ABSTRACT
Research on faculty engagement in computer science and e-learning environments is limited. Students in computer science majors and courses often cite the lack of engagement of their faculty as a reason for their decision to switch majors, drop out or perform poorly. With the shift to e-learning associated with the current global pandemic, reports of faculty engagement across countries and higher education systems converged to indicate a reduced level of interactivity. Using a cross-sectional sample of 39 lecturers and professors from a southern public university in Saudi Arabia, this manuscript documents empirically the low levels of computer science faculty engagement during the 2020 spring semester (March–May). The study found support for the hypotheses linking higher levels of empathetic instruction, an exhibition of exemplary performance traits, utilization of community building strategies and use of storytelling and students’ engagement. The study also found that many faculties need immediate and significant training on making their online instruction more interactive and exciting. Theoretically, the evidence presented confirms the importance of faculty engagement as the main predictor of desirable students’ outcomes across e-learning, as well as computer science learning environments. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
ABSTRACT
In Wuhan, China, a novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) was detected in December 2019;it has changed the entire world and to date, the number of diagnosed cases is 38,756,2891 and 1,095,2161 people have died. This happened because a large number of people got affected and there is a lack of hospitals for COVID-19 patients. One of the precautionary measures for COVID-19 patients is isolation. To support this, there is an urgent need for a platform that makes treatment possible from a distance. Telemedicine systems have been drastically increasing in number and size over recent years. This increasing number intensifies the extensive need for telemedicine for the national healthcare system. In this paper, we present Tele-COVID which is a telemedicine application to treat COVID-19 patients from a distance. Tele-COVID is uniquely designed and implemented in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to avoid the problem of interoperability, vendor lock-in, and data interchange. With the help of Tele-COVID, the treatment of patients at a distance is possible without the need for them to visit hospitals;in case of emergency, necessary services can also be provided. © 2021 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.