We tested the hypothesis that highly structured course designs, which implement reading quizzes and/or extensive in-class active-learning activities and weekly practice exams, can lower failure rates in an introductory biology course for majors, compared with low-structure course designs that are based on lecturing and a few high-risk assessments. We controlled for 1) instructor effects by anal...

The objective of this study was to determine some of the factors that affect student success in a genetics course. Genetics for the Kansas State University College of Agriculture is taught in the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry and covers Mendelian inheritance, molecular genetics, and quantitative/population genetics. Data collected from 1,516 students over 7 yr included year and sem...

This study describes a model to predict academic performance in an introductory college-level information systems course. We base the model on one developed by Eskew and Faley (1988) to predict grades in accounting classes. We collected data from students in four sections of an introductory college-level IS class at a single university. Motivation and GPA predict performance. Prior related cour...

In 2014, 25% of all organizations polled across industry said the lack of infosec skills were a problem. In 2015, an Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) survey found that 28% reported a shortage of infosec skills (Trendmicro, 2015). With the growing threat of cybercrime and national security issues, growing the number of qualified cybersecurity professionals has become a national imperative. As the...

The goal of this study was to explore whether differences in student academic indicators exist between taking a course face-to-face (F2F) and taking a course via distance education (DE). Three hundred and eighty five students were enrolled in a course offered, both, as F2F (n = 116) and as DE (n = 269). Course content, instructor, textbook adopted, and assessment methods were consistent between...

Performance failures are commonplace in most computing environments; without system monitoring they typically go undetected. The performance monitoring project uses low level system monitoring combined with an infrastructure to centralize the information tracks long term system behavior. With the data visualization tools we can detect performance failures, track resource utilization trends, and...

Assigned textbook readings are a common requirement in undergraduate courses, but students often do not complete reading assignments or do not do so until immediately before an exam. This may have detrimental effects on learning and course performance. Regularly scheduled quizzes on reading material may increase completion of reading assignments and therefore course performance. This study exam...

This work describes the impact of different teachers’ approaches in using Moodle, for supporting their courses, at the Polytechnic of Porto School of Engineering. The study covers five different courses, from different degrees and different years, and includes a number of Moodle resources especially supporting laboratory classes. These and other active resources are particularly analyzed in ord...

Educational model for higher education has shown a drift from traditional classroom to technology-driven models that merge classroom teaching with web-based learning management systems (LMS) such as Moodle and CLEW. Every teaching model has a set of supervised (e.g. quizzes) and/or unsupervised (e.g. assignments) instruments that are used to evaluate the effectiveness of learning. The challenge...