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Content Analysis, which is a part of qualitative analysis, has mainly been studied in scientific articles from health and medicine domains. With the emerge of social networks, there are new opportunities for content analysis, which can be used to analyse user generated content, from various sources. Nevertheless, the companies are investing millions of dollars in content analysis, which is often known as sentiment analysis. The discussion in this article helps to understand the main concepts of content analysis for those interested in the domain of qualitative analysis, with the help of automated and manual qualitative research. The overall conclusion is that automated qualitative analysis is dependent on how accurate is the tool used and this feature can be checked with the help of manual qualitative analysis.

Nowadays, an increasingly attractive research domain is represented by the integration of eLearning systems with the Social Media tools. However, identifying the proper Social Media platform to serve educational purposes could be an extremely hard task, mainly due to the variations from platform to platform. Thus, the first aim of this article is to identify the optimum typology that could be successfully integrated with eLearning systems. Moving forward, a classification of the top 20 most popular Social Media sites at global level in terms of their main objectives will be required in order to asses a specific typology of each of this. Thereafter, we propose a preliminary model of comparison among the Social Media sites that comply with the identified typology. The process consists in analyzing the main perspectives on these sites, by discussing some established key points and classifying the platforms by their capacity to serve educational purposes.

Modern educational technologies encompass a variety of variables such as people, processes, assets, environments, technology. These variables are part of a complex system which has some important properties and a final purpose: delivering learning material and keeping track of the recipient’s evolution and development. The purpose of this paper is to define the system of modern educational technologies with the help of its variables and internal or external processes as well as to find where mobile learning fits in this large system. From a technical point of view we want to analyze whether Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is enough or proper to integrate mobile learning in this system. At the end we should be able to decide if dedicated mobile apps, or mobile friendly sites or a combination of those two are suited to deliver the results we are looking for with the support of SOA, if we consider the variety of devices and operating systems we are trying to integrate.

A system built to support management decisions and not only needs to be accurate and well adapted to the requirements of the decision and the variables involved in it, and this happens because a decision is still a human act in any type of business and institution. We can say that a decision support system has a part in it that cannot be determined by any software: the human decision which is not a determinist act. It depends on a lot of variables but also still involves the decision maker intuition and experience. This is why an important problem emerged to be discussed in this paper: the need to implement and develop an in house solution to help management decisions and not only, using existing tools and this with no additional fees. This can be a good opportunity to discover models and solutions. An identified solution using Microsoft Excel and Access is discussed in this paper and a model applied on a case study will be presented. The results of the case study showed a real support in making decisions and a better transparency in manipulating the data, improving also the time needed to collect, transform and present data. The model can be applied in any type of problem that needs a visual presentation of data as well as in situations that need working with a large amount of data, but especially in small and medium size companies.

Mobile learning is a very wide term which encompasses not only learning principles, but also in most cases a bunch of smart devices, from smartphone to tablet or wearable devices. Any device that allows learning anywhere and anytime is a channel to information, a channel that helps gain knowledge and apply it, and this is the main goal of mobile learning. It is not so simple to develop such a system in practice. One of the most important question is how an app can be designed to support learning and to help the user and not to tangle him or her in mobile apps that are too sophisticated and difficult to be handled. In this purpose the Natural User Interface (NUI) principles help, and with this article we want to prove that the university students are interested in applications that are easy to use, fun and help learning in a natural way, without barriers like the dimension of the screen or the lack of features. The study will use data gathered from questionnaires, to extract the needs of the students, in the context of a mobile world, and to compare it with the principles of NUI design. We consider, this is necessary before trying to develop an app, to determine the degree of utilization in the future implementation, but also to meet and support the needs for learning and information of the students, which is one of the main goals of mobile learning and not waste our efforts and resources.

The Internet of Things is almost a new paradigm that is revolutionizing our society and our life. It is intended that all objects around us are connected to the network, providing worldwide access to information. This concept is gaining space, thanks to the large number of devices connected to the web, ranging from mobile devices to appliances. In the same time, the development of Internet of Things (IoT) give rise to a number of security-related and ethical issues which gain a new dimension in the light of the increased complexity of these technologies. The biggest problem is that IoT does not concern objects only; it is about the relations between the everyday objects surrounding humans and humans themselves. It`s important to emphasize that the majority of connected objects are not personal (as smartphones and PCs) and are unattended. Their physical security is not guaranteed (especially for the public networks) and the control of the objects may be lost sometimes. Cascade failures may appear, caused by the interconnectivity of a large number of devices, difficult to be simultaneously protected over the air transmission, with all the related problems. Despite all this problems, in this paper, we focus on the education area, where Internet of Things can be used to create new trends and tools for Long Life Learning process. Following a person - centred design process, the powerful possibilities opened by the Internet of Things are being included to eLearning in order to enhance the learning experience, and will bring more significant learning spaces and tangibility to the learning process.

The use of many multimedia channels in order to bring information to target groups is not something new. What is new is related to how these channels are exploited by mixing techniques and technologies. We realized an online questionnaire to identify the multimedia techniques/tools that have impact on user’s satisfaction. We used comparative statistical analyses (Levene’s test) to observe if there are any significant differences between multimedia users and non-multimedia users. We identified that the preferred techniques are: the presence of a narrator, the existence of some suggestive images, slides and demos. These are only some factors that we identified. We studied also the influence of features as: access to, scenario type, interactivity, flexibility, additional options and effects and time dependency. We determined that the existence of useful links is an important factor for overall satisfaction of the user with multimedia materials.

The first steps in e-learning were designed for individual learning. In that stage there were few practical ways to integrate multiple learners or instructors into asynchronous self study e-learning. Actually, the traditional education system faces many changes arising from the development of the knowledge based economy. The past 10 years have seen dramatic changes in higher education in terms of increased access to education, lifelong learning, increased choice in areas of study and the personalization of learning. The widespread availability of digital learning resources in a variety of media formats, anytime and anywhere offers the possibility to make a profound difference in education. E-learning means not only Information and Communication Technologies, complex media or Internet. In the new vision e-learning is a complex field involving institutional, individual, technical and social components. This entire environment is changing dynamically day by day. The associated technologies are evolving rapidly especially the mobile communication technologies. E-learning is a success story from many years. Everybody talks about e-learning advantages and disadvantages but few about the necessity of standardization in this area. So, one of the major topics in the discussion about e-learning must be standards. With all the disappointing problems that e-learning systems had today, we must remain optimistic about the future. We must align the activities of training with the strategic objectives of the university. This paper describes and analyzes trends in the information technologies and the impact these have on the education sector as a whole, but particularly on the higher education sector.

The association between cloud computing and education might seem to be incomprehensible, mostly because only a small number of users and publishers alike belong to the education domain. Cloud computing commonly relates to the business environment, as a means of enhancing efficiency. But universities are also interested in increasing efficiency during times of economic crisis and especially when it lasts. Furthermore, the idea of applying cloud computing in this field arose from the perspective of collaboration and stronger relationship between institutions located in different areas of countries. There are several issues that occur and make educational parameters unattainable. Such a list could include small classrooms, lack or resources, short-handed staff, lack of adequate teachers. This is the scenario where cloud computing can be utilized in order to improve education standards and activities. The end result will be to curb the above problems and instead, boost performance. Regarding the benefits and risks of cloud computing, educational institutions can mitigate risks by carefully selecting the provider and by closely monitoring the evolution of the process. As for the benefits, an important advantage derives from the possibility to ensure efficient and inexpensive data management, flexibility and better security for IT departments. Due to the use of cloud computing, educational institutions acquire powerful software and massive computing resources when and where they are necessary. It is important to reiterate the education philosophy if we aim to point out the place that cloud computing deserves in the current area of education. The essence is knowledge which brings advancement, achievement and success.