functions as unnecessary; she
maintained that there was no need to provide
additional communication channels within the
LMS which will only add workload (line509),
others, while responding to student pressure to
use features, did so in a minimalistic way. She
did not want to know any additional features
that the LMS Quiz brought (line522).
The analysis of the journal provide lived
examples over an extended period, but they are
derived from the experiences of one action
researcher. The focus groups which are
described below provide an opportunity to
identify supporting or alternative ways of
understanding the adoption process from a
range of perspectives.
4.2 Results from Focus Groups
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Our analysis of data from focus groups revealed

four themes related to the LMS adoption. They
were conceptions of teacher role and teaching,
attitude towards technology and previous
experience
with
LMSs,
change-related
attitudes, and training and support.
First, members of focus groups repeatedly
referred to teachers conception of their role
and teaching. Technology staff reported that
teaching staff approached their role as a
teacher, either from the teacher-centred or
learner-centred perspective; I think that split
falls along that line of teacher and learnercentric lines (line 259, F12), and the teachercentred view was perceived as merely
transmitting knowledge in front of the class.
Teaching is the process of standing up and
delivering knowledge orally (line 245, F1); my
role as a lecturer is that I show up in front of
classes (line 225, F1). Therefore, for those
with the teacher-centred view, additional tasks,
such as using learning technologies, were
viewed as disturbing and unnecessary; all the
other stuff is extra annoying things that
management is asking me to do, it is not really
teaching (line 246, F1); Ive got my stuff
prepared and I teach them in class, anything
else is probably not something they consider
too much (line 227, F1), which led to a
reluctance to adopt the LMS. I was talking to
a teacher during one of the training
sessionswe came to the Syllabus page and all
she did was just copy the course outlinemy
suggestion was at least you say something
about the course. She said no, there is no need
for that. I could not resist the urge to say but
this sounds like doing this to students (dropping
page on the desk). She said so what? that
was her reaction (line 209-211, F1).
Similarly, teaching staff also commented that
those who viewed teaching as delivering and
disseminating knowledge would not feel
comfortable to interact with students online.
2
The number refers to the line number in the transcript,

F1 refers to the focus group with technology staff. F2
refers to the focus group with teaching staff.
For some people, if a student asks a question

then you just answer it, but for others, its too
uncomfortable (line 528, F2); Communicating
with students online is not natural I am used
to Im the lecturer. I stand there and deliver,
yet there is a function in the LMS where
students can reply to my announcement (line
521-523, F2).
In addition, both technology and teaching staff
mentioned that the priority of teaching, or the
importance of teaching was conceived
differently and those who were not committed
to teaching showed a lack of interest in
adopting the LMS; I think they just cant be
bothered. Teaching is not that important (line
503, 505, F2), whereas those who had
teaching as their priority were likely to push
the boundary. What I have found is that those
who are very keen and who have teaching in
their higher priority over their other
commitments will be the ones who keep pushing
the boundary (line 328-330, F1).
Second, data from focus groups revealed that
attitude towards technology and previous
experience with LMSs were associated with the
adoption of the new LMS. Both technology and
teaching staff configured that those who were
generally positive to technologies would be
more willing to adopt the LMS. If you have
got those guys who are in favour of using
technologies for teaching purposes, they will be
positive to learn this new system (line 47, F1);
some people are not comfortable with the
technology (line 519, F2). By contrast, the
relationship between previous experience with
LMSs and the adoption of the new LMS was
complex. Those who did not use the old LMS
were unlikely to use the new LMS. They dont
use the old LMS much and so they dont, they
told me that, know what the use of
implementing the new LMS is (line 47, F1);
When we had the old LMS, some people
wouldnt use it Was it always the same folks?
Pretty much (line 484-486, F2). Those who
used the old LMS would rather replicate what
they did in the past on the new LMS, than
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
embrace new potentials. If they had used the

old LMS before, they wanted to achieve the
same thing they did in the old LMS (line 108,
F1); we are just doing the same thing as in the
old LMS (line 297, F2).
Third, technology staff and teaching staff both
referred to the role of change-related attitudes
in the LMS adoption process. Teaching staff
who were more open to change would likely
pick up the LMS and try things out; I think if
they are quite comfortable with picking up new
things, then they are quite happy to just click
around and try different things (line 82, F1),
whereas those who viewed change negatively
were afraid to adopt the LMS simply because
the LMS was a change. Its this fear factor.
Its just something new (line 337, F2); the staff
member who was involved with the design was
quite adamant to stick to how things were (line
280, F1); it was that fear of change, so it
wasnt what it was, but that it was a change
(line 286, F1). However, teaching staff further
elaborated that their change-related attitudes
were probably driven by the desire to maintain
a good image in front of students. Ive been
changing things around quite a lot and I
actually dont care if students think Im stupid
or notbut some people are saying that if I
change things, I will look like that I dont know
what Im doing (line 573-540, F2). Because in
our department, we dont want to look like we
dont know how to use it! They are very, very
unforgiving when the X [discipline] lecturer
cant use the X toolthey might forgive
someone elsethey dont forgive us (line
552-554, F2).
Fourth, we identified from two focus groups
that training and support were enablers of the
LMS adoption. Teaching staff repeatedly
indicated that the whole implementation of the
LMS had been very successful and the support
provided by the Business School had been very
good. If you think what the University has
done and what the Business School has done,
weve just replaced a whole LMS and I think it
has gone fantastically well and I think the
7
support has been outstanding (line 89-91, F2).

Particularly, one-on-one sessions were the most
popular; staff were much more willing to come
to a one-on-one session than they were to come
to any other type of training (line 445, F1),
while the two-hour foundation sessions were
perceived as overwhelming. The two-hour
workshops were quite comprehensive and quite
overwhelming (line 27, F2). Technology staff
explained that one-on-one sessions provided
opportunities for teaching staff to ask specific
questions related to their own courses; theyve
got specific questions for that specific course
and they are more interactive (line 380, F1),
and probably more importantly, it provided a
comfortable and safe atmosphere that allowed
teaching staff to experiment with the LMS
without damaging their image. They would
like somebody to sit there so that they feel Im
not going to muck it up. Im going to do this
right, because somebody is sitting with me
(line 48, F1). They are not afraid that everyone
is around them or that they are asking stupid
little questionsthey are more open to their
questions and they are more willing to learn as
we sit there next to them (line 381-383, F1).
However, technology staff argued that without
two-hour foundation sessions, the effect of oneon-one sessions may have been restricted. Its
difficult when they havent been to the two-hour
training sessionbecause they dont know the
foundations (line 394, F1); It [the two-hour
session] is still useful as a primer. It prepares
you and you can learn better once you are in
the one-on-one session (line 386, F1).
When asked if there were any improvements in
teaching with the implementation of the LMS,
both technology and teaching staff indicated
that there was little improvement in teaching
practice now; I dont think the LMS will cause
[pedagogical] lifts (line 697, F1); it hasnt
changed at least the way we are teaching our
courses (line 297, F2), yet they agreed that the
adoption process for most teaching staff was
incremental. Let me do what I hadthen
well push another step forward and try
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
something else (line 150, F1). They are getting

their heads around, and they are not trying to
do all singing and dancing at the moment (line
286, F2). As for future training and support,
learning from other colleagues seemed to be a
commonly preferred strategy. Teaching staff
recommended to have some kind of feedback
on functionality people were using on the LMS;
here is the population of academics in the
Business School and so many percent are doing
this. That might help motivate people (line 652,
F2), while technology staff suggested
organising sharing events to encourage the
LMS adoption. Usually there are one or two
really bright stars per faculty. If we had it
faculty wide it would allow the bright stars to
shine brightly over all the departments (line
521, F1). Technology staff furthered the idea
with recommendations to capture the demand
from students for having different features.
Perhaps one of those things is to audit and
look at the stuff that students most want as we
move forward, and make sure that we have got
most courses hitting that for most of the time
(line 766-769, F1). However, technology and
teaching staff diverged in their thinking about
future support. Teaching staff predominantly
requested support on specific features which
did not fit very well with their teaching
practice. We are going to need quite a bit of
support around grading time (line 28, F2); we
dont know anything about it in terms of
entering marks on the system and doing scaling
(line 40, F2); just for the entering of the marks,
because we have plussage in our
department (line 61, F2) . By contrast,
technology staff focused on support that might
shift current teaching practice. We need to get
students to say how they feel about the new
LMSthen lecturers will be able to read those
feedbacks and then theyll probably think about
how to improve their course (line 689, F1).
5 DISCUSSION
Themes emerged from analyses of the reflective

journal and focus groups seemed to converge to
four aspects relating to the LMS adoption
process.
Results from focus groups demonstrated that
the conception of the teacher role and teaching
shaped the extent to which teaching staff
adopted the LMS. Teaching staff with the
teacher-centred view regarded teaching as topup knowledge to students in class. Therefore,
additional tasks were disturbances to teaching,
which led to the idea that the role of an LMS
was a repository, and communication online
with students was uncomfortable. Conversely,
learner-centred teaching staff, understood
teaching as more than just transmitting
knowledge,
and
therefore,
regarded
communication with students online as part of
the teaching process instead of a burden. This
was consistent with Ertmers [46] suggestion
that the second order change, teachers beliefs
about teaching, affects technology use. Our
findings confirmed previous empirical research
where learner-centred beliefs were positively
associated with technology integration [47, 48].
Research on information systems and
educational
technologies
indicates
that
computer self-efficacy and skills [68-70],
experience with computers [71, 72], and
general attitude towards technology [39, 73, 74]
are predictive of computer or technology use.
Our research further developed the idea by
showing the complex influence of computerrelated attitudes, skills and self-efficacy on
LMS adoption. Our data seemed to support a
positive attitude towards computers and
technologies in general encouraged the LMS
adoption. Nevertheless, the lack of basic
computer skills were associated with excessive
cognitive load. Our data also revealed that
previous experience with LMSs restricted the
extent of initial adoption, because most
teaching staff took an incremental approach to
adoption. This meant that the initial motivation
was just to replicate what they did in the past.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Our data supported Vannatta and Nancy's [54]

suggestion that teachers openness to change
affects technology use. Those who were more
open to change tended to pick up and
experiment with the LMS, while others who did
not like change showed a tendency to reject the
LMS. The negative attitude towards change
was associated with emotional cost ranging
from reluctance, anxiety, to panic. In particular,
our research further revealed a potential source
of negative attitude towards change. Teaching
staff reported that the reluctance to change
might come from ones fear of damaging
his/her image, especially in front of students.
Although the implementation of the LMS has
been perceived by teaching staff as
fantastically well and training and support
provided by the Business School has been
outstanding,
there
were
fundamental
differences between technology and teaching
staff in their understanding of promoting the
LMS adoption. Results from reflective journal
and the focus group with technology staff,
revealed technology staff felt, with the
implementation of the LMS, teaching staff
should improve their teaching practice. This led
to the suggestion that future training and
support should focus on shifting and enhancing
teaching practice. Conversely, results from the
focus group with teaching staff indicated that
teaching staff assumed that current teaching
practice should be maintained. Wherever the
LMS did not fit with current teaching practice,
efforts should be made to either change the way
the LMS worked or come up with strategies to
maintain the old practices within the new LMS.
This led to the suggestion that future training
and support should predominantly focus on
dealing with specific LMS features such as
grading.
As an insider action research, findings above
informed our practice in two ways. First, our
future learning and development interventions
need to balance two pairs of competing forces.
The first pair concerns the content of training
and support. To address teaching staffs
9
expressed needs, the content should cover

system features. For instance, how traditional
grading practice can be achieved within the
new LMS needs to be addressed. However, to
improve teaching practice, the introduction of
educational technologies is not efficient. Efforts
should be made to address fundamental issues
such as beliefs about teaching [45]. The second
pair concerns types of learning strategies.
Personalised one-on-one support, although very
popular and efficient, may not encourage
sharing and communication which are
important means of personal and professional
development [75]. In a study of learning to use
technology, Kay [76] concluded that among
collaboration,
authentic
tasks,
formal
instruction
and
exploratory
learning,
collaboration and authentic tasks were the most
preferred strategies but collaborative learning
was the best predictor of gains in computer
knowledge. Given that one-on-one support
provided by technology staff is quite similar to
learning through authentic tasks, how to design
a collaborative learning strategy that stimulates
sharing would be an action plan. Second, we
propose that strategies beyond learning and
development interventions might be equally
important in terms of encouraging the LMS
adoption. For instance, with the take-up of the
new LMS, the university could have made it
explicit if changes in teaching practice are
needed or encouraged, because the reflective
journal and focus group data revealed that
teaching staff concerned about how teaching
practice could be maintained in the new LMS.
6 CONCLUSION
Universities implement organisational wide
information systems such as LMSs with the
intention to promote teaching practice. The
underlying assumption is that staff will comply
with the universitys decision and adopt new
systems. Our research revealed that even in
mandatory settings, where one had to adopt a
system, the process and extent of adoption
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
differentiated among individuals. Therefore, a

new LMS may not necessarily lead to
pedagogical uplifts. Our findings indicate that
teaching staffs attitude and capabilities shaped
by their previous experience and university
practice will influence how they learn about,
approach, make use of, and support the new
LMS. Learning and development interventions
that focus only on the general introduction of
the new system may not be sufficient to either
support adoption or improve teaching practice.
Future research should explore ways to
influence antecedent attitudes and capabilities
in order to enhance higher levels of LMS
adoption.
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13
Reaching the Unreached through Blended Learning: A Case Study from the
Maldives National University
Ramiz Ali
Centre for Open Learning
The Maldives National University
Male, Maldives
E-mail: ramiz.ali@mnu.edu.mv
ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
With the advancement of interactive technology,

many educational institutions have opted for
blended learning as a modern higher education
model to reach disadvantaged groups in societies.
This paper explores how the Maldives National
University approached the dispersed community of
the Indian Ocean archipelago through adaptation
and application of blended learning. It also focuses
on how the University introduced and developed
flexible learning, the delivery model being used,
challenges faced and the strategies being used to
overcome them. The barriers include perceptions of
general public about flexible learning, learning
habits and styles of the learners, the internet speed
and bandwidth and limited staff capacity. However,
statistics of the recent years shows that this learning
model is appropriate in Maldives as flexible
learning courses are quite popular among the
dispersed island community. In the last six years the
student enrollment has stayed steady and thousands
of working adults are studying at various levels of
blended learning programs up to postgraduate level.
Our success, despite the challenges indicates that
blended learning is an effective mode of delivery
for the people who live in this small island nation.
Maldives is a small island nation located in the

Indian Ocean which consists a total of 1192
islands clustered in 26 natural atolls. These are
considered as 20 atolls for administrative
purposes and there are a total of 188 inhabited
islands with another over 110 islands as tourist
resorts. The remaining islands in the
archipelago are uninhabited and a few are being
used for industrial purposes. According to the
National Bureau of Statistics (2015), the
population of the country is just over 338,000
in 2014 and one third of the countrys
population lives in the capital city Male. The
islands are spread over approximately 900,000
square kilometers with just about 1% of land
area. The remaining 99% are varying levels of
sea which necessitates a reliable mode of
transportation to travel among the islands. Even
though currently there are ten airports for
domestic travelling, the main form of
transportation among the islands is sea
transport. At present there is no reliable, regular
inter-atoll public ferry service for the islanders.
KEYWORDS
Blended learning, flipped classroom, block sessions,
flexible learning, learning management system
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Universal primary education is available and

mandatory in all the 188 inhabited islands,
however, secondary and higher secondary
education is limited in many islands for various
reasons. In 2015, just 25 percent of the 88,341
14
student population was studying at secondary

(grades 8-10) and higher secondary levels
(grades 11 and 12). According to the World
Bank (2015), the countrys higher secondary
education gross enrollment is just 35% which is
very low compared to other middle-income
countries. The average higher secondary
education gross enrollment for middle-income
and upper-middle income is 61 and 76 percent,
respectively (World Bank 2015, p.89). The
World Bank ranks the Maldives as a middleincome country.
The country has only two universities; The
Maldives National University and The Islamic
University of Maldives; both public universities
founded in 2011 and 2015, respectively.
However, there are a number of private colleges
and higher education providers in the country.
Even though the public universities and few
other colleges have established their campuses
and learning centres in the atolls, most of the
higher education providers are mainly located
in the capital city, Male. Due to the fragile
economy of the country and the small
population of the island community, it is not
feasible for any of the higher education
provider to build a university/college campus in
every atoll, let alone every island. Hence,
providing higher education to the island
community is a huge challenge for the country
which raises the need for an effective distance
education model for the country.
The countrys telecommunication infrastructure
has developed remarkably in the recent years. It
is a goal of the Maldives to become one of the
ICT developed countries in the SAARC region
(Communications Authority of Maldives,
2014). Significant efforts and investments to
reach this goal have resulted in a fairly
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
developed internet and mobile phone

infrastructure.
This
includes
providing
3G/4G/LTE internet access to all of the 188
inhabited
islands.
According
to
the
Communications Authority of the Maldives
(2016), in March 2016, there were 761,325
registered mobile phone users (almost double
the countrys population) and over 260,000
registered fixed and mobile internet users.
This paper outlines the current distance
educational situation in the Maldives and how
the Maldives National University (MNU) caters
to the disadvantaged remote island community
through blended learning.
2. DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE
MALDIVES
A system of non-formal adult education was
developed in the country since 1959
(UNESCO, 2006). However, distance education
officially started in the Maldives in 1987 by
then Centre for Non-Formal Education, a
branch of Ministry of Education. The main
work of this institution was to provide basic
literacy education to the rural island community
and later conducted short awareness programs
for the citizens who lived in the atolls
(UNESCO, 2006).
Distance education in a more systematic way
was introduced in 1999 with the establishment
of the Tertiary Institute for Open Learning
(currently named as Centre for Open Learning)
under then Maldives College of Higher
Education (currently named as The Maldives
National University). After inauguration of the
Centre for Open Learning (COL), it was given
the mandate for developing and conducting
distance education programs to the island
community.
15
Through a partnership with Open Polytechnic

NZ, the COL conducted two undergraduate
programs as its very first distance education
programs (Hashim, 2014). However, the
programs were largely unsuccessful due to
many factors such as lack of learning support,
poor level of students educational background
and lower number of enrollment. With this
experience it was decided that COL would
conduct its own programs so that they can be
more tailored to the students needs. In 2002, a
certificate level teacher education program was
developed and offered mainly to the untrained
teachers of the island community. The program
was faced out in 2007. In addition, a foundation
level English language program was offered in
2004 with the goal to open a pathway to
prospective students who may wish to pursue
higher education. Both the programs were
conducted by using conventional distance
education methods. The foundation level
English language program was offered until
2011, and since then the program has been
revised and is now offered as a blended
learning program.
3. INTRODUCING BLENDED LEARNING
PROGRAMS
E-Learning was introduced to the COL in 2008
(Hashim, 2014). Under this project a learning
management system (LMS) was adopted and
tested in 2009 by using Moodle. Initially the
LMS was used by some of the conventional
face-to-face students of the University as a
supplementary learning tool.
Blended learning for the distance learning
students was introduced in 2010. In the first
semester of the year, students of three different
programs; Advanced Certificate in Human
Resource Management, Diploma in Early
Childhood Education and English for Further
Studies, officially used the LMS as their virtual
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
learning platform. Since then, an enormous

effort has been made by the Centre to
strengthen its blended learning programs to
cater the higher educational needs of the
disadvantaged community. As a result, the
learning approaches have been applied more
effectively in various educational disciplines
and in more levels and programs.
4. WHY BLENDED LEARNING?
Blended teaching is an instructional approach
which combines a portion of conventional faceto-face teaching and online teaching (Pima et
al., 2016; Means et al., 2014; Azizan, 2010).
This approach is also referred to as hybridlearning (Means et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2013).
Daniel (2016) described that most of the writers
and institutions consider blended and hybrid
learning under the same denotation, although
conceiving hybrid learning as a particular type
of blended learning is more meaningful.
According to Christensen Institute (2016),
blended learning is a formal education program
in which students study at least part of their
learning through online. This is a fairly recent
mode of course delivery among the higher
education providers around the globe.
Blended learning has several advantages,
especially in a country like the Maldives.
Owston et al. (2013) stated that institutions see
blended learning model convenient as it makes
efficient use of classrooms while the faculty
benefits by increasing flexibility in their
teaching schedules. As a result, it allows
students learn more independently outside the
classroom and reduces classroom face-to-face
learning hours (Means et al., 2014; Azizan,
2010; Kse, 2010). Blended learning gives
control to the students over the time, place, path
16
and pace with regard to their learning activities

(Christensen Institute, 2016; Lee et al., 2013).
In the Maldives where higher educational
resources are limited, students are dispersed in
small islands, and a large proportion of the
prospective students are working adults, it is
clear that blended learning model would be
more efficient and effective. Not only the
geographical landscape of the country and
availability of sufficient facilities, the diverse
groups of the students are also taken into
consideration in selecting the learning model.
By combining face-to-face and other teaching
approaches, blended learning allows students to
access knowledge anywhere until they meet
their teachers and enhances their academic
achievements (Kse, 2010; Azizan, 2010).
Most of the COLs prospective students are a
diverse group of mature adults who are already
working in both public and private sector. For
such
a
group
of
students,
more
individualization and flexibility has the
potential to meet the learning challenges and
enable them to succeed in their studies (Bates,
2015; Means et al., 2014; Azizan, 2010; Kse,
2010). From nearly a decade of experience
MNU have had thus far, it is evident that the
delivery model is convenient, appropriate and
effective for both to the students and to the
institution.
5. THE DELIVERY MODEL
The Maldives National University is a dualmode university. Distance education programs
are offered at the COL where blended learning
has been applied for all the programs of the
Centre. Figure 1 illustrates the delivery model
applied by the Centre.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 1: The delivery model
As figure 1 shows, the learning model

comprises of two main components which are
technology-enabled instructions and face-toface instructions. Each semester begins with
technology-enabled instructions through ELearning at MNU (GEM), the Learning
Management System (LMS) of COL.
At the beginning of the semester, study
materials with necessary study instructions are
provided to the students through the LMS
where they are asked to start online learning
from the first week. Students usually spend the
first three or four weeks for self-studying to get
familiarized with the content by reading the
scheduled chapters/modules of the course,
watching videos, interacting with fellow
students and tutors, and doing weekly activities.
It is similar to Flipped Classroom approach.
The flipped classroom is an instructional model
in which the face-to-face teaching and selfstudying components of a course are reversed
(Baepler et al., 2014; Bishop and Verleger,
2013; Educause, 2012) and it engages students
with the content outside the formal classroom
(Butt, 2014). Bishop et al. (2013) defined
flipped classroom as an educational technique
where interactive group learning activities
occur inside the classroom while individual
direct learning instructions are given outside the
17
classroom
using
a
computer-based
environment. In such a context, class room time
is dedicated to tutorial activities where students
mainly engage with group activities,
discussions, and lecturer feedback, etc. (Baepler
et al., 2014; Verleger, 2013). Many studies
have shown that the flipped classroom approach
is an effective pedagogical method in different
higher education contexts (Baepler et al., 2014;
Butt, 2014; Bishop and Verleger, 2013;
Berrette, 2012).
This model was chosen for the blended learning
students of MNU as almost all the target
students are fulltime working and traveling
students. We agree with Roehl et al. (2013) and
Tucker (2012), that flipped classroom model
allows instructors to find more time for
classroom learning activities while students
engage with the main content outside the class.
This is suitable for MNU where usually onethird of the direct contact hours of each course
are covered face-to-face for the blended
learning students. At MNU, blended learning
students are expected to spend three to four
weeks of self-learning by using carefully
designed instructions and study materials prior
to the face-to-face weekend classes. Students
usually attend two block sessions each semester
where they spend 8-10 hours of tutorial time for
each course. These block sessions are utilized
to carryout intensive learning activities, clarify
students queries and doubts, to conduct
controlled assessments such as mid-term exams
and presentations. This approach helps to
maintain the quality of the teaching and
learning and increases student retention as well.
6. CHALLENGES
The University faces a number of challenges in
conducting blended learning programs in the
country. Negative attitude towards flexible
learning among both the general public and
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
even educators in the academia can be

identified as one of the biggest challenges.
Many individuals believe that fully face-to-face
teaching is superior and more learner-friendly
than blended or online classes. Due to this
perception, getting adequate support for
faculties is challenging. This perception is not
unique to the Maldives and can be seen in the
academia around the globe. However, in a
country like the Maldives where the learning
models are relatively new and the facilities are
limited, the impact is substantially more
significant.
Secondly, although 3G/4G/LTE broadband
mobile internet is accessible in all the inhabited
islands, the internet bandwidth hinders the
quality of the service provided by the
University. Fixed home internet is not
accessible in all the islands where the students
use USB dongles to access the internet. This is
a major concern of many of our students and
teaching staff. This also hinders the use of our
electronic materials effectively in blended
learning courses.
Furthermore, the number of instructors who
have studied e-learning/instructional design is
very limited at MNU. Most of the teaching staff
delivering blended learning courses have only
conventional teaching background with no or
very limited knowledge of e-learning or
instructional design. Upon joining COL, they
are given a short and an unofficial induction
program to familiarize with our LMS. The
limited knowledge of instructional design of the
academic staff affects online teaching design
and the delivery.
Finally, the learning habits of the students,
especially the more recent graduates of GCE
18
O/A Level hinder the effectiveness of the

learning model. It is not just the younger
students, some older students also expect more
conventional
teaching
approach
where
everything is taught at the classroom. This
mindset appears to be changing lately and it is
evident that many students, particularly more
mature students enjoy blended learning using
the concept of flipped classroom.
7. THE SUCCESS
Since MNU introduced courses through
blended learning in 2010, it is evident that the
model has been effective to cater the higher
educational need of the dispersed island
community. The numbers of students enrolled
in the programs of COL indicate that the
isolated populations need a flexible mode of
study to enhance their knowledge and attain
higher qualifications while they live and work
in their islands. Figure 2 shows the total
enrollment of the University and the number of
blended learning students studied at COL.
increased sharply in 2010 which was the year of

introducing the mode of delivery. Since then
the student enrollment has plateaued at about
18 percent of total population of the University.
The rest of the student population is
conventional face-to-face students who belong
for the remaining eleven Faculties/Centres.
According to the MNU annual report 2011, in
2009 there were only 187 students as distance
learning students and all are enrolled in one
program which was a foundation level English
language program. However, with the
introduction of blended learning, the numbers
of programs and students have remarkably
increased and a total of over 7100 students have
been enrolled in flexible learning programs in
the last six years. Table 1 indicates the number
of students enrolled in different levels of
programs of COL from 2010 to 2015.
Table 1: Number of students enrolled in levels of programs
(2010-15)
Level of Program
No. of Students
Foundation
3154
Certificate
835
Diploma
2316
Bachelors
418
PGC
406
Masters
47
TOTAL
7176
Source: MNU Annual Reports 2011 2015
Figure 2: The student enrollment (Source: MNU Annual

Reports 2011- 2015)
As shown in figure 2 the number of students

enrolled in blended learning programs
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Another factor worth highlighting is the course

completion rate of the blended learning
programs. According to the MNU annual report
(2014) the blended learning course completion
rate has stayed above 66.4 percent in recent
years while the average of face-to-face courses
are 72.7 percent. This shows that the model is
19
pedagogically sound and suitable for the

context.
8. CONCLUSION
Since the introduction of blended learning at
the Maldives National University, it has
reached a vast majority of the learners who live
in the island community. Due to the
geographical features and economic status of
the archipelago, blended learning has been
utilized as an effective tool to deliver various
levels of the programs from certificate to
postgraduate level. Despite the challenges faced
by the MNU, high enrollments and the course
completion rates show that the blended learning
model applied at the University is
pedagogically sound for different disciplines
and levels of programs of studies. The Flipped
Classroom model helps the fulltime working
students, especially the island community to
pursue higher education programs which were
unavailable for them for many years. The
learning programs have opened pathways for
many individuals in their careers in terms of
reaching higher education or increasing
prospects of new job opportunities. Hence, the
blended learning model applied at the
University is seen as an effective model for
reaching the unreached community of the
Maldives.
REFERENCES
Azizan, F. Z. (2010). Blended Learning in Higher
Education Institutions in Malaysia. Proceedings of
Regional Conference on Knowledge Integration in
ICT 2010. P. 454-466.
Baepler, P., Walker, J.D, Driessen, M. (2014). It's not
about seat time: Blending, flipping, and efficiency
in active learning classrooms. Computers and
Education 78. P.227-236.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age:

Guidelines for Designing Teaching and Learning.
Retrieved 18 June 2016.
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
Berrett, D. (2012). How flipping the classroom can
improve the traditional lecture. Retrieved 1 August
2016 http://chronicle.com/article/How-Flippingthe-Classroom/130857/.
Bishop, J. L., Verleger, M. A. (2013). Flipped
Classroom: A Survey of the Research. Conference
Proceedings of 120th ASEE Annual Conference &
Exposition. American Society for Engineering
Education.
Butt, A. (2014). Student views on the use of a flipped
classroom approach: Evidence from Australia.
Business Education and Accreditation. Vol.6. No.1
P.33-43.
Christensen Institute (2015). Blended Learning.
Retrieved 18 June 2016.
http://www.christenseninstitute.org/blendedlearning.
Communication Authority of Maldives (2014), National
Broadband Policy 2014-2018. (written in Dhivehi
language) Retrieved: 30 May 2016.
http://www.cam.gov.mv/docs/policy/National_Broa
dband_Policy2014_2018.pdf
Communication Authority of Maldives (2016). 2016
Monthly Figures. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
http://www.cam.gov.mv/Statistics_monthly2016.ht
m
Daniel, J. O.C (2016). Making Sense of Blended
Learning: Treasuring an Older Tradition or
Finding a Better Future?. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
http://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/blended-learningsuccessful-design-delivery-and-student-engagement
Educause (2012). Things you should know about flipped
Classroom. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7081.pdf.
Hashim, A. (2014). COL: A historical Perspective. COL
15 Years of Service. Centre for Open Learning.
Male.
Kse, U. (2010). A blended learning model supported
with Web 2.0 technologies. Procedia Social and
Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 2. No.2. 2, P. 2794
2802.
Lee, G., Fong, W.W, Gordon, J. (2013). Blended
Learning: The View Is Different from Students,
Teacher or Institution perspective. Hybrid Learning
and Continuing Education. Conference
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Proceedings, 6th International Conference, ICHL

2013. Toronto. Canada.
Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M. (2013).
The Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning:
A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature.
Teachers College Record, Vol.5, P. 1-45.
Means, B., Bakia, M., Murphy, R. (2014). Learning
Online: What Research Tells Us About Whether,
When and How. Routledge. New York.
Ministry of Education (2015). School Statistics 2015.
Retrieved 29 May 2016.
http://www.moe.gov.mv/assets/upload/STAT_BOO
K_2015.pdf
Maldives National University (2014). MNU Annual
Report 2014. The Maldives National University.
Male.
Owston, R., York, D., Murtha, S. (2013). Student
Perceptions and Achievement in a University
Blended Learning Strategic Initiative. Internet and
Higher Education. Vol.18. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.12.003.
Pima, J. M, Odetayo, M, Iqbal. R, Sedoyeka, E. (2016).
Assessing the available ICT infrastructure for
collaborative web technologies in a blended
learning environment in Tanzania: A mixed
methods research. International Journal of
Education and Development using Information and
Communication Technology. Vol. 12, Issue 1, pp.
37-52.
Roehl, A., Reddy, S. L., Shannon, G. J. (2013). The
Flipped Classroom: An Opportunity To Engage
Millennial Students Through Active Learning
Strategies. Journal of Family and Consumer
Sciences. Vol.105. No.2. P. 44-49.
Tucker, B. (2012). The flipped classroom: Online
instruction at home frees class time for learning.
Education Next. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
http://www.msuedtechsandbox.com/MAETELy22015/wpcontent/uploads/2015/07/the_flipped_classroom_art
icle_2.pdf
UNESCO (2006). World Data on Education: Maldives
(Sixth Edition). Retrieved 1 June 2016.
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/Countries/WDE/2006/A
SIA_and_the_PACIFIC/Maldives/Maldives.pdf
World Bank (2015). Maldives: Systematic Country
Diagnostic. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
http://www.finance.gov.mv/v2/uploadedcontent/pos
ts/Post1702-October_2015.pdf
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
21
Exploring Blended Learning for Professional Development of Teachers: The

Experience of Two Singaporean Chinese Language Teachers
Yan-Ni Tan
Singapore Centre for Chinese Language
287 Ghim Moh Road Singapore 279623
yanni.tan@sccl.sg
Yuh-Huann Tan
Singapore Centre for Chinese Language
287 Ghim Moh Road Singapore 279623
yuhhuann.tan@sccl.sg
ABSTRACT
This paper identifies potential of blended learning
as a mean to advance teachers professional
development.
Employing
a
qualitative
methodology, the study sought to understand and
describe changes in beliefs and practices that
teachers experienced as a result of attending
professional development in the form of blended
learning workshops. The elements that supported
their learning and changes will be identified. The
present study focuses on describing the experiences
of two Singapore Chinese Language teachers.
Based on the research findings, recommendations
for the future design of professional development
workshops adopting a blended learning approach
are proposed in view of improving learning
outcomes.
KEYWORDS
Blended learning, professional development,
teachers
training,
self-directed
learning,
collaborative learning.
INTRODUCTION
Global economies strive to stay ahead

of each other through provision of quality
education. A common characteristics of
effective education systems is a highly skilled
teaching force [1]. Making avail on-going
professional development (PD) opportunities
becomes a key to ensure constant upgrading of
teachers. These opportunities are largely
available in two forms, namely short-term
courses and workshops, and long-term
community-based approaches. While the latter
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
approaches have become popular, the former

remains prevalently available for teachers.
Short-term courses and workshops have long
been characterised as a largely one-size-fits-all
approach. Given the complexities of teaching
and learning today, it is unrealistic to expect
teachers PD to provide one-size-fits-all
solution for every situation they encounter in
their teaching experience [2].
With the advent of information and
communication
technologies
(ICT),
researchers and teacher educators begin to
explore e-learning to improve short-term
courses and workshops. One latest
development in integrating e-learning in
teachers PD is through blended learning.
Blended learning may be defined as an
approach that combines online and face-toface instruction [3]. While blended learning
has been explored and is found to be generally
effective [4, 5], in many quantitative studies,
qualitative studies that report on teachers
experience and development after attending
blended learning are few.
The present study is situated in
Singapore, where the government place huge
emphasis
in
on-going
professional
development of teachers to develop reflective
professionals [6]. Short-term courses and
workshops are among the many PD
opportunities available to teachers in
Singapore. Exploration into blended learning
has also begun as part of on-going effort to
22
improve teachers PD. This study reports one

such design attempt with Chinese Language
(CL) teachers PD workshops.
2
DESIGN of BLENDED LEARNING

WORKSHOPS
The design of blended learning

workshops in the present study is founded on
social constructivist approach to learning [7].
In other words, interactions are key to the coconstruction of meanings in the workshops. In
each 12-hours workshop spanning across five
weeks, meaning-making is fostered through
the blending of face-to-face interactions with
online interactions (Figure 1).
Face-to-face
(3 hours)
e-Learning (6
hours)
sustain discussions. The participants are also

given a timetable that clearly outlined the tasks
and respective timeframes. Face-to-face
sessions are facilitated in a highly interactive
and open-ended setting. The purpose is to
encourage dialogue that leads on to deeper
thinking of participants instead of aiming for
specific answers or outcomes. Such setting is
continued during online activities.
During the first session, participants
are also given a hands-on to familiarize with
the technological platforms for online
interactions. These included an online
discussion forum, and a Facebook group.
Online activities include initiating discussions
on topics related to the scope of the course,
reviewing and replying to peers postings and
replies in the forum. In addition, participants
are required to post a personal reflection piece
in the Facebook group every week. Ideas
discussed and explored online are brought to
the next face-to-face session for further
deliberation.
To research on the effectiveness of the
design described above, the following research
questions are explored in this paper:
Face-to-face
(3 hours)
1. What are the key outcomes of the

blended
learning
workshop?
Outcomes are examined in terms of,
(a) changes in cognition based on
topics covered in the workshop; (b)
teachers satisfaction of the
workshop; and (c) changes in
teachers practices and beliefs.
2. What are the enablers for blended
learning to be successfully
implemented?
Figure 1. The blending of interactions in a workshop
The first face-to-face workshop is a

critical session to set stage for subsequent
interactions. Workshop participants begin to
familiarize with each other through icebreaking activities. Ground rules aimed at
encouraging online interactions among
participants who may possess different
preferred learning styles, are introduced and
discussed. For example, a 24-hour rule
stipulates that participants are expected to
provide a reply response within 24 hours of
receiving any comment left by their peers; a
post-1-reply-2 rule is introduced to initiate and
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
METHODOLOGY
This study employed a case study

method [8, 9] to yield stories from teachers
who may have different experiences during the
workshops.
Purposive
sampling
was
conducted among participants who had
23
attended blended learning workshops focused

on clarifying issues related to integrating selfdirected learning and collaborative learning
with ICT for Chinese Language learning. A
total of fifteen CL teachers participated in two
rounds of workshops conducted in the second
half of 2014. Two representatives, one from
each round of workshops, were chosen for
discussion in this paper. The first participant
was Alvin (pseudonym), a Master Teacher
an experienced expert teacher whose role was
to help develop teaching excellence through
mentoring and demonstrating good teaching
practice and model lessons. Next, Alice
(pseudonym) was an in-service teacher with 5
years of experience teaching in co-education
government school at secondary level (Grade
7-10). The purpose of choosing the two
subjects were to gain insights of two
participants with different characteristic and
profile: Alvin to represent the voice of teachers
with higher seniority, and Alice for the voice
of in-service teachers that are relatively quiet
and inactive in the progression of the class.
Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were
conducted individually and separately with
Alvin and Alice. The interviews were audio
recorded and transcribed for conventional
content analysis [10]. To ensure the validity of
the findings, triangulation of data from
multiple sources, including interview
transcripts and artefacts of online interactions,
was performed.
4
ANALYSIS
4.1 Participants Perceptions of Topics

Covered and Course Satisfaction in the
Blended Workshops
In this section, we will answer the first
two parts of research question one, in other
words, the (1) changes in cognition based on
topics covered in the workshop; and (2)
teachers satisfaction of the workshops
aspects of outcomes of the blended learning
workshop. Based on the data, it appears that
both teachers had demonstrated conceptual
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
changes when they re-visited their initial

understanding and assumptions during the
post-workshop interviews. Findings are
presented as below:
4.1.1
Changes in cognition based on topics

covered in the workshop
People are not single method learners!

by e-learning guru Elliott Masie (as cited in
[11]) is a saying that supports the rationale of
blend in blended learning. Blended learning
creates environment for the learners in
different learning styles self-directed
learning, collaborative learning, inquiry-based
learning, problem-based learning and different
methods synchronously and asynchronously,
in a number of strategies facilitator-guided
inclusion strategies, peer support strategies,
participatory approaches etc. The environment
generates higher order thinking and selfreflective process in the luxury of extra time
and multidimensional approaches which are
capable to change the learners cognition
towards prior knowledge. Thus, blended
learning can be regarded as a re-design process
to re-build a traditional course, rather than
simply adding the ICT component.
Coincidentally, the two key topics covered in
the workshop are self-directed learning (SDL)
and collaborative learning (CoL) with ICT in
the teaching and learning of CL. Therefore, we
will examine the changes in perceptions in
these two key topics by workshop participants.
Workshop participants are expected to adopt a
new understanding of the two concepts
through their own unique experiences with
blended learning.
a. SDL is not just learning by oneself
Alice interpreted SDL as learning by
oneself before the workshop, where learners
take responsibilities of learning solely by
themselves. They would plan, organize, and
monitor the learning process independently of
the teacher. What a teacher needs to do, is just
assignments or quiz preparation for students to
24
complete. After experiencing SDL first-hand

during the blended learning workshop, she
found that she had overlooked the principles of
SDL and the roles of teacher in building the
foundation for the students independent
learning. She concluded that independent
learning is not about learning in isolation, and
learning by oneself is not the same as having
the ability to learn by oneself. She also
acknowledged the importance of ICT in this
new way of learning:
Previously, to me, SDL is the ability of
self-learning and taking initiative to
learn. Now, SDL is a way of learning
supported by online platform and
facilitators guidance. Previously I
thought that students should learn on
their own and solely take charge of
their learning in SDL, without
intervention of teachers. Now, I feel
that even though the learning is selfdirective, guidance and support from
the teacher are still needed. Teacher
should communicate on what is
expected and provide instructions to
implement. Teacher should also follow
up and evaluate students progress,
instead of dissociate from their
learning completely. Teacher shouldn't
let go totally because some students are
not well-prepared for independent
learning.
If teachers would like their students to
be a self-directed learners, they must first
develop awareness of such learning method
and fully understand the concepts and
principles behind. This was demonstrated in
Alices case. She stated that it was her
experience of becoming such independent
learner in the blended learning workshop that
enabled her to acquire a clearer picture of SDL.
The learning experience was different from her
initial expectation of taking down notes and
strategies to be transferred directly to her
classroom. She stated:
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
We have experienced on our own what

is SDL, and it produces a stronger
impact than the teacher giving you an
idea or definition directly. The design
principles and work flow were very
clearly stated, telling us what and how
to do. During the workshop, activities
such as reflections and commenting on
others posting were some of the
opportunities
allowing
us
to
experience SDL. I was previously
expecting to learn methods or
strategies, preparing to take down
notes for future practice. However, I
found the fact was that we had to
discuss and share our experience
among ourselves. Teacher used the
inquiry methods to stimulate more
thoughts, and you had to get many
things done on your own. Sometimes, I
thought the comments are meaningless
but at the end it appeared to be
integrated and connected. Slowly
after this, some concepts had been
clarified.
b. CoL is not just grouping to solve
a problem
Alvin reported that defining CoL and
another similar concept, cooperative learning,
and how they contribute to knowledge
construction are always confusing to the
teachers. Although the underlying premise of
these technique is that learning can be
enhanced through interactions, teachers may
possess the conception that grouping is to
solve a problem. He illustrated that:
Cooperative vs. collaborative learning
often causes a conundrum for teachers.
After discussion in the workshop, we
had had a clearer concepts on the
differentiation. Although both require
grouping, the procedures of learning
and facilitators role in each are
different. In collaborative learning, it is
not necessary to solve a problem, but to
25
give opportunities to the participants to

discuss about it. This is very much
different from the traditional course.
He would previously regard CoL as
simple group discussion but now he learned
that CoL is a way of knowledge construction
that requires some skills to be developed. He
stated that the participants benefited from such
heterogeneous
grouping
from
their
interaction by sharing of different perspectives
on a particular issue based on their own prior
knowledge:
To implement collaborative learning to
the level of ideal is not easy. There are
some skills we need to develop to be
successful in group discussion. We
discussed about how we can obtain the
desired outcomes through discussion,
and the role that facilitators could play
during the processand many more
that could be discussed. The discussion
is not without border, because we do
not anticipate endless discussion
without a learning. Our discussion is
based on our prior knowledge. Since
each person would have a different
prior knowledge due to different
background, you will learn something
which have not been heard of or learnt
before, this is a way of knowledge
construction.
However,
when
talking
about
transferability of this model in real classroom,
he had a concern that CoL in blended learning
setting might not be suitable for some contents
in the current syllabus, although he appreciated
such model in the way that learners had been
provided with a chance to explore the topics in
depth:
Not every unit in our current syllabus
is suitable for this learning method
(CoL in blended learning), as it will be
challenging
in
evaluation
of
performance. While some of the
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
courses in U.S are with the

instructional designs directed towards
certain topics, under which teachers
will assign tasks, the context in
Singapore is slightly different from US,
as we have to account for tests and
examinations.
4.1.2
Teachers
satisfaction
of
the
workshops aspects of outcomes of the
blended learning workshop
Measuring teachers satisfaction was

not about to get the answer of yes or no.
During the interview, our questions regarding
satisfaction were set to invite learners to give
insights of what they liked most of the
instructional design and what could had been
improved. Questions remain as to whether they
have experienced any difference from
traditional courses and how have different
participants
appreciated
the
blended
experience. Both teachers had obviously
benefited from different aspect of the blend
and it seemed that they had adapted their
learning process so that they could gain more
from blended learning.
Findings from this study suggested that
learners assigned different meaning to blended
learning based on different experience of
context. Understanding the variation in their
experience is important in adding the learners
perspectives to blended learning workshop
design. To Alice, who seldom had her voice
heard by others in face-to-face class,
appreciated online platform as a channel to
express her idea because it is less intimidating
than speaking up in the class. Also, she viewed
it as a mean to assessing teaching resources
and building rapport with her peers, with a
comfort that arrived in a community. It
somehow helped her to reduce anxiety during
the process of learning. She stated:
I like the forum part of the course,
which enables the teachers to upload
their own lesson plans to be viewed by
26
others. This is a process of learning

from each other and an eye-opener to
our pedagogical thinking that allows us
to see so many well- prepared work.
I think the reflection part is good too
because it has a function to de-stress. It
might seemed a random, babbling and
incoherent talk, but it still serves a
good purpose. Usually for such a PD
course, we would not have much
interaction after class, but with this
platform, we can continue to interact
and get familiar with each other.
During face-to-face class, I do not
necessarily
know
all
the
teachersbut once the name is
mentioned, the person will appear
familiar to me. This is a great chance
of knowing each other.
At the beginning of the workshop and
way before learning took place, learners were
made aware that the process of learning in
blended learning was different from other
modes of delivery they experienced at the
traditional PD courses. This awareness can
promote understanding of the process of
learning in a blended setting, especially when
the workshop design was based on a
constructivists approach that the learners are
not usually exposed to. In spite of that, Alice
was surprised by her experience in blended
learning workshop. It was totally beyond her
expectation of what will be learnt and taught.
Still, things worked out great at the end. She
illustrated that:
I came here because of the word
ICT. I eagerly wanted to know
more about it, and expecting to get
some useful lesson plan later. It was
not the case. However, it didn't mean
that the workshop was a failure if the
instructor never taught us what had
been expected. To me, there were
other things that I had never come
into contact, and that became my
learning.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Meanwhile, to Alvin, face-to-face

discussion allowed immediate clarifications
and questionings to contextualize problems to
a topic, while online session of the workshop
gave him extra processing time before he could
further contribute. Since synchronous
discussion is always fast-paced, asynchronous
discussion allows learners to compose their
thoughts and information so that they are wellpresented. The addition of online session to
traditional face-to-face classroom can also help
to establish a stronger community of learners.
However, both are complementing each other.
He explained that:
Firstly, you can read many others
opinions. Due to limited time in faceto-face session, you can hardly listen
to many others opinions. If learners
are unfamiliar to each other or not
having open minds, concerns are that
there will be some words that are
inappropriate to say during face-toface. But during online sessions, the
concern is minimal. Therefore, you can
see many different opinions online as
compared to the face-to-face setting. If
you are willing to spend extra time, you
can get more interaction than facing
each other. You can use your leisure
time to interact, so that you can have
more freedom of thoughts. You have
more time to digest as well. During
face-to-face session, you have to
respond in a short time, which is more
challenging. For those learners that
are not used to speak out in front of
others or process their thoughts in a
slower pace, online session can help
them to do their job well. However, it is
hard to say which one is superior to
another. Face-to-face discussion can
be a continuation of what have been
concluded online at a new perspective.
Both are complementing each other.
When questioned about what could be
improved for the workshop, Alvin revealed
27
that effort of the post workshop follow-up was

unsatisfactory due to time constraint. He had
concern about teachers losing motivation to
continue their learning journey when they had
to deal with the daily routine. He could foresee
that it was hard to transfer this model to a
school-wide level for a better outcome. He
suggested that:
This kind of course (blended learning)
should have a follow-up period of at
least half a year, and that the instructor
can work together with the teachers for
the entire semester, the sharing
of the teachers would be much more
different and in depth. There should be
another session for this workshop for
implementation. For now, we are still
at the stage of discussion only. To move
into application in a school-wide level,
there is a need to build support from
various stakeholders: school boards,
master teachers, principals and other
departments. This is not an easy task
but will definitely be rewarded with a
stronger impact.
4.2 The Enablers
This section looks at the dimension and
standard that support blended learning, in the
attempt to develop a suitable model from the
learners experience. From the experience of
the above workshop, some enablers for
blended learning are summarized as follows:
4.2.1 Integration of ICT
In the blended learning workshop, ICT
is perceived as an agent of change. By using
ICT as a platform, teachers are able to view not
only the content of the learning tasks, but also
adopt a new way of learning. Rather than
completing a pre-determined and well-defined
tasks, they are open to discussion based on
several ill-structured and open ended guided
questions. ICT affords them to bring together
ideas, motivates them to research on interested
topics, provokes critical thinking and reflects
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
on what that have been discussed. Some degree

of changes have been observed in the
following dimension: 1. Cognitive change in
learning; 2. Self-efficacy; 3. Pedagogical
beliefs; 4. Pedagogical knowledge of
instructional practice, strategies and methods
(adapted from [12]).
a.
Cognitive change in learning
Alvin described meaningful learning as

taking place when learners could work through
problems on themselves, interacting with each
other and making connections with their prior
knowledge, without getting any direct
instruction or answer from the lecturer. He
explained that traditionally, the PD workshops
are content-oriented and teacher-centred where
the lecturer would assume participants to have
little knowledge on what to be taught.
Therefore, the course will be conducted solely
to reinforce concepts that are probably the
lecturers own view. Yet, it became apparent
that blended learning workshop brought him a
new learning experience. He emphasized that
the interactions between peers were
successfully achieved because atmosphere of
online environment was safe, open and inviting.
He noted that using asynchronous discussion
forum increased the chance for higher order
thinking and he appreciated the extra time for
reflections on course issues.
Integration of ICTs into the workshop
supports seamless communication,
transcending the boundaries of time
and space, so that the discussions are
not confined to classroom only.
Classroom discussions could be limited
to time. When you come back to the
topic next time, you might have
forgotten what have been discussed.
But if you interact through ICT
platform, all activities will be recorded,
participants can always refer back and
deepen their thoughts. This is the
advantage of the ICT platform. The
traditional PD courses always come to
28
a clearly identifiable objective,

whereas blended workshops stress
more on the process of how learners
construct knowledge, instead of the
final outcome.
b. Self-efficacy
Alice viewed herself as computer
idiot, a term with such a strong emotional
association that eventually caught the
facilitators attention. She was concerned
whether she could perform well during the
interactions. She was constrained from making
changes because of the insecurity she felt from
previous experience, of which she never pick
up the skills after numerous attempts of trying.
This was illustrated in her first post on the
forum:
I was a computer idiot. I was
clueless after yesterdays class and
worried if I could complete the tasks
successfully. Luckily the first task was
relatively easy. I admired those
teachers who has the flexibility in using
computer platforms to teach. I tried to
follow their instructions but never
was satisfied with the outcome. I hope
at the end of the workshop, by acting as
a student once again, the skills would
then come handy to me.
After several online sessions, Alice
began to recognize the constraint which she
perceived was of her own construction and not
necessarily a barrier or external force, e.g. task
difficulties over which she cannot overcome.
She gradually built up confidence when she
received
positive
feedbacks
and
encouragement from her peers, and attributed
her accomplishment to the learning process
experienced in blended learning setting.
Initially I have no confidence at all,
during online session, I was very
nervous when I post the bits and pieces
in mind to the threads. However, I
found that the act of posting all those
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mumbles can be a kind of learning. I

was initially worried whether my posts
fit the task requirements, but what I
received from the others were
encouraging comments. There is no
definite right or wrong. I am quite
comfortable now compared to the
beginning of the workshop.
c. Pedagogical beliefs
Alvin believed initially that every
learning (traditional learning) has an outcome,
so that each part of instructional design is made
to accomplish a goal. The focus of outcome
creates a clear expectation of what needs to be
accomplished by the end of the learning, and
the instructor will structure the workshop as
much as possible to get closer to the final
outcome.
However,
blended
learning
experience changed his belief such that he
regarded learning now to be a process to
construct.
Traditional way of learning has
clearly-articulated outcomes. But
blended learning is different in that it
provides a platform, or a topic for the
participants to discuss, interact or
communicate with each other through
which they obtain new knowledge. The
knowledge is constructed step by step
through interactions. The outcome
experienced by each person is never
identical in the whole class. Through
this process, they deepen their
understanding towards the topic. There
is no definite right or wrong, since it's
very difficult to do such a judgement.
However, your thoughts would be
much different, and this difference is
not standardized, but tweaked a little
on each individual due to different
prior knowledge and experience. The
final destination is to construct own
knowledge, but not to come to a definite
answer.
29
Earlier researchers had noted that

contexture factors could have powerful
influences and affected the teachers practice
[13], this was aligned with Alices illustration
of her experience. Alice agreed with the fact
that ICT could facilitate her students learning
in some way, but she believed that majority of
her students, especially those in low-ability
class was not ready for technology intervention
for their learning. To ensure time on task was
maximized, she preferred to assume a
conventional methods without ICT and
conduct the class in a way which allowed her
to finish teaching the scheduled content of
lessons without interruption.
I think that web-enabled learning is
preferable for Express student or
student with higher ability. For NT
(Normal Technical) students and those
having difficulties in typing, it is harder
for them to present a good piece of
work. The teacher has to spend a lot
more time to have these students to
acquire the habit. In our previous
sessions with ICT, there appeared to be
a lot of problems, e.g. students
complained that they couldn't login the
platform or claimed that their PC at
home were not working, or not
installed with Chinese typing software.
In short, it is not practical as compared
to the conventional (traditional)
methods, at least there is no way for the
student to make excuse of not bringing
pencil and paper?
However, once ICT as a mediator of
learning was valued, and Alice became
comfortable with the tool after several online
sessions, she was more willing to consider
about allowing students to use ICT to
communicate with peers and teacher, an
activity using technology to achieve higher
level goal.
In this workshop, what I have learnt
and appreciated is to sustain a blog for
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the purpose of teaching, all

assignments etc. can be uploaded. The
platform is always there such that
teachers can frequently visit the blog at
their leisure. In future, we can use it in
more flexible ways, not necessary have
to write something on it, but to
shareit could be an interesting
news or some ideas. Teachers can
cultivate the students habit of visiting
the blog by constantly updating. It
could be something very simple, maybe
an easy task for them to complete just
to engage them. This is similar to my
case, Im unfamiliar with ICT but if the
task is relatively easy, I can complete it
without constraint, and bits by bits
accumulate some motivation. If the
platform is capable of motivating
students to learn or stimulate their
interest in Chinese language, I would
think that this is a good practice to
adopt.
d. Pedagogical
knowledge
of
instructional practice, strategies
and methods
Alvin was uncertain about instructional
practice of SDL initially, although SDL was
not a new term to him. He taught in a
traditional manner and seemed to feel that SDL
was equivalent to self-assessment practice. He
recalled that there was a self-assessment sheet
at the end of each unit, and teachers and
students were to check whether they had
achieved their goals in this particular unit, and
thus completed SDL. He changed his thoughts
when he practiced his own SDL with ICT in
the blended learning workshop, he stated that:
The SDL I have experienced is actually
a process of self-monitoring with the
support of ICT. ICT helps teacher to
guide learners to become self-directive
and self-organized. For the reflection
as part of SDL, with ICT platform,
teachers can read others reflections as
30
well which stimulate more of their

thinking. Theoretically, we understand
what is about SDL, which is to take
control over own learning, it is always
followed with reflections whereby
students gain insights and improve
their practice. However, we have no
idea of how to lead students to decide
their learning objectives and regulate
their learning, at most we can do, is to
request them to do after-lesson
reflections. After the workshop, I can
see that with the support of platform
and facilitators guidance, SDL can be
easily achieved.
Meanwhile, for Alice, walking in the
students shoes, she encountered and felt the
difficulties of adopting web-based learning,
and appreciated clear instructions of some of
the designs in the blended learning workshop
which guided her to complete tasks gradually
in her own pace. She realized that the
perception of ICT being supplemental held her
imprisoned and set her minds to think that she
never had to strictly request her students to
complete an online task. She was unclear of
how she could implement e-learning because
she viewed the session to be sufficient enough
as long as ICT is used, for example uploading
videos. After the blended learning experience,
she revealed that she had found some
directions to conduct the class:
During the process of learning, I
learned a lot when I stepped into my
students shoes, I can truly understand
the feeling of doing an online
assignment. I feel that the learning is
more organized with the rules, we can
predict what we can proceed with for
the next manoeuvre. Sometimes I tried
to assign simple tasks for the students,
but if they cannot submit on time, I will
not take action on their procrastination,
and allow them to submit week after.
There is no strict deadlines and what to
be continued nextI was initially
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
lost and thought that e-learning is just

a usage of internet, e.g. uploading
videos. Now I will explain to my
students the objectives behind the
design, how to achieve the goal, how to
do assessment, and what I am
expecting from them.
4.2.2 Facilitators role
Given a variation of the profile of
learners, learning in a blended learning setting
can encompass different situations and
contexts, but the facilitators role is foremost
critical and it is usually better to maintain a
non-authoritarian style when conducting the
class. The facilitator will need to give an
overview of what learning is about in this
blended learning workshop so that learners
have a framework within which they can build
their knowledge. He promotes learning by
becoming a catalyst towards peers to peers
interactions, he is also a trusted inquisitor,
asking appropriate questions to enable critical
thinking. Setting foundations for independent
learning is crucial as well, since becoming a
self-directed learners requires the teachers to
develop awareness of learning as a process,
and also the skills of asking questions. In the
blended learning workshop in this study,
facilitator get to decide how the participants
address him - his name. In Chinese culture, its
usually a non-question; teachers are simply
called [Surname] Laoshi (teacher) by their
students. Chinese culture tends to give a
considerable amount of reverence for authority
and seniority. It may seemed awkward initially
for the learners, but later helped to create
situations where learners felt safe and relax to
speak out.
In blended learning environment,
learners are placed in inquiry learning context
in developing their collaboration know-how.
Because most of interactions of learners
occurred through online platform, and there is
no non-verbal cues to help prioritize message
or repair communication misunderstandings
31
except during face-to-face sessions, good

inquiry skills are critical so that the diversity of
perspectives would help to obtain more
understanding of a problem, instead of posing
additional challenge to it. The facilitator plays
important role in creating such inquiry learning
context. Learners are made aware that
questioning is a kind of response in their
learning, and not every question comes with a
definite answer. The ill-structured questions
relevant to the topic are good stimulant and
enabler for the start of blended learning. There
is no exact solution to the problems raised,
synthesis and elaboration are required instead
of knowledge aggregation.
4.2.3 Instructional design: from transmission
to scaffolding
The transition of learners into new way
of learning and adaptation towards the new
learning culture is also acquired through
proper scaffolding, especially on the online
part of blended learning. As stated by Alvin:
The structure is for you to monitor your
own learning more effectively. You
need not strictly follow, but if you are
to participate in this workshop, you are
advised to learn to monitor your
learning and respect others response.
Although we are very open in the sense
that basically there is no border in the
topics of discussion, the design does
not simply allow unrestrained freedom,
which is not productive in generating
the final outcome. There must be a
scaffold. This is a scaffold that guides
you to think and learn, but does not
restrict the content of learning. It also
monitors the progress of learning but
does not implement any penalties such
as to deduct scores when you are late
for assignment submission. The
learners have to set time of completion,
manage the learning progress and
compensate for their procrastination.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Whilst not necessarily affecting learners skills

directly, scaffolding of the workshop has
guided the participants to complete learning
which is largely self-directive. There is a
timetable for them to follow and ground rules
to obey during online interactions. The
structure of the workshop encourage and build
confidence especially in the early stages by
providing opportunities for learners to bring
questions and observations to class. These help
to create climate which is comfortable,
democratic and mutually respectful in a
discussion. After some time of following the
timetable, a shared temporal cognition is
formed for the learners to anticipate each
others action (i.e. Friday as Reflection Day).
This allows the learners to gradually move
over time from a traditional learner to an
independent learner.
5
DISCUSSION
Blended learning environment, as

observed by Garrison and Vaughn [14], does
not offer only convenience of the dualism of
either face-to-face or online learning, but also
access and flexibility in learning. The design of
our blended learning study, upon social
constructivists approach, is more about
creating a condition in which learners take
control and responsibility of their learning.
This is slightly different from other blended
learning PD that put more emphasis on
flexibility: the blended format provides an
effective model for meeting the needs and
learning styles of busy teaching professionals
because it allows a more flexible study
schedule than a lectures-only course [15]. Such
an approach should influence learners'
perceptions of the learning and subsequently,
their learning outcomes. Both teachers in our
study gave recognition to the method of
blended learning as a new and impactful
experience. They also highlighted how the
blending of the face-to-face and online
components helped to sustain on-going
discussion amongst peers. The small group
workshop format of the face-to-face sessions,
32
when combined with the asynchronous online

discussion forums, enable all participants to
share their perspectives and to learn at their
own pace.
Teacher participants can come from a
spectrum of characteristics and learning styles,
in addition to the different situations they
encountered in their classroom and school
environment. Therefore, there is hardly an
instructional learning situation that can be
designed to fit optimally for all the learners.
Thus, the above analysis emphasize the
opportunities offered by blended learning
experienced by a particular teacher (or a group
of teachers) to achieve their goal. From there,
the analysis remain at the level that attempted
to dwell into the participants learning
personalities, before we can further abstract to
generalize principles through identification of
characters that are common to successful
blended learning learners. Identification of
learners profile, or person-situation fit may
help to facilitate ones learning. These
instructional strategies were then modified to
meet the needs of learners with different
learning preferences.
From our findings, teachers who tend
to be silent in face-to-face settings have a
learning style different from those that are
more active in contributing in the classroom.
They are termed passive learners and may
learn through observation or find their voice in
a more secured, mediated interaction of online
environment [16]. Our relatively quiet subject,
Alice, reflected that she did learn from the
workshop. She seldom post, and the contents
of posts are mostly sharing of lesson plan
which was one of the assignments of the
workshop. She quietly took in new information
and knowledge but might not interact with
people or share her insights. Some degree of
changes in pedagogical beliefs had occurred
although she was nearly invisible most of the
time. Noteworthy and unanticipated, however,
was the fact that she engaged in the learning
process in a way dissociated with their peers.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
She might had benefited personally from this

preference of learning style but not to the
community a limitation yet to be solved.
However, this study reveals that despite there
is a consensus of studies [17, 18, 19]
supporting the fact that active learning is the
integral component of blended learning, it
could have benefited passive learners as well,
with Alice as an example to provide us insights
on how learning takes place in this type of
learners. It creates an environment to engage
and accommodate learners of different
learning style, and further acts as a buffer so
that passive learners could get accustomed to
the social constructivists way of learning in a
timely manner. Alice was initially afraid of
posting any comment due to the fear of being
wrong, however, to a lesser extent, she
ventured out eventually as mentioned in the
previous section. Her venture can be credited
to the open environment created by blended
learning workshop that allowed her to voice
out in a virtual platform when she was ready.
The dualism of blended learning enabled her to
choose a comfortable way of learning.
On the other hand, by examining the
case of Alvin, an experienced Master Teacher,
we could see that he looked at the workshop at
a different angle. He was more concerned of
whether the model was transferrable in real life,
although he too, benefited from his learning.
The voice of this type of teacher, brought out
some blind spots to the designers to be
discussed and reflected. Also, Master Teachers
would greatly influence the in-service teachers
during their training, thus it is crucial to the
study whether they could buy in the concepts
of blended learning. Alvin revealed that
blended learning experience had enhanced his
understanding of learning and to some extent
changed his manner of teaching. In particular,
he believed now that (1) teaching is not
impacting knowledge to students, but rather a
collaborative knowledge constructing effort
between many parties; (2) the foremost
purpose of teaching is to equip students with
33
necessary skills (e.g. social learning) to

achieve a better learning outcome.
Nevertheless, his concern of the difficulties in
promoting blended learning in school-wide
level posted some questions towards the initial
objectives of this study which is to explore
potential of blended learning in professional
development of teachers. His claims help us to
understand the differences between what is
desirable and what is feasible in terms of a
teacher or a schools readiness to support this
type of learning, and that there is a necessity of
consensus building between these various
stakeholders. The difficulty is that teachers
often come to these workshops and became
enthused about the possibilities of using some
aspects of their learning but then return to their
schools without time or follow-up support
required to put their learning into practice. We
have introduced the structure of blended
learning workshops (which is an on-going
event) in our studies at the early section of this
paper, and since we are using design-based
principles for instructional designs, the
problems posted could become a guide to the
design of following new workshops.
As an answer to the second research
question in this study, in blended learning
workshops, teaching is to empower and equip,
and there are some enablers that accelerate this
process. The most important enabler would be
ICTs. Often, ICTs are used to complement
learning experience in which a significant
amount of face-to-face learning occurs.
However, in our blended learning workshop,
ICTs are essential and are embedded into
design such that without ICTs, learning is
unable to occur. From the interview, ICTs to
the participants enable sustainability of the
learnings through several key aspects: (1)
Resourcing: access to unlimited resources
relevant to the discussion; (2) Effective
communication: reflective dialogue in the
excess of extra time and space; (3)
Adaptability: personalized learning that adapt
to the learners ability. From the interview, we
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
learned that ICTs did bring changes to the

teachers in terms of cognition, self-efficacy,
pedagogical
beliefs
and
pedagogical
knowledge of instructional practice, strategies
and methods. The two participants indicated
that the regular weekly reflections and online
assignment with a clear agenda and structure
helped create a regular rhythm, thereby
depicted the importance of scaffolding as
another enabler. They could progress at their
own pace, while not getting too far away from
the other peers through structured and
sequential approaches.
While structured
practice or skill delivered can be beneficial in
a blended environment, far too often,
personalized learning makes the facilitators
role significantly complex. Appropriate
instruction and intervention strategies would
make facilitator a critical human factor for
successful learning. Several important roles of
facilitators are: penetrating questionings,
increase intensity of discussion, helping
learners to gain ownership of learning etc.
Also, from the observation of the two
participants, it is concluded that for a blended
learning to be successfully implemented,
learners should have their ownership of
learning. In the future, if they are tasked to
embrace blended learning, they must have faith
and confidence that blended learning is
enhancing their teaching (or facilitation), and
not against it. Our observation is consistent
with findings from previous studies suggesting
that it is important to account for learners
readiness [20], learners attitude [21] and
learners ability of independent learning [22]
for successful blended learning. In the two
cases that are illustrated above, both teachers
had expressed positive attitude towards social
constructivists approach. They did not show
any difficulty in accepting responsibility for
personal learning but they appeared to be not
ready for applying acquired skills or modelling
of the workshop. The greatest challenge was
time commitment, the continuous access to the
online component resulted in more time
34
devoted to the assignments (to construct and

replying comments), not to mention that they
were school teachers heavily loaded with
existing duties. This can lead to the learners
feeling overwhelmed and tired, and was
reflected in their online reflections and
interview data. If the blended learning
approach is found to be effective in advancing
teachers PD, this issue needs to be addressed
by multiple levels, for example facilitators
and institutional support.
Last but not least, we would like to
clarify that the aim of our study is not finding
generalization of how blended learning
should look like and what outcome should be
expected. The validity of the case studies are
always in scholarly debate [23], which cannot
be fully explained in this paper. However, a
purely descriptive, phenomenological case
study without any attempt to generalize could
give us a clearer picture and in depth
description of participants, which can certainly
be of great value for our future workshop
design. The case might not generalize all cases
or represent the other case well but the
echoes of interpretive study, seeking out emic
meanings held by people within the case, is
strong. [24].
6
CONCLUSION
Subjects of our case study, and some

other participants from the workshop observed
that blending improved many aspects of
learning such as enabling more self-direction,
reflection, greater independence, and more
skilful time management. They stated that
blended learning is significantly different from
face-to-face or pure online classes and leads to
impressive learning outcomes, though some of
them are not ready for implementation of ideas
from their take away. Blended learning
undoubtedly possesses a transformative
potential and capable of making inroads into
traditional face-to-face PD. However,
challenges and difficulties are present and need
to be addressed.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
REFERENCES
[1] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development, "Lessons from PISA for the United
States", Strong Performers and Successful
Reformers in Education, 2011.
[2]J. Lindberg and A. Olofsson, Online learning
communities and teacher professional development.
Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, 2010.
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27-42, 2007.
[6]Z. Deng, S. Gopinathan and C. Lee, Globalization
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[7]L. Vygotsky, Mind in society: The development of
higher psychological processes. Cambridge:
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[8]R. Stake, "The case study method in social inquiry",
Educational Researcher, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 5-8, 1978.
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[11]A. Rossett, The ASTD e-learning handbook. New
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meaning of educational change. New York:
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[13]F. Khader, "Teachers pedagogical beliefs and
actual classroom practices in social studies
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[14]D. Garrison and N. Vaughan, Blended learning in
higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.
[15]L. Curtis and P. Swenson, "Hybrid courses plus:
Blending F2F, online and handheld computer for
effective learning", in Proceedings of Society for
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Information Technology and Teacher Education

International Conference 2003, 1st ed., C. Crawford
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[17]N. Hoic-Bozic, V. Mornar and I. Boticki, "A
Blended Learning Approach to Course Design and
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Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000, pp. 435-453.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
36
Performance Evaluation for Higher Educational Institutions within Data

Envelopment Analysis
Qutaibah Althebyan Hassan Najadat Bushra Zaareer
Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST)
Irbid, Jordan
(qaalthebyan, najadat)@just.edu.jo, ahbushra13@cit.just.edu.jo
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, governments are increasingly investing
more money in universities and especially in the
higher education in order to improve their quality. At the same time universities are facing a
dramatic growth on the number of students especially the graduate students. Hence, measuring the
performance of such universities in order to evaluate how they react with such number increase is
vital. Hence, this paper will evaluate the performance of Jordanian higher educational institutions
and then highlights weakness points in reasons that
caused inefficient universities (if found). In order to achieve this, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to measure the performance of
the institutions so that inefficient ones (if found)
are labeled. Recommendations will then be drawn
to guide the inefficient institutions to improve their
performance. In this paper, we will measure the
performance of Jordanian universities as a special
case.
KEYWORDS
Data envelopment analysis, DEA, higher educational universities, decision making unit, DMU, input unit, output unit.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, higher education plays an important role in the development of many societies.
Such societies try to give the higher education
more concentration and importance on their
sake of achieving better high education outcomes and results. Although giving higher education more concentration and interest is vital, however, this can impose pressure on these
societies governments budgets especially when
considering countries with limited resources
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
where Jordan is one example of such countries. In such countries, the increased interest in higher education resulted in opening new
universities and educational institutions, which
as a result increase the number of students who
are willing to enroll in them and pursue their
graduate studies [1, 2]. This increased interest
can be utilized if these societies concentrate on
improving the quality of the higher education
institutions as well as improving the quality of
the graduate students which in turns positively
affects the economy of these countries. Jordan
is one of these countries who consider the human resources and their educational quality as
an asset to their economy. It is also considered
as one of the major reasons for their progress.
In light of Jordan higher education institutions
(JHEI), it offers a qualification for young people to gain jobs. Since higher education degree
is an essential prerequisite to gain career place
in Jordan institutions, more and more young
people are going to enroll in such higher education institutions. The following example is an
illustration of the above mentioned fact where
MUTAH university has a total number of students enrolled at years from 2010 to 2013 to
be as 15957, 16998, 18519 and 21051 respectively. On the other hand, the total number of
academic staff is 498, 511, 523 and 533. In
general, this leads to a more resources consumption in JHEI. As mentioned earlier, JHEI
should provide high and effective performance.
Given these points, the necessity of scientific
studies and surveys about JHEI built upon scientific methods to apply in development countries is needed.
This study is intended to decide Which inputs
and outputs should be considered to be applied
to our approach that will lead to the best results. It is also intended to decide Which fea37
tures will produce the worst output and hence,

should be recommended to be resolved. It will
finally draw conclusions and recommendations
(based on the results) that should improve the
JHEI performance.
2
OUR FRAMEWORK
To truly measure the efficiency of higher education in any country, a Decision Making
system (considering several decision-making
units DMUs) should be considered. Any Decision Making Unit (DMU) should consider both
inputs to the higher educational system process
as well as the output to the system; so that an
efficiency measurement should be calculated
and estimated. A DMU will be considered in
our system where the DMU can be defined as
a group of people in a company or other organization concerned to make an important decision. So, to estimate the whole higher education system outcomes; several DMUs that measure different higher educational aspects and
parameters should be considered. One major
concern that should be raised here is where the
system deals with multiple input/output (homogeneous input/output) needed to evaluate
and estimate the overall performance. This,
in fact, makes the process not as trivial as one
might think. Because of all the aforementioned
facts, there is a vital need to come up with
a system that can effectively estimate the efficiency of the DMUs and hence; the higher
educational system as a whole. Therefore,
the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is suggested as our approach to deal with the above
problem. DEA is a non-parametric technique
that is used to estimate and compute the performance in homogeneous DMUs. In general,
DEA handles multiple input and output variables that are used to calculate the efficiency of
a system considering different weighted units
for them. In order to use the DEA, it needs
to identify DMUs as well as the inputs and
outputs that should be applied. In this paper,
we will examine DEA efficiency that measures
universities performance in Jordan from 2010
to 2013. Universities will be defined as DMUs
and then inputs and outputs variables will be
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
specified. So, statistics comparisons will be

conducted among a set of 19 researched articles to specify the set of inputs and the set
of outputs for higher education institution data
set. Once the set of inputs and outputs are determined, we will collect the data set from different resources such as public and private universities in Jordan and the Ministry of Higher
Education and Scientific Research. The following figure 1 illustrates the whole process.
Figure 1. Our Approach Process Workflow
2.1
Data Envelopment Analysis
Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is usually

used as a measurement for systems efficiency.
It is usually expressed as a percentage value. It
is determined by the ratio of desired output to
the total input. Measuring efficiency is computed as it is illustrated in equation 1.
Ef f iciency = Outputs/Inputs
(1)
In case of multiple inputs and multiple outputs,

the DEA is also good choice. Hence, DEA will
measure efficiency by finding the ratio between
weighted sums of outputs to weighted sums of
inputs, which is illustrated in Equation 2 [4].
The value of efficiency is usually normalized
between 0 and 1. If the efficiency value for
a specific DMUs is found to equal 1 then this
DMU is called an efficient DMU. Otherwise,
the DMU is called inefficient.
Ef f iciency = W.SumOutputs/W.SumInputs
(2)
The DEA method can be applied to various
fields to measure the efficiency [5]. In banks
and finance fields, the authors in [6, 7, 8]
used DEA to measure efficiency. Also in
[9], health system used DEA. Furthermore,
38
the study in [10] used DEA to measure efficiency for Brazilian team football in season
2014. In the light of our dataset, the higher educational institutions are considered as homogeneity units. As an illustration, in [2, 11, 12]
DMUs have three input variables and three outputs variables in Spain, Italy, and USA respectively. DMUs have six inputs variables and
three outputs variables in England [13]. So,
the higher educational institutions have multiple inputs and outputs. DEA was used to evaluate DMU performance [2, 11, 12, 13].
DEA determines the maximum degree of output desired with respect to given inputs variables.
2.2
3.1
Input Oriented Measures
Input-oriented model minimizes the weighted

of inputs without changing the weighted of
outputs. This model reduces the input quantities proportionally with output fixed quantities. In general, the model looks at the amount
by which inputs can be proportionally reduced,
while the outputs are fixed. Moreover, efficiency in this model is still defined as the ratio between the weighted sum of outputs and
that of inputs. As it is previously mentioned,
its value is weighted between 0 and 1. In
[17], input-oriented DEA is applied to configure how much the input variables could be reduced while maintaining the same level of output. For example, if the following two input
variables are considered: the number of academic staff and non-academic staff with the
values 120 and 90 respectively, then, the target values should be 100 and 81 respectively.
After these values, inefficient DMUs become
efficient ones.
2.3
Output Oriented Measures
Output-oriented model minimizes the weights

of outputs without changes in the inputs
weight. This model expands output quantities proportionally with input fixed quantities.
In general, the model looks at the amount by
which outputs can be proportionally increased
while the inputs are fixed. Again, efficiency
value is still limited between 0 and 1. In [14], it
is configured to evaluate a unit probable output
given its input. Additionally, Output-oriented
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THE DEA MODEL
This section presents input/output specification, dataset collection and data resources.
Then, it clarifies our approach and describes
the design for this approach. Finally, the experiment cases are addressed with results discussions.
Input-Output Specifications
This section examines inputs/outputs used to

measure DEA efficiency for universities in
higher educational institutions in Jordan. In
general a view for DEA process is shown in
figure 2 which shows inputs and outputs relation in this process.
Figure 2. DEA Process
In this paper, two categories are classified in

order to specify input variables for DEA. Resources are categorized into human and financial resources. Human resources are defined
as a collection of instructors, students, and
human licenses or roles recourses in universities. By reviewing a total of 15 articles,
it has the number of academic/non-academic
staff, full/associate/assistant professors as illustrated in [1, 2, 3, 13, 15, 16], student contact hours [16], the number of full-time equivalent instructors, human resource [11], the number of licenses to award higher doctorate degrees, the total number of postgraduate students, number of licenses to award the PhD degrees, and total number of undergraduate students. In other words, instructors, the staff
and students play an important role in the education process in universities. Additionally,
39
students are the target in the education process. Indeed, instructors and staff help education process (academic or research product).
Financial resources are defined as a collection
of money (equipment, building, and facilities)
income to universities DMU. By reviewing a
total of 15 articles, we classified the finical resources to be as: instructional/overhead /general/administration/equipment expenditure as
illustrated in [12, 13, 16, 17], non-current assets [1], total coststhird-party funds [2], financial resources facilities and laboratories [2],
physical investment, total depreciation and interest payable [1], budget, research grants, age
of the institution, personal/non-personal cost
[1] and research income [2]. Indeed, these
studies show that financial recourses percentage is higher than human recourses percentage;
this indicates that the financial resources lead
the education wheels in universities.
Here, we can summarize the input variables.
The first variable is the total number of academic staff. The second is the total number
of nonacademic staff. The third is the summation of the total number of post-graduate student enrolled and the total number of undergraduate student enrolled. Moreover, this variable is vital because the total number of students enrolled in universities indicates the size
of the population in the education process. As
it can be noticed from these studies the total
expenditure variable is the highest percentage
in the finance resources. Finally, it is vital to
include the total expenditure as an input variable. These resources (set of inputs) employed
to complete DEA processed in our approach.
On the output side, we categorized outputs
variables as three variables. The first variable
is the summation of a total number of documents published in Scopus and the total number of documents published in Thomson. Because of the limitations of the sources for the
number of documents published in Jordanian
universities, this study uses Scopus and Thomson library to aggregate these variables into
one variable. Moreover, the total numbers of
undergraduate/post students graduated are the
highest percentages in the academic services.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
So, they should be added to the output variables set.

3.2
Data Collection
This section presents our data set that is used

in our approach. It addresses the data set
collected as well as data resources. In our
study, the total numbers of universities under consideration will be twenty four universities of which ten are public universities and
the remaining fourteen are private universities.
Hence, we have twenty four DMUs applied to
DEA. Now, our study is interested in collecting
JHEI (inputs/outputs variables for our DMUs
on the period of a year from 2010 to 2013.
All the data are collected from the following
sources: Ministry of Higher Education and
Scientific Research, Scopus JUST library and
Thomson Reuters Web of Science as illustrated
in table 1 where it summarizes the DMUs
alongside their sources.
Table 1. Variables with Dataset Sources Summary
Variable
NumAcStaff
NumNAcStaff
NumStdEnroll
Expenditure
Research-Thompson
Research-Scopus
NumUnGrad
NumPostGrad
Source
Ministry of Higher Education
Thomson database-JUST
Scopus database-JUST
The following figure 3 illustrates our DEA

model that is applied to the above mentioned
variables (DMUs).
Figure 3. DEA Model Process
EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
This section shows our experiments cases

where we employed two models. On the DEA
40
Model side, we examined two cases. The

first case (called case 1) employed the constants return to scale type within input orientation. Specifically, case1 used the 24 DMUs
with three inputs (NumAcStaff, NumNAcStaff, NumStdEnroll) and three outputs variables (Research, NumUnGrad, NumPostGrad)
for years from 2010 to 2013. On case 2, we ran
DEA for 10 DMUs (public universities) with
four input variables (NumAcStaff, NumNAcStaff, NumStdEnroll, Expenditure) and three
output variables (Research, NumUnGradand,
NumPostGrad).
4.1
Case 1 Results
Figure 4 provides a summary of case 1 setting,

which includes 24 DMUs with three inputs and
three outputs based IO-CRS.
(MUTAH, AABU and PHILADLPHIA). An

increasing group that shows an increase in efficiency score in all years. This group has six
universities (JADARA, ASU, ZUJ, ZU, JPU
and ANU) and finally an irregular group that
shows variable performance scores in different years. These universities are (YU, BAU,
AHU, TTU, GIU, MEU, AMMANU, IU, UOP
and PSUT). On the positive side from IO-CRS,
the increasing group highlights the universities
who are efficient during the studied years. So,
these universities should be encouraged to keep
their growing movements. On the other side,
decreasing and irregular groups performances
should be studied to have a strategic plan in
managing their recourses so that they can improve their performance and be efficient.
4.2
Case 2 Results
Figure 6 provides a summary of case 2 setting,

which includes 24 DMUs with three inputs and
three outputs based IO-CRS.
Figure 4. Case 1 Experiment Settings
After running case 1 experiment and evaluating the performance of all the institutions under consideration for the input and output variables summarized in figure 4, we get the following results illustrated in figure 5
Figure 6. Case 2 Experiment Settings
After running the case 2 experiment and evaluating the performance of all the institutions
under consideration for the input and output
variables summarized in figure 6, we get the
following results illustrated in figure 7
Figure 5. Case 1 IO-CRS Summary
IO-CRS provides 19 inefficient universities as

can be seen in figure 5. It can be noticed
that their performance behavior can be categorized into three groups: a decreasing group
that shows a decrease in efficiency score in
all years. This group has three universities
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 7. Case 2 IO-CRS (Inefficient DMUs Only)
Figure 6 shows a review of case 2 settings,

which include 10 DMUs (public universities
41
in Jordan) with four inputs and three outputs,

based IO-CRS. In case 2, IO-CRS, figure 7
shows five efficient universities in all years
(JU, YU, JUST, HU and BAU). Whereas two
universities fall in the inefficient status in the
one year (MUTAH and AABU). The AHU
grows in 2012 to efficient status. The other two
universities are inefficient in all years. Moreover, the TTU decreasing score is changed
during the study years, whereas the GIU is
changed to the irregular movements. Again,
decreasing and irregular institutions change for
DMUs movements. This in fact determines
which universities should consider critical attention to their performance movements. Also,
these universities should start handling weakness points in their recourses so that they can
better utilize their resources, and hence, be
more efficient.
5
CONCLUSIONS
The paper measured the efficiency of higher

education institutions and especially the Jordanian universities. In the first step, inputs/outputs for universities were specifiedd.
Then, the DEA process was used. Starting, in
the DEA Model we employed the DEA process to measure universities performance. Final results lead to determine the best features
that can improve efficiency. Highlights were
drawn to guide universities in improving their
efficiency relying on the best features that are
expected to produce the best results.
REFERENCES
[1] M. Abbott, C. Doucouliagos, The efficiency of
Australian universities: a data envelopment analysis, Economics of Education review, Vol. 22, pp.
89-97, 28 Feb 2003.
[2] A. GarcaAracil, M. D. Palomares, Methodological problems to measure university efficiency in
relation with its geographic localization, Institute
for Innovation and Knowledge Management, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Spain 2008.
[3] G. Kempkes, C. Pohl, The efficiency of German
universities some evidence from nonparametric and
parametric methods, Applied Economics, Vol. 42,
pp. 2063-2079, 2010.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
[4] S.Talluri, Data envelopment analysis: models and

extensions, Decision Line, Vol. 31, pp. 8-11, May
2000.
[5] C. Lee, C. Lin, Globalization, political institutions,
financial liberalization, and performance of the insurance industry, The North American Journal of
Economics and Finance, Vol. 36, pp. 244-66, 30 Apr
2016.
[6] S. Ohsato, M. Takahashi , Management Efficiency
in Japanese Regional Banks: A Network DEA,
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 172,
pp. 511-8, 27 Jan 2015.
[7] R.B. Staub, G.D. e Souza, B.M. Tabak, Evolution
of bank efficiency in Brazil: A DEA approach, European journal of operational research., Vol. 202,
pp. 204-13, 1 Apr 2010.
[8] Y. Luo, G. Bi, L. Liang,Input/output indicator selection for DEA efficiency evaluation: An empirical
study of Chinese commercial banks, Expert Systems with Applications., Vol. 39, pp. 1118-23, 31
Jan 2012.
[9] M. Torres-Jimnez, C.R. Garca-Alonso, L. SalvadorCarulla, V. Fernndez-Rodrguez, Evaluation of system efficiency using the Monte Carlo DEA: The
case of small health areas, European Journal of
Operational Research, Vol. 242, pp. 525-35, 16 Apr
2015.
[10] M.C. Roboredo, L. Aizemberg, L.A. Meza, The
DEA Game Cross Efficiency Model Applied to the
Brazilian Football Championship, Procedia Computer Science, Vol. 55, pp. 758-63, 31 Dec 2015.
[11] J.E. Beasley, Determining teaching and research
efficiencies, Journal of the operational research society, pp. 441-52, 1 Apr 1995.
[12] T. Ahn, A. Charnes, W. Cooper, Some statistical and DEA evaluations of relative efficiencies of
public and private institutions of higher learning,
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Vol. 22, pp.
259-69, 31 Dec 1988.
[13] J. Johnes, Data envelopment analysis and its application to the measurement of efficiency in higher
education, Economics of Education Review, Vol.
25, pp. 273-88, 30 Jun 2006.
[14] S. Pascoe, J.E. Kirkley, D.F. Greboval and C.J.
Morrison, Measuring and assessing capacity in
fisheries: Issues and methods, Food & Agriculture Org., 2003. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No.
433/2. Rome, FAO. 2003. 130p.
42
[15] G. Abramo, T. Cicero, CA.DAngelo, A fieldstandardized application of DEA to national-scale

research assessment of universities, Journal of Informatics, Vol. 5, pp. 618-28, 31 Oct 2011.
[16] T . Agasisti, C. Prez-Esparrells, Comparing efficiency in a cross-country perspective: the case of
Italian and Spanish state universities, Springer US.
Higher Education, 59(1). pp. 85-103, 2010.
[17] N.K. Avkiran, Investigating technical and scale
efficiencies of Australian universities through data
envelopment analysis, Socio-Economic Planning
Sciences. , Vol. 35, pp. 57-80, 31 Mar 2001.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
43
Nationality Based Context-Aware Scenario of Cultural Heritage Guidance

as Informal Learning
Abdul Kadir Jailani Keijiro Araki Shigeru Kusakabe
Department of Advanced Information Technology
Kyushu University Japan
Department of Information System
University of Nagasaki Japan
akjailani.dp@gmail.com , araki@ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp , kusakabe@sun.ac.jp
ABSTRACT
With the objective of supporting user to enjoy a
deep cultural experience, interactive learning tasks
and elements are highly needed. It would be a good
motivation for the user/visitor as a learner for enjoyable learning. In the previous work, we have
proposed an adaptive context-aware model based
on the users interests with Unified Modeling Language (UML) approach to supported cultural heritage information to the user. However, a motivating scenario with interactive learning tasks and
elements is missing. Cultural heritage as a place
which has a varied collection of the cultural history
opens widespread curiosity for learning in an informal way. The visitor of the cultural heritage objects might come from local or international communities. This study, the authors investigate how
to explore cultural experiences of the visitor outside the community by adapting nationality-based
context and propose an informal learning scenario
which implements learning task with interactive elements. Our goal is to guide the visitor to learn in
informal other countrys cultural object in terms of
its relationship with the visitors country.
KEYWORDS
Context-aware, Cultural heritage, Nationality based
context, Users interests, Informal learning scenario
INTRODUCTION
With the enormous growth of knowledge, increasing mobility and the increased accessibility of travel, there is a widespread curiosity
about cultural heritage places and a huge demand to visit for acquiring personal experience
of cultural objects. Cultural heritage is a place
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
which represents a varied collection of the cultural objects history. Cultural heritage is also
a place for learning. This type of learning is
categorized as informal learning. Visitors can
learn about the history of the cultural heritage
in a more relaxing and less threatening way due
to is conducted outside the curriculum. The
enhancement of mobile and wireless technology opens a possibility to develop methodologies and tools for cultural heritage learning via
mobile devices without being limited by space
and time. Hence, the development of methodologies and tools are an important issue in the
learning works [10].
To utilize this situation, we have proposed a
context-aware UML-based framework for providing information of cultural heritage which
suitable to the user needs [3]. Our motivation is to serve users with cultural information according to their needs. The system provides an interactive interface to assist the user
in selecting his/her cultural heritage interests
and presents maps and figures with texts as its
outputs. However, the interactive elements of
learning support, which is enabling to motivate user enjoys a deep cultural experience is
missing. A user as a visitor of cultural heritage might be coming from a local visitor or
foreign visitor. We have an assumption that
the people tend to be interested in the entity
which relates to their own personality such nationality. For example, in Dazaifu city area
in Fukuoka-Japan, a visitor from China, which
has an interest to landscape category might be
attracted to visit Zen garden or Dry landscape,
a garden which largely adopted from the Chinese gardens of the Song Dynasty, and the
rocks groups symbolized Mount Penglai, the
44
legendary mountain-island home of the Eight

Immortals in Chinese mythology, known in
Japanese as Horai [14]. This example motivates us to support visitor both in self-directed
and incidental learning for cultural heritage not
only based on his/her interests, but also based
on his/her nationality. This study, we adapt
nationality-based context and create a scenario
to assist the visitor for acquiring cultural heritage experiences.
2
INFORMAL LEARNING
Informal learning is a type of learning activity that occurs outside the curriculum of formal
educational institutions and program [7]. In informal learning, the learner has more opportunities for self-directed learning than formal
setting. It means if the learner considers his/her
cultural experience is uninteresting, he/she will
simply disengage or seek other activities. By
disengaging this activity, the learner does not
worry about the consequence of obtaining such
a poor grade like in formal setting [11]. Therefore, creating and maintaining a well-designed
scenario with interactive tasks and elements to
attract user attention is desirable. There are
three forms of informal learning which proposed by [8], as seen in table 1.
Table 1. Forms of informal learning [8]
Form
Self-Directed
Incidental
Socialization
Intentionality
Yes
No
No
Awareness
Yes
Yes
No
The self-directed learning activity is occurring

when the learner intentionally wants to involve
in the learning process even before the process
begins, and the learner is aware that he/she
has learned something. Thus, it is intentional
and conscious. For instance, a toddler decides
that she wants to start putting her socks on
by herself, and after many attempts finally
succeed.
The incidental learning activity is occurring
when the learner did not have any previous
intention of learning something out of that
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
experience, but after the experience, he/she

becomes aware that some learning has taken
place. Thus, it is unintentional, but conscious.
For instance, a toddler touches a hot iron and
immediately learns that it is not wise to do it
again.
Socialization or tacit learning activity is
occurring during everyday life which refers
to the internalization of values, attitudes,
behaviors, skills, etc. This is unintentional
because learner does not have a priori intention
of acquiring them, and he/she also not aware
has learned something. For instance, a toddler
learns to speak the first language, without
being aware that he/she has learned speak
activity.
According to the Council of Europe [5], there
are several indicators to explore the cultural
objects , i.e.: name and source, location, function type, historic date, people and organizations, materials and techniques, current condition, legal status, and notes/summary of the
cultural object.
We consider that these indicators are useful for
cultural heritage informal learning. This study,
we invent yes-no questions based on the aforementioned indicators to simplify user in exploring the matters related to the cultural object
and prepared answers from users questions.
3
NATIONALITY BASED CONTEXTAWARE
According to [2], context can be defined as

any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. The entity
could be a person, place, or object which considered relevant for user-application interactions, including the user and applications themselves. If the application uses context to provide and serve the user with relevant information according to the users task, then it is defined as context-aware.
This paper, our application uses context to provide information for the visitor as a learner
where the authority depends on the user. The
visitors are categorized into three dimensions
45
[9]. However, based on the motivation dimension, the main reason to visit cultural heritage
object is their curiosity about the history of the
cultural object.
According to [4], tourist/visitor tends to be
interested in real and educational of cultural experiences, it will be increasingly important to determine the similarities and differences of motivations and interests among
tourist groups. Cultural identity or cultural
background is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a persons selfconception and self-perception and is related
to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class,
generation, locality or any kind of social group
that has its own distinct culture.
Most researchers are a focus in developing
technical tools and social aspects of digital cultural heritage. However, only a few empirical
research are investigated in users perceiving,
experiences, and interacts with locational content to build a community heritage[13].
A previous study [13] investigated the ability
of their application Lost State College (LSC)
to explore user interactions and experiences of
historical places, to evoke historical awareness
in the local community. The study involved 34
local residents as participants. However, the
visitors of the cultural object not only the local community but might also from the international community. This cognitive perspective
opens an opportunity of how to attract visitors
outside the community.
According to [6], the visitors outside the
community-host are generally or partially attracted by an interest in the historical, artistic, scientific or related to the lifestyle and traditions reality and facts of a community, region, group or institution. Therefore, we involved nationality context in attracting the visitors outside the community-host to learn the
visited cultural object which related to their
nationality. Our approach purposes to help
the learner improve their cultural experiences
regarding of the country which being visited,
and also improve learners knowledge in terms
of its historical relationship between learners
country. We have an expectation that the cul-
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
tural experiences, indirectly will evoke learners nationalism, and enhance their respects to
the culture of the other country.
4
THE NATIONALITY-BASED SCENARIO OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

LEARNING
The scenario-based design is a popular tool

for human-computer interaction. Scenarios
are at once concrete and flexible, helping
developers manage the fluidity of design
situations. Scenarios emphasize the context of
work in the real world; this ensures that design
ideas are constantly evaluated in the context
of real-world activities, minimizing the risk of
introducing features that satisfy other external
constraints [15].
Our previous work, we have proposed nine
categories of cultural heritage, i.e: artifacts
and monument, buildings, shrine, work of art,
folklore, traditions, language and knowledge,
landscapes, and biodiversity [3]. The visitor
can selects as much as categories according
to his/her interests. However, we have a
perception that visitor, especially foreigner
visitor will be more motivated to learn the
cultural object which has a relationship to the
visitors cultural identity, such nationality.
Let us consider this example scenario;
Zhao, a visitor from China, is in the Dazaifu
city, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. According to
the location, there are 8 kinds of 5 categories
of cultural heritage found in that area;
1. Komyozenji
gories),
temple
(buildings
cate-
2. Kanzeonji temple (buildings categories),

3. Government Office Ruins (buildings categories),
4. Dazaifu Tenmagu (shrine categories),
5. Kamado (shrine categories),
6. Zen garden or Dry landscape (landscape
categories),
46
7. Kyushu National Museum (work of art

categories),
8. Onisube (traditions categories)
Suppose he is interested in buildings and landscapes categories, then our system will provides him two options; learning or just visiting,
as seen in Figure 1.
Case 1:
The objects are selected in terms of their historical relationship with the learners country.
For instance, Komyozenji temple is selected
because it was founded in 1273 during the Kamakura Period of Japanese history by Tetsugyu
Enshin (1254-1326), a nobleman of the Sugawara family, who had studied Zen in China
[17]. Zen garden is selected because it has
a relationship with Chinas myth as explained
in the introduction section. Furthermore, the
system will present yes-no questions to explore learners curiosity. If he wants to know
more about the cultural object, he can answer
yes, and if does not, he can answer no.
The flowchart of the yes-no questions and the
screenshot example are shown in Figure 2 and
Figure 3. This case is an example scenario
of self-directed learning because he intentionally involves the learning process as a sequel of
chosen context for learning.
Figure 1. Context-aware workflow for informal learning
He chooses for learning option, based on his

interests (buildings and landscapes categories)
and nationality (China). From that option, the
system will select 2 of 8 kinds of cultural heritage objects because the objects are related to
Chinese culture, i.e.:
1. Komyozenji temple,
gories)
(buildings cate-
2. Zen garden or Dry landscape, (landscape

categories)
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 2. Flowchart of informal learning
Case 2:
He chooses for just visiting option, based on
his interests (buildings and landscapes categories) and nationality (China). From that option, the system will select 4 of 8 kinds of cultural heritage objects because the objects are
selected exclusively based on the visitors in47
aim to learn, hence he chooses just visiting

context. The screenshot example is shown in
Figure 4.
Despite yes-no questions will not appear in this
kind of option, the visitor will accidentally engage with the learning process through the display of summary information and the location
of the cultural object.
The list of yes-no questions for our informal
learning concept is shown as follows:
Q1: Do you want to obtain an address of the
location of the cultural?
Q2: Do you want to obtain an explanation of
the function of the cultural?
Q3: Do you want to obtain an explanation of
the historic date of the cultural?
Q4: Do you want to obtain an explanation
about the people and the organizations
which are engaged in the cultural?
Q5: Do you want to obtain an explanation
of the materials and techniques that have
been used in the cultural?
Figure 3. Screenshots of the informal learning questions
Q6: Do you want to know about the current

conditions or the legal status of the cultural?
terests without considering the visitors nationality, i.e.:

1. Komyozenji temple,
gories)
(buildings cate-
2. Kanzeonji temple, (buildings categories)

3. Government Office Ruins, (buildings categories)
4. Zen garden or Dry landscape, (landscapes
categories)
This option, the system will present the summary of the cultural object. This case is an
example of incidental learning because he unintentionally involves the learning process. It
is defined as unintentional because he does not
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 4. Zen gardens summary for just visiting option
48
CONCLUSION
WORKS
AND
FUTURE
This study is devoted to designing an interactive scenario based on the users interests and
the users nationality with the intention to encourage the user to engage the informal learning process. We invented yes-no questions in
order to make user easier to explore deep cultural heritage experiences. Our approach opens
a new paradigm that the visitor will able to
informally learning other countrys cultures in
terms of their relationship with visitors nationality. In the future works, we intend to evaluate
our system performance through users selfassessment quizzes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank to Directorate General of Resources for Science, Technology and Higher Education (DG-RSTHE)
of Indonesia government and the Department
of Advanced Information Technology Kyushu
University of Japan for their support in this
research. This work was partly supported
by KAKENHI, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(S) 24220001.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Chianese, F. Piccialli, A smart system to manage the context evolution in the cultural heritage
domain, Computers and Electrical Engineering,
2016.
[2] A.K. Dey, Understanding and Using Context,
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Volume 5,
Issue 1, pages 4 - 7, February 2001.
[3] A.K. Jailani, S. Kusakabe, K. Araki, Adaptive
Context-Awareness Model for Cultural Heritage
Information based on User Needs, Advanced Applied Informatics (IIAI-AAI) 2015 IIAI 4th International Congress on, pages 339 - 342, 2015.
[4] A. Pedersen, Managing Tourism at World Heritage Sites, 2002.
[5] Council of Europe, Guidance on Inventory and
Documentation of the Cultural Heritage, Council of Europe Publishing ISBN 978-92-871-65572, 2009.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
[6] Cultural Tourism in the regions of Montana, Nature and characteristic of cultural
tourism,
Retrieved
August
12,
2016,
from
http://www.montana-vidindolj.com/en/publications/?NewsId=3, 2013.
[7] D. Livingstone, Exploring the icebergs of adult
learning: Findings of the first Canadian survey of
informal learning practices, CJSAE 13 (2), pages
49-72, 1999.
[8] D. Schugurensky, The forms of informal learning:
Towards a conceptualization of the field, NALL
Working Paper, 2000.
[9] D. Walsh, P. Clough, J Foster. User Categories for
Digital Cultural Heritage. ACHS@ JCDL. 2016.
[10] G.J. Hwang, H.F. Chang, A formative
assessment-based mobile learning approach
to improving the learning attitudes and achievements of students, Computers and Education
56.4, pages 1023-1031, 2011.
[11] H.C. Lane, Enhancing Informal Learning Experiences with Affect-Aware Technologies, The Oxford Handbook of Affective Computing, 2014.
[12] J. Cross, Informal Learning - the other
80%,
Retrieved July 8,
2016,
from
http://www.internettime.com/Learning/The%20Ot
her%2080%25.htm, 2003.
[13] K. Han, et al.,Enhancing community awareness
of and participation in local heritage with a mobile
application, Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work and
social computing, ACM, 2014.
[14] M. Baridon, Les Jardins- Paysagistes, Jardinieres,
Poetes, pages 485-487, 1998.
[15] M. Rosson, J. Carroll, Scenario-Based Design, The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and
Emerging Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pages 1032-1050, 2002.
[16] Q. Tan, T.C. Liu, M. Burkle, Location-based
environments for formal and informal learning:
Context-aware mobile learning, Ubiquitous and
mobile learning in the digital age. Springer New
York, pages 115-136, 2013.
[17] http://www.japanvisitor.com/japan-templesshrines/komyozenji, Retrieved August 8, 2016.
49
The Concept of Self-Adaptive Integrated Web Based Learning Environment for

STEM
Akira Nakamura, Tomoshige Kudo and Keita Nishioka
Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Math. and Science Education Research Center
7-1 Ohgigaoka, Nonoich, Ishikawa 921-8501 Japan
n.akira@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp, kudo@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp
and knisi@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp
ABSTRACT
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics) is structured knowledge which has a
correlation among elements of STEM knowledge.
We already developed mathematics web site and
successfully visualize knowledge structure of
mathematics through network graph drawing. We
are trying to scale up from mathematics to STEM.
That is, we are starting to build a web based
learning environment which integrates web pages
containing elements of STEM knowledge by
connecting with each other through hyperlinks. This
web structure is suitable for searching and browsing
web pages. Learners can grasp the correlation
between elements of STEM knowledge easily and
then understand STEM deeply by browsing
integrated web materials. Consequently, learners
are able to learn STEM subjects efficiently and
effectively according to their ability and curiosity.
KEYWORDS
STEM, Knowledge Structure, Network Graph,
Hyperlink, Adaptive Learning, Web Based Learning
1 INTRODUCTION
The acronym STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) has started to be
used in the United State of America since early
2000s [1]. Nowadays the use of the acronym
STEM has become popular all over the world.
Many countries focus on STEM education in
order to develop their countries and survive in
the global competitive world. Therefore, there
are many researches related to STEM education.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
For example, integrated STEM education is

very useful to improve learning attitude. [2-4].
On the other hand, learning by searching plays
an important role after the appearance of google
[5], especially in informal learning. As
searching is a very personal activity, keyword
search is a very useful tool for self-adaptive
learning. But there are some problems. The
information found by searching tends to be
fragmentary information, which is not sufficient
to understand deeply.
In this paper, we present the concept of selfadaptive integrated web based learning
environment for STEM which make STEM
learning efficient and effective.
2 KNOWLWDGE STRUCTURE OF STEM
2.1 Correlation among STEM knowledge
Generally speaking, technology is the
applications of science and mathematics, and
engineering solves the problems of human life
by using technology. Therefore, knowledge of
science,
technology,
engineering
and
mathematics are linked each other and construct
knowledge structure of STEM. Figure 1 shows
the image diagram of correlation among science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. In
order to learn engineering and technology, we
need to understand mathematics and science
related to them. Acquisition of knowledge
structure is the key to have a deeper
understanding and proficient problem-solving
ability. High performing learners construct
50
knowledge structure through the learning

process by themselves. The low performance
learners do not have enough ability to make
links among knowledge or do not have
sufficient knowledge to construct the
knowledge structure. We consider that
visualizing integrated knowledge structure of
STEM is useful for learners to support making
links and learning engineering efficiently and
effectively.
Engineering
Technology
Mathematics
Science
Fig.1 Correlation among science, technology,

engineering, and mathematics
2.2 Method for Constructing Knowledge

Structure
Hyperlinks on the website are created to refer to
other information. Therefore, hyperlinks in web
based learning site are useful tools for
constructing knowledge structure since the
directions of hyperlinks indicate the correlation
between two knowledge units that the tow
knowledge units have a strong connection and
the knowledge described on the web page
linked from the other web page is more basic as
compared with the knowledge on described on
the other web page.
2.3 Knowledge Structure of Mathematics
We have been engaging in research for
constructing a knowledge structure of
mathematics. The accomplishment of our
research is described as follows. We have been
developing e-learning website of mathematics
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
for more than 10 years, which has about 2

thousand pages and is available on the internet
[6]. The website consists of two parts which are
mathematical knowledge part and exercise part.
In mathematical knowledge part, we design the
e-learning website in a specific manner.
Mathematical knowledge is divided into
elements which have one mathematical topic.
We allocate each elemental mathematical
knowledge to one page. Since knowledge is
built from some more basic knowledge, we
create hyperlinks from selected texts on web
page to another web page as reference in an
ordinary way. As a result, the complicated
hyperlink structure is constructed in our web
site. We realized that this hyperlink structure
among web pages containing mathematical
knowledge is similar to the mathematical
knowledge structure. We tried to visualize the
knowledge structure of mathematics by using a
network graph of hyperlink structure of our
mathematical web site [7, 8]. A hierarchy of
mathematical knowledge is also successfully
calculated by using characteristic of hyperlinks
that the directions of hyperlinks are from web
pages whose contents are advanced to other
web pages whose contents are basic [9]. We use
the Gephi which is open source software for
creating network graph drawing. We developed
crawler software with PHP and MySQL to
make the network data for Gephi. We display a
network graph drawing on a web page by using
the JavaScript GEXF Viewer for Gephi under
the MIT license. Figure 2 shows the developed
network graph of mathematical knowledge
structure. Node labels are title of a web page,
which are translated from the original language
to English by machine translation. We can
intuitively
know
the
importance
of
mathematical knowledge by the size of nodes
of network graph and the other knowledge level
of mathematics by the color of nodes. Figure 3
shows the selected knowledge and knowledge
which are linked to it or are linked from it. We
can understand what the knowledge consists of
and what the knowledge applies to in one
glance. Learners are able to learn mathematics
51
efficiently and effectively by using the network

graph.
knowledge structure of mechanical engineering.

Circles, squares, triangles and pentagons
indicate a unit of knowledge described on a
web page. Arrows indicate interrelation among
units of knowledge, which start from applied
knowledge to basic knowledge (hyperlinks
between web pages).
Mechanical
Engineering
Fig.2 Network graph drawing of mathematical

knowledge structure
Mechanical
technique
Physics
Mathematics
Fig.4 Schematic image of knowledge structure of

mechanical engineering
Fig.3 Selected knowledge and its related knowledge
2.3 Constructing Knowledge Structure of

STEM
We have already constructed knowledge
structure of mathematics and have been
increasing mathematical knowledge on a
continuous basis. We are starting to scale up the
knowledge structure of mathematics to STEM
region in the same manner. Now we are
constructing the knowledge structure of
physics, which is connected knowledge
structure of mathematics. We have a plan to
stack the knowledge structure of mechanical
technique and mechanical engineering on the
basic knowledge of mathematics and physics.
Figure 4 shows a schematic image of
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 5 shows an example of concrete serial

connection of knowledge related to mechanical
engineering. Learners can grasp the correlation
among units of STEM knowledge. They can
know the engineering knowledge consist of
basic knowledge of mathematics and physics.
Conversely, they can know how the basic
knowledge of mathematics and physics are
applied to engineering.
Learning STEM effectively and efficiently in
web based learning environment strongly
depends on GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Data of hyperlink structure enable to produce
any new GUI which we want by programing.
Therefore, constructing integrated web pages
with hyperlinks is the most critical thing in
52
creating an
environment.
excellent
STEM
learning
Moment of force
We proposed concept of self-adaptive

integrated web based learning environment for
STEM, which has knowledge structure among
science,
technology,
engineering
and
mathematics. Therefore, learners can grasp the
correlation between elements of STEM
knowledge easily and then understand STEM
deeply by browsing integrated web materials.
Learners are able to learn STEM subjects
efficiently and effectively according their
ability and curiosity.
Vector product
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Vector
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI

Grant Number 16K0113700. We appreciate the
student staff who engaged in developing our elearning site.
Design of plate spring

EulerBernoulli beam theory
Bending moment
Coordinate system
Fig.5
Example of connection among units of
knowledge
3 SELF-ADAPTIVE LEARNING
Searching is a popular way of learning. We
interviewed twenty students of our college.
Most of the students answered that they usually
search it in the Internet rather than in the library
when they encounter what they cannot
understand in solving mathematics problem.
After reaching our web site learners make their
own learning path according to their purpose
and curiosity. They can do self-adaptive
learning. In fact, about 80% of visitors to our
site come from search engines [10].
We can obtain the access log data on keyword
and how learners make their own learning paths
on our website. We are able to know what
subject learner would like to learn by keyword
they entered in the search box and what
knowledge they are interested in or want to
learn by analyzing learning pass, i.e. access log
data.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
3 CONCLUSION
[8]
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
J. Breiner1, S. Harkness, C. Johnson and C. Koehler,

What Is STEM? A Discussion About Conceptions
of STEM in Education and Partnerships, School
Science and Mathematics, vol. 112, no. 1, pp. 3-11,
2012.
K Tseng, C. Chang, S Lou and W Chen, Attitudes
towards science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) in a project-based learning
(PjBL) environment, International Journal of
Technology and Design Education, vol. 23, no. 1,
pp. 87-102, 2013.
L. Quang, et al., Integrated Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education
through Active Experience of Designing Technical
Toys in Vietnamese Schools, British Journal of
Education, Society & Behavioural Science vol. 11,
no. 2, pp. 1-12, 2015.
J. Krajcik, I. Delen, How to Support Learners in
Developing Usable and Lasting Knowledge of
STEM, International Journal of Education in
Mathematics, Science and Technology, vol. 5, no. 1,
pp. 30-35, 2017.
Y. Chengjiu, et al. Learning by searching: a
learning environment that provides searching and
analysis facilities for supporting trend analysis
activities, Journal of Educational Technology &
Society vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 286-300, 2013.
Akira Nakamura, Log Analysis of Mobile User
Behavior for a Public-Facing Math e-Learning Site,
GSTF Journal on Education, vol.2 no.2, pp. 38-42,
November, 2013.
Akira Nakamura, Graph Drawing of Knowledge
Structure of Mathematics, The SIJ Transactions on
Computer Science Engineering & its Applications
(CSEA), vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 161-165, June 2014.
Akira Nakamura, Graph Drawing of Knowledge
Structure of Mathematics Combined with
Knowledge Level, Proceedings of INTED2015
53
Conference
(9th
International
Technology,
Education and Development Conference) 2nd-4th
March 2015, Madrid, Spain, pp. 2576-2579
[9] Akira Nakamura, "Hierarchy Construction of
Mathematical Knowledge," Lecture Notes on
Information Theory, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 203-207, 2014.
[10] Akira Nakamura, Self-adaptive e-Learning Website
for Mathematics,
International Journal of
Information and Education Technology vol. 6, no. 12,
pp. 961-965, 2016.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
54
Youth Behaviors Toward Social Networking Service (SNS) and its Effect on
their Learning Environment as Study Tool A Case Study of Nepalese Youth in
Japan
Thapa Sakhila
Toyo University
5-28-20, Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8606, Japan
sakirahkt_t@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Information Communication Technology
(ICT) is given as first priority in recent
education system at global level concerning to
the quality of education. It is impossible to
imagine the education without including ICT
these days. The inclusion of ICT in education
has been seen as an important element,
similarly the widespread of Social
Networking Services (SNS) in internet
technology have been connecting to people
throughout the world and its prevalence is
rapidly growing-up with popularity. Specially,
these social networking services have
incredibly effected to the youths. There are no
arguments in relative to youths that they are
using popular social sites like Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc. as their
daily routine. In recent years, social
networking services have not affected in one
particular aspect but in different aspects of
our lives directly or indirectly. Among them
learning behavior of youth is one of the
important aspects, which has been effected
allegedly by use of social networking services.
To centralize the aspects of youths using
social networking services on common issues
regarding social networks, this research
analyses the youths behavior toward social
networking services; which is divided into 3
important
variables
they
are:
(1)
Communication, (2) Sharing, (3) Finding and
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Learning. Concerning to the above 3 behavior

of youth, this research aims to analyze the
impact of SNS on learning environment of
youth.
KEYWORDS
Social Networking Services (SNS), Youth,

Communication, Sharing, Finding and
Learning,
Learning
tool,
Learning
environment
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Today millions of educational materials are

available on internet, which can be used as
various educational purposes and these
resourceful services have made the current
education extremely easy and accessible. At
the same time these resources are spreading
throughout the world through different social
networking services. Hypothetically, SNS
have the potential to widen a persons social
networks and provide access to valuable
resources, information, and social support [1].
The use of social networking services has

been an important routine in our daily lives.
Social network sites widely used by many
people nowadays for various aims [2]. It is
almost impossible to find people who dont
use social networking site after being familiar
55
with it. If closely inspected its increasing

widespread, then it has been found that SNS
has affected in different aspects of our lives.
Although social networking services have

positive effects on different aspects of our
lives, there are issues raised regarding
negative effects often. Social media impact on
youth on both ends good and bad, it is one of
most influences impacting source throughout
the world [3]. There are many youths who
have been using SNS for entertainment
purpose only.
In an overview of the prevalence of social

networking services in our current society;
SNS has been dominating communities of
developing nations along with developed
countries and their educated communities.
SNSs is becoming increasingly popular not
only in industrialized nations [4]. Similarly,
because of the generalizations of internet
access and awareness of SNS among people,
most of uneducated communities also have
been affected by SNS. The Facebook has its
major domination compared to other social
networking services in our society, Facebook
has more than 500 millions of users around
the world and Fifty percent of total users
actively login the site every day [5].
In relative to Nepal, there are more than 85%
Nepalese using Telephone whereas 71% are
using smart phone, and internet is available in
all 75 district of Nepal where more than 30%
people are using internet [6]. According to the
population census 2011 the adult illiteracy
ratio in Nepal is 40% (who cannot read and
write), however 90% children are going to
school (10% children are deprived of school
education) [7]. Youth (15-24 age) literacy
ratio is 84% in which female literacy ratio is
80.4% and male are literacy ratio is 89.8% [8].
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
From this statistic there are possibilities that

the 30% internet users are youths. Recently,
there are 5700,000 (70% are Male and 30%
are Female) Nepalese who are subscribing
Facebook, and this user ratio is growing up
rapidly [9].
Whereas the ratio of SNS user is increasing
day by day the proportion of quality education
is inadequate with the result from High school
to undergraduate level in the context of Nepal.
The ratio of youth literacy is higher than adult
literacy; however the graduating percentage
from high school, college and university in
annual result is undesirable with more fail
percentage than pass percentage. Statistic of
School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results
average percentage from 2011 to 2015 are;
number of pass students: 48.7%, number of
fail students: 51.2% [10], [11]. From this data
we can see that there have been negligible
improvements regarding to the qualitative and
sustainable education in Nepalese youth in
past years.
Different national programs are being planned
by the Government of Nepal to improve the
quality education in Nepal every year and
likewise to include the ICT in course study;
computer and internet education have been
accredited
compulsory
in
education.
Therefore, it has been comprised in the
syllabus from primary level. Computer and
the Internet are so fundamental to production
and participation, it is clear that if the right to
development is to be taken seriously and that
right must encompass the development of ICT
infrastructure and skills [12].
However the geographical, lingual difficulties

and low budget allocation have limited the
education of computer and internet on
theories over practical education in most
schools and colleges, particularly in the rural
56
areas. Therefore many people from rural area

of Nepal are deprived from the ICT education
and E-learning. There are large numbers of
population in rural areas who are still under
poor economic conditions and this is one of
the factors that people cannot afford to send
their children in good conditioned academic
institution. Nepal is one of the worlds
poorest nations; in position 157 out of 187
nations according to the Human Development
Index 2011 [13].
In spite of these problems, because of the

globalization of SNS and availability of
internet and its general awareness, most of the
youths from urban areas as well as from the
rural areas are using most popular SNS like
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube etc. But they
are unable to obtain appropriate benefits as
they have been using such SNS specially for
making
friends,
chatting
and
for
entertainment purposes like watching videos,
listening to music etc.
However, due to SNS applied for such

purposes, there has been an important role of
SNS in developing the intellectuality of
youths by such activities like sharing
information
through
Facebook
page,
communicating with classmates/friends and
retaining such trend among friends. In the
same way, due to requirement and need of
appropriate contents for sharing information,
using other services on internet like essential
materials and resources have indirectly
developed the behavior of E-learning, which
has aided to advance the technical and quality
of education among youth.
1.2 Research Context
This research has concerned about the

positive impact in education through SNS
used by the youths. The variables of SNS; (1)
Communication, (2) Sharing, (3) Finding and
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learning are centralized and explored about

the effects on quality education through such
variables. SNS and education is for the most
part focused on analyzing different variable
within higher education [14]. Specially, as
this research is concentrated on new
generation, the youths of age between 15-30
(age) are taken as samples for the study.
Due to lack of expected improvement in
quality and sustainable education of Nepal,
and deficiency in job opportunities, the ratio
of Nepalese youth (15-24) departing to other
countries is increasing each day. Most people
are leaving the country for seeking jobs and
one third of the people going to other
countries for higher education, which shows
the ratio of student mobility is also increasing
rapidly. Recently, Nepalese students are
studying in 45 different countries [15]. The
department of ministry said 30,616 students
acquired the no objection certificate (NOC) in
2014/15 for further studies in abroad.
Although in 2011/12 only 11,921 students
had applied for NOC, but the number of
applications have been increased dramatically
within few years [16].
In order to cover all the youth of Nepal as
well as considering the geographical diversity,
this research has been studied in 3 different
phases. In this report, the first phase of
research is centralizing as Nepalese students
living in abroad for study purpose. These
Nepalese students are taken as research
sample and data collection has been started.
Although there is gradual increment in
technical equipment in Nepal, it is far behind
comparing to developed countries. Hence
assuming differences in environment and
equipment used in studies by Nepalese
students studying in Japan, thus they are taken
as first phase data for the research.
57
1.3 Literature Review
Interpersonal relationships build learning

communities and engage student, Nicole A.
Buzzettos research explored the efficacy of
social networking systems as instructional
tool by examining the use of Facebook in
courses at US Mid-Atlantic minority-serving
University by examining student perception
as well as by analyzing content [17].
Researchers had found that students perceive

to use of Facebook positively as a tool to
enhance
communications,
community
building and engagement however, educators
do not want to see social networking services
replace course management systems like
blackboard. In, their findings it should
encourage college faculty to adopt the use of
social networking services as part of the
teaching and learning process with a specific
focus on building learning communities and
increasing student engagement. At the same
time, the research finding encourage faculty
should continue their use of traditional
learning management systems using SNS
simply as means of augmenting instruction.
In Buzzettos findings, the traditional
teaching (blackboard), learning and social
network service learning were compared.
From the comparison of two different
methods of teaching and learning it has been
found out the both learning methods are
equally important on education.
SNS was analyzed as mentioned above in

previous research, students of particular class
of particular academic institution was taken as
survey area where computer/internet service
was practically used. Whereas in this research,
without limiting in students of certain class,
this research has tried to include the youths
using SNS for different purposes who
represent different communities and areas.
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Hypothetically, due to the reason of using

SNS by youths, it can be utilized directly or
indirectly in their education and SNS can be
developed as learning tool.
It is keen to know about purpose of SNS by

youths when they are unable obtain the proper
advantages of SNS. Likewise, this research
selects SNS users from city areas, rural areas
or students studying in foreign countries
independently without limiting in certain
academic institution or classes. In other
definition, this research takes respondent
selection from random sampling method. This
research tries to cover specially those youths
who didnt received any formal education
regarding to SNS but they have been using
SNS due to generalization of SNS by
themselves. This study analyses the benefits
of SNS used in such informal way. This
research is not neglecting the negative aspects
of SNS but its giving its more importance to
the positive aspects.
1.4 Objectives and Structures
Can SNS be an effective learning tool to

enhance quality education? What effects are
caused on education by using SNS in trending
behavior of the youths? This research has set
its objectives and goal based on these curious
questions. Under these objectives, the first
purpose of this research is to recognize the
reason of using SNS, and studying the effects
of comprehensiveness of SNS in their daily
lives.
The goal of this research is to find out the role
of SNS in aiding the educational environment
of them by using different popular SNS, as
well as spreading the awareness to take
advantages from SNS as learning tool among
those youth who are using SNS for different
purposes. Objective of research are specified
in following points.
58
To identify the impact of social

networking service (SNS) on youths
daily activities and on their education.
To evaluate social networking service as
an effective tool to enhance educational
environment.
To promote SNSs advantages on
education to develop quality education
of youth.
1.6 Survey Area
Students of all levels studying in different

schools, colleges, universities or any
educational institutions are taken as research
area in the first phase of this research.
Nowadays, due to highly number of Nepalese
students residing in Japan, it has become the
most popular destination for Nepalese
students among 45 different countries. Recent
trend shows that more students are applying
for higher study in Japan than Australia [18].
The number of Nepalese students in Japan
increased 5.9 times between 2003 to 2011
[19].
According to the statistics of Japanese
Government Foreign Statistic 2015, recently
55,236 Nepalese live in Japan for different
purposes in which the number of students is
20,278 by 2015; the number of Nepalese
students coming to Japan has grown rapidly
over the years.
This research has allocated Tokyo city,

Saitama prefecture, Chiba prefecture and
Nagoya city/Gifu prefecture as study areas
because of large number of Nepalese students
is living in these areas. Data was collected
58% from Tokyo, 24% from Nagoya
city/Gifu prefecture, 3% from Saitama
prefecture and 2% from Chiba prefecture.
Data was collected by face to face and webbased questionnaire. Beside of allocated areas,
some other areas data was included which is
7% from Fukuoka prefecture, 3% from
Kanagawa prefecture, 1% from Okinawa
prefecture and 2% from Shizuoka prefecture.
For the research area, the purpose of selecting
more than one Prefecture/Area is because the
difficulties and impossibility of survey
limiting in one college or educational
institution for the number of Nepalese
students in an educational institution is
between 5-15 though large number of
Nepalese students are studying in Japan.
Expected data couldnt be achieved in
Saitama prefecture and Chiba prefecture due
to lack in resources of the information of
institutions where Nepalese students are
studying, Saitama, Chiba and Tokyo area are
connected prefectures and although many of
the Nepalese students are live in Saitama and
Chiba, majority of them study in Tokyo. So
the percentage of respondent in Tokyo is
highest whereas the percentage of respondent
in Saitama and Chiba are lower than expected.
Firstly, there were many Nepalese students
studying Japanese language assigned for
certain time in Japanese language colleges
and after then joining the university or other
vocational college due to language difficulties.
Figure1. Survey area (source: by Google map)
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Different educational institution of selected

survey area was divided into 3 different pilot
areas; i) Japanese language Institution, ii)
59
Vocational college, and iii) University. Data

are based on these 3 pilot areas where it was
collected: 47% from Japanese Language
Institutions, 27% from Vocational Colleges
and 26% are from Universities. Because of
course limitation to obtain language ability
which is therefore not enough credits for
admission easily in university in Japan, the
number of Nepalese students in university is
less than Japanese language institution and
vocational college as the data represents.
2. METHODOLOGY
COLLECTION
AND
DATA
Although qualitative method is given more

emphasis than quantitative in this research,
for qualitative analysis, numbers of data are
equally important to obtain qualitative results,
so both methods are used. Survey
questionnaire is considered as the main scale
to analyze and data collection. The survey
questionnaire has consists 2 section; the first
section consists 3 parts regarding to
respondents (1) general description; (2)
educational description and (3) descriptions
related to SNS.
Likewise, the second section consists 2 parts
for the analysis of SNS behavior and its
relation with education this second sections
questions are prepared based on Likert
Measurement Scale [20].
During the data collection, the data of n=96
respondents were collected face to face
whereas the data of n=56 respondents were
collected from web-based collection using
Google questionnaire form. During the
circulations of questionnaire among students,
distribution of questions was shared by a link
through Facebook page of Nepal-Japan
Student Association.
For data analysis Pivot table of Microsoft

Excel 2010 and for factor analysis IBM SPSS
statistics version 20 have been used.
In the first phase of survey, the goal of data

collection was for 150 and according to the
target respondent, 152 data were collected.
Among which shown in Table1 below,
n=110(72%) are male and n=42(28%) are
female. This researchs purpose is neither to
analyze male and female differently nor to
focused on gender perspective. Although
number of female in Nepal is higher than the
male number [7], but the number of entering
female into education institutions or their
literacy rate are lower in number than the
male. So, this study has also tried for
comparative analysis between male and
female.
As mentioned above, the 5 parts of data is

divided into 2 sections, the first section
consists 3 parts i) General Description:
general personal description ii) Educational
description: the educational activities and the
educational background of Nepalese students
studying in Japan iii) SNS general
description: for the information of using SNS
as it is the important factor of this research.
Table 1. Description of respondent
General description of total respondent

Category
Gender
Male 72%(n=110)
Female 28%(n=42)
15-20, 5% (F=4, Male=4)

Age group
Marital status
Qualification
Living period of Japan
Living purpose in Japan
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Description
21-25 , 57% (F=26, M=61)
26-30, 35% (F=12, Male=41)

30over 3% (M=4)
Married (26%), Unmarried (74%)
SLC (1%), High School (34%), Under

Graduate (47%), Master Degree (17%),
PhD (1%)
<6month (6%), <1year (22%), 1year
(9%), >1year (64%)
Study (92%), Job (7%), Other (1%)
60
Educational description of total respondent

Category
Engaged Institution
Major subject
Spending hour for study
Description
Japanese language Institute (45%),

Vocational Training School (24%),
University (26%), Other (5%)
Science (1%), IT (5%), Medical (3%),

Sociology (9%), Business/Economy
(55%), Engineering (6%), other (15%)
5-7h.(75%), 8-10h.(15%), 11-15h.(2%),

Other<>(7%)
Sufficiency time for study Sufficient (34%), Not sufficient (66%)

Satisfaction of study
Classroom activities
Environment of academy
Satisfy (37%), Neutral (32%),

Dissatisfy (30%)
Satisfy (47%), Neutral (35%),
Dissatisfy (18%)
Comfortable (58%), Neutral (20%),

Uncomfortable (21%)
Subject satisfaction
Desirable (43%), Neutral (28%),

Alternative (29%)
Academy infrastructure
Adequate (56%), Neutral (20%),

Inadequate (26%)
SNS's general description of total respondent

Category
Description
Quantity of equipment
1-2(70%), 3-5(22%), 5-7(5%), >7(3%)
PC (9%), Laptop (27%), Tablet (6%),

Technological equipment
IPad (8%), Smart Phone (50%), Other
usage
(3%)
Computer course
No (13%), Basic (34%), 6mnth (32%),

Special (20%), Other (1%)
Regarding to educational description, data

was analyzed to understand the current
academic situation and educational activities
of Nepalese student in Japan. This
information was taken to examine the
comparative
analysis
of
education
background of Nepalese youth.
2.1 Youth
Involvement
in
Networking Services (SNS)
Social
The SNS used by 152 respondents are

presented in numbers in Figure 2. As the
Facebook is most popular site among youth
85.5% out of total respondent are using
Facebook as their personal profile,
respectively Youtube (47.4%), Google+
(37.5%), Twitter (21.7%), Instagram (18.4%)
are being used by respondents as their
personal profile and other purposes. Beside
these ratios, 11.2% of respondent are using
MySpace, Pinterest, etc. There are 4.6% of
total respondent has found not using SNS as
their personal profile.
Available computer course

No (45%), Yes (53%), Other (2%)
in school
Internet availability
(academy)
No (36%), with Internet (47%),

Sufficient (18%)
Internet availability (House) No (17%), Available (83%)

Internet usage
SNS usage equipment
SNS Profile
<1(13%), 1-3(58%), 4-6(22%), 710(5%), >10(3%)
PC (6%), Laptop (21%), Tablet (6%),

IPad (6%), Smart phone (59%), Other
(2%)
No (4%), 1(51%), 2(21%), >2(24%)
Never (13%), Once in yrs (15%), Once

Ratio of Profile changing in 6 mnth (23%), Once in mnth (42%),
Once in week (3%), Daily (4%)
Involvement in friend's
groups
1-5 (54%), 6-10 (18%), 11-20(6%), 2130(9%), Others (13%)
The survey was targeted to the age group

between 15-30, however the question was
designed to be flexible for those who are
engaged in academic institution, therefore 3%
of respondent was belong to over 30 of age.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 2. SNS user ratio of total respondent
According to above graph, the number of the

Facebook users is extremely higher than other
users of SNS. An unexpected data also can be
seen in this graph in relative to Google+,
during the primary data collection it was
found that Google+ is less popular among
Nepalese youth, however the collected data
shows there are 37.5% students are using
Google+.
61
Due to less popularity of Google+, it was

expected to the number of its users is
relatively low. Even though the numbers are
high than expectations therefore, it can be
presume that respondent might be unable to
differentiate between search engine Google
and SNS Google+.
3. MEASURES OF SNS VARIABLES
3.1 Communication
Analyzed data of respondent are explained in

3 variables (behavior of SNS use by youth)
that are communication, Sharing, Finding and
Learning respectively.
Figure 3. Frequency of user to use SNS as for

communication
In terms of behaviour of youth toward SNS

use; in this finding, communication has
become initial purpose of users to use SNS.
Youths are using SNS more to communicate
with their families, friends, relatives and
classmates.
The frequency of communication with friends
has been found with 61.1(%) where 36.8(%)
are discussing their study content with their
friends and classmate. By the component of
How much you discuss your study content,
problem, homework with your friends during
the communication in SNS? there are 37%
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answered=usually, 38% answered=sometimes

and 35% answered= never. In this component
Usually have been measured in Several
times a week and Sometime measured in
Once a week to analyze the data. In spite of
the data are dominated by male respondent
with the number of 72(%) than female 27(%)
respondent, comparatively the female ratio is
high with 4% than male ratio to use SNS as
communication way.
This frequency of data shows that the use of
SNS as communication behavior has effected
to certain limit on education of the youths.
3.2 Information Sharing
In general, the information sharing is one of

the common factor of SNS, this research
consent with the frequency of 40.1(%), where
46.7(%) are usually sharing their personal
status in SNS pages. Those who are sharing
their study related content the frequency has
came out with 44.4(%), however 28.9(%)
frequency are found as in neutral component.
Comparatively male are actively participated
in SNS as information sharing behaviour with
23% than female participation. The
comparative ratio might be affected by the
greater number of total male respondent.
Figure 4. Frequency of user to use SNS as for

Information Sharing
62
In this data, youths have taken SNS

information sharing as most suitable platform
after communication. According to the
collected data, 20% have shared their
opinions or views through SNS, 19% have
mostly shared photo, music or video. When
answering the question (How often you share
your study content on your SNS profile?),
then 41% answered for sharing often whereas
29% answered for sharing sometimes. There
are 29.6% denied to share their study content
in SNS; this data might be come from those
respondents who are using SNS not for
educational purposes.
In this component Often have been
measured in Several times a week and
Sometime measured in Once a week to
analyze the data.
3.3 Finding and Learning
In hypothetical presumption; the information

can be shared for the use of other resourceful
material i.e. the respondent A intend to share
his/her study content within his/her friendship
circle through SNS then he/she has to find out
his/her desirable content of using any
resources, it may be books or study
resourceful services through internet. Due to
this behavior of using SNS by the youths, has
directly or indirectly affected on their
education and they have developed the habit
of searching the necessary source for the
subject matter. This has developed the trend
of using the educational material available on
internet. On the basis of this presumption
under this section of analysis, 32% of
respondent are using SNS as the study
purpose.
Likewise, while selecting the answers of the
question (Are you using any resourceful
sources/material with the using of SNS? Q28), the frequency has been seen with 72%
of respondent have used different sources for
information sharing. This intention can
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
enhance the finding and learning behaviour of

SNS user in terms of learning purpose.
Figure 5. Frequency of user to use SNS as for Finding

and Learning
According to this analysis of 3 variables, in

comparison to communication, though less
youth use for finding and learning purpose
however, there has been a direct effect on
finding and learning behavior while
discussing study content sharing during
communication and sharing.
Table 2. Mean and Std. Deviation of 3 variables based
on 5 measure component
Figure 6. Behavioural connection to enhance learning

environment
Above figure 6 has been shown the benefit of

3 independent variables of youth behaviour to
use SNS through the descriptive statistic of
component.
63
4. PERSPECTIVE OF RESPONDENT
TO SNS AS LEARNING TOOL
4.1 Reliability of SNS as an Important Tool
To analyze the SNS as an important tool, it

was measured with the component based on
respondent confidentiality toward SNS, their
behavior of using SNS and the effect on their
emotion of respondent. According to average
frequency, SNS as reliable important tool,
reliable=42%, Neutral constant=29% and
inconstant=28% has been obtained which
shows that more respondent has their views
regarding SNS as reliable tool.
According to above graph, under average

frequency percentage, 40% respondents have
strong view regarding to SNS as an effective
learning tool and 32.5% have neutral constant
view. Similarly, 37.4% respondents take SNS
as unsuitable to use as learning tool.
In above Statistic, the frequency of
respondent have been showing their
confidentiality towards SNS as an effective
learning tool to enhance learning environment
is nearly equal to the number of youths who
dont accept SNS for using as learning tool.
From which, there is no thoroughly agreement
of SNS as suitable learning tool. However,
using SNS during other purposes, group
discussions, sharing own opinion or finding
and learning attitude was developed which
has an essential effect to enhance educational
environment among youth user of SNS.
Figure 7. Frequency of respondent to accept the SNS

is reliable as an important tool
4.2 Reliability of SNS as a Study Tool
Similarly, the statistic obtained while

analyzing the views of respondent about the
reliability of SNS as study tool which is
shown in the Figure 8 below.
Figure8. Frequency of respondent to accept the SNS is

reliable as study tool
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Figure 9. Youth behaviours toward SNS and its

effectiveness to enhance quality education
The behavior of using of SNS among youths

has directly affected in the study through
technology in their educational development.
The behaviors of youth toward SNS has been
motivating to establish the attitude of
searching and finding, it has enhanced group
discussion and shared study content among
friendship/classmate circle and its makes
them convenience to communicate online to
offline. SNSs allow students to express
themselves, communicate and collect profiles
that highlight their talents and experiences
[21].
64
Moreover, SNS has helps to build social

relationship among different communities
youths in one network. For distance education
need a venue to connect and actively engage
with other members of the class, who they
often have never met in person, and activities
in distance education courses need to allow
for students to apply their learning to
authentic educational contexts [22]. SNS has
been seen as resourceful venue to connect one
another for social interaction, which has
become supportive tool for learning
environment.
4.3 Youth Perspective toward SNS not for
Learning Purpose
In presented data respectively, under
communication, information sharing and
finding/learning behavior, 30% of youth are
those who dont use SNS for learning purpose.
3. Users doesnt believe that SNS has

specific benefit for group discussion
4. Some of users are only spending their
leisure time to use SNS.
5. Users more believe that SNS is only
appropriate as entertainment form.
6. Users concern toward SNS as no
safety service in the privacy point of
view.
7. Users dont believe that SNS can be
an effective learning tool over
traditional learning tool.
This statistic shows the negative feelings

towards SNS of youths as learning tool.
Although there are negative aspects of SNS,
the number of using SNS for positive aspects
as learning tool is high.
5. DISCUSSION
5.1 Effects of SNS in Daily Activities of

Youth
Figure 10. Frequency of respondent to denied SNS can

be used for learning purpose.
According to the presented data, the following

points have been set as the conclusion for
those respondents, who are not using SNS for
learning purpose.
1. Users are concerned that SNS helps to

increase social and immoral crime in
real society. Therefore SNS is less
likely reliable for learning purpose.
2. SNS can helps to spread unnecessary
rumors rather than the fact.
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Considering the present context of

technological era, SNS mostly in youth have a
certain kind of domination. Using SNS has
become as the general daily work. SNS has
become an important platform among youth
for expressing feelings and personal interests,
among which Facebook has established itself
as most popular tool these days for fulfilling
such purposes of youths [25]. This research
has accepted this reality and analyzed the
effects of SNS on daily activities of youths.
According to which, among 152 respondents
92% of youths are using any of SNS services
and most of the youths use more than one
SNS. While collecting data about spending
time on internet service in one day (24hrs),
66% are using internet for 1-3 hours, 25% use
internet for 4-6 hours, 6% use internet for 710 hours and 3% use internet for more than 10
65
hours for different purposes such as

communication, profile update, sharing,
finding and learning. During analyzing the
question (How do you spend time on
internet?), 25% respondent answered by
checking to SNS profile specially Facebook
as statistic shows. From this analysis, there
has been major influence of SNS in youths
which has affected positively and negatively
on social, moral, commercial and educational
aspects of the youths. However, in todays
situation, due to the widespread and
generalization of SNS, youths are aware of
negative aspects whereas they also have
accepted it as very important supportive
element.
5.2
SNS as Essential Learning Tool to
Enhance Quality Education Among Youth
From these results of analysis of research, one
of the important tasks of youth is to spend
time on internet service. It is impossible to
imagine life without internet service among
the community of youth today. This has
shown that to certain extent of isolation of
youths from the physical social relationship
whereas by the means of virtual
communication, it shows that it has become
strong medium in making new relationship
with unknown people.
Issues have risen about SNSs causing as loss
of time or spending time in creativity of
youths, there are also disadvantages that
social networking increased the likelihood of
new risks to the self, these centering on loss
of privacy, bullying, harmful contacts and
cyber bullying [23], [24]. In the other hand,
youths have accepted that it has become the
most suitable medium in expressing personal
feelings towards other people.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
In many schools/universities of developing

and developed countries, there is adequate
management of E-learning for education. But
in educational institutions of many
developing areas, these kinds of educational
facilities are not managed properly. In the
same way, in less literate society, use of
educational material through internet is not
developed yet though the availability of
internet services in those areas. Due to the
first stage of developing of awareness of
using available educational materials from
internet in most of the districts of Nepal, it
hasnt been recognized sufficiently.
However, due to extensive behavior to use
important social networks like Facebook,
Youtube etc, searching the materials in
internet and circulating among their
friendship group circles by themselves has
helped to enhance group discussion relative to
study content which has thoroughly supported
in developing quality in their education.
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http://warse.org/pdfs/ijiti02122012.pdf.
[22] Ana-Paula Correia, Niki Davis, Intersecting
Communities of Practice in Distance Education:
The Program Team and The Outline Course
Community.
[23] Griffith, S.,Liyanage, L. An introduction to the
potential of social networking sites in education,
Proceedings of the Emerging tehnologies
Conference, University of Wollongong, 18-21
June 2008.
[24] Livingstone, S.,Brake, D.R. On the rapid rise of
social networking sites: new findings and policy
implications, Children and Society, Vol. 24, 7583.
[25] Chalaune Ankalal, Pokhrel Rabin, Social Media
in Journalism: Facebook, 2012 BMCJ-434.
[15] Kshitiz
Upadhyay-Dhungel,
Shreeram
Lamichhane, Cost and Financing Higher
Education by Nepalese Student in Australia,
Students Loans and Role of Bank in Nepal.
Banking Journal, Volume 1 (Issue 1), 2011.
[16] World Education News and Reviews, Academic
Mobility and the Education System of Nepal
2013.
[17] Nicole A. Buzzetto-More, Social Networking in
Undergraduate Education, Interdisciplinary
Journal of Information, Knowledge, and
Management. Special Section on Social
Networking, Teaching, and Learning. Volume 7,
2012.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
67
A Scheme of Resource Discovery in Reproductive Design Education

Masatoshi Imai
Department of Management Information
Kagawa Junior College
1-10 Utazu-cho, Ayautagun 769-0201 Japan
imai@kjc.ac.jp
ABSTRACT
Design education is one of the most creative topics and themes in Higher Educations and Trainings.
Students of the design education course also need to
learn both of knowledge and techniques, the former
is necessary to design some objects and the latter
are essential to utilize tools as well as equipments.
It is important to provide not only knowledge but
also techniques in efficient and effective ways.
One of the most attractive approaches to design in
Ecological and/or Recycling methods is to utilize
and discover reproductive tools and resources. It
is a good way to create some reproductive objects.
Especially, some furnitures are worth enough to be
reused and reproduced in the above ways.
This paper focuses how to utilized recycling resources and useful knowledge for design education.
And it also presents a practical scheme to utilize
Resources, Knowledge and Techniques for Design
Education in order to retrieve and discover in the
network environment.
The paper challenges to visualize practical scheme
for design process by means of comparison between usual steps in the normal design education
and special steps using Internet and network community.And it summaries to be important for design education to visualize scheme for resources
and knowledge discovery through network environment.
KEYWORDS
Visualization of Design Education, Ecological and
Recycling methods for Design, Utilization of Network Community for Retrieving and Discovering
INTRODUCTION
Education, especially Design education, needs

combination of knowledge and techniques.
Because students of the relevant education
course must have suitable knowledge to design
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Yoshiro Imai
Graduate School of Engineering
Kagawa University
2217-20 Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu 631-0396 Japan
imai@eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp
some objects as well as applicable techniques
to produce original shape and structure for the
self-designed objects.
In order to grow their knowledge and techniques during the effective course, students
and/or learners want to face some practical designing and producing situation which can provide very important experience to the relevant
students/learners. If they find them in successful results, they will really gain possession of skills, great experience, self-confidence
and more over applicable challenging spirits
for other targets.
In these cases, there may be some problems
how to support and realize their fruitful courses
and how to reduce / shorten their reasonable
periods for the total length of courses. Many
students/learners need different knowledge and
materials and they want to face several kinds
of target and plans to design and implement
their objects. This paper has focused usage
of network community to retrieve their suitable
knowledge and find their desired resources for
the sake of resolution of their problems. Network sometimes shows a lot of scenes to its
users, from domestic LAN to wide WAN i.e.
Internet. Currently, social networks become
more and more applicable for their users for
information sharing and exchanging.
This paper introduces brief comparison of conventional and our proposal design education
with network community and benefits in the
next (second) section. It explains characteristics and advantages of our practical design
education for reproductive scheme with recycling resources and its ecological style in the
third section. It also describes trial evaluation
of our design education and mentions its future
expansion for Internet-wide scale in the fourth
section. And it finally summaries our conclud68
ing remarks in the last (fifth) section.

2
COMPARISON BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND PROPOSAL DESIGN

EDUCATION
This section compares our proposal design education with a conventional one and reveal the
formers characteristics against the latters one.
At first we shows a conventional design education for furniture producing with some materials. And then we describe our approach for
proposal design education with Network Community.
2.1
Example of Real Production Process

for Furnitures
A real production process of furniture includes

the following steps;
Figure 1. Prototyping and coloring of miniature for target furniture.
prototype, however, may give someone a quality feeling so that some people say there is no
special need to utilize Virtual reality rendering
with expensive effect by computer.
1. Design of the target furniture: normally,

some prototyping is necessary in the design process. Making miniature is a
part of prototyping. It is convenient for
overviewing such a target furniture.
2. Discussion of the target furniture: Designer(s) and sale manager(s) discuss the
profile about the target furniture by means
of miniature as a prototype. Some sale
plan is to be prepared by means of prototyping, namely using miniature.
3. Production of the target furniture: After prototyping and discussing, producing process begins in accord with previous
processes. Display and trial usage will be
available with finished product(s).
Figure 1 shows prototyping a miniature of reference furniture on the work desk. In this
case, prototyping includes coloring of miniature. Suitable coloring may be good for the
sake of giving reality to miniature. Scaling of
miniature will be from 1/10 to 1/8 possibly.
Figure 2 presents the according miniature of
furniture with the same kind of miniature of
seat sofas which have been made up of foam
polystyrene because of easy forming. Such a
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 2. Display and evaluation with miniature of furniture.
Figure 3 displays a real model of furniture

which is produced based on miniature after
prototyping. A real model must be good and
useful if previous prototyping is well-discussed
and suitable enough to produce real furniture.
As comparison with Figure 2 and Figure 3, not
only designer(s) but also sale manager(s) can
feel that real production is identical with prototyped miniature. As a consequence, potential
buyers who may stand at the same position of
sale manager can recognize and decide to pay
their costs to buy the relevant furniture only
through reference of prototype. As you know,
not a few people sometimes buy products only
with reference of catalogs or online browsing,
69
dures, namely,
Designer reforms his/her original model
into a new one, which has both of a part of
the same resources of the original model
and other new parts.
The designer must decide to keep what
part of original resources and to design
others newly.
Figure 3. Production of furniture based on miniature.
instead of touching and checking real model.

2.2
Proposal Design Education for Reproduction using Network Community
Network communities have been attractive and

useful for us to perform information exchanging and sharing among the registered people
who are living in the distance[1]. If one describes some resource is unnecessary in network community, others may rely those resources must be necessary in the same community. And if one asks some questions which
need knowledge to be resolved, others may reply the relevant answers which include suitable
knowledge for resolution. Network community is one of the efficient and effective environments which can transfer information to the
relevant position/people.
In order to perform resource recycling and discovering, it is very good to utilize Network
Communities and carry out information exchanging and sharing on the networks[2][3].
In the case of our proposal design education,
recycling resources of materials has been focused and illustrated in order to reproduce
some useful products with recycled resources.
We will explain sample of utilization of Network Communities, decision making on the
networks (i.e. resource finding, knowledge obtaining to redesign, presenting by miniature,
discussing, etc.), reproduction of real model,
and evaluation.
Generally speaking, reproduction of furniture
may be included with the following proceISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
In order to decide to keep what part of

original resources, it is necessary to retrieve past results. On the other hand, in
order to decide to create new part, it may
need to search future trends, namely, prediction of trend.
The former must utilize retrieval of past
track records just like as one of Database
applications, while the latter had better
employ market research, trend watching,
questionnaire investigation for users and
so on.
Of course, it is very difficult for only one or a
few designers to manage the above procedures
efficiently. Several staffs and/or support team
must be necessary for such designer(s).
We describe schematic procedure for reproduction during Design Education using Network
Communities in order to improve effectiveness
and efficiency educational results.
In order to accomplish retrieval of past
track records, we have utilized Network
Community. Such a community can play
important roles to provide huge and excellent Database for retrieving.
We have also utilized Network Community to perform market research, trend
watching, questionnaire investigation, and
users demands. Probabilistically speaking, small size of Network Communities
may have not large demands but steady
ones even for productions.
We have employed Network Community
as suitable media to perform information
sharing and exchanging. Namely, some
70
members of Social networks may be able

to provide and/or point out both of resources and know-how for reproduction in
Design Education.
As described before, values of people may
be not similar and identical. If so, it must
have possibilities that something which is
unnecessary for someones is necessary for
other ones from the global viewpoints.
Especially, recycling will be more and
more popular in many fields and may domain. Production, such as furniture, has
relatively long lifetime such as 10 years
or more, so those resources may be useful and available for multiple generation
users. The problems are how to adjust
changes and variation of their tasty, favorites and trends.
In the next section, we will introduce detail of
recycling furniture using Network Community
as a practical example of our proposal design
education.
3
CHARACTERISTICS AND ADVANTAGES OF PROPOSAL DESIGN EDUCATION
This section demonstrates characteristics and

advantages of our proposal design education
showing practical reproduction processes of recycling furnitures as a sample problem. The
section includes workflow of reproduction of
furniture, explanation of detailed stages for
real reproduction and modeling as resource
discovery using Network Communities.
3.1
Workflow of Practical Reproduction
First of all, workflow of reproduction of furnitures can be summarized as follows. Such

workflow utilizes resources and know-how using Social networks based on Internet. All the
operations and functions are especially geared
towards Social networks and also intended for
users of such network communities.
1. Furniture Designing stage:
Analyzing needs/demands
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Choosing kinds of furnitures

Determining kinds of materials
2. Resource Finding stage:
Requesting information about furnitures to be constructed
Requesting information about materials of the furnitures
Searching resources for materials/furnitures
Obtaining information about resources
Obtaining information about resources
3. Knowledge Collecting stage:
Requesting information how to fabricate, manufacture and/or process
such resources
Searching knowledge for fabrication, manufacturing and/or processing
Obtaining knowledge about the
above techniques
Accumulating
knowledge
like
Database
4. Furniture Constructing stage:
Selecting staffs and/or work places
Pouring resources and knowhow(i.e. knowledge) into the above
factory(i.e. workplace with staffs)
Reproducing(Constructing) the relevant furniture(s)
The above workflow can be separated into 4
major stages, which includes some more detailed steps.
3.2 Reproduction Modeling for Proposal
Design Education with Resource and
Knowledge Discovery in Network
Community
We have utilized Network Community in order
to obtain Requests, Resources, Knowledge and Announcement for Modeling for
71
Proposal Design Education. Our sample is to

reproduce some furniture using Resource and
Knowledge which are retrieved and discovered
in Network Community.
First of all, we have established Human relation for Demand analysis, Trend retrieval, Decision making, and so on. Social networks are
powerful and reliable for us to achieve our aim
relatively in a short period. They are very useful and suitable to perform information sharing
and exchanging in convenient ways.
Figure 4 shows such human relation realized in Network Community such as in Campus network environment. Of course such
a community may not be limited to local
and/or domestic community in the same campus(College and/or University). It can be
more widely spread and enlarged like Social
networks, for example, Facebook[4], Mixi[5]
and/or Twitter[6]. Frankly speaking, probably
it is not necessary to restrict Social Networks to
so-called SNS(i.e. social network system like
Facebook). Twitter[6] community, Community FM (Radio Broadcasting) and other similar ones may be sufficient enough to perform
Human relation if it satisfies almost all conditions described in subsection 3.1.
In the case of reproduction of furnitures, it is
very much necessary to find useful resources
efficiently. With utilization of Network Community, finding resources can be carried out
more easily than others shown in Figure 5.
If a user asks his colleagues in Network

Community whether convenient resources exist close to your or not, some colleague replies
his/her information about according resource.
Of course, it is possible that others do not
reply in a short period nor reply only they
know nothing about such resources. Probably
suitable resources will be found potentially in
a short period through human relation established with Network Communities. This is an
example of Resource Discovery by means of
Network Community.
In the same manners, if a user wants to obtain
some tools and know-how to reproduce furnitures efficiently, he asks his colleagues, Does
anyone know where suitable tools are ? or
Does anyone have adequate information how
Figure 4. Establishment of Human Relation using Network Community.
Figure 6. Tools Discovery in Network Community.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
Figure 5. Resource Discovery in Network Community.
72
to reproduce such kind of furniture ? This

is also an example of Knowledge Discovery
by means of Network Community. Figure 6
shows that a user has obtained a necessary tool
from Network Community and he(she) can use
the relevant tool for Design Education in order
to achieve his(her) purpose and/or target in a
short period.
If a user is a beginner of our Proposal Design Education who cannot reproduce such a
furniture by himself, he may want to know
how to (re)produce good furniture with his resources. So he needs several kinds of knowledge to use resources and to handle tools effectively and efficiently. As you know, by means
of Network Community, such a user may obtain suitable know-how to achieve his(her) purpose. He (She) can reproduce furnitures with
his(her) material discovered in Network Community by means of utilization of Know-How
which can be also discovered in Network Community. Such a scheme is conceptually shown
in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Knowledge Discovery in Network Community.
Even a beginner of design education may

sometimes be brought face-to-face with some
related problems and then he(she) must retrieve/utilize Network Community and solve
them using Such communities. In the case of
reproduction of furniture as an example of design education, he(she) does really reproduce
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
furnitures with powerful supports from Network Communities. With help of good tools
and suitable knowledge how to manipulate as
well as timely discovered material, the relevant
beginner can perform his(her) duty as his(her)
task for design education to reproduce some
kinds of furnitures
Figure 8. Reproducing Furniture by means of Tools and

Knowledge using Obtained from Network Community.
Figure 8 shows that even a beginner can reproduce furniture by means of by means of tools
and knowledge discovered in Network Community. And he/she can accumulate not only
all necessary techniques for tool manipulation
but also knowledge about furniture reproduction through practical experience to use Network Community as well as to utilize resource,
tool(s) and knowledge.
If needs are not very few, the next demands
about furniture reproduction may occur potentially. Such demands are steady and continuous so that it may be necessary to prepare some
market research and securement of materials
which are not only unused resources but also
newly created ones.
4 QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE
EVALUATION
This section explains two types of evaluation,
the former is based on Reproductive Design
Education of Furnitures using Social Networks
and the latter is based on statistical analysis.
73
4.1
Qualitative Evaluation for Reproduction of Furniture as Recycling Resources
As evaluation of reproduction of furnitures

described above, we explain the following
three items, namely cost-performance, feasibility study and human-relation based activity.
cost-performance:
Recycling of resources is positive but necessity to transport
tools/resources/products is negative.
The former is a good effect for ecology, cost-saving, and environmental protection. Resources for furnitures are almost woods so their recycling can reduce
some impacts from deforestation. Recycling also brings cost-saving normally.
The latter is a bad effect for emissions of
carbon dioxide through traffic increasing
and all-too-easy way of borrowing tools
and know-how. Emission of carbon dioxide must increase by means of transporting resources and tools. If an imprudent person wants to participate in such
Network Community, he/she frequently
raises troubles based on borrowing tools
and know-how in easier ways than other
conventional approaches.
feasibility study:
Our viewpoint for reproduction of furnitures stands for the very best case to be
performed. If some conditions are not satisfied, such reproduction cannot continue
any more.
For example, resources are necessary to
be supplied in a low cost (although paying transport dues) and Network Community kindly provide know-how about relevant requests from users. In order to keep
and satisfy the above conditions, we need
to maintain and expand(= grown up) suitable human relation on Network Community. This may be one of most difficult
problems!
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
human-relation based activity:

Utilization of Social networks itself must
be a good idea and it can be expected to
make our life styles more fruitful. Although one person does not carry out
works, many persons can perform such
works probabilistically. Namely, activities based on human relation will be identical to times of single persons activity.
It may be expected to have synergistic effect based on human relation through our
practical experiences[8][?]. Anyway, it is
necessary to lay out a well-suited goal
to contribute to the maintenance of human
relation on Social networks.
The above discussion has been limited to
reproduction of furniture with recycling resources and tools/knowledge. But our concept
may be applicable in other target of reproductive design education and finally (hopefully but
probably) suitable in practical design education schemes.
4.2 Quantitative Evaluation by means of
Statistical Analysis
We have asked five learners in reproductive design education to report their correlation between behaviors in SNS access and satisfaction
level based on SNS utilization for reproductive
design education. This means whether it is useful for learners to satisfy utilities of SNS for
their practical reproductive design education.
It is shown in Table 1.
For example, as shown in Table 1, each learner

receives two types of projects and his/her maximal access times for SNS is 5 and his/her satisfaction level is expressed from 1 to 5 (1: bad,
5: very satisfied).
Table 2 shows correlation between access
times of SNS by Learner and satisfaction level.
We think that this may have been a trial evaluation about SNS-based reproductive design education, because the more times of SNS access
74
Table 1. SNS access times and Satisfaction level of

learners.
Name
Project 1
Project 2
Learner
ID
times* level** times* level**
#01
2
2
3
4
#02
3
3
4
4
#03
5
4
5
5
4
5
4
4
#04
#05
2
2
3
3
times* = SNS access time; level** =
Satisfaction level.
Table 2. Correlation between SNS access times and Satisfaction level.
access
times
1
2
3
4
5
Satisfaction level
1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
0 2 0 0 0
0 0 2 1 0
0 0 0 2 1
0 0 0 1 1
are increasing, the higher level of satisfaction

is obtained by learner. So we have applied statistical analysis to Table 2 as a trial quantitative
evaluation for effectiveness of SNS utilization
during reproductive design education. Table 3
is a reduced version of Table 2.
Table 3. Reduced Version of Table 2.
access
times
2
3
4
5
sum
Satisfaction level
2 3 4
5
sum
2 0 0
0
2
0 2 1
0
3
0 0 2
1
3
0 0 1
1
2
2 2 4
2
10
In order to confirm that our approach is

significantly effective, we will perform chisquare(2 )-test for Table 3 as one of statistical analysis. The procedure is demonstrated as
follows;
1. Calculating 2 , namely
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
2 = (2 2 2/10)2 /(2 2/10)

+(0 2 2/10)2 /(2 2/10) +
+(1 2 2/10)2 /(2 2/10)

2. Obtaining 2 = 15.92
3. Degree of freedom of Table 3 is (4 1)
(4 1) = 9
4. From 2 -distribution table, we can get
chi-square percentile with degree-offreedom = 9 at the 5% significance level
and 10% one as follows;
20.05 (9) = 16.9 and
20.10 (9) = 14.7,
respectively.
In the above results of chi-square-testing, we
can describe the following;
If H01 : Our approach is not useful at the
significance level ( = 0.05) is a null
hypothesis,
based on expression:
2 = 15.92 < 20.05 (9) = 16.9,
at the 5% significance level, H01 cannot
be rejected.
Therefore, it can not be confirmed that
SNS-access times (namely, utilization of
SNS services ) are significantly dependent
on obtaining satisfaction of learners at the
significance level ( = 0.05).
However, if H02 : Our approach is not useful at the significance level ( = 0.10) is
another null hypothesis,
based on expression:
2 = 15.92 > 20.10 (9) = 14.7,
at the 10% significance level, H02 can be
surely rejected.
So, it can be confirmed that SNS-access
times (namely, utilization of SNS services) are significantly dependent in obtaining satisfaction at the significance
level ( = 0.10) in turn.
75
Of course, we have recognized the above result

based on the difference of significance level
and its influence to our quantitative evaluation.
Reproductive Design Education has just only
begun and it is one of challenging approaches
to ecological and collaborative design. At the
viewpoint of effect and efficience, social networks and Network Community can be expected to support Reproductive Design Education by means of the above qualitative quantitative evaluation.
time for possible improvements and more contribution, our near future issue about this research will be summarized as follows;
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CONCLUSIONS
The paper has described the detail of recycling

resource and tools for reproductive design education using Network Community.
As a consequence, utilization of Resources,
Tools and Knowledge(know-how), through recycling materials of furnitures for reproductive
design education, results in very much important and significant values to the relevant Network Community and more over Social Network based on Internet.
With the above discussion, it can be summarized in this paper as follows:
Reproductive Design Education has the
effect of recycling, ecology and cost saving.
Reproduction of furnitures, itself, as an
example of Proposal Design Education
can play a certain role of utilization of
Resource and Knowledge from Network
Communities.
Reproduction and recycling with support
from networks seems to be some case
study of Resource and Knowledge Discovery using Network Community.
Qualitative and quantitative evaluation
have been applied and some characteristics of results are obtained in order to improve reproductive design education using
SNS useful services.
As our reviewers comment, namely, The
overall contribution is acceptable. However, if
I am the author, I will go through it one more
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
We should apply our approach to more

numbers of users in order to make sure of
our strategy in the same ways.
We must analyze those results from the
above trial for justification of our approach and its feasible improvement for
more suitable utilization.
The authors would like to express their thanks

to Dr. Yoshio Moritoh, department head of Kagawa Junior College, Japan for his kind and
continuous supports. They are also thankful to
an anonymous reviewer for good suggestions.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Chakrabarti, M. Van Den Berg, B. Dom: Focused
crawling: A new approach to topic-specific Web resource discovery. Computer Networks, Vol. 31, No.
11, pp. 1623 1640 (1999)
[2] T.J. F. Colella, K. M. King: Peer support. An underrecognized resource in cardiac recovery. European
Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp.
211 217 (2004)
[3] C. White, L. Plotnick, J. Kushma, S. R. Hiltz, M.
Turoff: An online social network for emergency
management. International Journal of Emergency
Management, Vol. 6, No. 3-4, pp. 369 382 (2009)
[4] http://www.facebook.com/.
[5] http://mixi.jp/.
[6] http://twitter.com/.
[7] M. Imai, Y. Imai: Recycling Resource of Furnitures for Reproductive Design with Support of Internet Community: - A Case Study of Resource
and Knowledge Discovery Using Social Networks-.
A. Abd Manaf et al. (Eds.): Proceedings of ICIEIS
2011(@Kuala Lumpur), Part III, CCIS 253, pp. 49
61 (November, 2011)
[8] M. Imai, Y. Imai, T. Hattori: Collaborative design and its evaluation through Kansei engineering
approach, International Journal of Artificial Life
and Robotics, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 233 240 (2013)
76
Exploration of New Methods of Ideological and Political Education for College

Students: Integration of New Media and Construction of Micro-environment
Yang Wucheng
College of Arts, China University of Petroleum (Huadong),
No. 66 Changjiang Western Road, Economic and Technological Development Zone,
Qingdao city,Shandong Province, China. Zip Code:266580
yangwucheng@upc.edu.cn
Cheng Ling
College of Computer & Communication Engineering, China University of Petroleum (Huadong),
Qingdao, Shandong, China. chengling@upc.edu.cn
Liu Fan
College of Arts, China University of Petroleum (Huadong), Qingdao, Shandong, China.
812376455@qq.com
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
With the development and improvement of network
technology, new media technology such as network
and mobile phone has penetrated more widely into
every aspect of college students learning and
outdoor activities than traditional media like
campus newspaper, campus broadcast and campus
television, and this has brought about great changes
in the mode of thinking and behavior of college
students. While the unbelievable transmission speed
of new media, the diversity of its transmission
content and the exponential growth of its influence
offer new opportunities for the ideological and
political education of college students, the depravity
of speech power, the low degree of authenticity and
the difficulty of supervision in new media also
present severe challenges to the education. In order
to keep abreast with time in the era of new media
and better carry on the ideological and political
education of college students, educators should
change their educational ideas, integrate effectively
new media resources, set up new media network
platform, create a proactive micro-environment,
establish a flexible regulatory mechanism,
strengthen comprehensively the construction of new
media team, and constantly innovate the methods,
measures and approaches of their ideological and
political education.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
new media, university, college students, ideological

and political education, micro-environment.
1 CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGICAL AND

POLITICAL EDUCATION IN THE ERA
OF NEW MEDIA
New media refers to the transmission media
emerging and growing fast with the
development of network technology and it
mainly includes online public interaction
platforms and instant message tools for group
communication such as Microblog, We-chat,
Fetion, Yshon, QQ, Renren and MSN. The
transmission of new media information mainly
depends on network technology, digital
technology and mobile communication
technology that provide information and
service to receivers through computers and
mobile phones. Ideological and political
education in the era of new media means
innovation in methods of ideological and
political education with the rapid development
of new media by actively making use of
features and advantages of newly-born media.
It strengthens the education and guidance for
77
college students in modern times on their views

of world, life and value through promoting the
construction of online platforms and we-media,
and thus conducting ideological and political
education and shaping students characters to
help them build correct ideological and
political views and cultivate sound moral trait.
2 FEATURES OF IDEOLOGICAL AND
POLITICAL EDUCATION IN THE ERA
OF NEW MEDIA
fact that new media makes breakthrough by

replacing the linear information transmitting
model, namely the point-to-point model, with a
joint model of point-to-point, point-to-surface
and surface-to-surface, by which everyone can
be information releaser and the teacher-sourced
model can be altered. The increase of
information source leads to the increase of
information amount, so plenty of information
can be received by students to cultivate their
characters and morals.
2.1 Instantaneity of Transmission
2.3 Educational Penetrability
Traditional ways of information transmission

for ideological and political education in
universities concern five steps: information
collection, transmission, edition, review and
release, while in the era of new media, the
problem like movement of information
receiving equipment has been solved by using
the 3G and 4G technology. Transmission
platforms in pockets like the mobile phone
make the transmission and receiving of
information free from restrictions in time and
space.
Information
can
be
shared
instantaneously by just one click, so the steps
of information release can be reduced to two:
information collection and release. In this way,
the inefficiency of traditional ways of
ideological and political education can be
avoided, and the education of students can be
conducted at anytime and anywhere.
Traditional media in schools such as campus

newspapers, TV channel and radio broadcast
have an apparent feature that they are
respectively objective-oriented while building
intellectual milieu for ideological and political
education. Although this model can build
intellectual milieu intensively and extensively,
it is likely to be refused by college students and
cannot achieve sound educational effect.
Unlike traditional ones, new media transmit
information among students, so strong
penetrability is one of its features
distinguishing it from the traditional methods.
While the students are transmitting information,
they build intellectual milieu without awareness,
and students in each part will be affected
unconsciously. A recessive way of education
like this is more acceptable to college students,
therefore when using school media to build
intellectual milieu, both the methods should be
adopted to build one with wide coverage, and
authoritativeness and fairness should be
combined to enhance the influence of
ideological and political education.
2.2 Diversity of Content

The instantaneity of information transmission
by new media contributes to increase in
updating rate of education content. It helps to
increase the speed of updating transmitted
content dramatically, making fresh and timely
educational information transmit to receivers,
i.e. college students, without interruption and
delay. The diversity of content also lies in the
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
2.4 Interactivity of Process

The most distinctive feature of traditional
ideological and political education in
universities lies in its linear and unidirectional
78
model which puts great emphasis on the

dominant role of teachers. In this kind of model,
students are in objective position and receive
information from teachers passively. In the era
of new media, everyone can be both the
releaser and receiver of information. Students
and teachers can communicate equally on an
online platform and students have the right to
choose the content and ways of learning and
the channels to express their own views and
will, and thus it build a favorable platform for
students and teachers to communicate.[1] In
this way, the fixed role of educator and
educatee is changed and a passive educational
model is turned into an interactive one.
replacing the point-to-point model with a new

model
that
combines
point-to-point,
point-to-surface and surface-to-surface, making
information be copied and transmitted in a
geo-metric way. Meng Bo, the deputy
editor-in-chief of Sina Weibo, describes this
penetration between people and groups as the
fission, whose feature contributes to the
maximization of its influencing coverage.
3 DIFFICULTIES OF IDEOLOGICAL
AND POLITICAL EDUCATION IN THE
ERA OF NEW MEDIA
3.1 Loss of Speech Power and Trouble of
Participation
2.5 Fissility of Influence

The flattening of transmission methods of
content of ideological and political education
makes the influence of education fissionable.
Flattening of information transmission means
that in every node of the information
transmission, each individual with mobile
equipment can be a center transmitting or
receiving
information.
In
this
case,
transmission will no longer be a top-down and
unidirectional activity but a reticular and
bidirectional one. The flattening structure allow
more and more people to be involved in the
process of information transmission, turning
those who are watching the process into
participants and dramatically increasing the
effect of information transmission. In addition,
new media unite the transmitting media,
individuals and public platforms into one so the
roles of information releaser and receiver
become inter-convertible, over-lapping and
increasingly blurred. Once information is
released, it can be noticed and shared by the
fans of the releaser, whose fans will also do the
same, so every fan can either be the receiver or
the
releaser of information. This
transmission model makes breakthrough by
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
In the era of new media, students turn into the

combination of information receiver and
releaser from their initial roles of receiver only,
and the turning breaks the monopoly of
universities. The realization of ideological and
political education for college students
becomes more penetrable and recessive,
changing
from
university-oriented
to
students-oriented and putting more emphasis on
the dominant role of students. In order to better
fulfill the duty of universities to conduct
ideological and political education students and
sub-culture created by them should be involved.
Due to lack of language system for new media,
however, students are still not involved in real
terms.
Discrepancy between network language and
ordinary language leads to difficulties for
language system of traditional ideological and
political education.[2] The great difference of
the sub-culture created by new media and the
one of traditional ideological and political
education lies in language discrepancy.
Liberalness, changefulness and casualness are
the major features of new media language. In
using new media, students tend to create and
79
use some novel even reasonless words to

communicate with each other. These words are
far from being serious, standard and fixed as
language of ideological and political education
in universities. Discrepancy between the two
language systems makes it too difficult for
universities to understand the ideological state
of students and to provide timely and proper
guidance for students. Meanwhile, discrepancy
between the two language systems also makes
students find it hard to accept language of
traditional ideological and political education,
even refuse it.[3]
Discrepancy in communication modes also
affect greatly the merging of traditional
ideological and political education into the
language system of students in the era of new
media. Traditional ideological and political
education is carried out in classrooms with
teachers in a dominant position and students in
a subordinated position. Yet in the sub-culture
created by students, college students tend to do
that in virtual space on internet platforms
through various chat tools or BBS. They, in
particular, are likely to gain knowledge and
receive education by sensible multimedia.[4] In
the network age, the great discrepancy between
the two language systems results in hardship
for the one of traditional ideological and
political education.
3.2 Unicity vs. Diversity and Difficulty of
Guidance
Multielement and dispersity of intellectual
milieu by new media collide with unicity of
mainstream ideology, which leads to increasing
difficulty for public opinion guidance in
universities. The improvement of new media
technology
contributes
to
the
rapid
development of we-media represented by
micro-blog and wechat and so on, through
which people of different ethnic groups and
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
culture manage to exchange their knowledge

and opinions on the public platform.
Ideological and political education for college
students is faced with polybasic ideologies and
diversified values instead of being conducted in
an enclosed intellectual milieu. The network,
being influenced by various standards of value,
exerts effect on the cultivation of students
proper views on the world, life and value.[5]
Unlike the diversity and dispersity of public
opinions in the era of new media, universities
make great efforts to build intellectual milieu in
accordance with the mainstream ideology for
purpose of ensuring proper nurture of students
views and their positive development. This
situation makes it necessary for universities to
handle properly the relation between diversity
and unicity, using network platform to
publicize positive opinions and culture and to
resist steadfastly incorrect ideas, thus improve
the range and flexibility of ideological and
political education in universities.
3.3 Complexity of Information and Difficulty
of Supervision
In the era of new media, randomicity of
information release and transmission leads to
increasing difficulty for ideological and
political education in universities. College
students, as the principal part of using new
media, are receiver and transmitter of
information, which improves their original
position as the receiver only and change the
unidirectional model of traditional transmitter.
However, due to simplification of steps like
review, any information can be shared on the
public platform through we-media, resulting in
abuse of transmitting right. Lots of untrue, false
even vulgar information is released to attract
the public, which exerts abominable influence
on the social conduct. The lack of restriction
for transmission makes information release
80
easier and more casual, which leads to the

diversity and disorder of information.[6]
The
fragmentization
of
information
transmission leads to its authenticity. Most new
media such as micro-blog and We-chat require
releasers issuing messages with few words, and
the limitation of words makes information
incomplete and appear fragmented. False even
unhealthy information is transmitted due to
lack of knowledge of first-hand information.
Consequently, the result of information
transmission is far from the intention of the
original one, namely, the information loses its
authenticity and reliability during the process.
4 MEASURES TO BE ADOPTED FOR
IDEOLOGICAL
AND
POLITICAL
EDUCATION IN UNIVERSITIES
4.1 Setting up New Platform and Building a
Multi-dimensional and Interactive System
with Timely Attention for Ideological and
Political Education
Ideological and political education for college
students should be adjusted to the trend of
development in the era of new media and
educational activities of various forms and with
profound significance should be carried out by
actively studying and using new media to build
a multi-demensional system of ideological and
political education for college students.
First of all, application platforms need to be
built to operate smoothly the third classroom
of ideological and political education for
college students. Efforts need to be made to
create the third classroom with functions like
publicity,
education,
communication,
management, service and supervision by using
new media such as We-chat, micro-blog, QQ
groups and Renren. With the help of the third
classroom, the depth and range of ideological
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
and political education can be promoted in

terms of time and space respectively and the
goal of two promotion and three progresses
can be realized, i.e. to promote appeal of
educational work by new forms and to promote
influence by new content; to make progress in
the informatization, digitization of ideological
and political education and make it more
efficient.
Secondly, universities need to be involved in
the public platform and make a positive
environment for college ideological and
political education. Universities should make
full use of the interactiveness of new media
instead of being self-indulgent while
conducting ideological and political education
and integrate themselves with students and
students groups to grasp their ideas timely
through new media. Educators should keep
their eyes on students BBS actively to grasp
their states of mind timely and to strengthen
communication with students, correcting
unhealthy ideas online, finding problems and
their solutions timely.[7] In this way,
universities can follow the development of
students idea, take the initiative of ideological
and political education and conduct more
targeted education.
Thirdly, universities need to improve
management platform and the triple one
projects, i.e. one subject, one feature and one
guidance, to promote the scientific nature of
ideological and political education for college
students. One subject means that universities
should regard students as the dominance and
focus on their position as managerial subject
while taking them as the subject of education,
selecting some students cadres and Party
members as the administrator of official
account of new media. Information should be
selected, edited and shared from the perspective
of students and be more closed to students life
81
to promote their participation. One feature

refers to humanization, i.e. improving
serviceability of new media platform.
Delightful and healthy content such as notice,
announcement,
festival
blessings
and
touching events can be shared at different parts
of
public
platforms
like
official
information, life tips and warm space to
make the management platform more
humanized. One guidance means strengthening
the construction of intellectual milieu.
Universities, while taking students as the
subject, should strengthen their guidance of the
general direction and environment of public
opinions,
realizing
self-education
and
self-management of students to make sure that
new media provide service for ideological and
political education more scientifically and more
effectively.
4.2 Eliminating Language Discrepancy and
Grasping Speech Power to Build the
Common Domain for Ideological and
Political Education
A major reason for the failure of universities to
make use of new media to conduct ideological
and political education is the lack of speech
power. On account of the lack of common
language, common topic and common beliefs,
it is difficult for educators to influence
educatees deep down, so the goal of education
cannot be fully achieved. Eliminating language
discrepancy between educators and educatees,
building the common domain and grasping
firmly the speech power of ideological and
political education in universities is of great
necessity for making the education more
efficient.
Firstly, educators should be familiar with online
language and eliminate language discrepancy in
communication. Unlike the language of
traditional ideological and political education
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
which is serious and fixed, online language is

much freer. Ideological and political educators
should keep up with the development in
internet age, update their existing knowledge
structure, idea framework and language system
and adopt language and form that can be
accepted by college students to convey
effectively the content of ideological and
political education.[8] Only in this way can
educators merge into students and grasp their
ideas to make ideological and political
education online work smoothly.
Secondly, educators should organize new types
of activities and build a common domain
between educators and educatees to eliminate
discrepancy
in
communicating
topics.
Educators, after grasping students new state,
should organize activities delightful for
students abiding by principles of close to
actuality, close to life and close to students.
By making students and educators in the same
environment,
educators
can
reduce
psychological distance between them and gain
speech power through activities so as to build a
healthy and positive micro-environment and
pass on positive thoughts.
Thirdly, educators should change their
educational ideas and put emphasis on equal
communication to eliminate psychological
distance between educators and educatees. In
the era of new media, the equality of online
subject makes it necessary for educators to
communicate with students equally. Educators
should aim to change their ideas and roles
while conducting ideological and political
education for college students, exchanging
ideas and communicating with college students
equally and in a friend-like way, guiding them
to make criticism on internet culture
independently and cultivating their abilities to
tell right from wrong to help college students to
build proper views on the world and life.[9]
82
4.3 Using Unicity to Facilitate Diversity and

Strengthening Guidance to Build a
Micro-environment for Ideological and
Political Education in Universities
Universities, in order to ensure the smooth
conducting of ideological and political
education in the era of new media, should
handle properly the relation between the
diversity and dispersity of intellectual milieu
and the unicity and centricity of mainstream
ideology and guide correctly the online
environment of new media. It is necessary to
handle properly the relation between unicity
and diversity for building micro-environment
and strengthening guidance of intellectual
milieu. Firstly, universities should adhere to the
principle of openness and inclusiveness and
activate the atmosphere of new media culture
online. Online atmosphere needs to be activated
by being inclusive to different views on the
internet and allowing various opinions on one
issue by different people. Secondly, a positive
micro-environment for ideological and political
education needs to be built by using unicity to
facilitate diversity and strengthening guidance.
However, stay opening does not mean that
there will be no control and that students view
on the world, life and value will be diversified.
The dominant role of mainstream ideology
must be highlighted while promoting the
expansion and flexibility of cultural atmosphere
online
in
universities.
A
positive
micro-environment needs to be built by using
unicity to integrate and guide diversity.
4.4
Strengthening
Management
and
Combining Mild and Forcible Measures to
Build a Flexible Supervision Platform of
Prevention
In the face of a mixture of healthy and harmful
information, ideological and political educators
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
in universities must build an effective

supervision system and combine mild measures
with forcible ones to eliminate harmful
information online and build a positive and
healthy environment for ideological and
political education online for better guiding
students to improve their ideological and
political level.
Firstly, universities should build specialized
institutions for managing internet information
and strengthen supervision and checking of
information security on new media platforms.
Transmission of information by students and
their ideological state should be supervised and
noticed to prevent transmission of harmful
information.
Meanwhile,
sources
of
information needs rectification by correcting
rumor and false information on new media
platforms to guide public opinions in proper
direction, to maintain campus internet security
and to stabilize students ideological state.
Secondly, universities should use forcible
regulations and improve the regulatory system.
A thorough system of internet management
needs to be built to provide regulatory
guarantee for online work of ideological and
political education in universities. Prominence
should be given to a reward and punishment
system, listing correct and healthy information
that pass on positive thoughts on the top and
giving praise and reward while criticizing
online activities conveying false information on
purpose to build a healthy micro-environment
and promote sound development of cyberenvironment on campus.
Thirdly, universities should take actively the
mild measures for ideological education and
build a good public platform of new media in
universities. Universities, in face of new media,
should adjust themselves to the trend of its
development, following proper direction and
83
carrying forward mainstream ideology in

society. Ideological and political educators in
universities can interact with students to grasp
their ideological state by building official
platforms on Weibo and We-chat so as to make
ideological and political education more
targeted and timely. Besides, universities can
convey vivid content of ideological and
political education to students by publicizing
healthy, correct and positive ideas on public
platforms, which expands students approaches
to gain information as well as enriches campus
culture.
4.5 Strengthening New Media Team Building
by Taking Students as the Subject and
Universities as the Guide
Firstly, universities should put emphasis on the
dominant role of students and build new media
teams with students as the essential part. When
exploring and using new media, students
should be taken as the essential part of
construction, education and participation.
Official new media, such as Weibo and We-chat,
should be managed directly by students
because they know the best students demand
and heated issues of students interest, which
can reduce the psychological distance with
other students to the uttermost, better take
students as the subject of education and meet
students demand. In this way, universities can,
to the uttermost, attract students to take part in
the construction of public opinion and
ideological guidance and better conduct the
ideological and political education for them.
Secondly, universities should be in a dominant
position to strengthen the regulation of new
media content and the guidance of constructing
intellectual milieu. Management of new media
by students does not mean deficiency of
universities function. On the contrary,
universities
should
strengthen
their
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
involvement in the construction of intellectual

milieu.
Universities leading
role
is
demonstrated by the fact that they are building
the general environment of ideological and
political education through traditional media to
stimulate and guide the content and direction of
new media and that they rectify the sources of
information. Various sub-intellectual milieu
will formed due to different interest groups in
universities and different views on school and
society events will come into being within
different sub-intellectual milieu, therefore,
universities are responsible for rectifying the
information sources that are incorrect, partial
and even radical to eliminate students doubt
and maintain the purity of campus environment
for ideological and political education. Finally,
universities leading role is demonstrated by
their cultivation of students ability to use new
media. Only by catering to students can
measures like the guidance of traditional media
and the bringing in of new media exert positive
effect, so universities should strengthen the
education to improve students ability to use
new media and to tell truth from falseness and
enhance their attitude to pass on positive
thoughts so as to make students participate
more actively in construction of the
environment for ideological and political
education. By using participation to promote
education, universities can achieve ultimately
the goal of conducting ideological and political
education for college students.
5 CONCLUSION
Ideological and political educators are faced
with new opportunities and challenges in the
era of new media. In order to build a better
intellectual milieu, universities must insist on
guaranteeing the dominant position of Marxist,
correct, scientific, civilized and healthy content
on the internet to fulfill the duty of online
platforms for ideological and political
84
education and strengthening the regulation and

management of websites to purify cyber
environment and to eliminate harmful
information online. Meanwhile, universities
should make use of the features of internet
proactively, make ideological and political
education more targeted and timely and pass on
positive thoughts continuously, guiding the
healthy development of college students
ideology and making efforts to cultivate better
talents.
2014(4): 123
[9] X. Lv & H. Sun, The Network Position
Construction to Strengthen Political Education in
Colleges and Universities Education Effectiveness
Study, Chinese Newspaper, vol. 7, pp. 128.
.
[J].2011(7):128
REFERENCES
[1] L.Yang,The
Current
Problems
and
Countermeasures
of
University
Network
Ideological and Political Education Work, Theory
Observation, vol. 1, pp. 136, 2014.
.
[J].20141:136.
Study, Chinese Newspaper, vol. 7, pp. 127-128.
.
[J].2011(7):127
.
[J].2011(7):127-128.
.
[J].2011(7):127-128.
[5] Y. H. Li, Practical Exploration of Ideological and
Political Education into Network. Shanxi
Provincial Party Committee Party School Journal,
in press. 2014(4):122-123.
.[J].
2014(4):122-123.
[6] Z. H. Zha, X. Gao, X. Li, S. Xia, & Q. Huang,
Opportunities, Challenges and Countermeasures
Faced by Party Construction in Colleges and
Universities in the Network New Media
Background, Theory Guides, vol. 8, pp. 51, 2010.
.
[J].
2010(8):51..
in press. 2014(4): 123.
.[J].
2014(4): 123
in press. 2014(4):123.
.[J].
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC
85
A Secure Paperless Assessment Software QuestionMark Perception

Ayyub Ali Patel
Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, King Khalid University.
Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, P.O. Box 641, ABHA, Zipcode
61421, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
hafizayyub@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Many universities in the Kingdom are supporting

course delivery and course assessment by learning
management systems (LMS) such as Blackboard.
Questionmark Perception (QMP) allows authoring,
management, scheduled delivery, reporting, and
analysis of examinations. This tool was tested with
level three medical biochemistry students in the
College of Medicine, King Khalid University
during semesters I and II (2013/2014). The tool was
evaluated to provide analysis on the final theory
exam according to medical education guidelines.
QMP was used to prepare the question papers for
two exams wherein 291 students (193 boys and 98
girls) took the exam. QMP authoring manager was
used to collect the required questions for the exams.
Questions were all multiple choices type 1.
Selected questions were then used to create the
assessment and randomized both in terms of the
stem and the choices at the time of delivery. QMP
reporter was used to provide statistical analysis of
the questions and student performance. All the
students completed the online exam well in time.
This exam represented 35% of the total grade. QMP
analysis for the two online exams was very similar
with most of the questions being moderately
difficult and had a Cronbachs Alpha reliability
index of 0.88.
Web-based learning approach is opening all gates

for current teaching and learning processes in
higher education. Several educational institutions
worldwide have adopted different course
management systems (CMS). These platforms
facilitate almost all facets of online teaching and
assessing students [1-4]. In Saudi Arabia, such
systems were introduced to support course delivery
and course assessment by using e-Learning and
learning management systems (LMS) such as
Blackboard [5,6]. Questionmark Perception (QMP)
is a powerful collaborative add-on tool that
provides an offline/online independent assessment
tool for tests, surveys and exams. This powerful
tool allows authoring, management, scheduled
delivery, reporting, and analysis of tests and
examinations [7, 8] as illustrated in Figure 1.
CREATE
REPORT
ANALYZE
SELECT
DELIVER
Figure 1: Questionmark Perception collaborative question

bank creation, item selection for assessment, scheduled
delivery, post assessment analysis and reporting loop.
KEYWORDS
Assessment, Blackboard, Questionmark
Perception, Analysis, Online.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
The Questionmark Perception licensed software

can be divided into three parts. The first part is an
offline/online Windows software called Author
Manager (version 5.7, 2015). It runs on the
Microsoft Windows platform and allows authoring
of more than 20 different types of questions, all
86
collected and stored in local or remote databases

called repositories. The second part of QMP is
online and involves a dedicated local or remote web
server where selected questions for assessments are
imported/exported. QMP is then integrated with the
LMS, allowing scheduled assessments deployment.
Once the assessments have been deployed and
delivered to learners, the results are then collected
by the third part of QMP. This is the analysis and
reporting part. The results data collected can be
analyzed and more than 11 different types of
statistical reports can be generated. This part is also
online by gaining secure access to the QMP web
server [9].
Electronic online assessment tools such as QMP
have many advantages over traditional paper-based
assessments. They save paper and are not limited
to time and place. They provide feedback to
educators as well as learners. If assessments are
limited to algorithm based grading, e.g. multiple
choice, multiple answer, true/false and matching
questions, the results can be provided almost
immediately. Over time, they are also cost and
labor effective. However, the initial infrastructure
setup may be expensive, and staff and student
reluctance or fear of use, stable internet connections
and the lack of timely technical support can pose a
hindrance to its use [10].
Aim of the Study
To test and tryout the QMP tool with level three
medical biochemistry students in the College of
Medicine, King Khalid University during
semesters I and II (2013/2014). In particular, the
tool will be tested to provide analysis on the final
theory exam and the items used in assessment
according to the college medical education
department guidelines.
2. METHODS
QMP was used to prepare the question papers for
two exams conducted for level three medical
biochemistry students in the medical college during
semesters I and II (2013/2014) wherein, 291
students (193 boys and 98 girls) took the exam.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
QMP authoring manager was used to collect the

required questions for the exam. The offline version
of the software was used in order to make sure that
questions remain in a private personal computer
until such a time when they were needed for the
online exam. It also allowed the staff exam
committee of the department to discuss each
question in detail, amend and edit questions as
deemed appropriate. The type of questions for the
final exams was multiple choices with one best
answer MCQ-1). Selected questions were then used
to create the assessment and randomized both in
terms of the stem and the choices at the time of
delivery. The exams were conducted in two
different campuses simultaneously (boys and girls)
and were totally online. QMP reporter was used to
provide statistical analysis of the questions and
student performance.
3. RESULTS
The exams went smoothly without any problems.
All students completed the online exams well in
time. No offline, on-paper examinations were
required. The online electronic exams represented
35% of the total grade. The overall results
(continuous assessments and final practical and
theory exams) for semester I and II were as follows:
Grade A, 24 (8.2%), Grade B (21.0%), Grade C,
100 (34.4%), Grade D, 84 (28.9%), Grade F, 22
(7.6%). QMP questions statistics and item analyses
for the two online exams were very similar with
most of the questions being easy to moderately
difficult (Table 1 & Figure 2) while others were
satisfactory, some modifications may be required,
or completely revised with respect to item
discrimination (Table 2 & Figure 3). The
Cronbachs Alpha reliability index was 0.88 for
both exams indicating excellent internal
consistency [11-13].
Table 1: Number of Question (70) in the various categories
of difficulty factor for the two final exams conducted by
QMP.
Semester
Semester 1
Semester 2
Easy
15
17
Moderate Difficult
53
48
2
5
87
Table 2: Number of Question in the various categories of recommended discrimination in the two final exams conducted by QMP [14]
D Range
Interpretation
0.4 1.0
Satisfactory
Discrimination
Some revision may be
required
Need revision
Removed or completely
revised
0.3 0.4
0.2 0.3
-1.0 0.2
Semester 1
Qs in the %
exam
Discrimination
29
42%
Qs in the
exam
21
Semester 2
%
Discrimination
30%
18
26%
20
29%
13
10
18%
14%
13
16
19%
22%
Figure 2: Shows item difficulty and discrimination indices for final theory exam in semester 1 (2013/2014).
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
88
Figure 3: Shows item difficulty and discrimination indices for final theory exam in semester 2 (2013/2014).
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:
Questionmark perception (QMP) is a very helpful
tool in conducting examinations at university level,
either online or offline. It also provides excellent
analysis of the questions, feedback, students
performance and reliability of the assessments.
QMP is limited due to the drawbacks that there will
be an online students sense of isolation as they feel
more impersonal over the electronic media. In the
event of a technical or temporary internet
connection failure, students may feel a sense of
disruption and distraction [15]. In our university,
QMP is mostly used for multiple choice quizzes
provided by the software publisher, but these types
of assessments lack creativity and may not be
suitable to the specific needs of the learners.
Creating online tests in QMP may be very tedious
and time-consuming [16]. It is not as easy as simply
uploading the Microsoft Word version of the test.
Instead, instructors have to either copy and paste
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
each questions text and each individual answers

text into the application, mark the correct answers,
and customize feedback and setting options or
modify the Microsoft Word file using the format
required for import into QMP. Moreover, some
students may not be accustomed to taking quizzes
and tests online, and they may need some handholding early in the semester before they feel
comfortable with the technology. Cheating on an
online test is as simple as opening up another
window and searching Google or asking a
classmate for the correct answers. Furthermore,
cheating on online multiple choice tests is near
impossible for the instructor to prevent or catch
without technical knowledge. The software
developers have introduced security measures to
prevent such cheating though the technology that
makes online tests possible is a great thing, but can
also cause problems. If we do online testing, we
should have a back-up plan for students who have
technical difficulties and be ready to field some
frantic emails from students who have poor internet
connections or faulty computers [17].
89
Despite the drawbacks listed here, there are some

definite advantages to online testing. Although
creating online tests is labor-intensive, once a test
is developed in QMP, it is relatively easy to transfer
it and repeat it in other courses. It allows for a high
degree of customization in the feedback students
get in response to each answer that they submit. As
an instructor, one could leverage this tool as
another way to engage with students about course
content. Online tests are asynchronous and can be
accessed on a variety of devices. If students buy the
mobile app, they can even take a test from their
smartphone. The flexibility offered by online
testing can be a great solution for learners with busy
schedules or when unexpected class cancellations
occur. While it is hard to prevent cheating, online
tests do offer many settings for instructors to
randomize questions, impose test taking time
limits, and restrict attempts. Testing in an online
environment can be a lot more interactive than
traditional paper and pen tests. Instructors can
embed multimedia in test questions to provide more
engaging assessments [18]. For example, students
may be asked to identify a particular area of an
image by directly clicking on it instead of having to
answer in written form. In all likelihood, students
are already using online tools as study aids for their
courses. Instructors can better serve students by
providing them with custom made study aids like
online practice tests, rather than entrusting students
to rely on outside resources that may not be valid
sources of information. For objective question
types like multiple-choice, QMP will automatically
grade student responses, saving time for the
instructor and providing more immediate feedback
to students. Online tests can be more accessible to
students with disabilities who have assistive
technologies built into their computers than hand
written tests are [19].
Given the advantages and disadvantages of online
testing, there are some practical tips for applying
this tool. One must be sure to introduce online tests
(and any other new learning technologies in
general) to students early in the semester to reduce
technical issues and build desired study habits
among them. Using online tests as ungraded
practice tests or low stake assignments will provide
a useful self-check tool for students and greatly
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
reduce concerns about cheating. Another way to

avoid the cheating issue is to design online tests to
be open book assessments with a time limit. Online
tests can address student demands for exam study
guides. Students must be provided with an online
practice test a few days before a traditional exam,
and this practice test must be similar to the real
thing [20]. If students are struggling with a
particular concept and a need for formative
assessment occurs, apply online quizzes as a just in
time assessment to help identify areas where extra
practice is needed. Staff should also try using
online pre- and post- tests as a way to measure
student learning over the course of a curricular unit.
This approach is especially useful for competencybased learning models that focus on mastery of
skills over time spent learning.
The statistical analysis in our study, however,
highlights a few concerns. As per this analysis,
about 35 to 40% of the questions in the exam fall in
the discrimination range which needs item revision
and / or item removal. But as QMP is designed for
the purpose of various exams including competitive
exams, the consensus is that our exam being for
undergraduates, targeted towards assessing the
understanding of the subject matter by the student
and not creating any competition between students
(as is done in some entrance exams), a
discrimination index of up to 40% is acceptable. If
this index is low, many students will fail to pass
through the exam. Traditionally, an undergraduate
medical exam should evaluate a students
knowledge upto 35 % and if he can recognize the
subject, at least up to 35% of the questions asked,
he is deemed to be aware of the concept and the
theme under study. Thus, he should be given a
chance to further continue with the study of the
topic. Therefore, it is concluded that a university
exam can have a discrimination index of up to 40%
and so the questions need not be revised nor
removed. Off-course, had it been a competitive
exam, it is recommended to remove such questions.
Here is a suggestion to the team of QMP makers to
add another parameter in the statistical analysis
giving the option of University exam or
competitive exam [21].
90
Although current data does not fall within the

preview of the recommended discrimination index,
it is felt that these exams being an assessment of the
level of understanding by undergraduate students
and not a competitive exam makes QMP a valid and
advantageous tool for assessments in a medical
college.
Questionmark Perception version 5.7 is a
comprehensive wide ranging assessment system
with many features useful in most subjects and
institutions. However, for medicine-based subjects,
there is no automatic marking of anatomical,
surgical or equivalent answers. Random parameters
are not used. The authoring of questions is
particularly straightforward using the wizard.
However, there is more scope for customization
and author control. The tryout feature for a question
before inclusion in a test is invaluable. Feedback
provision is excellent. The tagging of questions
gives flexibility in test construction. The support
offered is extensive through manuals and online.
The report system provides in depth academic and
statistical reports [22].
Paper exams also limit the possibilities for
questions. Now, rather than having four choices on
a multiple choice question one can include as many
as nine or ten choices in QMP. Perception also
enables staff to include fill-in-the blank questions
that can also be automatically scored. Using
computerized testing also enables us to randomize
the questions. Every student gets the same exam but
all of the questions come in a different order. Even
the choices are randomized. That makes the tests
more secure and greatly reduces the temptation to
cheat [23].
Questionmark Perception provides a lot of options
that makes creating questions, setting up
assessments and seeing the results, very useful. Is it
a perfect product? Overall, QMP is a very powerful
tool that is relatively easy to use and has a place in
any enterprise that is in need of creating and
delivering electronic assessments.
ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC\
5. REFERENCES
1. Seluakumaran, K, Jusof, F.F. Ismail, R. and
Husain, R.; Integrating an open-source course
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2. Alegret M., Camarasa, J., Camins, A, Escubedo
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Evaluation of pharmacology competencies
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3. Alavi M.; Computer-mediated collaborative
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5. Hanan Ahmed Zaki Hassan El Zawaidy, Using
Blackboard in online learning at Saudi
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existing
obstacles;
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Interdisciplinary Journal of Education,
Volume 3, Issue 7, pp. 141-150, July 2014.
6. Blackboard Learning System (2007). Journal of
Educational Technology Systems.v35 n3 p301314 2006-2007.
7. Overview of QuestionMark Perception:
http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/
420/tool-overview-questionmark-perception
8. Questionmark; Questionmark Perception Adds
Analytics,
Observational
Assessments.
Computer Weekly News (Jun 7, 2012): 655.
9. Kilbourn-Haller, Patricia, Drummond, William
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13. DeVellis, R.F. (2012). Scale development:
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14. Austin Fossey: http://blog.questionmark.com/
item-analysis-report-high-low-discrimination.
15. Mohammed Amanullah, Ayyub Patel, Khalid
Mohanna, Sarah Afaq. Are first year medical
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21. Brown G., Bull J., Pendlebury M.; Assessing

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92

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Conference Title

The Fifth International Conference on E-Learning and

September 6-8, 2016

Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU),

978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

The Society of Digital Information and Wireless

Explorations in Learning Management System Adoption . 1

Explorations in Learning Management System Adoption

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

recent years [4, 5], often with the assumption

implications for supporting learning technology

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

dichotomous manner: use or non-use. The use

where general computer self-efficacy, and

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

The research took place at the Business School

action research. Written reflection has always

used Nvivo 11 to conduct conventional content

The first author worked as a technology staff

Four barriers and enablers were identified

We also conducted focus groups from two

Computer skills were identified repeatedly in

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

were limited; they did not realise that they

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

then recomposed himself and thanked me for

university did not understand how they taught

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

Our analysis of data from focus groups revealed

The number refers to the line number in the transcript,

For some people, if a student asks a question

embrace new potentials. If they had used the

support has been outstanding (line 89-91, F2).

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

something else (line 150, F1). They are getting

Themes emerged from analyses of the reflective

ISBN: 978-1-941968-37-6 2016 SDIWC

Our data supported Vannatta and Nancy's [54]

expressed needs, the content should cover

differentiated among individuals. Therefore, a

W.R. Watson and S.L. Watson, What are learning

S. Lonn and S.D. Teasley, Saving time or innovating

H. Coates, R. James, and G. Baldwin, A critical

J.E. Klobas and T.J. McGill, The role of

T. Browne, M. Jenkins, and R. Walker, A

N. Sclater, Web 2.0, personal learning environments,

K.E. Rudestam and J. Schoenholtz-Read, The

TechnologyResourcesCenter, University of Central

H. Gastfriend, USG Learning Management System

planned behavior. Information systems research,

S.S. Kim, The Integrative Framework of Technology

F.D. Davis, R.P. Bagozzi, and P.R. Warshaw, User

N. Maranguni and A. Grani, Technology

D. Compeau, C.A. Higgins, and S. Huff, Social

R.L. Thompson, C.A. Higgins, and J.M. Howell,

V. Venkatesh, Determinants of perceived ease of

E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of innovations. New York,

E.T. Straub, Understanding technology adoption:

M. Igbaria, N. Zinatelli, P. Cragg, and A.L. Cavaye,

T.R. Kratochwill, Theories of Change and Adoption

D. Straub, M. Limayem, and E. Karahanna-Evaristo,

G.E. Hall, Technologys Achilles heel: Achieving

G. Deffuant, S. Huet, and F. Amblard, An