Table of Contents for Volume 19, 2024, of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management

The novel coronavirus pandemic ravaged the world in 2020, making the world fall into an unprecedented period of stagnation. This research used the Sol-Idea internet public opinion analysis platform to collect, and analyses online public opinion data associated with novel coronavirus. This research finds the following situations: 1) COVID-19 online opinion leaders are more likely to post in major discussion boards. However, opinion leaders of replies but use PTT forum as the main discussion channel; 2) According to the analysis of the content and behaviour of the account 'ebola01', it is found that the content of the posts are mostly news praising the ruling party government or mocking the opposing parties, with the sources mostly coming from media considered to be more pro-ruling party. Therefore, it can be inferred that 'ebola01' may be part of cyber army with a particular political spectrum.

There is a need to emphasise and educate future business leaders on emerging technologies' disruptive and transformative impact on business processes. Allen (2020) suggests the need for a digital mindset and tech literacy in business management education. In our study, we define cyber literacy and cyber ethical mindset emphasising the importance of informing future leaders in business schools about the ethical dilemmas arising while using these emerging technologies. Additionally, we highlight various ethical pitfalls of using technologies enabling disruption (TED). Further, we contribute to the understanding of cyber literacy, cyber ethics and business ethics, how to incorporate cyber ethics into the management curriculum, and why there is a need to integrate cyber ethics into management education.

With the continuous growth and importance of data, the need for strong data protection becomes crucial. Encryption plays a vital role in preserving the confidentiality of data, and attribute-based encryption (ABE) offers a meticulous access control system based on attributes. This study investigates the integration of Fernet encryption with initialisation vector (IV) and ABE, resulting in a hybrid encryption approach that enhances both security and flexibility. By combining the advantages of Fernet encryption and IV-based encryption, the hybrid encryption scheme establishes an effective and robust mechanism for safeguarding data. Fernet encryption, renowned for its simplicity and efficiency, provides authenticated encryption, guaranteeing both the confidentiality and integrity of the data. The incorporation of an initialisation vector (IV) introduces an element of randomness into the encryption process, thereby strengthening the overall security measures. This research paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks of the hybrid encryption of Fernet and IV with ABE.

Prediction of route based on historical trip observation of users is widely employed in location-based services. This work concentrates on building a route prediction system using Lempel-Ziv technique applied to a historical corpus of user travel data. Huge continuous logs of historical GPS traces representing the user's location in past are decomposed into smaller logical units known as trips. User trips are converted into sequences of road network edges using a process known as map matching. Lempel-Ziv is applied on road network edges to build the prediction model that captures the user's travel pattern in the past. A two-phased model is proposed using a map reduce framework without losing accuracy and efficiency. Model is then used to predict the user's end-to-end route given a partial route travelled by the user at any point in time. The objective of the proposed work is to build a Route Prediction system in which model building and prediction both are horizontally scalable.

Can questions sent to Open-Educational-Resource (OER) websites such as Ask-An-Expert serve as indicators for students’ interest in science? This issue was examined using an online questionnaire which included an equal number of questions about the topics “space” and “nutrition” randomly selected from three different sources: a 5th-grade science textbook, the “Ask-An-Expert” website, and questions collected from other students in the same age group. A sample of 113 5th-graders from two elementary schools were asked to rate their interest level in finding out the answer to these questions without knowledge of their source. Significant differences in students’ interest level were found between questions: textbook questions were ranked lowest for both subjects, and questions from the open-resource were ranked high. This finding suggests that questions sent to an open-resource could be used as an indicator of students’ interest in science. In addition, the high correlation of interests expressed by students from the two schools may point to a potential generalization of the findings. This study contributes by highlighting OER as a new and promising indicator of student interest, which may help bring “student voices” into mainstream science teaching to increase student interest in science.

Self-efficacy is essential to learning but what happens when learning is done as a result of a collective process? What is the role of individual self-efficacy in collective problem solving? This research examines the manifestation of self-efficacy in prediction markets that are configured as collective problem-solving platforms and whether self-efficacy of traders affects the collective outcome. Prediction markets are collective-intelligence platforms that use a financial markets mechanism to combine knowledge and opinions of a group of people. Traders express their opinions or knowledge by buying and selling “stocks” related to questions or events. The collective outcome is derived from the final price of the stocks. Self-efficacy, one’s belief in his or her ability to act in a manner that leads to success, is known to affect personal performance in many domains. To date, its manifestation in computer-mediated collaborative environments and its effect on the collective outcome has not been studied. In a controlled experiment, 632 participants in 47 markets traded a solution to a complex problem, a naïve framing of the knapsack problem. Contrary to earlier research, we find that technical and functional self-efficacy perceptions are indistinguishable, probably due to a focus on outcomes rather than on resources. Further, results demonstrate that prediction markets are an effective collective problem-solving platform that correctly aggregates individual knowledge and is resilient to traders’ self-efficacy.

Aim/Purpose: Students face many challenges improving their soft skills such as critical thinking. This paper offers one possible solution to this problem. Background: This paper considers one method of enhancing critical thinking through a problem-solving game called the Coffee Shop. Problem-solving is a key component to critical thinking, and game-playing is one method of enhancing this through an interactive teaching method. Methodology: Three classes of Vietnamese high school students engaged in the Coffee Shop game. The method seeks outcome measurements through the use of analysis of multiple surveys to assess and interpret if critical thinking may have been improved. Contribution: The study may help to understand the importance of problem-solving in the context of an entrepreneurial setting and add to the variation of methods used to deliver the lesson to students in the classroom. Findings: The findings show that practicing problem-solving scenarios with a focus on critical thinking in a time limited setting results in a measured improvement of this skill. Recommendations for Practitioners: The findings suggest that educators could use games more as tools for problem-solving to contribute to their students’ learning outcomes around developing critical thinking. Recommendation for Researchers: More research could be devoted to developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills through game-play models. Impact on Society: Improved critical thinking skills in individuals could make a greater contribution to society. Future Research A comparative study between different high school grades and genders as well as between different countries or cultures.

Table of Contents of the Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Skills and Lifelong Learning

Table of Contents of the Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Skills and Lifelong Learning

Aim/Purpose: This paper investigates the factors contributing to student IT self-leadership in online education using an exploratory study. Specifically, our goal was to understand whether the instructors’ transformational IT leadership and the students’ personal innovativeness with IT contributed to student IT self-leadership. Background: The study was conducted in an online course. While today’s students are expected to be IT natives, they still lack the skills to find and learn technologies on their own. This is problematic for both online education and students’ future careers. Directed-teaching methods are not appropriate to solve this kind of problem, a more constructivist teaching method is appropriate. We recommend that instructors adopt transformational IT leadership to set norms around technology use, to be role models in using online course technologies with utmost knowledge, and to encourage and support the students in their use of IT. Methodology: An exploratory research is conducted with 46 students in an online management information systems course at a public university. The data were analyzed using PLS structural equation modeling technique. Contribution: This paper introduces the unique concepts of student IT self-leadership and instructors’ transformational IT leadership by adapting concepts from the self-leadership and transformational leadership theories. IT self-leadership refers to the ability to intentionally influence one’s own thinking, feeling, and actions toward the use of IT to reach one’s work and life goals. To increase IT self-leadership, students should try new technologies as much as possible. Instructors should set up norms about trying new technologies, troubleshooting one’s own issues, and play a supportive and encouraging role, rather than employing directed-teaching methods. Findings: IT self-leadership skills are the ability to intentionally influence one’s own thinking, feeling and actions towards the use of IT to reach one’s work and life goals. The findings show that instructors’ transformational IT leadership as well as students’ innovativeness with IT contributes to students’ IT self-leadership. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners may consider exhibiting transformational IT leadership skills including (1) giving encouragement about IT use, (2) fostering trust, (3) encouraging thinking about IT problems in new ways, (4) being clear about their values about IT by practicing what they preach in their IT use, and (5) inspiring students by being highly competent in IT. Potential ways that the instructors can exhibit these skills are discussed in the paper. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers are recommended to include IT-self leadership of both students and instructors in their investigations on learning success. Furthermore, the inclusion of transformational IT leadership in new studies of teaching and learning success is recommended. Impact on Society: This paper includes students as part of the solution to challenges students face in online courses rather than treating them like passive recipients of educational changes. Thereby, it helps teachers and students to work together for a better solution to educational disruptions. Future Research: Studies should be conducted to determine other antecedents and outcomes of IT self-leadership. Research is needed on specific ways practitioners can increase their IT transformational leadership. While this paper introduced how the instructor of the exploratory study provided transformational IT leadership, more than one way of reaching each goal was practiced. Future research should test the connection between each transformational IT leadership behavior presented here and its outcome.

Table of Contents of the Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Skills and Lifelong Learning