Pendekar Siber: Empowering Young People to Combat Cyber Threats

Pendekar Siber is in the Malay language which means a cyber warrior. A cyber warrior is a computer expert engaged in the defense of information systems against cyber-attacks. It refers to an educational program to groom young people to empower themselves and their peers capable to combat cyber threats. This is because cyber threats are on the rise especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and movement control orders (MCO). Cyber threats to children are becoming more significant since they were dependent on electronic gadgets and computer devices to do online learning activities at home. Although MCO had been lifted and schools were reopened, children are still reliant on these gadgets to play online games, watching content on social media and interact with their online friends. Some of them cannot be separated from these online activities until they neglect their studies and affect their physical and mental health. Despite the responsibilities of parents to monitor their children's use of gadgets, this paper posits the role of young people to address these threats. Thus, Pendekar Siber program was introduced, community engagement programs were conducted, and surveys were carried out at a bottom 40% (B40) urban poor community in Selangor, Malaysia. The surveys were done to understand the children's Internet use and their cybersecurity awareness. Based on our findings, this paper recommends ways that can be implemented by empowering young people to address cyber threats faced by themselves and their peers. © 2022 IEEE.

Covid-19: Sentiment Analysis of Students Readiness on Open Distance Learning (ODL) via Twitter

The widespread of Corona virus in Malaysia has led to open distance learning (ODL) for every student in continuing their study. However, the student readiness in ODL is unknown for the university. Thus, university institutions must always monitor what the university says about social media and the student readiness on ODL. This project aimed at developing a sentiment classification by means of a Naïve Bayes algorithm in displaying the readiness index of students by extracting Twitter tweets. A standard sentiment analysis performance measurement was used in evaluating the developed sentiment analysis model. About 98.8% of the extracted tweet are negative tweet about the online learning which indicate that the students are not ready for the ODL. The classifier model's precision, recall and f1-measure for each category on online learning readiness are obtained. The best f1-score of the classifier model is in online category with 29.0% for negative tweets and 31.7% for positive tweets compare to the other category with a precision of 27.9% for negative tweets and 30.7% for positive tweets while for the recall value is 29.6% for negative tweets and 32.2% for positive tweets. However, there are room for improvements by implement of the autocorrect function for the sentiment analysis model, implementation of a live update function in dynamically for student readiness index live when new tweets appear, implement a machine classification model, providing dynamic database application and used higher performance computer for data scrapping. © 2022 IEEE.

The VaccineLand: An Interactive Digital Board Game to Educate Public about Vaccines

The invention of the COVID-19 vaccines has resulted in various viewpoints and reactions from the public. The vaccines are guaranteed to be safe and clinically proven to enhance human antibodies preventing the virus from spreading. However, disseminating facts and truth about vaccines to the public is challenging due to many factors, including vaccine hesitancy and skepticism. Besides, some individuals are still concerned about vaccines' adverse effects and safety. Plus, the presence of various misleading online discussions promoted by anti-vaccine activists that spread false information about vaccines has worsened the situation. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a digital board game, the VaccineLand, that provides information about vaccines in terms of their history, reasons for taking them, and the adverse effects on the public. Thus, VaccineLand was established based on the Game-Based Learning (GBL) model by its goal, which is to provide the public with facts and knowledge about vaccines in an interactive way. GBL is known as a type of gameplay with specific learning outcomes. Interactive GBL corresponds to the use of educational game applications for learning. This study investigates a usability evaluation consisting of four variables (usefulness, ease of use, ease of learning, and satisfaction) involving a total of 40 respondents. The finding indicates that the usability of this game was highly acceptable. We believe that VaccineLand can be a helpful tool to educate the public about vaccines. © 2022, Politeknik Negeri Padang. All rights reserved.

Evaluating Students' Preferences of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Tools

The sudden outbreak of the global health crisis, the Coronavirus Disease (or COVID-19), has consequently caused countries across the globe to undergo lockdown. This is done in order to ensure that all citizens stay at home to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic including the closure of all workplace premises, schools and shops. It requires the changes in the daily routine from working at the office to work from home as well as dining in at the restaurants to food delivery. These significant changes have also affected academic institutions that need to devise alternatives to accommodate the shutdowns. The situation has also challenged the education system across the world and forces educators to shift from face-to-face to an online mode of teaching. Open and Distance Learning (ODL) method is one of the most suitable strategies that integrates virtual technology which consequently allows the continuation of the teaching and learning process. There are many tools available to provide online learning platforms. A user friendly and reliable technology is essential to ensure a successful online learning process. In some situations, the technology may neither seamless nor secure, and it can detract from the learning experience. A survey was conducted to identify the students' preference for their convenience in the adoption of online learning. The results of the study can be a reference for educators to make the most suitable tools as an option for the implementation of ODL. The selection of appropriate tools is vital in order to ensure that no student is left behind as well as to make sure the teaching and learning process a success. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.