<p> Increasingly, more high school teachers are providing instruction using blended learning. This provides benefits to students such as having more time flexibility in their learning as well as the ability to work through assignments at their own pace (Oliver &amp; Kellogg, 2015). However, this also involves student challenges, such as the need for self-motivation and time management. </p><p> The purpose of this qualitative study is to gain insight regarding teacher perceptions, experiences, and recommendations regarding transitioning from teaching in a face-to-face classroom environment to blended learning. The theoretical frameworks that form the basis for this research include the Community of Inquiry (CoI), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM), and Disruptive Innovation Theory. Hence, this research is based on diverse frameworks to incorporate those that focus on the change process along with frameworks that address online learning for instruction. Through administering background surveys, in-depth participant interviews, review of course design, and time-ordered matrices of syllabi, triangulation of data was used to provide &ldquo;convergence of evidence&rdquo; (Yin, 2009, p. 117). </p><p> The research focus on in-depth interviews yielded the opportunity to learn details of the blended course teachers&rsquo; experiences from their point of view. By shedding light on teacher perceptions and experiences while transitioning to blended learning, this study sought to inform how teachers may approach this journey and how districts/Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) may better assist them. Ultimately, this may inform educators of research-based approaches to provide effective blended learning instruction regarding academic, personal, and social skills. </p><p> This study showed that high school blended learning teachers enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with their peers to share their ideas and learning strategies. They take pride in coming up with new and improved ways to assist their students in learning. Hence, this will provide more student engagement opportunities. </p><p> Furthermore, high school blended learning teachers may gain additional ideas from attending conferences and workshops. Although this does cost money and result in reduced teacher time in the classroom, based on teacher willingness and perceptions, the benefits in attending are very valuable. The teachers are able to learn about diverse areas of blended learning through attending sessions and networking. Ultimately, this will provide greater options for student learning in blended learning environments.</p><p>

<p> Increasingly, organizations are at risk of data breaches due to corporate insider threats. Insiders, in fact, are the biggest threat to corporate data assets and are evading traditional cybersecurity countermeasures. The volume of big data makes insider threat detection more difficult. Conversely big data security analytics (BDSA) enables the detection of anomalous behavior patterns within large datasets in real time, offering organizations potentially a more effective cybersecurity countermeasure for detecting insider threats. However, there was a gap in the literature about what was known about information technology (IT) professionals&rsquo; behavioral intentions (BIs) to adopt BDSA. The overarching management question of this study was whether IT professionals&rsquo; BIs to adopt BDSA were influenced by perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). This management question led to the investigation of three research questions: The first was if there was a statistically significant relationship between PU and an IT professional&rsquo;s BI to adopt BDSA. The second was if there was a statistically significant relationship between PEOU and an IT professional&rsquo;s BI to adopt BDSA. And, the third was does an IT professional&rsquo;s PEOU of BDSA influence the PU of BDSA. The study used a quantitative, nonexperimental, research design with the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the theoretical framework. Participants included 110 IT professionals with five or more years of experience in the IT field. A Fast Form Approach to Measuring Technology Acceptance and Other Constructs was used to collect data. The instrument had 12 items that used (a) semantic differential scales that ranged in value from -4 to +4 and (b) bipolar labels to measure the two independent variables, PU and PEOU. Multiple linear regression was used to measure the significance of the relationship between PU and BI, and PEOU and BI. Also measured was the moderating effect of the independent variable, PEOU, on the dependent variable, PU. Finally, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) measured the predictive power of the TAM. The findings of this study indicate a statistically significant relationship between PU and an IT professional&rsquo;s BI to adopt BDSA and a statistically significant relationship between PEOU and PU. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between PEOU and an IT professional&rsquo;s BI to adopt BDSA. The MARS analysis indicated the TAM had strong predictive power. The practical implications of this study inform IT practitioners on the importance of technology usefulness. In the case of BDSA, the computational outcome must be reliable and provide value. Also, given the challenges of developing and effectively using BDSA, addressing the issue of ease of use may be important for IT practitioners to adopt and use BDSA. Moreover, as an IT practitioner gains experience with BDSA, the ability to extract value from big data influences PEOU and strengthens its relationship with PU.</p><p>

<p> Through the rise of online learning, the playing field has been leveled for colleges across the globe. As costs continue to increase, greater emphasis is being placed on higher education institutions to maximize existing resources while adapting to technological advances. Building on Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation, and further considering Lunenberg&rsquo;s work on higher education as an open system that must adapt to its changing environment, the researcher aimed to understand the realities of a shifting information technology (IT) landscape on IT professionals. A mixed method sequential exploratory approach was used to investigate if additional skills were required of IT professionals in managed hosting environments. The study further investigated if a change in organizational staffing would be required or a change in career trajectory would be possible. The quantitative phase, which included responses from 28 participants across 25 institutions, suggested that participants did not find that managed hosting environments required additional skills, different staffing models, or additional career trajectories. The qualitative phase uncovered additional insights. Via responsive interviewing of five interviewees, the researcher found HEIs that utilize managed hosting for IT applications places an emphasis on soft skills and increased user communication. Further, there was a consensus that managed hosting for IT applications changes the responsibilities of IT staff. However, the overall impact of a managed hosting strategy on a HEIs workforce will depend heavily on leadership and the organizational culture of the institution.</p><p>

University of Macau / Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences

University of Macau / Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences

<p> Autism spectrum disorder rates are climbing in the United States. Because this population is growing, research is needed to understand how to assist these individuals in pursuit of postsecondary educational and employment opportunities. The purpose of this qualitative study, as reflected in the central research question, was to investigate how a career and technical education program impacted the preparedness of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder for educational and employment opportunities beyond high school. The conceptual framework was based on Bronfenbrenner&rsquo;s ecological perspective of human development, Zhao and Frank&rsquo;s ecological perspective of technology, and Song&rsquo;s research about distributed cognition. This study used a single case study design, and the case was a career and technical education program at a high school located in Southwestern state. Participants included one program administrator, three career and technical education teachers, and two special education teachers. Data were collected from multiple sources, including individual interviews with participants and program documents. Data analysis included line-by-line coding and category construction to determine themes and discrepancies. Key findings indicated that the CTE program prepared ASD students for postsecondary educational and employment opportunities, differentiated instruction to meet the individual needs of ASD students, technologies such as computers helped ASD students prepare for postsecondary educational and employment opportunities, helped ASD students learn technical skills, life skills, and job skills. As a society we need to recognize ASD students are impacting the paradigm associated with special needs students as they attend universities, work study programs, technical schools, and other opportunities which have evaded this population.</p><p>

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) aims to effectively and efficiently leverage Education Technology (referred to as Ed Tech) to serve as a powerful resource for strong instruction. The term Ed Tech at CPS refers to digital instructional products and programs, used by students or educators, for teaching and learning. Examples of Ed Tech include literacy programs such as Achieve3000, websites or platforms such as Khan Academy or eSpark, along with a myriad other technological inventions that are rapidly being produced. The Ed Tech industry encompasses a vast number of products for educators and students, and it is financially advantageous for Ed Tech vendors to conduct business with CPS, the third largest district in the nation. School principals, the primary purchasers of Ed Tech, navigate a decentralized procurement system that places the burden on individual school leaders to ascertain technology interoperability, level of student data security, the potential financial value of the product, and most importantly, evidence of impact on learning outcomes. In this capstone, I describe my EdLD residency experience as Special Assistant on Strategic Projects for the Chief Administrative Officer in leading a cross-functional team to build and operationalize a district-wide system that improves procurement practices and increases informed school-level decision-making regarding Ed Tech products. Research and interviews with industry leaders and educators surface three key challenges that a large urban school district faces when developing an Ed Tech procurement strategy: 1) defining and clearly articulating the scope of Ed Tech for internal and external stakeholders 2) driving Ed Tech procurement through a focus on students’ learning needs, and 3) assisting leaders, principals and teachers with successful change and subsequent adoption of the proposed system. Ed Tech is a pioneering and constantly evolving space. The strategic project results demonstrate that defining a narrow and clear scope, maintaining unwavering focus on the district’s vision of teaching and learning, and carefully navigating the stages and factors of change can significantly move CPS towards operationalizing a collaborative and comprehensive Ed Tech Standards and Support System between central office and schools.

<p>This exploratory study applies social network analysis techniques to existing, publicly available data to understand collaboration patterns within the co-author network of a federally-funded, interdisciplinary research program. The central questions asked: What underlying social capital structures can be determined about a group of researchers from bibliometric data and other publicly available existing data? What are ways social network tools characterize the interdisciplinarity or cross-disciplinarity of co-author teams? The names of 411 grantees were searched in the Web of Science indexing database; author information from the WoS search results resulted in a 191-member co-author network. Research domains were included as attribute data for the co-author network. UCINet social network analysis software calculated a large 60 node component and two larger components with 12 and 8 nodes respectively, the remainder of the network consisted of smaller 2-5 node components. Within the 191-node co-author network the following analyses were performed to learn more about the structural social capital of this group: Degree and Eigenvector centrality measures, brokerage measures, and constraint measures. Additionally, ten randomly selected dyads and the five 4-node cliques within the 191-node network were examined to find patterns of cross-disciplinary collaboration among researcher and within award teams. Award numbers were added as attribute data to five 4-node cliques and 10 random dyads; these showed instances of collaboration among interdisciplinary award teams. Collaboration patterns across disciplines are discussed. Data from this research could serve as a baseline measure for growth in future analyses of the case studied. This method is recommended as a tool to gain insights to a research community and to track publication collaboration growth over time. This research method shows potential as a way to identify aspects of a research community?s social structural capital, particularly within an interdisciplinary network to highlight where researchers are working well together or to learn where there is little collaboration.

<p> The focus on the lack of diversity in technology has become a hot topic over the last several years, with technology companies coming under fire for not being more representative of the markets that they serve. Even The White House and President Obama has made this issue of technology diversity and recruiting more women and people of color a topic of discussion hosting several events at The White House aimed at finding solutions to this issue. The issue has become so prevalent in the news recently that technology companies have been asked to publish report cards disclosing the demographic breakdown of their employee workforce. Most of the major technology companies in Silicon Valley have vowed to dedicate themselves to becoming more diverse, and have instituted programs to do such. However, progress has been slow and the results have been disappointing. Although many attempts to fix this problem has occurred for decades there has been no panacea to emerge. Why are there so few minorities pursuing careers in technology? The answer to this question at the moment is unknown. Although many experts have offered theories, there is little in the way of agreement. As the numbers continue to dwindle and more women and people of color continue to pursue careers in other fields or depart from the technology industry, technology companies are challenged to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in their workforce and to come up with solutions that address this issue that has become so important to the future economic growth of the United States. </p><p> Qualitative by design, this study examines the perspectives, insights, and understandings of African American software development engineers. Accordingly, participants in this research study provided key insights regarding strategies, best practices, and challenges experienced by African American software development engineers while developing and implementing application programs at American corporations. Participants&rsquo; perspectives provided an insightful understanding of the complexities of being an underrepresented minority in an American corporate information technology department.</p><p>

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become critical and pervasive in any well-run modern enterprise across all sectors, which include local government. As a result, ICT demands to be managed and governed in a sustainable manner. Therefore, local government should accept the responsibility of implementing good Corporate Governance of ICT (CGICT). Without sound CGICT, ICT is unable to support local government in the achievement of their strategic objectives. This will most likely result in local government not being able to serve the interests of the community. Even though local government is aware of their responsibility regarding CGICT, the Auditor-General reports that their attempts are unsatisfactory, in this regard. This is most probably due to the fact that ample information exists on guiding local government with `what' they should do towards good CGICT, but unfortunately a lack of guidance on `how' to achieve it. Thus, it is imperative for local government to adopt a CGICT framework which provides guidance not only on what they must do towards implementing good CGICT but also on how they should achieve it. In doing so, local government would most likely be able to properly manage and govern ICT and support the needs of the community. Therefore, the aim of this study is to report on research undertaken, in order to assist local government with a CGICT framework that is relevant to their unique environment. Accordingly, this CGICT framework aims to be usable and scallable to the needs of any sized local government entity. As a result, the CGICT framework aims to be simplistic in nature to promote self-implementation of sound CGICT in local government.