Investigating the effect of customer-generated content on performance in online platform-based experience goods market

As COVID-19 persists, a new normal has emerged in our lives and consumption patterns. The rapid rise in demand for online consumption without physical contact is a prime example of this shift. Online platform-based markets have evolved into retail channels, allowing consumers to purchase both search goods and experience goods without contact. The platform provides an environment where customers can encounter a diverse range of customer-generated content (CGC) and gain insights into the purchasing experiences of others. However, despite the growing trading volume and diversification of products traded, relatively few studies exist on purchasing tangible experience goods in the online platform-based market. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of CGC (i.e., content and valence) on the market performance of experience goods, such as sales and sales rank in the platform-based market. We first examine the customer experience-related content in CGC in this market and then investigate the effect of CGC on market performance, such as sales and search ranks. We use crawled data from a platform that sells and rents artwork for empirical analysis. LDA topic modeling findings reveal that CGC has three primary topics (i.e., basic, artist, and style). The regression analysis results show that only style-related content improves performance, whereas basic-related content negatively affects search ranks. The valence of CGC does not significantly impact either performance measure. Additionally, we consider the role of rental services in this market and find that rental volume and search rank have an inverted U-shaped relationship. This study has important implications because it proposes a research framework and empirical model for examining the impact of CGC on performance in the online platform-based market for experience goods. It also has important managerial implications for platforms and sellers looking to enhance their market performance by monitoring CGC.

Opportunities for Applying Online Tools to Improve the Efficiency of University Distance Learning

During the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning has become one of the leading trends in education. This technology imple-ments the principle of lifelong learning and is capable of mee-ting the ever-growing demand for knowledge in the information society. The purpose of this study is to determine the potential of online tools in the provision of distance learning. Given the de-velopment of distance education, modern methodological sup-port should be developed based on a combination of promising methods, approaches, and appropriate digital tools so that hig-her education institutions could successfully achieve their goals in terms of fostering a certain level of student professionalism, even under quarantine restrictions. For this reason, the need for the predominance of modern learning tools over traditional ones and their complete dominance during distance learning is espe-cially emphasized. Based on the results of surveys, the paper defines and characterizes contemporary online tools for holding lectures and seminars, testing and controlling knowledge, and holding online classes in real time through videoconferencing, as well as the potential of these instruments in distance learning. The article provides a list of the most popular and promising on-line services in the conditions of distance learning.

The Development of a Chatbot Technology to Disseminate Post-COVID-19 Information: Descriptive Implementation Study.

BACKGROUND: Post-COVID-19, or long COVID, has now affected millions of individuals, resulting in fatigue, neurocognitive symptoms, and an impact on daily life. The uncertainty of knowledge around this condition, including its overall prevalence, pathophysiology, and management, along with the growing numbers of affected individuals, has created an essential need for information and disease management. This has become even more critical in a time of abundant online misinformation and potential misleading of patients and health care professionals. OBJECTIVE: The RAFAEL platform is an ecosystem created to address the information about and management of post-COVID-19, integrating online information, webinars, and chatbot technology to answer a large number of individuals in a time- and resource-limited setting. This paper describes the development and deployment of the RAFAEL platform and chatbot in addressing post-COVID-19 in children and adults. METHODS: The RAFAEL study took place in Geneva, Switzerland. The RAFAEL platform and chatbot were made available online, and all users were considered participants of this study. The development phase started in December 2020 and included developing the concept, the backend, and the frontend, as well as beta testing. The specific strategy behind the RAFAEL chatbot balanced an accessible interactive approach with medical safety, aiming to relay correct and verified information for the management of post-COVID-19. Development was followed by deployment with the establishment of partnerships and communication strategies in the French-speaking world. The use of the chatbot and the answers provided were continuously monitored by community moderators and health care professionals, creating a safe fallback for users. RESULTS: To date, the RAFAEL chatbot has had 30,488 interactions, with an 79.6% (6417/8061) matching rate and a 73.2% (n=1795) positive feedback rate out of the 2451 users who provided feedback. Overall, 5807 unique users interacted with the chatbot, with 5.1 interactions per user, on average, and 8061 stories triggered. The use of the RAFAEL chatbot and platform was additionally driven by the monthly thematic webinars as well as communication campaigns, with an average of 250 participants at each webinar. User queries included questions about post-COVID-19 symptoms (n=5612, 69.2%), of which fatigue was the most predominant query (n=1255, 22.4%) in symptoms-related stories. Additional queries included questions about consultations (n=598, 7.4%), treatment (n=527, 6.5%), and general information (n=510, 6.3%). CONCLUSIONS: The RAFAEL chatbot is, to the best of our knowledge, the first chatbot developed to address post-COVID-19 in children and adults. Its innovation lies in the use of a scalable tool to disseminate verified information in a time- and resource-limited environment. Additionally, the use of machine learning could help professionals gain knowledge about a new condition, while concomitantly addressing patients' concerns. Lessons learned from the RAFAEL chatbot will further encourage a participative approach to learning and could potentially be applied to other chronic conditions.

New scenarios for experiments in Psychology: The online modality

An increasing number of behavioral studies are conducted online with the aim of including a wider and more heterogeneous sample of participants. This practice was encouraged by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which implied social distancing, hence preventing access to laboratories as a measure to contain the infection. In the present work some online platforms will be discussed, considering their characteristics, advantages and limitations, in order to facilitate researchers in the possible selection of the most suitable tool for their needs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Italian) Sempre piu ricerche comportamentali vengono condotte online con lo scopo di raggiungere un piu ampio e diversificato campione di partecipanti. Con l'avvento della pandemia da Covid-19 questa pratica si e diffusa sempre di piu a causa delle misure precauzionali di distanziamento sociale che hanno impedito l'accesso ai laboratori. Nel presente lavoro verranno descritte alcune piattaforme online, le loro caratteristiche e potenzialita, nonche i limiti ad esse connessi allo scopo di agevolare i ricercatori nella possibile scelta dello strumento piu adatto alle proprie esigenze. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Dialog chatbot as an interactive online tool in enhancing ESP vocabulary learning

PurposeBased on an experimental study on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students, at the Business Department at the University of Bisha, the purpose of the study is to examine the effect of chatbot use on learning ESP in online classrooms during COVID-19 and find out how Dialogflow chabot can be a useful and interactive online platform to help ESP learners in learning vocabulary well.Design/methodology/approachThe research paper is based on an experimental study of two groups, an experiential group and a controlled group. Two tests were carried out. Pre-tests and post-test of vocabulary knowledge were conducted for both groups to explore the usefulness of using the Dialogflow chatbot in learning ESP vocabulary. A designed chatbot content was prepared and included all the vocabulary details related to words' synonyms and a brief explanation of words' meanings. An informal interview is another tool used in the study. The purpose of using the interview with the participants was to elicit more data from the participants about using the chatbot and about how and in what aspects chatbot using the conversational program was useful and productive.FindingsThe findings of the study explored that the use of chatbots plays a major role in enhancing and learning ESP vocabulary. That was clear as the results showed that the students who used the chatbot Dialogflow in the experimental group outperformed their counterparts in the control group.Research limitations/implicationsThe study displays an important pedagogical implication as the use of chatbots could be applied in several settings to improve language learning in general or learning ESP courses in particular. Chatbot creates an interesting environment to foster build good interactions where negotiation of meaning takes place clearly seems to be of great benefit to help learners advance in their L2 lexical development.Originality/valueExamining and exploring whether the use of chatbots plays a major role in enhancing and learning ESP vocabulary in English as Foreign Language setting.

Online platform AAC-An option for continuing education and training for professionals in the field of Augmentative and Alternative Communication?: Results of an interview study

Extensions and new conceptions for basic and advanced trainings in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) are needed. Specialists have to deal with challenges in their qualification process. Limited time and financial resources, regional imbalance in the supply and a mismatch in the supply structure and needs of the experts are just some of the aspects that are listed in a current study (Burgio, 2020 a). In the context of advancing digitization and media-based learning, the question arises if a new concept of a special AAC online platform in Germany is an option for basic and advanced trainings. Especially in due of the effects of the Covid19 pandemic and the associated shift to online offers. The results of the qualitative content analysis of 40 expert interviews on a possible AAC online platform in Germany show the contrary view of the experts and are reflected on the levels of teachers, learners and in the context of implementation within organisations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (German) Der Professionalisierungsprozess im Bereich der Fort- und Weiterbildungen ist in der Unterstutzten Kommunikation (UK) durch einen Bedarf an Erweiterungen und Neukonzeptionierungen gekennzeichnet. Fachkrafte sind von begrenzten zeitlichen und finanziellen Ressourcen ebenso betroffen wie von einem regionalen Ungleichgewicht im UK-Angebot und einem Mismatching in bestehenden Angebotsstrukturen hinsichtlich ihrer individuellen Bedurfnisse. Dies sind nur einige der Herausforderungen im Qualifizierungsprozess, die durch Fachkrafte in einer aktuellen Untersuchung benannt werden (Burgio, 2020 a). Im Rahmen der fortschreitenden Digitalisierung und des damit verbundenen mediengestutzten Lernens stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit ein neues Angebotskonzept in Form einer reinen Onlineplattform UK als Fort- und Weiterbildungsoption gewissen Herausforderungen - insbesondere auch mit Blick auf die Auswirkungen der Covid-19-Pandemie und der damit verbundenen Schwerpunktverlagerung auf digitale Angebote-begegnen kann. Die Ergebnisse der qualitativ inhaltsanalytischen Auswertung von 40 Expert / inneninterviews aus vorschulischen Handlungsfeldern zu einer moglichen Onlineplattform UK offenbaren die Heterogenitat der Sichtweisen der Fachkrafte und werden auf den Ebenen der Lehrenden und der Lernenden sowie im Kontext der Implementierungsmoglichkeiten innerhalb von Organisationen reflektiert. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Improving agility and resilience of automotive spares supply chain: The additive manufacturing enabled truck model

The global supply chain disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate as over 94% of the top 1000 fortune companies were badly affected. The need for building resilient supply chains to mitigate the effect of such disruptions is rising rapidly than ever before across the global business spectrum. Building resilience in the automotive spare parts (ASPs) supply chain is critically important as any disruption to automotive spares supply chain will affect the operations of the logistics sector, the backbone of global supply chains. This research work contributes to improving the resilience of the automotive spare parts supply chain by proposing a Viable Supply Chain (VSC) framework design that incorporates Additive Manufacturing (AM) enabled trucks in the automotive spares supply chain network. Based on the proposed model, conceptual case models are developed and tested with proposed AM enabled truck manufacturing closer to end customer. A heuristic approach called shortest time heuristic is also proposed to solve the routing and scheduling of an AM enabled truck to deliver customers' orders of the spare parts through an online platform. Importantly, the study demonstrate how additive manufacturing can help the ASPs industry to switch from the existing practice of make-to-stock to a more efficient inventory management and cost saving make-to-order model while also achieving resilience and sustainability in by providing a source of spares support for discontinued models of vehicles.

An Empirical Analysis of Learners' Perception of Online Learning Platform

Problem-COVID pandemic is a situation which affected every individual as well as every sector of the economy and Educational sector is not an exception. Due to pandemic the years old traditional class room teaching learning system has changed to teaching and learning through online platforms like MS Teams, Zoom and so on. As a result of this drastic change in traditional system, perception of learners has undergone huge changes which is required to be explored. Most of the studies conducted in the field of learners' perception are general study with very few focusing on finding learners' perception towards one specific online learning platform.Purpose of the Study-This study aims to find out the perception and preference of learners for an online learning platform MS Teams.Methodology-For exploring the factors associated with MS Teams as a platform for online learning, Exploratory Factor Analysis was used. Variation in perception of learners was measured by applying one-way ANOVA test. Descriptive statistics is used to study the preference of learners in the present study.Findings-The findings of study are derived from a sample of 147 online learners from a University in Rajasthan. The findings showcased the fact that there exist differences in perception of learners when they accessed online classes through tablet device and on the basis of frequency of attending the online classes. Findings of work also highlighted the fact that MS Teams can be used along with traditional teaching system as a platform for sharing contents with learners.Implication- The findings of the study will be useful for educational sector as well as online learning platform developing companies.

STUDY BUDDY-Making Learning Easy

Study buddy is an all-in-one package for your studies. We provide an automatically generated timetable as well as pdfs and video links all for Free for our students of class 10th, 12th and, those appearing for JEE. The aim is to increase job opportunities for college students with expertise in a particular subject as well as retired teachers to help school students divide their time and stay motivated. Kids nowadays are always stressed during exam days because they can't make a schedule to study. So we wanted to bring an end to those days of anxiety and fear. We decided to make a website, "Study Buddy"where a student will have the following 4 options: a) Generate Time table b) Reference Material c) Discussion Forum d) Mentor Help.In our research, we would walk through the above-mentioned points and also compare how our proposed method and software package stands out from the already existing software. This will be followed by our system design, result and future scope. This software is a buddy for the students during their hard times. It will not only help the students but will also provide an employment opportunity to retired teachers and college students. We also plan to implement machine learning in order to understand the basic trend of student psychology during exams. © 2022 IEEE.

Emergence of Online Teaching for Plastic Surgery and the Quest for Best Virtual Conferencing Platform: A Comparative Cohort Study.

Background As the coronavirus disease 2019 virus made its way throughout the world, there was a complete overhaul of our day-to-day personal and professional lives. All aspects of health care were affected including academics. During the pandemic, teaching opportunities for resident training were drastically reduced. Consequently, medical universities in many parts across the globe implemented online learning, in which students are taught remotely and via digital platforms. Given these developments, evaluating the existing mode of teaching via digital platforms as well as incorporation of new models is critical to improve and implement. Methods We reviewed different online learning platforms used to continue regular academic teaching of the plastic surgery residency curriculum. This study compares the four popular Web conferencing platforms used for online learning and evaluated their suitability for providing plastic surgery education. Results In this study with a response rate of 59.9%, we found a 64% agreement rate to online classes being more convenient than normal classroom teaching. Conclusion Zoom was the most user-friendly, with a simple and intuitive interface that was ideal for online instruction. With a better understanding of factors related to online teaching and learning, we will be able to deliver quality education in residency programs in the future.

Online knowledge sharing and creativity in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: Very Informal Newsletter on Library Automation

PurposeThe COVID-19 lockdown has forced many organizations and employees to work from home. In such uncertain and unprecedented context, it is crucial for organizations to stimulate their employees' creativity to adapt to new working environment and thus to sustain and improve organizational performance. This paper aims to examine how to stimulate employees' creativity by focusing on their online knowledge sharing (OKS) behaviors, their use of online platforms and their organizations' innovation climate in a working from home (WFH) context because of the lockdown. For empirical analysis, this research uses data from Vietnam – a developing country in the Southeast Asia.Design/methodology/approachData are collected from employees working in Ho Chi Minh City but WFH during the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation models are used for analyzing the data.FindingsOnline platform use and organizational innovation climate are positively associated with creativity directly and indirectly via the mediating roles of internal and external OKS.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides policymakers, organizational leaders and managers with an important evidence on how to stimulate creativity by emphasizing the roles of knowledge sharing, online platforms and innovation climate. Accordingly, relevant practical implications are also drawn to sustain or improve organizational performance in the context of WFH context because of COVID-19 lockdown. This research also contributes to knowledge management literature by providing an evidence on the relationships between online platform use, organizational innovation climate, OKS and creativity.Originality/valueThis research is among the early attempts that explore the associations between employees' use of online platforms, their organizations' innovation climate, their internal and external OKS behaviors and their creativity in the context of WFH because of a lockdown.

Online-Based Food Hubs for Community Health and Well-Being: Performance in Practice and Its Implications for Urban Design

Food hubs assist the economic development of small local farms growing produce sustainably and providing healthy nutrition by aggregating and distributing a diversified range of fresh local food directly to customers. Although food hubs remain niches due to the challenges of growth and implementation, the interest in local and organic food has recently surged, and the demand for online grocery shopping has dramatically increased, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. This research considers the potential of an online platform for food hubs and examines food practices that include creating and appropriating social networks of food hubs. The study also discusses the implications of the socio-spatial transformation for urban design. With a theoretical framework drawing from social innovation and practice theory, suggesting performance dynamics in practice, this study reviews the current trend of food hubs in the United Kingdom and investigates London-based Growing Communities and Sutton Community Farm, both of which offer community-led veg box schemes. The findings confirm that, as social innovations, community-led food hubs are evolving places for community health and well-being, among other online-based food hubs. This research proposes an evolutionary step for community-led food hubs for social connections. An online platform effectively mobilises resources to connect a diverse local community. More importantly, an online platform interconnected with physical facilities in farm sites and collection points can enhance spatial qualities and capacity and support food access, leading to the sustainable development of urban space. Methodologically, the long-term review of this research confirms the usefulness of the research framework, which revealed evolution in these cases. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Effectiveness of using Online Teaching Platforms as Communication Tools in Higher Education Institutions in Oman: Stakeholders' Perspectives

Communication is an important tool in the education sector to ensure its effectiveness. During the Covid19 pandemic, the communication process across the globe undergone a major shift, i.e., from conventional (face-to-face) teaching to online/remote teaching. The communication effectiveness of online teaching has been the talk of the town since its adoption in Oman, major share of the users, adopted it as there was no alternative available. As higher education institutions (HEIs) in Oman are preparing for the post covid era, reflecting on the effectiveness of online teaching would be an area of study so that the HEIs can deliberate on the format of effective communication regarding its teaching learning process. On these lines, the present study is conducted on the faculty and administrative staff of the HEIs who are involved in the decision making of their respective institutions. This study is based on qualitative analysis of the responses based on open ended questions. The findings revealed that the online teaching in Oman suffered many deadlocks like network connectivity in remote areas, low motivation to use among users, students' participation, peer learning among students, lack of proper training to use online platforms etc. In light of these challenges the online teaching was found to be moderately effective and requires attention to improve its effectiveness as a communication tool. This study has an implication of HEIs of the middle east region, governing and accreditation bodies, education allied agencies and policy makers. © 2022,Journal of Content, Community and Communication.All Rights Reserved.

How Engaged is Your Student? A Review of Online Learning Tools

The Covid-19 widespread has given a modern measurement where learning can still be carried out without understudies' assembly their teaches face-to-face. However, an issue that need special attention is student's engagement during online teaching and learning process. The objective of this review is to inspect online learning tools that have been used in various high-level institutions or even in schools. In addition, the purpose of this review is to give instructors some suggestions of online learning tools that can be applied to help students engage with their learning. The study also offers some definition term on online learning, online learning resources, platforms, and tools being applied by researchers in various fields that suits the online learning environment. © 2022 IEEE.

Online knowledge sharing and creativity in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose The COVID-19 lockdown has forced many organizations and employees to work from home. In such uncertain and unprecedented context, it is crucial for organizations to stimulate their employees' creativity to adapt to new working environment and thus to sustain and improve organizational performance. This paper aims to examine how to stimulate employees' creativity by focusing on their online knowledge sharing (OKS) behaviors, their use of online platforms and their organizations' innovation climate in a working from home (WFH) context because of the lockdown. For empirical analysis, this research uses data from Vietnam - a developing country in the Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach Data are collected from employees working in Ho Chi Minh City but WFH during the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation models are used for analyzing the data. Findings Online platform use and organizational innovation climate are positively associated with creativity directly and indirectly via the mediating roles of internal and external OKS. Research limitations/implications This research provides policymakers, organizational leaders and managers with an important evidence on how to stimulate creativity by emphasizing the roles of knowledge sharing, online platforms and innovation climate. Accordingly, relevant practical implications are also drawn to sustain or improve organizational performance in the context of WFH context because of COVID-19 lockdown. This research also contributes to knowledge management literature by providing an evidence on the relationships between online platform use, organizational innovation climate, OKS and creativity. Originality/value This research is among the early attempts that explore the associations between employees' use of online platforms, their organizations' innovation climate, their internal and external OKS behaviors and their creativity in the context of WFH because of a lockdown.

A Sequential Multi-Staged Approach for Developing Digital One-Stop Shops to Support Energy Renovations of Residential Buildings

Buildings account for 40% of the European Union’s energy consumption. Deep energy renovation of residential buildings is key for decarbonization and energy poverty alleviation. However, renovation is occurring at far below the needed pace and depth. In this context, building renovation one-stop shops, which bring all project phases under one roof and provide advice, support, and finance to households, are highlighted as a promising solution. Nevertheless, this model is still absent or under-developed in most European countries and remains understudied in the scientific literature. Therefore, the present research goals are as follows: (i) to provide a critical review of emerging one-stop shop models;(ii) to streamline the deployment of building renovation digital one-stop shops by piloting a sequential multi-staged approach for Portuguese households and proposing it for replication elsewhere;and (iii) to compare case-study insights with other one-stop shops and discuss the notion in the context of the European Renovation Wave. In total, for the Portuguese case-study, five steps were conducted. The first three—stakeholder mapping, expert interviews, and customer journey—aimed to gather intel on the local energy renovation market. The results from these stages informed the design of the platform (fourth step). Finally, a post-launch market consultation survey gathered user feedback (fifth step). Insights from this study suggest that digital one-stop shops, while providing a helpful tool to close information gaps and activate specific audiences, may be insufficient on their own. As such, a more comprehensive set of instruments supporting households is needed to accelerate building renovation.

Exploring the effectiveness of school internship in virtual environment from the perspectives of B.Ed. pupil teachers

Education is a prerequisite for the development, prosperity of an individual, society, and nation at large. Education is an important means to enhance knowledge, character building and behavior modification. It accelerates the process of social change, adaptation, and accommodation with the environment. It helps to develop creative and critical minds and enables them to think, analyze and reflect from varied perspectives. It enables learners to reconstruct the experiences and draw meaningful conclusions to understand their immediate surroundings in a better way. Thus, to realize the goals of education, we must address the quality concern of education. As mentioned in the sustainable development goals that recognize the role of good quality education in developing countries. (SDGs- 4) “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. © International Journal of Health Sciences.All right reserved.

Improving agility and resilience of automotive spares supply chain: The additive manufacturing enabled truck model

The global supply chain disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate as over 94% of the top 1000 fortune companies were badly affected. The need for building resilient supply chains to mitigate the effect of such disruptions is rising rapidly than ever before across the global business spectrum. Building resilience in the automotive spare parts (ASPs) supply chain is critically important as any disruption to automotive spares supply chain will affect the operations of the logistics sector, the backbone of global supply chains. This research work contributes to improving the resilience of the automotive spare parts supply chain by proposing a Viable Supply Chain (VSC) framework design that incorporates Additive Manufacturing (AM) enabled trucks in the automotive spares supply chain network. Based on the proposed model, conceptual case models are developed and tested with proposed AM enabled truck manufacturing closer to end customer. A heuristic approach called shortest time heuristic is also proposed to solve the routing and scheduling of an AM enabled truck to deliver customers’ orders of the spare parts through an online platform. Importantly, the study demonstrate how additive manufacturing can help the ASPs industry to switch from the existing practice of make-to-stock to a more efficient inventory management and cost saving make-to-order model while also achieving resilience and sustainability in by providing a source of spares support for discontinued models of vehicles.

Note: Learn Online: High School Students' Adoption of Online Learning in Bangladesh during COVID-19 Pandemic

Online learning is playing a significant role, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we perform an interview study through in-depth interviews with 22 high school students of a developing country (Bangladesh) to find out about their experience and practices with online learning during the pandemic. Our findings reveal several usage strategies, challenges of the conventional usage of online learning, workarounds students adopt to address those challenges. Through the adaptability lens, we find that many students are adapting to online learning despite being in favor of it. © 2022 ACM.

Dimensions of Formative Feedback During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evaluating the Perceptions of Undergraduates in Multicultural EAP Classrooms

This study aimed to understand the attitudes and challenges faced by multicultural undergraduate students enrolled in academic writing classes. The focus of the study was on the use of formative feedback to scaffold the development of academic writing skills, including ways of conducting research and writing essays and reports using the online platform. The approach involved collecting and extracting relevant data from a survey that included questions related to the provision of formative feedback in academic writing classes for aspects of research related to analysing journal articles and summarising them while considering appropriate grammar use, vocabulary development, and research structure. Responses were obtained from 67 multicultural undergraduate students enrolled in different majors in a private university in the United Arab Emirates. The study results revealed a fair awareness of students’ existing difficulties with research and academic writing skills and their awareness of the importance of receiving constructive formative feedback in different ways to improve their written work. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.