Web.2 technologies allow people to be the producer of information and this will increase the information in a network. Discussion Boards (forums) are Web.2 technology that enable student to interact, collaborate and exchange knowledge in different online courses. The main objective of this research study is to investigate the impact of Discussion Boards on students’ grades and satisfaction with the learning environment. The study compared two groups of similar students studying similar topic and compared the results after 6 weeks experiment. Results showed that there is a positive impact on students’ grades and student’s satisfaction. Moreover, additional investigations were made to deeply understand the other related impacts that arose during the research study.

People take their mobile phones everywhere they go. In Saudi Arabia, the mobile penetration is very high and students use their phones for different reasons in the classroom. The use of mobile devices in classroom triggers an alert of the impact it might have on students’ learning. This study investigates the association between the use of mobile phones during classroom and the learners’ performance and satisfaction. Results showed that students get distracted, and that this diversion of their attention is reflected in their academic success. However, this is not applicable for all. Some students received high scores even though they declared using mobile phones in classroom, which triggers a request for a deeper study.

The creation of a collaborative learning environment necessitates learners to learn together. Collaborative learning becomes influential when it occurs from the perspective of communities of practice. This study aims to provide an instrument that can measure the extent to which learning practices in a country are consistent with Wenger's model of communities of practice based on student perspective. This study emphasises the applicability of creating a virtual collaborative learning environment in Saudi Arabian universities. Data were collected through web-based questionnaires distributed to undergraduate students at Al Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU).

Although many universities and corporations invest on relevant resources in virtual learning programs, methods and tools for evaluating their success have not been consolidated. This article conducts an extensive literature review and identifies the measures of effectiveness of virtual learning programs and their influencing factors. The key contribution of this study is the proposed systemic model that can be operationally used to measure the effectiveness of virtual learning programs. The model identifies the determinants of effectiveness, namely, 'learner performance' and 'learner satisfaction and confidence', and the factors that influence significantly them. The model has been cross-checked by a panel of field experts and validated through factor and regression analyses involving a sample of university students. Lastly, the model is operationalised using a tool that guides HR managers and practitioners in assessing the effectiveness of their virtual learning programs.

Mobile learning or “m-learning” is the process of learning when learners are not at a fixed location or time and can exploit the advantage of learning opportunities using mobile technologies. Nowadays, speech recognition is being used in many mobile applications. Speech recognition helps people to interact with the device as if were they talking to another person. This technology helps people to learn anything using computers by promoting self-study over extended periods of time. The objective of this study is focusing on designing and developing a mobile application for the Arabic recognition of spoken Quranic verses. The application is suitable for Android-based devices. The application is called Say Quran and is available on Google Play Store. Moreover, this paper presents the results of a preliminary experimentation to gather feedback from students regarding the developed application

Recently, telecommunication companies have been paying more attention toward the problem of identification of customer churn behavior. In business, it is well known for service providers that attracting new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing ones. Therefore, adopting accurate models that are able to predict customer churn can effectively help in customer retention campaigns and maximizing the profit. In this paper we will utilize an ensemble of Multilayer perceptrons (MLP) whose training is obtained using negative correlation learning (NCL) for predicting customer churn in a telecommunication company. Experiments results confirm that NCL based MLP ensemble can achieve better generalization performance (high churn rate) compared with ensemble of MLP without NCL (flat ensemble) and other common data mining techniques used for churn analysis.

As a component of the e-learning educational process, content plays an essential role. Increasingly, the video-recorded lectures in e-learning systems are becoming more important to learners. In most cases, a single video-recorded lecture contains more than one topic or sub-topic. Therefore, to enable learners to find the desired topic and reduce learning time, e-learning systems need to provide a search capability for searching within the video content. This can be accomplished by enabling learners to identify the video or portion that contains a keyword they are looking for. This research aims to develop Video Content Search system to facilitate searching in educational videos and its contents. Preliminary results of an experimentation were conducted on a selected university course. All students needed a system to avoid time-wasting problem of watching long videos with no significant benefit. The statistics showed that the number of learners increased during the experiment. Future work will include studying impact of VCS system on students’ performance and satisfaction.

Experiences and knowledge inside any organization is a high valued resource. In order to utilize this resource, organizations should facilitate the knowledge sharing process between experts and others. Experts-locator systems recommend experts within the organization. However, current systems does not take into account the responsiveness of experts in providing support when requested. The proposed system ranks and recommends experts based on factors such as experience duration, experience level, number of projects, and more importantly, number of sent emails as a responsiveness indicator. Delphi technique was followed to identify and weight the factors. The prototype system has been experimented and results indicate that ranking formula is useful to recommend more responsive experts.

Nowadays, Model Driven Development (MDD) is a powerful technique for modelling complex systems and also for aligning business and information technology (IT), giving designers the ability to execute business models as they are intended to be run and behaved in the business environment. The Object Management Group (OMG) adopted many business standards into the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) environment e.g. Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR), the Business Motivation Model (BMM), Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN) and Organisational Structure Model (OSM). These can work together to model different aspects of the enterprise at the business level. However, these models lack reasoning and dynamic simulation: there is no significant way to simulate discrete and continuous time system behaviour or to build arguments for reasoning about the design options within the OMG specifications. In this paper we propose an approach to overcoming this problem, by integrating a set of modelling tools into one single platform, taking advantage of meta-modelling techniques to integrate new tools with the OMG specifications in a model driven environment. The prospective framework should be able to tackle advanced analysis and design problems by intertwining design, reasoning and simulation to achieve a higher level of design maturity through implementing the desired scenario.

Blended Learning (BL) is considered a promising pedagogical approach. Some researches demonstrated that students' satisfaction is higher for BL courses compared to completely online or face-to-face (F2F) courses. Moreover, the explosion of web 2.0 tools and the success of the "read-write Web" are reconfiguring the individual and collaborative blended learning processes. Based on this assumption, this paper investigates the effectiveness of web 2.0 BL for the design and delivery of a pilot course on e-business topics. Two experimentations have been organized involving undergraduates engineering students of the University of Jordan. According to the obtained results assessing students' reaction, learning and behaviour, the BL model proposed in the article revealed more effective than traditional F2F learning. A survey conducted at the end of the course also showed that students were satisfied with the pedagogical approach, and their academic achievements were also significantly improved. Findings demonstrate that successful BL programs require innovative curriculum design strategy based on new principles such as: a) the involvement of heterogeneous stakeholders in the course's design phase; b) the focus on competence development rather than on knowledge transfer; c) the choice of team work as an additional component to evaluate individual students' performances; d) presence of remote and F2F interactions among peers and between teachers and students; e) the usage of web 2.0 tools as enablers of collaborative learning processes and social networking; f) continuous tutoring both for content and technological issues. These findings can help engineering colleges and universities to design and offer more effective learning courses.

The main objective of this research is to provide a solution for online exam systems by using face recognition to authenticate learners for attending an online exam. More importantly, the system continuously (with short time intervals), checks for learner identity during the whole exam period to ensure that the learner who started the exam is the same one who continued until the end and prevent the possibility of cheating by looking at adjacent PC or reading from an external paper. The system will issue an early warning to the learners if suspicious behavior has been noticed by the system. The proposed system has been presented to eight e-learning instructors and experts in addition to 32 students to gather feedback and to study the impact and the benefit of such system in e-learning environment.

Internet gives incredible opportunities for companies to learn about their consumers and provides different channels for marketing. Otlobli.com website (an e-commerce company established in Saudi Arabia), uses different channels, such as: Google AdWords, newspaper website banners, official thread on a famous online forum and, Twitter. A marketing tool has been developed to enhance the effectiveness of marketing on Twitter. This research investigates the impact of the developed system. Website access from these various channels was examined, in addition to the number of visitors who have completed an order. Results showed that the tool caused around 49% increase in the number of visits from Twitter, and comparatively, a good percentage of them completed an order.

Information and Communication Technologies have changed the way people live and work. In the education field, the ICT evolution is increasingly supporting innovative methods of learning and many universities are investing in creating their own e-Learning Environments. Besides, learners' performance still and issue, the social learning theory states that people can learn by observing the behavior of others and the outcome of those behaviors. Furthermore, the theory also mentions that other people will most likely exhibit the behavior if the outcome is positive. This research proposes a game theory based model to enhance learners' performance (in terms of rate of interaction, participation/contribution and attendance). Researchers presented a novel model (CEM) composed of three loosely-coupled components for enhancing the cooperation and communication levels between learners in e-Learning Environments (eLE). Each learner represents a player in a “game” within the eLE. The model used for setting the list of positive and negative activities, storing players' actions and evaluating players' behavior throughout the game. The performance of CEM has been evaluated based on the mean values and the ratio of positive actions taken by all groups in a particular class session.

The online education market is expanding both globally and locally; Arab countries are paying special attention to the growth of this sector. Reports showed that the e-learning market arrived at $27.1 billion in the year 2009 and is expected to surpass $49.6 billion by the year 2014. This paper presents and surveys the perception of students and instructors regarding mobile learning and mobile examination system in some Arab countries. Many universities in the Arab world are under progress in the implementation of this new technology and many have already implemented it. Strong tools are required to improve e-learning system of education. This research supports the transition of education from conventional methods to m-learning and m-exam systems. The purpose of this research is to study the perception of both instructors and students regarding mobile learning and mobile examination systems. The introduction of such systems to the educational process requires people involved to have basic technical skills and to be aware of the benefits of such systems. Results showed different perspectives from three countries; also showed that online examination systems could be very helpful, but many factors should be considered and they should be implemented carefully to guarantee the successful adoption, fairness and reliability.

Countries' success in the knowledge economy increasingly rely on highly-skilled and qualified people, which in turn, requires rapid, effective, and less expensive education and training. In this context, e-Learning has emerged; e-Learning is scalable, less expensive than traditional learning, and clearly advantageous for learners to access educational information and content anywhere and anytime. However, for evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning programs, a definition of = 'effectiveness' should to be established. In addition, understanding the factors influencing the effectiveness of e-Learning programs will help learning institutions to channel resources to significant factors rather than unimportant ones. Accordingly, this study intends to develop measures for the effectiveness of e-Learning and define the factors influencing them, and how both - the effectiveness measures and influencing factors-are perceived by different e-Learning practitioners, in particular, business and academic ones. More importantly, a comparison of both groups` perceptions is examined.

Virtual Learning Communities (VLCs) are emerging rapidly as the new generation of learning spaces. In the continued co-evolution of collaborative learning strategies and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), new learning approaches and styles are arising. The shift from old-fashioned/predetermined learning to just-in-time/collaborative learning needs to be characterised by a blended learning strategy in which the principle of 'personalisation' plays a strategic role. In this perspective, this study aims to present the value of providing personalised online learning services to the electronic Business Management Section (eBMS) community, composed of professors, researchers and learners of Southern Mediterranean countries. Specifically, a personalised learning model will be presented, as well as its application to the learning processes and services embedded in the technological platform sustaining the eBMS learning community, called Virtual eBMS.

In the context of the e-Business Management Section (eBMS) of the Scuola Superiore ISUFI at University of Salento (Italy), the case of the International Master in e-Business Management (IMeBM) is discussed here which is aimed to contribute pragmatically to create e-Business Capabilities in Mediterranean Countries. This chapter presents the results obtained in the Laboratory Phase of the first two years of Master’s editions, i.e. 2006 and 2007 editions. This phase has been designed on blended (on-line and off-line) learning experience. Specifically, it has been structured by mixing the delivery of some Web learning courseware with face-to-face meetings with mentors and e-Business experts. The technological platform designed, developed and adopted for the Web learning activities is called the “Virtual eBMS” that represents the collaborative learning environment of the Mediterranean School. The pedagogical approach adopted by the School, named (“Learning-in-Action”) together with some considerations on the effectiveness and the implications of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) strategy are also deliberated upon. It also presents how the whole case of the International Master in e-Business Management generated intellectual capital assets, described in terms of Human Capital (competences developed in the e-Business context), Social Capital (networks and cooperation with local institutions and companies) and Structural Capital (research projects).