IADIS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WWW/INTERNET

13

Authors: Barbara Engels

Data is the main resource of the digital economy. Accordingly, personal data constitutes the exchange value for the use of numerous online services such as social media. Many Internet users willingly disclose their data to these services. Oftentimes, there exists a discrepancy between individual privacy preferences and actual behavior. Against this background, this study examines the preferences of the so-called digital natives for privacy. 3,000 students aged between 14 and 21 in Germany were asked about their use of social media and their privacy preferences for these online services. In addition, their willingness to pay for privacy-friendly online services is analyzed. The study shows that while privacy is important to many digital natives, most are not willing to pay for it.

14

Authors: Lyndall Cooper-Smith, Bill Davey and Arthur Adamopoulos

Group work is regularly implemented as part of higher education learning. Much research has examined group work to determine both the impeding and facilitative factors, mostly from the perspective of the students’ experiences of group work. To address the negative factors of group work, it would be helpful to understand the perceptions instructors have about group work. In Australia, prospective employers consistently call for business graduates to be able to demonstrate collaborative teamwork skills as part of their employability skill set. Group work in undergraduate courses is seen as the appropriate mechanism for teamwork education. Collaborative teamwork skills are considered the second most sought after demonstratable skill in a prospective employee; communication skills being the most sought after. How then can universities engender a growth in online group work as a means of ensuring their online undergraduates are being educated to develop their collaborative teamwork skills? This research examined the perceptions of instructors about their group work experiences. A phenomenographic research approach was considered the most appropriate, as phenomenography allows for all variations of perceptions to be considered, regardless of other factors such as experience or discipline specificity. Phenomenography facilitates the closer examination of a phenomenon, for example, how students learn. By examining the perceptions individual instructors have about their role in group work, patterns of instruction were illuminated. The findings of the research are expressed as phenomenographic categories of conception. The categories of conception detail the perceptions an instructor has in relation to their pattern of instruction. The categories can be expressed on a continuum of less complex to more complex. The categories do not describe individual instructors, instead all of the instructors’ perceptions of group work. By understanding an instructor’s perceptions about group work, it is expected that changes in practice can be engendered.

15

Authors: Mathew Lane, Wendy Hui, Karen Murcia and Pornpit Wongthongtham

This article is an exploratory analysis and comparison of the demographic distributions of data collected from the 2016 New Coder Survey, with that obtained from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). In comparing the data sets, the findings suggest that overall females were more likely to engage in online self-paced coding education, particularly when they had no background or previous study in an IT discipline. This contrasted strongly with females having an existing IT qualification. When looking at ethnicity, the research identified that those students who identify as an ethnic minority were more likely to undertake formal tertiary education in IT, rather than engage in online coding study. The research also confirmed that the average age was higher, and diversity of age groups was larger for those undertaking online study, when compared with those undertaking formal tertiary study. The practical implications of this analysis to diversity in Information Technology disciplines such as computer science, and more broadly with STEM-related disciplines are discussed.

17

Authors: Jemar Jude A. Maranga, Leilla Keith J. Matugas, Jorge Frederick W. Lim and Cherry Lyn C. Sta. Romana

Teaching an introductory programming course to an average of 40 students while monitoring their performance can be a challenge for instructors. Preparing coding exercises with test cases and checking students’ programs can prove to be time consuming at times. Moreover, programming has been known to be quite difficult for students to learn. To address these concerns, a web-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C Programming called CodeChum was developed. CodeChum provides instructors with an easier way of creating programming exercises and automating the checking student codes. CodeChum allows students to apply their skills using problem stories attached to learning outcomes, test their solutions, get instant feedback and monitor their current status through a student dashboard. CodeChum was tested within a span of two months on 120 undergraduate students taking up introductory programming courses and 6 programming instructors from Cebu Institute of Technology- University, and another study, for the implementation of the student dashboard, was conducted on 35 students using a system usability scale (SUS) test. A usability and feedback survey for students and instructors was conducted getting inputs of their experience while using the IDE. Results of the survey show that the system was well received both by students and instructors. As for the student Dashboard, results show good initial feedback from the students in terms of its usability and the overall user experience provided by the newly integrated module.