Search

Recently, learning technologies have become a pivotal constituent of teaching-learning processes. Contemporary studies indicate that in order to effectively utilize these technologies, instructors and learners alike must master a range of cognitive and socio-emotional competencies, commonly termed "digital literacy competencies" or "21st century skills." This study employs a content analysis methodology to trace trends of change in the research of core digital literacy competencies as reflected in the educational academic literature of the past 37 years (1980-2016). Based on well-established frameworks of digital literacy competencies, this research examined seven skills: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical thinking, Information literacy, Problem-solving and Socio-emotional skills. Data were collected through advanced search queries of peer-reviewed publications in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Findings reveal that among the examined terms, "Communication" is the most prominent digital literacy skill, followed by "Problem Solving" and "Collaboration." Furthermore, within the context of "Skills," the most prominent terms are "Information Literacy" and "Critical thinking"; "Technology" and "Collaboration" are least mentioned. Our findings suggest that awareness of digital learning competencies in educational research literature is marginal, implying that educational research seems to lag behind the need to understand the ever-changing digital competencies that instructors and learners need.

Aim/Purpose: As online video lectures rapidly gain popularity in formal and informal learning environments, one of their main challenges is student retention. This study investigates the influence of adding interactivity to online video lectures on students' attention span. Background: Interactivity is perceived as increasing the attention span of learners and improving the quality of learning. However, interactivity may be regarded as an interruption, which distracts students. Furthermore, adding interactive elements to online video lectures requires additional investment of various resources. Therefore, it is important to investigate the impact of adding interactivity to online video lectures on the attention span of learners. Methodology: This study employed a learning analytics approach, obtained data from Google Analytics, and analyzed data of two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that were developed by the Open University of Israel in order to make English for academic purposes (EAP) courses freely accessible. Contribution: The paper provides important insights, based on quantitative empirical research on: integrating interactive elements in online videos; the impact of video length; and differences between two groups of advanced and basic learners. Furthermore, it demonstrates how learning analytics may be used for improving instructional design. Findings: The findings suggest that interactivity may increase the attention span of learners, as measured by the average online video lecture viewing completion percentage, before and after the addition of interactivity. However, when the lecture is longer than about 15 minutes, the completion percentages decrease, even after adding interactive elements. Recommendations for Practitioners: Adding interactivity to online video lectures and controlling their length is expected to increase the attention span of learners. Recommendation for Researchers: Learning analytics is a powerful quantitative methodology for identifying ways to improve learning processes. Impact on Society: Providing practical insights on mechanisms for increasing the attention span of learners is expected to improve social inclusion. Future Research: Discovering further best practices to improve the effectiveness of online video lectures for diverse learners.

The current rapid technological changes confront researchers of learning technologies with the challenge of evaluating them, predicting trends, and improving their adoption and diffusion. This study utilizes a data-driven discourse analysis approach, namely culturomics, to investigate changes over time in the research of learning technologies. The patterns and changes were examined on a corpus of articles published over the past decade (2006-2014) in the proceedings of Chais Conference for the Study of Innovation and Learning Technologies--the leading research conference on learning technologies in Israel. The interesting findings of the exhaustive process of analyzing all the words in the corpus were that the most commonly used terms (e.g., pupil, teacher, student) and the most commonly used phrases (e.g., face-to-face) in the field of learning technologies reflect a pedagogical rather than a technological aspect of learning technologies. The study also demonstrates two cases of change over time in prominent themes, such as "Facebook" and "the National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) program". Methodologically, this research demonstrates the effectiveness of a data-driven approach for identifying discourse trends over time.

The seventh issue of the "Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning" (IJELL--formerly "Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects"--IJELLO) special series includes a selection of best papers presented at the 10th Chais Conference for the Study of Innovation and Learning Technologies: Learning in the Technological Era. The Chais conference 2015 was held at The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel, on February 10-11, 2015, and was organized by its Research Center for Innovation in Learning Technologies. This preface presents the mission and activities of the Research Center for Innovation in Learning Technologies at the Open University of Israel. It describes the objectives and themes of the Chais conference 2015, explains the special series synergies with IJELL and the Informing Science Institute, chronicles the topics that have been published in the series, and introduces the papers included in this special selection.

Procrastination is a common challenge for students. While course Websites and online video lectures enable studying anytime, anywhere, and expand learning opportunities, their availability may increase procrastination by making it easier for students to defer until tomorrow. This research used Google Analytics to examine temporal use patterns of course Websites, with an emphasis on online video lectures. We analyzed pageview data of 8,977 students enrolled in two compulsory undergraduate courses, one of which is offered exclusively fully online, and three elective courses, one for undergraduates, and two for master of business administration (MBA) students, over a period of two years. Our findings showed a significant u-curve of e-learning for all courses, during all the examined semesters, for courses' homepage views, as well as for their main video page. We evaluated the depth of the mid-semester decline in e-learning and generally found no significant differences among courses, or over time. However, the relative decline in access to the main video page of undergraduates enrolled in compulsory courses was significantly larger than that of undergraduate and MBA students in elective courses, thus, suggesting that procrastination of video views was slightly higher in compulsory courses. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Teaching and instructing is one of the challenging manifestations of informing, within which distance learning is considered harder than face-to-face instruction. Student retention is one of the major challenges of distance learning. Current innovative technologies enable widespread use of video lectures that may ease the loneliness of the distance learner and increase retention. This study explores the impact of video lectures on relatively senior students in a distance-learning environment. The study compares the retention and achievements of overseas students enrolled in a financial theory compulsory course, which is considered difficult. Students tend to study this course only after successfully completing other courses. The results indicate that before the introduction of video most of the students who failed the course dropped out immediately after failing, whereas afterwards nearly all the students who failed the course continued their studies. The main findings suggest that video lectures may increase senior students' retention, although their achievements were not found significantly better than those of distance learners that did not have video lectures available. This paper contributes to the informing science transdiscipline by demonstrating the importance of resonance for effective informing.

Despite the growing importance of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), its application is still challenging, limited, language-dependent, and requires considerable resources. The resources required for ASR are not only technical, they also need to reflect technological trends and cultural diversity. The purpose of this research is to explore ASR performance gaps by a comparative study of American English, German, and Hebrew. Apart from different languages, we also investigate different speaking styles - utterances from spontaneous dialogues and utterances from frontal lectures (TED-like genre). The analysis includes a comparison of the performance of four ASR engines (Google Cloud, Google Search, IBM Watson, and WIT.ai) using four commonly used metrics: Word Error Rate (WER); Character Error Rate (CER); Word Information Lost (WIL); and Match Error Rate (MER). As expected, findings suggest that English ASR systems provide the best results. Contrary to our hypothesis regarding ASR's low performance for under-resourced languages, we found that the Hebrew and German ASR systems have similar performance. Overall, our findings suggest that ASR performance is language-dependent and system-dependent. Furthermore, ASR may be genre-sensitive, as our results showed for German. This research contributes a valuable insight for improving ubiquitous global consumption and management of knowledge and calls for corporate social responsibility of commercial companies, to develop ASR under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The juridical field is a knowledge-based profession. This study examines adoption patterns of a mobile channel that provided subscribers with access to a well-established juridical knowledge base. Either the existing stationary channel or the new mobile one could be used simultaneously. Data analytics was used for analyzing objective actual use data of the stationary and mobile channels, as recorded by Google Analytics. The findings indicated slow adoption of the mobile channel and suggested complementarity of the stationary and mobile channels, along with trends of growing usage of the mobile channel before and after conventional work hours, and during the weekend. The main finding of this study demonstrates the importance of providing the users with their personal content via the mobile channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptation of innovative technologies for learning and teaching faces learners, developers and instructors with a wide range of challenges that should be considered for a successful implementation. This Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects (IJELLO) second issue of special series is based on selected best papers presented in the Fifth Chais Conference on Instructional Technologies Research 2010: Learning in the Technological Era, which was held at The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel, on February 10, 2010, and was organized by the Chais Research Center for the Integration of Technology in Education. This preface presents the mission and activities of the Chais research center, describes the objectives and themes of the Chais Conference 2010, explains its synergies with IJELLO and the Informing Science Institute, and introduces the papers included in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing phenomenon of competitors that use a common interorganizational system (IOS) raises challenging strategic and organizational issues. Sometimes organizations join IOS initiatives although it seems to weaken their competitive position. This paper analyzes, in retrospect, the fully automated Tel-Aviv Continuous Trading system (TACT) implemented by the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and its members, about a decade after its inauguration. It examines TACT's organizational feasibility and its critical success factors, using the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as a theoretical basis. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of one system, including the point of view of both the initiator (TASE) and the participants (TASE members). TACT's implementation complexity was further escalated since all users had to convert to it simultaneously. Therefore, intensive cooperation was required, especially between Israel's five largest banks, which had seemingly faced a value paradox of IOS, since TACT was supposed to undermine their competitive position by reducing customer lock-in. This study contributes to the informing science transdiscipline by extending its applicability to interorganizational contexts, and by introducing the Theory of Constraints as an effective analysis tool that can be integrated within the informing science framework. It emphasizes the importance of a neutral managing intermediary, provides guidelines for successful IOS implementation, and suggests that the main critical success factor is information systems management skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]