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The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivation and expectations of stakeholders (students, teachers, and employers) related to their participation in simulated work-integrated learning (WIL) taking place in a form of work-related projects in an academic environment. Analysis is based on data gathered from 49 students, four teachers and six employers who participated in WIL within four different units of study in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI), Croatia. The findings of this research revealed that student learning, student career development and increasing quality of learning and teaching are common motivational factors for stakeholders' participation in WIL. Additional factors pertinent to respective stakeholders' motivation and expectations are also detected. The results of this study can help higher education institutions (HEIs) in the organization of WIL practices to increase motivation and meet expectations of all stakeholders.

To ensure the validity of an assessment programme, it is essential to align it with the intended learning outcomes (LO). We present a model for ensuring assessment validity which supports this constructive alignment and uses learning analytics (LA). The model is based on LA that include a comparison between ideal LO weights (expressing the prioritization of LOs), actual assessment weights (maximum assessment points per LO), and student assessment results (actually obtained assessment points per LO), as well as clustering and trace data analysis. These analytics are part of a continuous improvement cycle, including strategic planning and learning design (LD) supported by LO prioritization, and monitoring and evaluation supported by LA. To illustrate and test the model, we conducted a study on the example of a graduate-level higher education course in applied mathematics, by analysing student assessment results and activity in a learning management system. The study showed that the analyses provided valuable insights with practical implications for the development of sound LD, tailored educational interventions, databases of assessment tasks, recommendation systems, and self-regulated learning. Future research should investigate the possibilities for automation of such LA, to enable full exploitation of their potential and use in everyday teaching and learning.

Flipped classroom (FC) approaches have gotten substantial attention in the last decade because they have a potential to stimulate student engagement as well as active and collaborative learning. The FC is generally defined as a strategy that flips the traditional education setting, i.e., the information transmission component of a traditional face-to-face lecture is moved out of class time. The FC relies on technology and is therefore suitable for online or blended learning, which were predominant forms of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020-July 2021). In this paper we present a systematic literature review (SLR) of studies that covered online FC approaches in higher education during the pandemic. We analyzed 205 publications in total and 18 in detail. Our research questions were related to the main findings about the success of implementation of online FC and recommendations for future research. The findings indicated that those who had used FC approaches in face-to-face or blended learning environments more successfully continued to use them in online environments than those who had not used it before. The SLR opened possible questions for future research, such as the effectiveness of the FC for different courses and contexts, the cognitive and emotional aspects of student engagement, and students' data protection. It pointed to the need to examine different aspects of online delivery of the FC more comprehensively, and with more research rigor.

Background: Sound learning design should be based on the constructive alignment of intended learning outcomes (LOs), teaching and learning activities and formative and summative assessment. Assessment validity strongly relies on its alignment with LOs. Valid and reliable formative assessment can be analysed as a predictor of students' academic performance, but the question is how significant its predictive power is, and what other elements can affect predictions. Objectives: Our aim was to investigate the predictive power of formative assessment for summative assessment, measuring the acquisition of LOs. Methods: We analysed formative assessment results (quizzes, homework), together with log data (video and other material use, class attendance), to determine the most influential predictors and establish a reliable predictive learning analytics model. We used the Random Forest algorithm. The model is based on the data from two university mathematical courses, delivered at different years and levels of study, incorporating 813 students in two consecutive years. Results and Conclusions: Our results show that formative assessment, together with previous summative assessment, is a stronger predictor of summative assessment results than other data on students' engagement. The study pointed to the importance of completeness and quality of data, and clear links between assessment and LOs when making predictions of student results. It suggested that predictions are less reliable for the lowest and the highest performing students. It was noted that other factors can also affect predictions, like the level of LOs, or factors not easily extracted from digital data, like the learning environment and individual students' strategies. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic?: When educators design lessons, they aim for students to acquire intended learning outcomes.To know if students are making progress, educators use a mix of regular checks, like quizzes (formative assessment) and major exams (summative assessment).Predictive learning analytics may contribute to sound learning design (LD). What does this paper add?: In our study, we looked into whether these regular checks can predict how a student might perform on high‐stake exams.We collected data from students taking two university maths courses, including their scores on quizzes, their attendance, and their use of study materials.Using a machine learning technique called the Random Forest algorithm, we built a model to predict student exam scores.Our results indicate that formative assessment is the best predictor of the success in summative assessment. Implications for practice/or policy: We found that how a student performs on regular checks is a good sign of how they might do on the high‐stake exam and careful preparation of assessment and whole LD help student learning.Assessment, formative as well as summative, needs to be aligned with intended learning outcomes and only in this case results can inform quality assurance processes and the restructuring of LD.There are other personal factors that can influence a student's performance, which are not easy to spot just from the digital data we have.The complexity of what is being taught plays a role in predicting students' final scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the employability of higher education graduates has been a topic of interest within many policy documents and scientific studies. Given the lack of comprehensive research identifying the implications of this issue for practice, this article presents a maturity model to support graduates' early careers within higher education institutions (HEIs). The model is developed using a five-step approach, following the design science paradigm and exploiting four case studies across Europe. The final maturity model contains 65 practices within four key process areas--13 within strategic planning, 26 within curriculum design and delivery, 16 within student support, and 10 within the provision of extracurricular activities. In addition, a description of capability assessment criteria at the five maturity levels for each practice is provided. The model presented in this article can be used by HEIs as a tool to assess the maturity of their practices that contribute to graduates' employability.

Student work is becoming more prevalent throughout the world. More students are not only working but doing more hours per week, which very likely affects their academic performance. This paper provides a systematic literature review (SLR) of 347 papers, focusing on the: indicators of academic performance, relation between student part-time work and academic performance, and drivers of students' decision to work. Researchers note both positive and negative relations between student work and academic performance, with the positive connection less reported. The positive relation primarily involves students' improved ability to link theory with practice, while the negative impact of work on academic success is associated with more time devoted to work. The common tangible key driver of students' decision to work is meeting financial needs, and the intangible drivers include gaining work experience and developing practical skills. This paper's contributions lie in systematising positive and negative impacts of student work on academic performance and providing a better understanding of the drivers of students' work engagement. The results can ultimately serve as bases for further research on student work's impact on academic performance, as well as incentives for higher education institutions to rethink the possibilities of better integration of student work into curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate the guiding principles, practises, and challenges of assessment in online and blended flipped classroom approaches in higher education. Based on that, we proposed a generic model of teaching, learning and assessment in online and blended flipped classroom, including examples of teaching and learning activities, with corresponding levels of learning outcomes, and assessment tasks and methods. We synthesised the findings and suggested further research on the following aspects: peer-assessment and self-assessment; benefits and challenges of educational technology; ethical aspects of assessment and plagiarism; balance between flexibility and structure. We recommended that further research should put more focus on the utility, including validity and reliability of assessment and test the proposed generic model in different study fields and educational contexts. Our study was based on a systematic literature review, including 90 articles identified in the Web of Science database, with 23 studied in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment is among the inevitable components of a curriculum and directs students' learning. E-assessment, as prepared and administered with the use of ICT, provides opportunities to make the process easier in some aspects, but also brings certain challenges. This paper presents an e-assessment framework from a student perspective. Our study lasted for one academic year and incorporated a total of 631 students' responses to questionnaires conducted three times in two different mathematics courses. The courses are compulsory for undergraduate informatics students. The research included a three-step factor analysis: two exploratory factor analyses and a confirmatory factor analysis. It yielded a model of a student perspective on e-assessment consisting of four factors: Transparency and fairness of assessment, Formative and summative assessment and feedback, Meaningful use of technology in assessment and Difficulty of learning outcomes. The students' opinion about the use of e-assessment was generally positive. The students appreciated the student-centred approach based on sound pedagogical alignment of all teaching and learning elements with assessment. They found it important that technology should not distract students during assessment tasks and considered cheating in a controlled e-assessment environment to be no more frequent than in face-to-face assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information and communications technology (ICT) industry is making important contributions to economic growth both locally and globally. There is a high demand for ICT professionals that higher education institutions are still struggling to meet. An effective literature review is an important part of understanding the existing findings and issues in the education of future ICT professionals, and for planning future research directions. This comprehensive study presented here includes a review of 761 papers on the level of summary analysis and 155 papers in depth, according to ten research questions related to: curriculum design and delivery, knowledge and skills of future ICT professionals, teaching methods, collaboration between academia and industry, and future employment and career development of ICT professionals in the labor market. Based on the findings from a content and cluster analysis, the results indicate the need for a more holistic and strategic approach to the education of future ICT professionals, including career development support within formal processes of higher education.

This paper elaborates the design of a National Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining System for pre-tertiary education in Croatia. The described approach consists of the following five phases: 1) objectives setting, 2) user needs analysis, 3) data availability analysis, 4) dashboards pre-design and 5) validation of functionalities. There is an evident research gap, as well as the lack of practical examples about the development of a Learning Analytics System (LAS) for pre-tertiary education on the national and/or regional level. Therefore, this research aims to make a scientific contribution by filling the recognized gap, but also contribute to solving the practical issues of national schools' LAS development. To increase the usability of an LAS, the involvement of all end users is essential. In the described case, six main user groups were identified: 10-18 years old students, teachers, school management and support staff, regional and national authorities responsible for education, strategic bodies and researchers and, finally, project partners that work on system development. For each of them, separate dashboard functionalities have been designed through several rounds of consultations. consultations with users started with focus groups and panels, to brainstorm the most important issues they would like to answer in order to enhance learning and teaching. Between the two rounds of consultation, there was an evaluation phase of the relevance of the gathered questions. Finally, targeted users provided feedback on the pre-production functionalities of each dashboard and validated them. In this process, several challenges were detected, including data gathering and protection, ethical issues and interpretation of results for students who are underage, and continuous adjustments to the users' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivation and expectations of stakeholders (students, teachers, and employers) related to their participation in simulated work-integrated learning (WIL) taking place in a form of work-related projects in an academic environment. Analysis is based on data gathered from 49 students, four teachers and six employers who participated in WIL within four different units of study in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI), Croatia. The findings of this research revealed that student learning, student career development and increasing quality of learning and teaching are common motivational factors for stakeholders' participation in WIL. Additional factors pertinent to respective stakeholders' motivation and expectations are also detected. The results of this study can help higher education institutions (HEIs) in the organization of WIL practices to increase motivation and meet expectations of all stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital competences should be considered in teacher education and professional development. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework represents the knowledge required by teachers in order to successfully integrate technology into the teaching process. The Survey of Pre-service Teachers' Knowledge of Teaching and Technology (SPTKTT) is one of the inventories developed to measure the TPACK framework. The aim of this study is to validate the SPTKTT inventory in the context of the Croatian education system by the use of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed that the new context structure of the SPTKTT inventory consists of nine factors, while confirmatory factor analysis established that the two Content Knowledge factors can actually be unified. This can be explained by differing content organization in education systems. There were also differences in the distribution of some of the remaining factors. Internal consistency of the inventory shows high reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with influential factors of an organization's environment in the initial phase of diffusion of innovations (DOI) within the organization. A qualitative research was carried out with two expert groups: one for the diffusion of e-learning as an innovation in a higher education institution and the other for the diffusion of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) in a Construction Industry. The research disclosed 20 common factors. The internal environment group covers management support, the attitude towards innovation, strategic planning and communication, motivation and expertize of employers, available resources and IT maturity level of an organization. The group of business environment factors consists of competitors, clients and partners, supply and demand balance on the specific market for goods and services. In the social environment group, three factors are recognized on the national level and two on the global levels. The holistic model combines the theory of DOI and the concept of absorption capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes state of the art of the research regarding the education and career development of information and communications technology (ICT) graduates based on a comprehensive literature review. Analysis presented in this paper includes 155 papers in two research areas - one related to the education of ICT graduates (101 papers) and the other to their career development (54 papers). The most prestigious papers, most influential journals and groupings of authors in the abovementioned fields are identified by using the citation analysis and Social Network Analysis (SNA). Results show that the most influential papers related to ICT career are research papers dealing with ICT job skills requirements and related to ICT education are ICT association's related reports and recommendations on curriculum development. In general, results show that there is a lack of cross-fertilization of knowledge in both areas which means that the mixing of ideas that can lead to better research results is missing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning analytics deals with the data that occurs from students' interaction with ICT: collecting data, analyzing and reporting that can influence learning and teaching. Analysis of validity and reliability of assessment lags behind other applications of learning analytics. Mathematical modeling of learning analytics for assessment, especially for peer-assessment, is presented in the paper. In addition, students' recognition of advantages and disadvantages of peer-assessment is analyzed and categorized. Finally, implementations of reliability check of peerassessment in Moodle Workshop module are explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning analytics (LA) has been opening new opportunities to support learning in higher education (HE). LA dashboards are an important tool in providing students with insights into their learning progress, and predictions, leading to reflection and adaptation of learning plans and habits. There is a growing interest in coordinating learning design (LD) with LA, as the two can mutually provide valuable input and enhance quality of teaching and learning. Furthermore, to ensure the validity of an assessment program, it is essential to align it with the intended learning outcomes (LO). Therefore, a comprehensive LD concept and tool is needed that considers the needs of educators. The Balanced Design Planning (BDP) concept and tool (learning-design.eu) aim at implementing contemporary research findings and theory to support balanced LD planning and development. The student-centered BDP concept and tool provide innovation to LD planning by strongly focusing on learning outcomes LOs and student workload, aligning study program and course level LOs, ensuring constructive alignment and assessment validity, enhancing LD by using learning analytics, and enabling flexible use in different contexts and pedagogical approaches. Moreover, even though the BDP concept and tool can support the implementation of various pedagogical models and approaches, as they are based on LOs and student workload, they are envisaged as student-centered with the constructivist theoretical approach, and therefore not completely pedagogically neutral. Flipped classroom (FC) approaches, work-based learning and other innovative teaching and learning approaches have been proved successful when planned, implemented and monitored with care and based on LD and LA. Finally, wellplanned innovative learning approaches are invariant of mode of delivery. For example, research findings indicate that those who had used FC approaches in face-to-face or blended learning environments more successfully continued to use them more successfully in online environments than those who had not used it before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textbooks are an integral part of school classroom teaching. Their use has been researched for the past few decades with a focus on a wide variety of aspects. This paper is focused on the published literature relative to textbooks with a special focus on the pedagogical use of textbooks within school classroom of informatics. Sixty two papers of various topics related to textbooks have been analyzed. The focus was placed on a) identifying the most influential papers related to textbooks where we identified nine key papers; b) prevailing topics in research papers related to informatics' textbooks where analysis showed that most papers related to textbooks and informatics are focused on textbook content; c) identifying which topics have been researched in other fields related to use of textbooks but have not been so far included in surveys related to informatics subject, where we identified five main categories of topics researched in other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop the local theory of surfaces immersed in the pseudo-Galilean space, a special type of Cayley-Klein spaces. We define principal, Gaussian, and mean curvatures. By this, the general setting for study of surfaces of constant curvature in the pseudo-Galilean space is provided. We describe surfaces of revolution of constant curvature. We introduce special local coordinates for surfaces of constant curvature, so-called the Tchebyshev coordinates, and show that the angle between parametric curves satisfies the Klein-Gordon partial differential equation. We determine the Tchebyshev coordinates for surfaces of revolution and construct a surface with constant curvature from a particular solution of the Klein-Gordon equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present research on the social network structure of project partnership in the Eureka network in order to understand country performance in the network. The main method used in our research is the Social Network Analysis (SNA). Research questions were set and examined on the set of the Central and South-Eastern European countries. We investigated regionally based partnerships, relations between central position in the network and country's level of development and, finally, in order to analyze relation between number of project partners and project success, Eureka success stories were investigated as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student working environment influences student learning and achievement level. In this respect social aspects of students' formal and non-formal learning play special role in learning environment. The main research problem of this paper is to find out if students' academic performance influences their position in different students' social networks. Further, there is a need to identify other predictors of this position. In the process of problem solving we use the Social Network Analysis (SNA) that is based on the data we collected from the students at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb. There are two data samples: in the basic sample N=27 and in the extended sample N=52. We collected data on socialdemographic position, academic performance, learning and motivation styles, student status (full-time/part-time), attitudes towards individual and teamwork as well as informal cooperation. Afterwards five different networks (exchange of learning materials, teamwork, informal communication, basic and aggregated social network) were constructed. These networks were analyzed with different metrics and the most important were betweenness, closeness and degree centrality. The main result is, firstly, that the position in a social network cannot be forecast only by academic success and, secondly, that part-time students tend to form separate groups that are poorly connected with full-time students. In general, position of a student in social networks in study environment can influence student learning as well as her/his future employability and therefore it is worthwhile to be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]