The Informatics program at Mercer University is offered at four regional academic centers located throughout the state of Georgia. We serve non-traditional students who have primary responsibilities such as caring for family, working, and participating in their communities. We aim to offer availability and access to all required courses, access to…

This research report presents the final year results of a three-year research project on computational thinking (CT). The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, involved training teachers in grades four through six to implement Scalable Game Design and LEGO® EV3 robotics during afterschool clubs. Thirty teachers and 531 students took…

Teaching an online fully asynchronous information technology course that requires students to ideate, build an e-commerce website, and develop an effective business plan involves a well-developed and highly engaging course design. This paper describes the design, development, and implementation of such a course and presents information on…

The usage of data mining has dramatically increased over the past few years and the education sector is leveraging this field in order to analyze and gain intuitive knowledge in terms of the vast accumulated data within its confines. The primary objective of this study is to compare the results of different classification techniques such as Naïve…

Despite the widespread use of Social Learning Networks (SLNs), there is little research on the effectiveness of these sites in related literature. Therefore, there is a need for studies investigating but use of SLNs in educational environments and their effects on learners' academic achievements. In this study, the purpose was to investigate the…

This study incorporated Google Street View into a 3D virtual environment, known as VECAR, in which EFL learners controlled their avatars to learn vocabulary in a context of New York City. New York City's Times Square is full of real-life materials, realia, which can be used to assist situated incidental vocabulary learning and to connect…

Trends toward short-term academic service-learning abroad necessitate programs designed to maximize effectiveness and measurement of outcomes. The current study sought to strategically foster and measure increases in global mindedness during an immersive community-based global learning program abroad. University students studying either Computer…

Established in December 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Roundtable on Data Science Postsecondary Education was charged with identifying the challenges of and highlighting best practices in postsecondary data science education. Convening quarterly for 3 years, representatives from academia, industry, and…

The Slushie World case study is designed to teach the basics of Microsoft Access and database management over a series of three 75-minute class sessions. Students are asked to build a basic database to track sales and inventory for a small business. Skills to be learned include table creation, data entry and importing, form and report design,…

The Computer Information Systems (CIS) discipline faces an identity crisis: although demand for CIS graduates is growing, student enrollment is either in decline, or is at least soft or flat in many cases. This has been referred to as the 21st century paradox. As one solution to this problem, we propose to integrate entrepreneurship in the CIS…

Steganography is the art and science of concealing communication. The goal of steganography is to hide the very existence of information exchange by embedding messages into unsuspicious digital media covers. Cryptography, or secret writing, is the study of the methods of encryption, decryption and their use in communications protocols.…

Teaching object-oriented programming to students in an in-classroom environment demands well-thought didactic and pedagogical strategies in order to guarantee a good level of apprenticeship. To teach it on a completely distance learning environment (e-learning) imposes possibly other strategies, besides those that the e-learning model of Open…

Stepwise program refinement techniques can be used to simplify program verification. Programs are better understood since their main properties are clearly stated, and verification of rather complex algorithms is reduced to proving simple statements connecting successive program specifications. Additionally, it is easy to analyse similar…

Within the framework of the Testing Algorithmic and Application Skills project we tested first year students of Informatics at the beginning of their tertiary education. We were focusing on the students' level of understanding in different programming environments. In the present paper we provide the results from the University of Debrecen, the…

Computer science programs are too often identified with a narrow stratum of the student population, often white or Asian boys who have access to computers at home. But because computers play such a huge role in our world today, all students can benefit from the study of computer science and the opportunity to build skills related to computing. The…