ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to learn about the attitudes of the academic staff of the medical, business, humanities, and science and engineering disciplines concerning online education during the COVID-19 pandemic at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Saudi Arabia. While research in online education focuses on learning experiences such as facilities, learning materials, and learning interests, several elements of online education in this research were investigated, including advantages, features, and cybersecurity. The research data were gathered through a survey containing three demographic items, four items on perceptions of online education, and seven questions on perceptions of cybersecurity. Responses obtained from 238 academic staff were used for statistical analysis. After the routine descriptive analysis analyses, the response data were subjected to unsupervised k-means centroid cluster analysis. Two clusters of academic staff differing in teaching disciplines, and pre-COVID experience in online education were identified. Cluster 1 had medical and business and humanities academic staff, predominated by those without pre-COVID experience in online education, and perceived online education and cybersecurity at neutral to a slightly low level. Cluster 2 consisted of science and engineering discipline academic staff predominated by those with pre-COVID online education experience and perceived online education and cybersecurity in the range of neutral to slightly high levels. The result of this study shows that academic staff in the medical, business, and humanities disciplines have less expertise with online education software and a low level of awareness about online education security. On the other hand, academic staff of science and engineering disciplines fields has more expertise with online educational technologies and a better level of understanding of online education security. © 2022 The Authors.
ABSTRACT
This study is an investigation into the factors affecting patient dissatisfaction among Saudi hospitals. The selected factors considered for analysis are security of information sharing, operational practices, disruptive technologies, and the ease of use of EHR patient information management systems. From the literature review section, it was clear that hardly any other studies have embraced these concepts in one as was intended by this study. The theories that the study heavily draws from are the service dominant logic and the feature integration theory. The study surveyed 350 respondents from three large major hospitals in three different metropolitan cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This sample came from members of the three hospitals that were willing to participate in the study. The number 350 represents those that successfully completed the online questionnaire or the limited physical questionnaires in time. The study employed the structural equation modelling technique to analyze the associations. Findings suggested that security of information sharing had a significant direct effect on patient satisfaction. Operational practice positively mediated the effect of security of information sharing on patient dissatisfaction. However, ease of use failed to significant impact this association. The study concluded that to improve patient satisfaction, Saudi hospitals must work on their systems to reinforce them against the active threats on the privacy of patients' data by leveraging disruptive technology. They should also improve their operational practices by embracing quality management techniques relevant to the healthcare sector.
ABSTRACT
One of the impacts of Covid-19 on education systems has been the shift to online education. This shift has changed the way education is consumed and perceived by students. However, the exact nature of student perception about online education is not known. The aim of this study was to understand the perceptions of Saudi higher education students (e.g., post-school students) about online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Various aspects of online education including benefits, features and cybersecurity were explored. The data collected were analysed using statistical techniques, especially artificial neural networks, to address the research aims. The key findings were that benefits of online education was perceived by students with positive experience or when ensured of safe use of online platforms without the fear cyber security breaches for which recruitment of a cyber security officer was an important predictor. The issue of whether perception of online education as a necessity only for Covid situation or a lasting option beyond the pandemic is a topic for future research.
ABSTRACT
The increasing spread of the Covid-19 pandemic is paralleled by increasing use of social media for general, positive or negative influences. A systematic review was attempted to evaluate the extent to which research has been done on the three categories of influence of social media and the nature of influence. A search of Google Scholar using the topic of the review itself as the search term, including abstracts also, yielded 32 papers, of which 30 were reviewed under the three categories. More than half of the selected papers were published on the negative influence of social media. Mis (dis) information dominated among the types of negative influences discussed. Many of the papers in all the three categories discussed a few factors related to the observed results. In the case of negative influence, suggestions were given to mitigate the negative influence. This research has implications policymaker and people/organisations responsible for running public health campaigns on social media.