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Recently, chatbots have been used in various domains including health care and entertainment. Despite the impact of using chatbots on student engagement, there is little investment in how to develop and use chatbots in education. Such use of advanced technologies supports student learning, both individually and collaboratively. The effective use of chatbots in education depends on different factors, including the learning process, teaching methods, communications, etc. In this paper, the authors focus on the systematic utilization of chatbots in education. A proof of concept has been developed and tested using two MSc module, i.e., cloud computing and software engineering. The authors have used AWS Services to build the backend of Chatbot and integrate it with Facebook Messenger to allow students to learn via an additional venue, i.e., social media. The use of EDUBOT proved that chatbot can improve student learning and engagement especially at the time of COVID-19 where higher education is moving towards online teaching. Extending EDUBOT framework will help to support students' admin and other queries.

PurposeVarious technology-enhanced learning software and tools exist where technology becomes the main driver for these developments at the expense of pedagogy. The literature reveals the missing balance between technology and pedagogy in the continuously evolving technology-enhanced learning domain. Consequently, e-learners struggle to realise the pedagogical value of such e-learning artefacts. This paper aims to understand the different pedagogical theories, models and frameworks underpinning current technology-enhanced learning artefacts to pave the way for designing more effective e-learning artefacts.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve this goal, a review is conducted to survey the most influential pedagogical theories, models and frameworks. To carry out this review, five major bibliographic databases have been searched, which has led to identifying a large number of articles. The authors selected 34 of them for further analysis based on their relevance to our research scope. The authors critically analysed the selected sources qualitatively to identify the most dominant learning theories, classify them and map them onto the key characteristics, criticism, approaches, models and e-learning artefacts.FindingsThe authors highlighted the significance of pedagogies underpinning e-learning artefacts. Furthermore, the authors presented the common and special aspects of each theory to support our claim, which is developing a hybrid pedagogical approach. Such a hybrid approach remains a necessity to effectively guide learners and allow them to achieve their learning outcomes using e-learning artefacts.Originality/valueThe authors found that different pedagogical approaches complement rather than compete with each other. This affirms our recommended approach to adopt a hybrid approach for learning to meet learners' requirements. The authors also found that a substantive consideration for context is inevitable to test our evolving understanding of pedagogy.

INCOM Egypt has undergone automation in some processes where critical aspects of its operations are transformed and automated. This paper presents an overview of INCOM Egypt processes using Ould Riva and analyses the process of ‘handling a product’. It aims to demonstrate effective automation of the production of wires and cables process accompanied to Industry 4.0 while considering environmental and economic sustainability goals that were inhibited by COVID-19 restrictions. Ould’s Riva method is used to analyse the production process of wires and cables to propose improvements for automating the process. Business process modelling is utilised to study the processes for clearer understating. The flow of information within the process is also analysed to integrate the production process with other processes and supply chains, which helps to identify which production activities can be automated and mainstreamed into the information flow to achieve environmental and economic sustainability. The context of INCOM Egypt, as a case study, is presented along with the Riva model of its operations. The paper identifies the before, i.e., As-Is process, and after, i.e., To-Be Process, automation of the ‘handle a product’ process using the Role Activity Diagram (RAD). The process involved redesigning and improving different activities to increase resource-use efficiency to participate in achieving the goals of sustainability. The focus of this paper is to investigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on sustainability and to examine the accomplishments of process automation of wire production towards environmental and economic sustainability. The results of the research reveal a relationship between business process modelling and sustainability. Moreover, automation of processes (Industry 4.0) is found to reduce the negative effect of COVID-19 on production. A triangulation between process modelling, process automation (Industry 4.0), and sustainability was determined. Each one is reinforcing and impacting one another. The RAD model demonstrates that automation of the activities in the process reduces waste, time, cost, and redundant processes as factors of sustainability, which may also help to lessen the unfavorable effects of the pandemic. The results proved generalisation on other organisations in the same line of business.

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize several industries including finance, supply chain and logistics, healthcare, and more. This primer introduces readers to basic development skills to blockchain foundations including blockchain cryptography, the consensus algorithm, and smart contracts. Further, this primer explains stepwise how to implement and deploy basic data stores using blockchain with Python. The primer serves as a succinct introductory guide to blockchain foundations by relying on a case study illustrated with visuals together with instructions on implementation. This primer is intended for educators, students, and technology enthusiasts with foundational computer science and Python development skills.

This chapter examines the buzzword “Fake News.” In recent years, politicians, media, and members of the public have used and misused the term, fake news, in a variety of contexts. This chapter focuses on the impact of fake news as it is linked to political participation through internet activism. An essential part of understanding what constitutes fake news is to appreciate the different characteristics and labels—Alternative Truth, Post Truth, Propaganda, Satire, and more—which leads readers vulnerable to the impact of fake news on a platform that requires little accountability for the facts or the harm it inflicts. The barriers to presenting a journalistic outlet as nothing less than a reputable news agency are only a few clicks away. In an era dominated by social media platforms, there is evidence that these networks inadvertently facilitated the propagation of fake news and their clickbait-driven profits.

M-health applications have been gaining importance in the recent years and has been the focus of many researchers due to its advantages of effective service delivery with cost-effective mechanisms. The existing m-health systems are reviewed in this paper and many issues are identified with them, which are mostly user-centric. Whilst there are recognised standards, such as ISO 13407, which highlight the need for user centric development, the majority of application development considers low user involvement in the development process, which either results in developing a system that does not fulfil the outlined objectives or only partially doing so. Considering this issue, an agile user centred design methodology for developing an m-health patient management system is proposed. In addition, an online questionnaire-based survey and interviews are conducted for assessing the users’ needs and expectations from this patient management m-health system. The interview and survey results indicate that cost, ease of use, accuracy, privacy, security, effectiveness, durability, adaptability, support, learnability and enjoyability are the important factors that need to be considered in a user centric design methodology. From the study, it is concluded that the results from the survey and interviews can be useful for designing and developing user centric m-health systems.

The e-Learning domain is evolving rapidly due to a number of factors and amongst these are the two key factors: i) availability of new ICT tools and technologies such as cloud computing, ontologies and smart phones, and ii) application of various learning theories and the development of new learning models. The latter is anticipated to generate new sets of requirements for the development of new e-Learning for the cloud environment. This paper is an attempt towards developing a generic requirements model for hybrid cloud-based e-Learning systems with particular reference to e-learning systems' requirements in general, pedagogical requirements, technical requirements including non-functional requirements, and the mapping of these requirements to cloud-based e-learning environments.

E-learning is a new form of education and is a tool to reach students everywhere. In Gaza Strip it was used to solve the difficulty in movement problem. It was used as an enhancement tool in the educational process. IUG started experimenting with e-learning since 1999. IUG started a systematic approach in developing it e-learning teams. Joint partnership with Middlesex University help set up a system. Couple of courses were available to all university students and limited success was enjoyed.