bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
EDUCATION FROM DATA-DRIVEN ELEARNING'S PERSPECTIVE
Authors: Chitu Claudia , Cernian Alexandra , Sgarciu Valentin
Published: February 2023

Education is a concept which goes deep for people; like wealth, religion, and it is worth more and more as the time passes by. Why? Because education is meant to take us into the future that we cannot grasp, but the children starting school by next year will be retiring in 2075 and the professors are meant to educate them for this. No one has any idea what the world will look like, in spite of all predictions made with the advanced computing techniques in this unpredictable environment. In a world in which the academic ability started dominating our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their view, we see a process of academic inflation. We consider the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children, our students, could be redesigned, by giving them the ownership of learning. The new learning trends and new possibilities which technology enables are tools that should be used to boost the education's access. There arise challenges and bottlenecks, but with the right mentality - growth mindset- and using a solid understanding, the solutions could be shaped in such a way to promote diversity and price value, connecting communities, people, ideas. Blending learning in academia and in corporate environments, education is completely transforming due to technology, more like our dynamic environment in the century of Big Data. Thus, the paper presents a vision over the attitude towards education and learning process for interconnected communities. This attitude embraces critical thinking, children's capacity for innovation and it focuses teaching for real life to create innovative individuals and successful citizens.
CHATBOTS FOR EDUCATION - TRENDS, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Authors: Georgescu Alin andrei
Published: February 2023

Conversational agents change the way we think and live, as they have the ability of being present and ready to provide help anytime and anywhere. From mobile phones or PCs to smart homes, virtual assistants may ease our lives, by doing tasks while conducting conversations. The effects bots can have on education change the humanity forever, implementing new educational principles designed as complementary to traditional methods and to teachers. They may have a major role in delivering pedagogical content and assessing, covering a wide variety of lessons and subjects by using multimedia content and speeches. New eye candy ways of evaluating students and perpetual learning may be conceived, while getting real time feedback from targeted learners. They convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner and enhance the attraction of technology, gaining the trust of the students. To sum up, chatbots may be cheap and easy to use educational tools, meant to be closer to nowadays students in a more pleasant way, adequate to modern styles of learning. This technology, could have a large potential in schools, universities and other training scenarios, reaching a wide variety of targets. The future belongs to robots, and they are already here. Robots surround us, even though they may not have the shape the users imagine. This paper discusses the development and capabilities of conversational agents and the added value they can bring to the educational process: the concept of chatbot is provided, the most important frameworks are underlined, a set of successful educational examples of chatbots, the benefits and challenges of using chatbots in education are also reviewed. In the end, a model of using an education chatbot to increase quality of life is proposed.
IDENTIFYING READING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY LEARNERS WITHIN THEIR ORAL FRENCH SELF-EXPLANATIONS
Authors: Panaite Marilena , Dascalu Mihai , Trausanmatu Stefan , Dessus Philippe , Bianco Maryse
Published: February 2023

Natural Language Processing has massively evolved during the last years and many up-to-date applications integrate different speech tools in order to create an enhanced user experiences. For obtaining a seamless integration of existing speech recognition systems, there is a trending interest for developing and improving existing speech-to-text algorithms. The aim of this paper is to improve user interaction with the ReaderBench platform, by developing and integrating a speech recognition module designed so that young pupils can dictate their self-explanations to a given text. Afterwards, the ReaderBench framework is used to automatically evaluate the employed reading strategies based on the resulted speech transcriptions. A dataset containing 160 self-explanations from students ranging from 9 to 11 years old was analysed using both original transcripts, and the ones automatically generated by our custom speech recognition system. Multiple methods designed to perform speech recognition are also compared, while a new dedicated model was trained in order to improve the quality of the existing French model for speech recognition from CMUSphinx speech recognition system. Our revised model includes a pronunciation dictionary obtained after training a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Grapheme-to-Phoneme neural network. The accuracy of our system is benchmarked in relation to the automated process of identifying reading strategies implemented in our ReaderBench framework, which is applied on both manual transcriptions and automated speech-to-text inputs. The obtained results argue for the adequacy of our method as the slight decrease in terms of identification accuracy is justifiable in contrast to the effort of manually transcribing each self-explanation.
AUTOMATED TEMPLATE GENERATION BASED ON WORD EMBEDDINGS
Authors: Manatuica Maria , Dascalu Mihai , Ruseti Stefan , Trausanmatu Stefan
Published: February 2023

Extracting document templates and generalizing the structure of similar documents from specific domains can significantly increase learner productivity when creating new documents. Moreover, from a generalizable point of view, the endeavour of manually creating a draft document can be a difficult and time-consuming task, whether we need to obtain a general form for a specific document, or to identify the main ideas of a set of scientific papers on the same subject. Thus, instead of starting from a blank page that can be frustrating in most cases, we propose an automated method of grouping semantically similar documents and identifying potential templates. This paper introduces the first steps towards building an automated method relying on advanced Natural Language Processing techniques that can be used to generate templates based on large collections by identifying patterns between and within documents. The underlying semantic model used is word2vec, a two-layered neural network that builds word embeddings and was trained using the general-purpose TASA corpus. The generated word vectors were then used to compute the document representations that consider normalized word occurrences; afterwards, an agglomerative clustering algorithm is applied. Each cluster produced one template formed of paragraphs chosen from the original collection. In order to evaluate the results of the proposed method, several experiments were conducted on collections from multiple domains. The results were analysed using charts for the similarity of documents and of paragraphs on one hand, as well as evolution graphs for the agglomerative clustering process, on the other hand. Overall, our automated process was efficient, and the results were encouraging in terms of proposing initial document templates. Further research paths include the anonymization of named entities and more in-depth comparisons in terms of document structure and syntax, besides semantic relatedness.
FACILITATING STUDENTS' TRANSITION FROM SCHOOL TO WORK THROUGH THE WWW PROJECT'S E-COURSE
Authors: Colibaba Anca cristina , Gheorghiu Irina , Colibaba Stefan , Colibaba Cintia , Cirsmari Ramona
Published: February 2023

The article is based on the We Welcome Work (WWW) project, funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ KA2 VET Programme (Ref. no.: 2016-1-RO01-KA202-02471). The project meets the growing needs of high school students and young people who live in a very mobile environment, where time, education and employment are challenging issues. The supply of apprenticeship and traineeship places in the EU continues to be under-developed. A lack of workplace experience and the related skills and competences is one of the factors contributing to the "skills gap" in the EU today. The project intends to offer non-formal opportunities for young people to acquire employability, entrepreneurship and digital skills to support their transition from school to the world of work thus achieving a better skills match and career orientation. The article gives insights into the e-training and its resources designed within the project partnership. The online material equips teachers and schools councillors with interactive tools to tests and evaluate the students’ competences and skills and guide them based on their specific needs for their career. The focus of the project is on involvement of students in an interactive training session of apprenticeship, simulating various jobs situations in the form of animation problem-solving game. This will gain development of various competences: workplace skills, problem-solving, teamwork, foreign languages, IT and social media skills, communication and cultural skills, etc. The article presents the e-training, its methodology, objectives as well as its interactive and creative activities whose content and development benefit from state-of-the-art technology.
THE 2IMINED PROJECT'S DIGITAL TOOLS FACILITATING IMMIGRANTS' INTEGRATION INTO THE HOST COUNTRY
Authors: Colibaba Anca cristina , Colibaba Stefan , Gheorghiu Irina , Colibaba Cintia , Dinu Claudia elena , Gardikiotis Rodica
Published: February 2023

The article is based on the Improving the Initial Education of Adult Immigrants (2IMINED) project, a KA2 Strategic Partnership (2016-1-LT01-KA204-023223), as it is being implemented by EuroED Foundation, Iasi, Romania. The aim of the project is to develop innovative educational tools, which would improve and extend the offer of learning opportunities for immigrants. The article introduces the project’s objectives, target groups and activities. It also presents the findings of the research conducted through questionnaires and interviews and carried out in the north-east of Romania. The research analysis highlighted the specific characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education, reasons for coming to Romania, information received about Romania before their decision to leave their own country) and social educational needs of both immigrant educators and immigrants in this region. The research analysis was based on a number of 102 immigrants and 5 immigrants’ educators. The information received from this research served as the basis for the creation of digital innovative tools (mainly focused on the role of education in the first years of immigration), which will facilitate immigrants’ integration into the host society. The study gives useful insights into the creation process of the core materials, which will help immigrants to acquire basic knowledge and understanding about the host country’s sociocultural life. Two vital strands of the core digital materials, on language learning and health care, which EuroEd is in charge of, are analysed in detail. The access to the content and development of these materials benefits from state-of-the-art technology.
AN E-LEARNING APPROACH TO ENHANCING THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS' MOTIVATION TO STUDY BUSINESS ENGLISH FOR WORK PURPOSES
Authors: Catana Elisabeta simona
Published: February 2023

Recognizing the huge role played by e-learning in mastering a foreign language for work purposes, we aim to point out its importance in meeting the engineering students’ needs for communication in English for business and work purposes. We emphasize the necessity of motivating the engineering students to take a blended learning approach, and particularly an e-learning approach, to studying business English to enable them to understand and cope with the culture of companies and multinationals with a view to their future successful career. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of e-learning for enhancing the engineering students’ motivation to develop their knowledge of business English for work purposes in a company or in a multinational and to adequately use the acquired business English vocabulary in specific contexts, in written and verbal discourses, in presentations, simulated meetings and dialogues in the English language courses and seminars in a technical university. We argue for the necessity of focusing on e-learning for enhancing the engineering students’ awareness that developing their knowledge of business English for a career in a company can be a great asset even if their job description mainly includes technical activities such as software or hardware development. Having knowledge of business English would allow the engineering students to better understand the world of companies and their rules of doing business nowadays, enabling them to professionally communicate and make appropriate decisions in a company meeting, in negotiations or in other business contexts. This paper will present: 1) the importance of focusing on e-learning-based seminar activities meant to develop the students’ communication skills in English, their creativity in accomplishing the given tasks, enhancing their motivation to develop their business English vocabulary; 2) the engineering students’ perspective on the importance of e-learning for developing their business English knowledge for a future career and 3) a methodological approach to teaching business English to engineering students based on traditional learning and e-learning.
ADVANTAGES OF THE ONLINE ASESSMENT WITH LIFELONG LANGUAGE TRAINING PROGRAMS IN THE ROMANIAN ARMED FORCES
Authors: Costea Luiza , Bursuc Catalin , Radu Orlando
Published: February 2023

In the Ministry of Defense, military and civilian personnel carry out, in accordance with their job description, activities with foreign partners. Those activities are in line with procedures of foreign partners or organizations or are even run by multinational structures. The need of owning communication competences particularly in English, but not exclusively, has led to imposing a linguistic standard at the NATO level, namely the standard STANAG 6001. This framework mainly standardizes assessment of foreign languages. Romania, as a NATO-member state, has set up, within the MoD, the Capability Taskforce N 11012 which states that trained and linguistically assessed personnel will fill the positions that require communicating in English. Reaching the capability taskforce can be mainly achieved within the language training system, by means of flexible and custom-tailored training programs. Such language training programs comprise both traditionally organized face-to-face modules and online modules. Also, there are assessment sections where the online module plays a major role. In terms of assessing language proficiency, an important part of it is the intercultural competence evaluation. On one hand, assessing acquisition of information, knowledge and understanding can be apparently easily carried out, but, on the other hand, that is just part of the intercultural competence. How can ability be evaluated? How can we assess or even quantify tolerance, attitudes, changing perspective, overcoming stereotypes? Intercultural competence stems out from solid cultural knowledge of the target language and it also is a cornerstone component of the communicative proficiency. The possibilities of applying, the legal framework of organizing and the advantages of the online assessment represent elements that could boost the efficiency of reaching the above-mentioned taskforce.
ON MONOFUNCTIONAL BILINGUAL ONLINE E-DICTIONARIES: ENGLISH-ROMANIAN AND ROMANIAN-ENGLISH
Authors: Visan Ruxandra
Published: February 2023

The aim of this paper is to focus on online monofunctional bilingual electronic dictionaries (online EDs), English-Romanian and Romanian-English, and on the role of these lexicographic tools in the teaching of EFL on an advanced level. Taking into account the changes brought by the advent of e-technology in the domain of lexicography, as well as the challenges that the increased availability of a multitude of online dictionaries poses for students and teachers, the paper aims to analyse the frequency/efficiency with which advanced students of English (in this case, the students of English and Modern Languages Departments, University of Bucharest) make use of English-Romanian, Romanian-English online EDs. Based on questionnaires addressed to the students, the paper will attempt to establish (a) which English-Romanian and Romanian-English online EDs are mostly used by students (b) the frequency with which the students access these resources compared to that with which they employ traditional English-Romanian and Romanian-English print-based dictionaries. It is also important to note that several of the EDs freely available online to students represent truncated versions of former traditional paper-based dictionaries. An essential problem that arises is that the information that was formerly part of a larger coherent lexicographic entry in former paper-based dictionaries becomes incomplete when it is reintegrated as part of the online e-entry. The paper will focus not only on the pedagogical and social dimensions of employing these online EDs as learning tools, but also on a significant ethical dimension related to such resources, namely on what counts as plagiarism in online e-lexicography.
THE USE OF ICT IN INTEGRATION OF FRESHMEN STUDENTS INTO THE ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT
Authors: Ilie Mariana mirela
Published: February 2023

When entering the university, the student is invited to develop another type of learning, more rigorous, and with a more consistent intellectual autonomy, at the same time freshmen are developing new relationships with knowledge. Once in university, the learning habitus the students had at the end of secondary studies such as memorizing, passive assimilation of disparate, disarticulated materials, lose relevance. Meeting the requirements of a university education involves a change in the way of learning and addressing towards academic tasks. This intellectual and methodological metamorphosis is supplemented by other disruptions due to shifting of this new learning environment for instance the acceptance of behaviours and practices adapted to the pedagogical and social context of the university. The student must build a new temporality, he also must learn how to manage and dominate the time, since his/her whole social and psychological life is being targeted by the new settings. Switching from pupil to student means altering his social role, moreover it is essential he/she changes the way of learning and how he/she intermingles with the academic environment. The main difference between school and higher education is often the amount of support and supervision that is being offered. During secondary school a teacher meets his/her students relatively often and together they set up and monitor the assignments on a regular basis, the teacher being willing to lead the learning they hope to develop, in contrast, the professor cannot meet with students too often due to the particularities of the classes. A certain problem arises when as a young student they feel very lonely and somehow, they have a sense of absence of interaction with their professors, so it is very likely that the freshmen have to assume more responsibilities for planning and completing work tasks, far more then when they were in school. The aim of this article is to show students` perception regarding the way ICT is used for making the transition from secondary education to university considering their communication with the administration staff, professors and colleagues. The paper is based on an exploratory empirical research with a hypothetical-deductive reasoning with premises and variables based on postulates and hypotheses with chances of logical verifiability.
SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE TEXTILE COMPACTNESS
Authors: Farima Daniela , Iovandragomir Alina , Buliga Valentin
Published: February 2023

The textiles are considered capillary-pore materials and their porosity can be evaluated by using the pore percentage, meaning the ratio between the pores’ volume (air) and the textile volume. For knitted fabrics which are characterized by large values of the porosity, it is also relevant to specify the volumetric filling degree, starting with the projection phase, because it expresses the compactness of the analyzed structure. There are differences between the values of these two synthetic indicators (porosity and the volumetric filling degree) because the porosity refers also to the air volume contained by the analyzed structure. When the difference between these two is small, the knitted fabrics compactness is considered to be big and the porosity even smaller. The paper presents a software application which can generate exit data (the volumetric filling degree, porosity) by using the entrance data (the width and the height ratio of the knitted fabric, the thickness of the knitted fabric, the wire diameter, the consumption length ratio, the weight of the surface unit, the weight of the knitted sample, the toluene density, the weight of the toluene pycnometer and the weight of the toluene pycnometer and the knitted sample). The application is designed to generate simultaneously not only the values for both indicators, but also the differences between them. The applications can be saved and used later or can be just deleted. The software application can be used to find optimal knitted fabrics regarding the compactness. The porosity and the compactness degree can influence other different comfort characteristics (vapors and air permeability, thermic insulation).
COMPUTER-ASSISTED TEACHING AND LEARNING OF COTTON CARDING
Authors: Ichim Mariana , Sava Costica
Published: February 2023

The emergence of computers in the 1960s and their use in schools and universities opened new doors for modern methods of education. Computers and computer-based technologies have changed the traditional method of teaching, the so-called “chalk and talk” method. From a teacher-centered method in which the teacher delivers information, the use of computers in instruction has made a shift towards student-centered methods in which the teacher facilitates student learning. Through the use of multimedia educational tools, such as animation, video and simulation and network-based Learning Management Systems, such as Blackboard, Moodle, OLAT, Desire2Learn a. s. o., the computer-assisted teaching and learning can improve student satisfaction and academic outcomes. Multimedia technologies make the learning environment more interactive, increase student engagement and motivation to learn, and assist students to develop a better understanding of the topics they are learning. In this paper some interactive tools meant for computer-assisted teaching and learning of cotton carding have been designed, such as schematic drawing of cotton card, animation, video, and assessment tests. The topic is taught to the 3rd year students of the Faculty of Textiles, Leather and Industrial Management from Iasi, the “Technology and Design of Textile Products” specialization. The schematic drawing of cotton card has been created using AutoCAD software, and the video have been recorded with the aid of a Nikon D 5100 digital camera. A free online animated GIF Maker has been used to create an animation view of cotton carding process. In order to create the assessment tests Hot Potatoes software has been used.
CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF FOOTBALL TECHNIQUE
Authors: Palade Tudor , Gheorghe Grigore , Ciolca Sorinmirel , Badea Dan
Published: February 2023

This scientific paper aimed to address the development of technical and tactical behaviour in the game of football by using social networks. In terms of juvenile football, the technical component shows an outstanding importance in the formative strategy of the football player. This is highlighted by the technical particularities of the game of football in the context of the efficient achievement of the two main phases: the attack and defence. At this age, the methodical priorities in education refer to the consolidation of the previously achieved technical processes and the learning of new technical processes in appropriate game conditions. Taking into account the details of the teaching process at this level and the content of the formative phase, we can state that the face-to-face work time with the football players might be insufficient. This proves the importance of social networks which can determine the optimisation of technical and tactical behaviour during the training and games through individual and Facebook-assisted activities. The ameliorative ascertaining experiment was conducted over a period of 3 months. The subjects involved in the research are representatives of the “Dinamo Bucharest” Football Club, junior-E level of instruction, children aged 9 to 10 years (2007 group). The research objectification was achieved by assessing the technical and tactical behaviour of the players mentioned above during the training and games played in the championship organised by the Municipal Football Association of Bucharest. The research methods used were: scientific documentation; observation; recording; experiment; statistical and mathematical method; graphical method. The results of this scientific approach are visible through increased technical and tactical efficiency in the training process and more effective performance behaviour during the game play.
PATIENT E-LEARNING TOOLS FOR ADULTS WITH CYSTIC FIBROSIS
Authors: Vagg Tamara , Fleming Claire , Mccarthy Mairead , Plant Barry , Tabirca Sabin
Published: February 2023

Background: Patient education is an integral part of management and care. For adults with Cystic Fibrosis, new procedures and devices may arise. Studies have shown that patients forget between 40%-80% provided during a consultation, hence other accessible platforms for disseminating this knowledge is required. Aim: This paper aims to outline the design, creation and evaluation of three patient e-learning tools. These tools are available online so that they can be accessed by patients via bedside tablets in a hospital ward and personal devices. This research will then investigate usage data from those users accessing the tools in a hospital and non-hospital context. Methodologies: Three education tools were developed which focus on Portacaths, Gastrostomy Tubes, and Bronchoscopies. All educational multimedia was developed and validated by the Cork CF Multidisciplinary team. The information is presented to the user in a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format, where users can navigate through content via buttons with a series of commonly asked questions. These questions are identified by CF nurse specialists with over 25 years’ experience in educating CF adults on these devices and procedures. The web tools are developed using HTML, CSS, AJAX, PHP and JavaScript. Once the user visits an e-learning tool, a unique identifier is generated and stored in the browser's local storage as well as a text file on the server. Each button click and respective time stamp is then stored in the text file. This data is then analysed to determine the most frequently viewed content as well as time spent viewing content and visiting the e-learning tool. Results: Overall, all three e-learning tools were accessed more frequently by personal devices. Generally, users tended to spend less time using the e-learning tools via the bedside tablet. There was also a tendency for users to visit more general information on the bedside tablets, whereas users who access the e-learning tools from personal devices tended to spend more time exploring the web tools and focused more on care information. Conclusion: Patient education is an integral part of care. From the pilot study conducted by this research, it would appear that patients exhibit different motivations when visiting e-learning material in a hospital and non-hospital setting. As such it is advised that e-learning content is made available to patients in each context.
AN ANALYSIS ON SECURITY OF E-LEARNING PLATFORMS IN ROMANIAN HIGHER EDUCATION
Authors: Petrica Gabriel , Mihai Ioan cosmin
Published: February 2023

The adoption of e-learning technologies brings real benefits to companies that will achieve high productivity as their employees will have wider knowledge and skills, as well as to educational institutions that will provide pupils and students a complex education using modern technologies. In this paper the authors analyze the current state of the e-learning platforms implemented at the Romanian higher education level. The analysis starts from the Report on the National Academic Metaranking Exercise, a ranking achieved in 2016 by the Ministry of National Education to identify the level of visibility of Romanian universities in the relevant international rankings. This paper takes into account the extent to which the best-rated Romanian universities have implemented e-learning platforms as support in the development of the educational process. There are presented some aspects of the used e-learning platforms and their vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks based on the statistics provided by CVE Details, a database with information retrieved from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). Using updated software versions of e-learning platforms, HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) protocol for encrypted information transfer and securely storage of sensitive information (usernames, passwords, or other personal data of users) are benchmarks which will be comparatively analyzed. The paper also contains an estimate of the extent to which the main actors involved in education (both the professors and the personnel at the level of university management or government) are open to the introduction of electronic technologies as methods for disseminating information. A questionnaire on e-learning issues was designed and its results are analyzed to identify opportunities for improving and developing education and research in Romanian academic field.
ALTERNATIVE EVALUATION METHODS IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
Authors: Chivu Ralucagiorgiana , Orzan Mihai , Turlacu (lazar) Luizamaria , Radu Andravictoria
Published: February 2023

The alternative methods of evaluation are interest subject because of their presence in the Romanian educational system from the beginning of the educational stages until the last cycle of studies conducted by each person. I consider that the topicality of the theme is in its usefulness and applicability in the educational context regardless of the stage or cycle we refer to, alternative assessment methods being more and more common and used in the observation and evaluation of students. They have the main benefit of knowing the individual and their behavior, skills and abilities, and not just the ability of memorize or learn. The idea of alternative evaluation has become important, precisely because I appreciated the situations in which students was subjected to evaluation using these methods that offered them the possibility of organization, creativity and ingenuity. A reference example could be from a high school discipline, namely Language and Literature, in which the evaluation could consisted also in the elaboration of a work portfolio that included several optional individual activities. In addition, in the academic environment, the idea of portfolio or summative assessment is much more common because the marks obtained in the seminar count to the final grade, and here is the opportunity for the student to recover the score while for the exam has only one chance or more in case of arrears). Practically, assessment can be regarded as a complex process through which the student's level of training is measured, but this is an indispensable process from the perspective of the didactic framework which involves both scientific training in the evaluation and discipline field as well as a an extra effort to reduce, as close to the minimum as possible, the subjectivism in the appraisals it usually makes.
E-LEARNING PARADOXES. CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT ELEARNING FUTURE.
Authors: Dina Razvan , Onete Bogdan cristian , Albastroiu Irina
Published: February 2023

The evolution and development of e-learning as a prominent phenomenon of contemporary society has roots in the 70's (Project Gutenberg for digitization of some valuable classic books) but this phenomenon exploded after 90's with technological development (PC and internet). The development of e-learning was generated mainly by one of the Internet purposes: access to information. The potential determined by its advantages have made the number of users of e-learning to that grow dramatically, especially regarding an increase in qualification, change occupation or develop a personal business. This paper tries to outline the main factors that led to the boom in e-learning and how these factors have allowed the development of new ways of disseminating knowledge. Another extremely important feature of e-learning is the openness of it, this feature is mainly determined by the items discussed further in present paper. To underline the importance of the concept of openness from which it started the development of e-learning platforms, we try to present the decisive elements that support this concept. In the same time, with the development of a massive open online course (MOOC), which at first allowed free access to major university courses, led to disappearance of free allowances in order to obtain material advantages. An important element, which is the foundation of e-learning platforms, is file sharing. In the continuation of the article we will try to highlight the ways by which the development of e-learning has allowed the emergence of several typologies of sharing the knowledge. At the end of this paper are presented the social implications of e-learning process and how e-learning will evolve in the years to come.
FINANCING E-LEARNING THROUGH CROWDFUNDING IN ROMANIA - AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION
Authors: Faneaivanovici Mina
Published: February 2023

Economic theory has it that education, under all of its forms, produces positive externalities, with markets providing less than is socially desirable. In such a context, this paper aims at discussing the specific case of e-funding for e-learning: on the one hand, the paper investigates the demand side for donations via crowdfunding platforms, which comes from individuals or entrepreneurs seeking to finance ELearning projects, and on the other hand, it analyses the responsiveness and openness of the supply-side for donations via Internet for ELearning projects in Romania. Crowdfunding has emerged as a viable alternative funding source to traditional bank financing, especially in fields where projects or entrepreneurs have limited access to resources and where the output or outcome of the project creates positive affective reactions. This paper will only consider the cases of reward-based crowdfunding and donation of the four existing models (reward-based crowdfunding, donation, equity crowdfunding or debt crowdfunding), mostly because the Romanian laws in force do not distinguish between all four types (equity and debt crowdfunding are not legislated). The more general case of educational projects financed via crowdfunding platforms is also discussed in order to draw valuable conclusions insofar as the specific case of ELearning is concerned. The analysis is based on a thorough study of all active crowdfunding platforms operating in Romania (a total of eight being identified), with an in-depth discussion of the particular types of projects that require financing. The originality of the paper stems from the fact that there is very little research done in the field of crowdfunding in Romania, and also stands in the fact that the current international literature investigating the topic of crowdfunding does not include analyses of ELearning projects financed via such platforms.
MIXING MODERN TEACHING METHODS WITH ONLINE MARKETING TOOLS FOR ROMANIAN STUDENTS
Authors: Niculescuciocan Cristina , Boboc Andreealarisa , Mitrica (padure) Mariacristina , Catana Aida
Published: February 2023

The main focus of higher education nowadays is no longer the educator or the educatee, but the educational unit which is usually made up of trainers, trainees, methods, context(s). All these elements contribute to the actual level of competence that defines and describes today’s and tomorrow’s professionals. The strong link between providers of education and educatees lies within the methods used in courses, but also in the educational context, which relies upon the current social and cultural reality. This is where efficient marketing tools intervene and may even change the course of action. Marketing tools can even be found prior to the course design, as research surveys can highlight and even assign various stages or items which must be included or left out of the content. They can also serve as a means of assessment of the course and/or trainees. This way, online mobile learning, gamification, social media, augmented reality become the partners of all participants in the educational process. We consider this a win-win situation for the actors who are involved in the program (providers, direct beneficiaries, indirect beneficiaries). Teachers can observe the reactions and other forms of feedback sooner than ever before, and students can acquire and practice new competences in an interactive way. The focus in our current initiative is the development and further use of modern educational strategies and methods in Romania while using modern tools to gain the interest and awareness of educators and (potential) students in a variety of fields or even highly specialized subfields.
LIBRARY MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GDPR
Authors: Banciu Doina , Mantykangas Arja
Published: February 2023

In April 2016, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission adopted a major new regulation, entitled the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 696/2016, requiring that institutions that process personal data take appropriate measures to safeguard that data. It is generally acknowledged that all European countries must adopt the rules set forth in this regulation. The main objective of the GDPR is to protect personal data privacy and obligate the holders of personal data to use it for their declared purposes only. The GDPR will come into force on 25 May 2018. It is proposed that the role of Data Protection Officer (DPO) be employed as a strategy for implementing the GDPR from the perspective of library managers. There are so far no concrete measures in place that would facilitate the application of the GDPR. The most appropriate measures would seem to be to appoint a DPO and to define adequate strategies that could be implemented at the library level. These two measures are the manager’s responsibilities. The arguments for a library-level DPO arise from GDPR Article 39 regarding the responsibilities of a DPO. The conclusions are related to findings regarding the roles of library managers in Romania and Sweden and to existing library legislation in these two European countries.
VIRTUAL MUSEUMS: DEALING WITH CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Authors: Gheorghiu Dragos , Stefan Livia
Published: February 2023

One of the roles of traditional museums was that to support cultural identities. According to UNESCO’s definition, the heritage that generates the identity of a community is both material (objects, architectural constructions), and immaterial (represented by technologies, customs).In order to preserve today, and to transfer into the future the identity of a community, a solution is the digitalization of both categories of cultural heritage, complemented by a subsequent structuring of the information, starting from the objects and buildings, up to their utilization by people. This logical process outlines the possible structure of a virtual museum of cultural identity. The virtual museum we have implemented within the Time Maps Project (www.timemaps.net), following the above mentioned concept, in a first stage presents to the visitor the objects specific to the local history, virtually reconstructed in 3D. In a secondary stage, the visitor can study the technologies behind the manufacturing of the 3D objects, explained by means of a series of video films. In the third stage, the visitor will be immersed in the architectural contexts virtually reconstructed, in which the 3D objects have been introduced, as well as the human characters that utilize these objects, the latter being created with 3D photogrammetry techniques. The 3D content has been simplified for optimal utilization of the virtual museums in online and mobile environments. The e-learning experiments with the virtual museums of cultural identity have been performed in different rural and urban communities within the Time Maps project, and will be described and discussed in the current paper.
SOCIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT OF NATIONAL AND EUROPEAN IDENTITY. EXPLANATORY MODELS AND SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS
Authors: Anton Mihail
Published: February 2023

The matter of national identity has a long tradition in sociological research of almost all European countries. This could be an explanation for a considerable literature which was developed in different socio-political circumstances and why now is very difficult to examine it in a comprehensive way. This subject became more actual in the recent geopolitical context where we can notice contradictory trends between integration/globalisation and fragmentation, or we are challenging by the issues of migration. Despite of a current tendency, (in fact, is a recurrent one), that national identity is imagined and constructed, the author advocates a “civic nationalism” that makes a claim to respecting cultural differences but also to build and secure a specific national identity very useful during dialog with other nations. On the other hand, we are witnessing to increasing diversification of European societies and attempts to create a collective identity at European level in order to enhance a consciousness of being European. The opinion expressed by the author is that there are no contradictions between to be national and to be European. The paper identifies the main methodological issues within sociological research to measure diverse dimensions of national and European identity. In this respect, we are interested to scrutinize the meanings of national and of European identity used by several universities from Europe, or inside of various research programs (Eurobarometer, European Values Study, European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme). Conclusions in this paper are purely conceptual and are not based on own empirical survey. However, there are many secondary data sets which are available for exploitation and with a great potential to develop deeply and analytical analysis. At the same time, the models examined here could be an argument for future projects research which are preparing to be submitted in the following competition.
STORY-ORIENTED LEARNING
Authors: Stefan Antoniu , Baalsrud hauge Jannicke , Stefan Ioana andreea , Calderwood Jackie , Loizou Michael , Arnab Sylvester , Beaufoy Jayne
Published: February 2023

In a game environment, narrative design is considered the art of combining gameplay and multimedia assets to create novel experiences that can entertain players and motivate them for longer periods. The use of narrative design in game-driven education has the potential to add an extra entertainment value to make learning more engaging. Narratives can give players insights into the game's world by providing helpful information to reinforce a certain gameplay feature. However, the development of interactive learning experiences necessitate a consistent effort that carefully blends content, gameplay and quality graphics. An easy-to-play game does not equate with an easy-to-create design and development process. Storytelling necessitates the ability to place the right data in a given learning context, meeting specific learning objectives, to tell a story in a compelling, and convincing way, in order to drive engagement. It is also important to take into account the positive impact of the involvement of the end-users in major decisions that affect consistently the structure of the game story or the communication with non-playing characters. Currently, the level of end-user involvement in the narrative flow remain limited. In this context, the Authoring Tools developed within the BEACONING project address these challenges and explore the positive impact that an end-user can have within a game-based learning setting by enabling them to become learning designers. This paper discusses the challenges associated with the creation of meaningful game narratives that can be implemented in learning settings and explores the roles of teachers and students as learning designers and the added-value generated.
AUTONOMOUS DRIVING IN GAMES
Authors: Bratosin Ioan alexandru , Goga Nicolae , Dragoi George , Pavaloiu Bujor ionel
Published: February 2023

With the aid of advanced computer technologies and software capabilities, the world is gradually moving towards automation and artificial intelligence in all engineering and life domains. One of those fields is the auto industry. The cars of our days have options like automatic parking, keeping a safe distance to the nearest front car and use of navigation paths. The target is to breed autonomous cars that are able to consistently drive by themselves and to treat routinely all the sensor information regarding the environment, dropping off the possibility of accidents. Compared to the real case, the employment of autonomous cars in games has a consistent history. We present in this paper the attributes of using autonomous driving in games, as well as our knowledge in the implementation of these features. The Deep Learning with Convolutional Neural Networks we are using in driving games comes along with major benefits. The simulation of real autonomous vehicles in a virtual environment allows a better training and exposure to a multitude of conditions that would require lots of resources and a long testing time in real-life conditions. A second direct benefit comes from their integration in the AI of the cars from the driving games. The Deep Learning replaces creatively the simple predefined steering and path selecting methods that become repetitive and predictable. An indirect benefit is the introduction of these new technologies to the people, increasing the degree of acceptance towards the autonomous cars, which will become a steady partner of our existence.