Abstract: Research papers are usually evaluated via peer
review. However, peer review has limitations in evaluating research
papers. In this paper, Scienstein and the new idea of 'collaborative
document evaluation' are presented. Scienstein is a project to
evaluate scientific papers collaboratively based on ratings, links,
annotations and classifications by the scientific community using the
internet. In this paper, critical success factors of collaborative
document evaluation are analyzed. That is the scientists- motivation
to participate as reviewers, the reviewers- competence and the
reviewers- trustworthiness. It is shown that if these factors are
ensured, collaborative document evaluation may prove to be a more
objective, faster and less resource intensive approach to scientific
document evaluation in comparison to the classical peer review
process. It is shown that additional advantages exist as collaborative
document evaluation supports interdisciplinary work, allows
continuous post-publishing quality assessments and enables the
implementation of academic recommendation engines. In the long
term, it seems possible that collaborative document evaluation will
successively substitute peer review and decrease the need for
journals.
Abstract: To investigate the correspondence of theory and
practice, a successfully implemented Knowledge Management
System (KMS) is explored through the lens of Alavi and Leidner-s
proposed KMS framework for the analysis of an information system
in knowledge management (Framework-AISKM). The applied KMS
system was designed to manage curricular knowledge in a distributed
university environment. The motivation for the KMS is discussed
along with the types of knowledge necessary in an academic setting.
Elements of the KMS involved in all phases of capturing and
disseminating knowledge are described. As the KMS matures the
resulting data stores form the precursor to and the potential for
knowledge mining. The findings from this exploratory study indicate
substantial correspondence between the successful KMS and the
theory-based framework providing provisional confirmation for the
framework while suggesting factors that contributed to the system-s
success. Avenues for future work are described.
Abstract: In today's complex global environment, emotional intelligence in educational administrations encompasses self-regard that is formed to utilize communication effectiveness. The paper is undertaken to understand the relationship between managers- emotional intelligence especially self-regard and employees to improve communication effectiveness in educational administrations of Iran. Data (N = 145) for this study were collected through questionnaires that participants were managers and employees educational administrations of Iran. The aim of this paper assess the emotional intelligence especially self-regard of managers and employees and its relationship with communication effectiveness in educational administrations of Iran. This paper explained self-regard that has a high relationship with communication especially communication effectiveness. Self-regard plays an important role in communication effectiveness. Individuals with high self-regard tend to have higher emotional intelligence and this action lead to improve communication effectiveness. The result of the paper shows a strong correspondence between self-regard and communication effectiveness in educational administrations.
Abstract: “Web of Trust" is one of the recognized goals for
Web 2.0. It aims to make it possible for the people to take
responsibility for what they publish on the web, including
organizations, businesses and individual users. These objectives,
among others, drive most of the technologies and protocols recently
standardized by the governing bodies. One of the great advantages of
Web infrastructure is decentralization of publication. The primary
motivation behind Web 2.0 is to assist the people to add contents for
Collective Intelligence (CI) while providing mechanisms to link
content with people for evaluations and accountability of
information. Such structure of contents will interconnect users and
contents so that users can use contents to find participants and vice
versa. This paper proposes conceptual information storage and
linking model, based on decentralized information structure, that
links contents and people together. The model uses FOAF, Atom,
RDF and RDFS and can be used as a blueprint to develop Web 2.0
applications for any e-domain. However, primary target for this
paper is online trust evaluation domain. The proposed model targets
to assist the individuals to establish “Web of Trust" in online trust
domain.
Abstract: The main purpose of this study was to determine the predictors of academic achievement of student Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) teachers with different learning styles. Participants were 148 student ICT teachers from Ankara University. Participants were asked to fill out a personal information sheet, the Turkish version of Kolb-s Learning Style Inventory, Weinstein-s Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, Schommer's Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, and Eysenck-s Personality Questionnaire. Stepwise regression analyses showed that the statistically significant predictors of the academic achievement of the accommodators were attitudes and high school GPAs; of the divergers was anxiety; of the convergers were gender, epistemological beliefs, and motivation; and of the assimilators were gender, personality, and test strategies. Implications for ICT teaching-learning processes and teacher education are discussed.
Abstract: Islamic banking is one the most blossoming doctrine in
economic system of the world. The Fast growing awareness about
Islamic financial system has brought strong feeling to Muslims to
confront the western interest-based economic cycle. The Islamic
economic system is emerging as a reliable alternative to the interest
based system. This study is proposed to ascertain the motivational
factors encouraging people to go for Islamic banking in Pakistan.
These pulsing factors are determined by generation of hypothesis that
there are certain factors which are urging people to opt Islamic
banking system and to see the differences in their ranking by applying
Friedman test. These factors include: Economically derived factors
such as stability of Islamic banks in crisis, profit and loss sharing
doctrine and equity sharing etc. This study also highlights the
religiously derived factors such as interest free banking, Shariah
tenets and supervisory of Islamic Shariah board and sociopsychological
factors.
Abstract: Self-efficacy, self-reliance, and motivation were
examined in a quasi-experimental study with 178 sophomore
university students. Participants used an interactive cardiovascular
anatomy and physiology CD-ROM, and completed a 15-item
questionnaire. Reliability of the questionnaire was established using
Cronbach-s alpha. Post-tests and course grades were examined using
a t-test, demonstrating no significance. Results of an item-to-item
analysis of the questionnaire showed overall satisfaction with the
teaching methodology and varied results for self-efficacy, selfreliance,
and motivation. Kendall-s Tau was calculated for all items
in the questionnaire.
Abstract: This study investigates the relationships between
Work Motivation, Work Stress, and Job Satisfaction toward
cross-strait employees. The target subjects are three
manufacturing firms in Mainland China and Taiwan. Out of 450
distributed surveys, 352 valid surveys were obtained with the
response rate of 78.22%.The findings have addressed three main
pull factors toward cross-strait employees in choosing jobs, which
are (1) high level of firm stability, (2) good firm image, and (3)
good employee benefits. In addition, various employee attributes
exert different impacts on Work Motivation, Work Stress, and
Job Satisfaction. The comparison between expected and actual
perceived Job Satisfaction toward cross-strait employees shows
that “salary" ranks highest regarding expected Job Satisfaction
whereas “co-worker relationship" ranks highest regarding actual
perceived Job Satisfaction, which implies actual perceived Job
Satisfaction do not match employee expectations. Therefore, this
research further concludes that there exists differences between
employees- expected and actual perceived Job Satisfaction.
Abstract: The validity of Herzberg-s Two-Factor Theory of
Motivation was tested empirically by surveying 2372 chemical fiber
employees in 2012. In the valid sample of 1875 respondents, the
degree of overall job satisfaction was more than moderate. The most
highly valued components of job satisfaction were: “corporate image,"
“collaborative working atmosphere," and “supervisor-s expertise";
whereas the lowest mean score was 34.65 for “job rotation and
promotion." The top three job retention options rated by the
participants were “good image of the enterprise," “good
compensation," and “workplace is close to my residence." The overall
evaluation of the level of thriving facilitation workplace reached
almost to “mostly agree." For those participants who chose at least
one motivator as their job retention options had significantly greater
job satisfaction than those who chose only hygiene factors as their
retention options. Therefore, Herzberg-s Two-Factor Theory of
Motivation was proven valid in this study.
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce an e-collaborative learning circles methodology which utilizes the information and communication technologies (ICTs) in e-educational processes. In e-collaborative learning circles methodology, the teachers and students announce their research projects on various mailing lists and discussion boards using available ICTs. The teachers & moderators and students who are already members of the e-forums, discuss the project proposals in their classrooms sent out by the potential global partner schools and return the requested feed back to the proposing school(s) about their level of the participation and contribution in the research. In general, an e-collaborative learning circle project is implemented with a small and diverse group (usually 8-10 participants) from around the world. The students meet regularly over a period of weeks/months through the ICTs during the ecollaborative learning process. When the project is completed, a project product (e-book / DVD) is prepared and sent to the circle members. In this research, when taking into account the interests and motivation of the participating students with the facilitating role of the teacher(s), the students in each circle do research to obtain new data and information, thus enabling them to have the opportunity to meet both different cultures and international understandings across the globe. However, while the participants communicate along with the members in the circle they also practice and develop their communication language skills. Finally, teachers and students find the possibility to develop their skills in using the ICTs as well.
Abstract: Grid computing is a form of distributed computing
that involves coordinating and sharing computational power, data
storage and network resources across dynamic and geographically
dispersed organizations. Scheduling onto the Grid is NP-complete,
so there is no best scheduling algorithm for all grid computing
systems. An alternative is to select an appropriate scheduling
algorithm to use in a given grid environment because of the
characteristics of the tasks, machines and network connectivity. Job
and resource scheduling is one of the key research area in grid
computing. The goal of scheduling is to achieve highest possible
system throughput and to match the application need with the
available computing resources. Motivation of the survey is to
encourage the amateur researcher in the field of grid computing, so
that they can understand easily the concept of scheduling and can
contribute in developing more efficient scheduling algorithm. This
will benefit interested researchers to carry out further work in this
thrust area of research.
Abstract: Implementing quality assurance in higher education establishments is the main focus of the reform process currently undertaken by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The reform agenda has involved attempts to improve academic quality and management processes in universities, technical institutions and colleges. The central challenge for the reform process is to produce change in higher education in a region where administration is described as centralized and bureaucratic. To make these changes, there should be a well-designed plans and follow up processes in order to monitor progress and develop responses to obstacles. Lack of skills, resources, political dilemmas, poor motivation, and readiness to face the consequences of change are factors which will determine the success of the reform process.
Abstract: Lean, which was initially developed by Toyota, is
widely implemented in other companies to improve competitiveness.
This research is an attempt to identify the adoption of lean in the
production system of Malaysian car manufacturer, Proton using case
study approach. To gain the in-depth information regarding lean
implementation, an activity on the assembly line called Set Parts
Supply (SPS) was studied. The result indicates that by using lean
principles, tools and techniques in the implementation of SPS enabled
to achieve the goals on safety, quality, cost, delivery and morale. The
implementation increased the size of the workspace, improved the
quality of assembly and the delivery of parts supply, reduced the
manpower, achieved cost savings on electricity and also increased the
motivation of manpower in respect of attendance at work. A
framework of SPS implementation is suggested as a contribution for
lean practices in production system.
Abstract: Although so far, many methods for ranking fuzzy numbers
have been discussed broadly, most of them contained some shortcomings,
such as requirement of complicated calculations, inconsistency
with human intuition and indiscrimination. The motivation of
this study is to develop a model for ranking fuzzy numbers based
on the lexicographical ordering which provides decision-makers with
a simple and efficient algorithm to generate an ordering founded on
a precedence. The main emphasis here is put on the ease of use
and reliability. The effectiveness of the proposed method is finally
demonstrated by including a comprehensive comparing different
ranking methods with the present one.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is description of the notion of
the death for prisoners and the ways of deal with. They express
indifference, coldness, inability to accept the blame, they have no
shame and no empathy. Is it enough to perform acts verging on the
death. In this paper we described mechanisms and regularities of selfdestructive
behaviour in the view of the relevant literature? The
explanation of the phenomenon is of a biological and sociopsychological
nature. It must be clearly stated that all forms of selfdestructive
behaviour result from various impulses, conflicts and
deficits. That is why they should be treated differently in terms of
motivation and functions which they perform in a given group of
people. Behind self-destruction there seems to be a motivational
mechanism which forces prisoners to rebel and fight against the hated
law and penitentiary systems. The imprisoned believe that pain and
suffering inflicted on them by themselves are better than passive
acceptance of repression. The variety of self-destruction acts is wide,
and some of them take strange forms. We assume that a life-death
barrier is a kind of game for them. If they cannot change the
degrading situation, their life loses sense.
Abstract: In this article, while it is attempted to describe the
problem and its importance, transformational leadership is studied by considering leadership theories. Issues such as the definition of
transformational leadership and its aspects are compared on the basis of the ideas of various connoisseurs and then it (transformational leadership) is examined in successful and
unsuccessful companies. According to the methodology, the
method of research, hypotheses, population and statistical sample
are investigated and research findings are analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistical methods in the framework of
analytical tables. Finally, our conclusion is provided by considering the results of statistical tests. The final result shows that
transformational leadership is significantly higher in successful companies than unsuccessful ones P
Abstract: The dramatic effect of information technology on
society is undeniable. In education, it is evident in the use of terms
like active learning, blended learning, electronic learning and mobile
learning (ubiquitous learning). This study explores the perceptions of
54 learners in a higher education institution regarding the use of
mobile devices in a third year module. Using semi-structured
interviews, it was found that mobile devices had a positive impact on
learner motivation, engagement and enjoyment. It also improved the
consistency of learning material, and the convenience and flexibility
(anywhere, anytime) of learning. User-interfacelimitation, bandwidth
and cognitive overload, however, were of concern. The use of cloud
based resources like Youtube and Google Docs, through mobile
devices, positively influenced learner perceptions, making them
prosumers (both consumers and producers) of education content.
Abstract: Given the motivation of maps impact in enhancing the
perception of the quality of life in a region, this work examines the
use of spatial analytical techniques in exploring the role of space in
shaping human development patterns in Assiut governorate.
Variations of human development index (HDI) of the governorate-s
villages, districts and cities are mapped using geographic information
systems (GIS). Global and local spatial autocorrelation measures are
employed to assess the levels of spatial dependency in the data and to
map clusters of human development. Results show prominent
disparities in HDI between regions of Assiut. Strong patterns of
spatial association were found proving the presence of clusters on the
distribution of HDI. Finally, the study indicates several "hot-spots" in
the governorate to be area of more investigations to explore the
attributes of such levels of human development. This is very
important for accomplishing the development plan of poorest regions
currently adopted in Egypt.
Abstract: As days go by, we hear more and more about HIV,
Ebola, Bird Flu and other dreadful viruses which were unknown a
few decades ago. In both detecting and fighting viral diseases
ordinary methods have come across some basic and important
difficulties. Vaccination is by a sense introduction of the virus to the
immune system before the occurrence of the real case infection. It is
very successful against some viruses (e.g. Poliomyelitis), while
totally ineffective against some others (e.g. HIV or Hepatitis-C). On
the other hand, Anti-virus drugs are mostly some tools to control and
not to cure a viral disease. This could be a good motivation to try
alternative treatments. In this study, some key features of possible
physical-based alternative treatments for viral diseases are presented.
Electrification of body parts or fluids (especially blood) with micro
electric signals with adjusted current or frequency is also studied. The
main approach of this study is to find a suitable energy field, with
appropriate parameters that are able to kill or deactivate viruses. This
would be a lengthy, multi-disciplinary research which needs the
contribution of virology, physics, and signal processing experts. It
should be mentioned that all the claims made by alternative cures
researchers must be tested carefully and are not advisable at the time
being.
Abstract: The major purpose of this study is to use network and multimedia technologies to build a game-based learning system for junior high school students to apply in learning “World Geography" through the “role-playing" game approaches. This study first investigated the motivation and habits of junior high school students to use the Internet and online games, and then designed a game-based learning system according to situated and game-based learning theories. A teaching experiment was conducted to analyze the learning effectiveness of students on the game-based learning system and the major factors affecting their learning. A questionnaire survey was used to understand the students- attitudes towards game-based learning. The results showed that the game-based learning system can enhance students- learning, but the gender of students and their habits in using the Internet have no significant impact on learning. Game experience has a significant impact on students- learning, and the higher the experience value the better the effectiveness of their learning. The results of questionnaire survey also revealed that the system can increase students- motivation and interest in learning "World Geography".