نشریه فناوری اطلاعات و ارتباطات ایران
سال ششم شماره 21 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Virtual university, offering an appropriate model for its creation and e-Learning realization, is a significant issue that should be considered seriously by managers and higher education administrative. Higher education system, through virtual university development not only could enhance the accessibility of people who interested in learning regardless of time and place constraints but also could full fill the issues such as developments of new strategies on leaning, representing the distinguished course materials, employed the outstanding faculty members, teaching and learning based on individuals ability, augmentation on effectiveness, increase the individual responsibility in learning (student base), learners society realizations and research association establishment.An attempt have been made to investigate the faculty members’ competencies in virtual environment. Considering a descriptive correlation type model and presenting a conceptual model four quarries utilized in order to assessing the model which Mehralborz university choose for field study and evaluating the practical results and their implementations. The questionnaire choose for purpose of data gathering which is checked and verified for validity and reliability and the produced results assessed in two stages. Using the check lists; the most adapted competencies with model determined; and by using three underlying factors they categorized in three groups. On the second stage, considering the competency discriminations; the questionnaire handed out among the faculty members (all these people are working in the field of e-learning) and they gathered for analysis after questionnaires complementation. The results show that there is a significant correlation coefficient between the faculty members’ competency factors in virtual environment. Furthermore the dimensions and competency’s factor as well as students and teachers approach were examined and these two approaches were prioritized.

One of the key issues in e-learning is to identify needs, educational behavior and learning speed of the learners and design a suitable curriculum commensurate to their abilities. This goal is achieved by identifying the learners’ different dimension of personality and ability and assigning suitable learning material to them according these features. In this paper, an intelligent tutoring system is proposed which optimizes the LO selection in e-learning environment. In order to evaluate the proposed method, the designed system has been used in a web-based instruction system in different conditions and the results of the "Academically success", "Satisfactory learning achievement" and "Time of the learners’ attendance" have been analyzed. The obtained results show a significant efficiency compared to other applied methods.

The main purpose of this study was to indicate the degree of applying professional ethics and vocational qualifications of victuals’ professors in Isfahan and Medical Sciences Universities of Isfahan. The research method was survey and descriptive one. Statistical population included all professors and their assistants from virtual universities of Isfahan and Medical Sciences Universities in 2012-2013 academic years. 168 students were selected by using stratified random sampling method. Data gathering instrument was self-made questionnaire with four different items included designing, teaching, evaluating and using the technologies. After determining the reliability of the questionnaire, it was distributed between 30 professors for calculating the variance of the population. Validity of the questionnaire was calculated by using Alpha Cronbach Coefficient. The results indicated that professors and their assistants believed that, they are applying moral and professional ethics more than average 3.5. Inverse, their students believed that professors used moral and ethics less than average. The differences may be the results of varieties between two educational environments: virtual and on campus education. The results indicated that the professors in virtual education should have different qualifications from the on campus universities professors. Therefore, higher education institutions should provide in-service teaching programs for their professors to be acquainted them with new tools and new teaching methods for using in the virtual courses.

In the third millennium, people deal with multiple, diverse, and complicated problems as they cannot possess full control over the information, which is constantly produced and accumulated. Having a high skill of critical thinking for assessing the results of different issues and decision making about them based on evidences is an unavoidable necessity. The researchers of this work proposed a model with seven factors (components) for critical thinking in e-learning environments. The statistical group of this work is the M.Sc. medical education students of AZAD university e-learning environments, and the students of the same field from Islamic Azad University traditional education system studying during 2011-2012. Among the research community, 47 members were selected based on a simple random method and divided into two trial (with 23 members) and reference (with 42 members) groups. To train the trial group, the seven-factor critical thinking training scale was utilized in e-learning environments in 15 sessions with empirical sciences course. In the reference group, the same seven-factor critical thinking training scale was used in the classroom environment in lecturing in 15 sessions with empirical sciences course. The model factors and components are challenge, representation, creation of opportunity, creation of motivation, logical analysis, encouragement, responsibility, and commitment. Both groups were subject to two pretest and posttest steps within two trial groups, which were considered as reference to each other. Both groups responded to the Watson- Glaser™ Critical Thinking Appraisal within two pretest and posttest steps, while the covariance analysis statistical test was used for analysis of the results. The results indicate significant difference between the scores between trial and reference groups in improving the critical thinking of the students in terms of inferential, assumption detection, deduction, interpretation, and logical reasoning evaluation components (p=0.001). According to the results, in terms of improving critical thinking, the trial group trained in the e-learning environment indicates higher scores as compared to the group trained in the traditional classroom environment.

Automatic identification of learners groups based on similarity of learning style improves e-learning systems from the viewpoint of learning adaptation and collaboration among learners. In this paper, a new system is proposed for identifying groups of learners, who have similar learning style, by using learners’ behavior information in an e-learning environment. Proposed clustering method for separation of learners is developed based on ART neural network structure and Snap-Drift neural network learning process. This artificial network enables us to identify learners groups in uncertain group separation parameters, without knowing appropriate number of groups. The results of an empirical evaluation of the proposed method, which are based on two criteria, “Davies-Bouldin” and “Purity and Gathering”, indicate that our proposed method outperforms other clustering methods in terms of accuracy.

There is an increasing use of technology in an attempt to enhance teaching and learning in medical education, from the use of websites and virtual learning environments (VLEs) to interactive online tutorials to blogs and podcasts. Beneficiaries of CME programs did not show interest in e-learning subjects and they showed more tendencies to traditional education. We conducted this study to assess the influential factors on development of e-learning subjects from the perspective of beneficiaries of continuing medical education (CME) programs in Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in 2012-2013. This is a randomized and descriptive cross sectional study. 976 people attending in CME program participated in this study on voluntary basis. Approval of doing research was taken from ethic and research committee of JUMS. They were evaluated through a valid and refined questionnaire including demographic information and 62 questions in 7 fields. Data were analyzed with T-test and Fisher’s exacts. . In this study 66.3% were female and 33.7% were male: Instructional factors got the highest rank in development of e-learning materials and role of each field was assessed in e-learning are as below: Instructional factors: 28.37%, Technology: 24.17%, E-learning 28.26%, beneficiaries (24.83%), informative literacy (22.7%), references (19.07%.) and others(15.94%). Most of the participants believed that instructional factors are the most important one and having an organized program in development of E-learning is important too. It can be understood that the role of planners in programming is of the highest importance and special courses should be held to satisfy the needs of the participants.