Improving Technological Infrastructure of Distance Education through Trustworthy Platform-Independent Virtual Software Application Pools

Abstract

Distance education (DE), which has evolved under the wings of information technologies in the last decade, has become a fundamental part of our modern education system. DE has not only replaced the traditional education method as in social sciences and lifelong learning opportunities but also has significantly strengthened traditional education in mathematics, science, and engineering fields that require practical and intensive study. However, it is deprived of supporting some key elements found in traditional educational approaches such as (i) modern computer laboratories with installed special software suitable for the student’s field of interest; (ii) adequate staff for maintenance and proper functioning of laboratories; (iii) face-to-face technical support; (iv) license fees. For students to overcome these shortcomings, a virtual application pool is needed where they can easily access all the necessary applications via remote access. This research aims to develop a platform-independent virtual laboratory environment for DE students. This article has been developed specifically to guide DE institutions and to make a positive contribution to the literature. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used to explain student behaviors. It was concluded that students using the platform performed more successful grades (12.89%) on laboratory assessments and that the students using the developed platform were found to be more satisfied with the education process.

Analysis of Emergency Remote Education in COVID-19 Crisis Focused on the Perception of the Teachers

“…This factor is essential when searching for didactic tools for the development of classes [45] although, different approaches measuring satisfaction from various theoretical perspectives could be further made. Microsoft Teams' primary function is to centralize contents in one tool for managing the subjects and resources needed to support teachers and students: The teachers showed great adaptability in incorporating new elements for developing their teaching-learning processes [46]. Therefore, Microsoft Teams is a flexible tool that facilitates the tasks and the management of subjects and provides the possibility to elaborate upon educational materials; it also serves as a tool to record student data.…”

Factors Affecting Students’ Acceptance of Mobile Learning Application in Higher Education during COVID-19 Using ANN-SEM Modelling Technique

“…Davis (1989) defined perceived ease of use (PEU) as the degree to which a person believes that using technology (mobile learning platform) will In this study, the proposed model in Figure 1 was developed by extending the TAM model in order to explain and understand the significant factors that influence students' usage of the mobile learning platform in JORDAN. Based on the above discussion, TAM is the most recent and widely used model, which uses five constructs, including perceived usefulness, ease of use, attitude toward to use, intention to use and actual use as predictors of the technology usage and acceptance [49][50][51][52]. TAM model as shown in Figure 2, hypothesized that the two main determinants for an individual to use any new technology are the user's perceptions of ease of use as well as their perception on its usefulness [32].…”

Sustainable and Security Focused Multimodal Models for Distance Learning

“…Ergüzen et al [13] suggests improving the technological infrastructure of DL through a trustworthy hardware platform-independent remote education laboratory. The reason for this suggestion is that the students are not able to acquire the costly software needed for studies.…”