ABSTRACT
E-commerce is creating growth opportunities for e-retailers, especially during the Covid-19 outbreak. It increases the perceptions of both providers and customers toward their shopping convenience. In 2021, Vietnam became one of the fastest-growing countries among Southeast Asia's Internet economies. However, both scholars and management practitioners have argued the inconsistent assessments of the factors affecting customer purchase behavior in online settings. Thus, this study aims to identify the critical factors influencing customer behavioral intention toward e-commerce websites that were adopted from well-established models and relevant literature. The online survey was the data collection method. All items were measured through a 5-point Likert scale. This study proposed and analyzed a conceptual framework using existing survey data from 312 samples in the context of online buying via e-commerce websites. Data were analyzed by using the statistical tool SPSS. The results indicated that factors including perceived usefulness, transaction security, perceived ease of use, trust, and subjective norm positively influence customer shopping intention. The results revealed the most prominent impact of the transaction security on customer purchase intention. Besides, perceived risk is a significant barrier in online shopping through e-commerce websites. The researchers have brought practical insights and made conceptual contributions by extending existing research on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) regarding online shopping on the e-commerce website. The paper helps to validate and strengthen the importance of customer purchase intention in an e-shopping environment. The findings would help e-commerce providers be able to formulate specific strategies to increase customer usage significantly. Moreover, managers can focus their attention and resources on the greatest significant factors regarding their effects on behavioral intention.
ABSTRACT
Many regions worldwide suffer from heavy air pollution caused by particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), resulting in a huge annual disease burden and significant welfare costs. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic, enforced curfews and restrictions on human mobility (so-called periods of 'lockdown') have become important measures to control the spread of the virus. This study aims to investigate the improvement in air quality following COVID-19 lockdown measures and the projected benefits for environmental health. China was chosen as a case study. The work projects annual premature deaths and welfare costs by integrating PM2.5 and NO2 pollutant measurements derived from satellite imagery (MODIS instruments on Terra and Aqua, and TROPOMI on Sentinel-5P) with census data archived by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A 91-day timeframe centred on the initial lockdown date of 23 January 2020 was investigated. To perform the projections, OECD data on five variables from 1990 to 2019 (mean population exposure to ambient PM2.5, premature deaths, welfare costs, gross domestic product and population) were used as training data to run the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and multiple regression models. The analysis of the satellite imagery revealed that across the regions of Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Xi'an, Shanghai and Hubei, the average concentrations of PM2.5 decreased by 6.2, 30.7, 14.1, 20.7, 29.3, 5.5 and 17.3%, while the NO2 decreased by 45.5, 54.7, 60.5, 58.7, 63.6, 50.5 and 66.5%, respectively, during the period of lockdown restrictions in 2020, as compared with the equivalent period in 2019. Such improvements in air quality were found to be beneficial, reducing in 2020 both the number of premature deaths by approximately 97,390 and welfare costs by over USD 74 billion.
ABSTRACT
With the development of the Internet, social networks and different communication channels, people can get information quickly and easily. However, in addition to real and useful news, we also receive false and unreal information. The problem of fake news has become a difficult and unresolved issue. For languages with few users, such as Vietnamese, the research on fake news detection is still very limited and has not received much attention. In this paper, we present research results on building a tool to support fake news detection for Vietnamese. Our idea is to apply text classification techniques to fake news detection. We have built a database of 4 groups of 2 topics about politics (fake news and real news) and about Covid-19 (fake news and real news). Then use deep learning techniques CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and RNN (Recurrent Neural Network) to create the corresponding models. When there is new news that needs to be verified, we just need to apply the classification to see which of the four groups they label into to decide whether it is fake news or not. The tool was able to detect fake news quickly and easily with a correct rate of about 85 %. This result will be improved when getting a larger training data set and adjusting the parameters for the machine learning model. These results make an important contribution to the research on detecting fake news for Vietnamese and can be applied to other languages. In the future, besides using classification techniques (based on content analysis), we can combine many other methods such as checking the source, verifying the author's information, checking the distribution process to improve the quality of fake news detection © 2022, Authors. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons CC BY license
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This paper aims to provide evidence that online well-designed educational tasks can provide more relevant and richer active learning environment for business English learners. The benefits of online tasks, as an education tool, became more apparent and gained more importance during the events related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The task design is based on task-based interactions and in a sequence of tasks with the support of an online learning management system (LMS). The findings suggest that online task-based learning (and would-be blended learning in the future) enables meaningful and authentic activities promoting interactions and communicative competences to prepare for learners of business English to enter the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: The overarching aim of the study is to explore how task-design-utilizing online LMS could contribute to enhancing the learning process and to the development of the learner's communicative competences. The study included two aspects, namely: (1) the design of online tasks and (2) pilot evaluation. The task design involved tasks that required interactions between the learners. The pilot evaluation relied on data collection via questionnaires. Findings: Two aspects relating to the findings: (1) a description of the teaching initiatives which was designed to see how blended learning and online tasks can enhance learning and develop the skills of the learners: with questioning techniques targeting communication skills, simulated workplace situations and timely feedback and peer influence;(2) the findings of the pilot study evaluation to see the actual implementation of online tasks. The students' responses corroborate the teachers' comments. The findings of this research showed that LMS tasks, which were designed for this study, helped the learners to enhance their competence in business English. Such competences included communicative skills needed for learners to enter the workplace such as interpersonal skills, presentation skills and negotiation skills in contexts. These findings lead to significant recommendations regarding the way forward for developing active blended learning. Research limitations/implications: Firstly, teachers need to be trained and involved in designing such online tasks and materials to be used in active blended learning. More training in language teaching methodologies should be investigated to adapt the transition from a traditional to a computer-assisted language learning teacher. This helps teachers to design and implement online simulated workplace tasks. Secondly, time for the use of online tasks should be allocated satisfactorily. This can be achieved by building online learning sessions into class schedule or developing active blended courses. The time for the use of online simulated tasks should be allocated satisfactorily with lab or simulation room, in which students would be shown how to access the online tasks designed on the university LMS and the way to practice with different kinds of tasks. Originality/value: In this study context, the online tasks design can initiate at activity-level blending to support face-to-face (F2F) activities, for example, online activities to support tasks for the topic Make a request or Offer for help. This can be extended to course-level blending when more online activities are designed to use with F2F activities such as online comparing and contrasting tasks to develop skills in connections with the awareness of cultures. The findings of the research suggest to develop and to implement online tasks alongside with classroom learning and teaching to enable the objectives of business English programme at university for preparing learners to enter the workplace. The recent pandemic highlighted the need for effective methodologies for active blended learning. It is now required that professionals in higher education to collect evidence base to inform future practice of such methodologies. Further significant research efforts should be directed towards collecting such evidence of the effectiv ness and improvements of such methods. The support of higher education management professionals in securing funding for such research will be essential. © 2021, Thi Hong Le Vo.
ABSTRACT
Purpose This paper aims to provide evidence that online well-designed educational tasks can provide more relevant and richer active learning environment for business English learners. The benefits of online tasks, as an education tool, became more apparent and gained more importance during the events related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The task design is based on task-based interactions and in a sequence of tasks with the support of an online learning management system (LMS). The findings suggest that online task-based learning (and would-be blended learning in the future) enables meaningful and authentic activities promoting interactions and communicative competences to prepare for learners of business English to enter the workplace. Design/methodology/approach The overarching aim of the study is to explore how task-design-utilizing online LMS could contribute to enhancing the learning process and to the development of the learner's communicative competences. The study included two aspects, namely: (1) the design of online tasks and (2) pilot evaluation. The task design involved tasks that required interactions between the learners. The pilot evaluation relied on data collection via questionnaires. Findings Two aspects relating to the findings: (1) a description of the teaching initiatives which was designed to see how blended learning and online tasks can enhance learning and develop the skills of the learners: with questioning techniques targeting communication skills, simulated workplace situations and timely feedback and peer influence;(2) the findings of the pilot study evaluation to see the actual implementation of online tasks. The students' responses corroborate the teachers' comments. The findings of this research showed that LMS tasks, which were designed for this study, helped the learners to enhance their competence in business English. Such competences included communicative skills needed for learners to enter the workplace such as interpersonal skills, presentation skills and negotiation skills in contexts. These findings lead to significant recommendations regarding the way forward for developing active blended learning. Research limitations/implications Firstly, teachers need to be trained and involved in designing such online tasks and materials to be used in active blended learning. More training in language teaching methodologies should be investigated to adapt the transition from a traditional to a computer-assisted language learning teacher. This helps teachers to design and implement online simulated workplace tasks. Secondly, time for the use of online tasks should be allocated satisfactorily. This can be achieved by building online learning sessions into class schedule or developing active blended courses. The time for the use of online simulated tasks should be allocated satisfactorily with lab or simulation room, in which students would be shown how to access the online tasks designed on the university LMS and the way to practice with different kinds of tasks. Originality/value In this study context, the online tasks design can initiate at activity-level blending to support face-to-face (F2F) activities, for example, online activities to support tasks for the topic Make a request or Offer for help. This can be extended to course-level blending when more online activities are designed to use with F2F activities such as online comparing and contrasting tasks to develop skills in connections with the awareness of cultures. The findings of the research suggest to develop and to implement online tasks alongside with classroom learning and teaching to enable the objectives of business English programme at university for preparing learners to enter the workplace. The recent pandemic highlighted the need for effective methodologies for active blended learning. It is now required that professionals in higher education to collect evidence base to inform future practice of such methodologies. Further significant research efforts should be directed towards collecting such evidence of the effectiveness and improvements of such methods. The support of higher education management professionals in securing funding for such research will be essential.