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Article Citation - WoS: 4Citation - Scopus: 8Remote Rf Laboratory Requirements: Engineers' and Technicians' Perspective(Anadolu Univ, 2007) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Aydin, Elif Uray; Kara, Ali; Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering; Software EngineeringThis study aims to find out requirements and needs to be fulfilled in developing remote Radio Frequency (RF) laboratory. Remote laboratories are newly emerging solutions for better supporting of e-learning platforms and for increasing their efficiency and effectiveness in technical education. By this way, modern universities aim to provide lifelong learning environments to extend their education for a wider area and support learners anytime and anywhere when they need help. However, as far as the authors concern, there is no study investigating the requirements and needs of remote laboratories in that particular field in the literature. This study is based on electrical engineers' and technicians' perspectives on the requirements of a remote laboratory in RF domain. Its scope covers investigation of the participants' perceptions toward computer mediated communication and it attempts to answer the questions: which studying strategies are preferred by the learners and what kind of RF laboratory content should be provided. The analysis of the results showed that, geographic independence, finding quickly the elements of past communication and temporal independence are declared as the most important advantages of computer-mediated communication. However, reading significant amount of information is a problem of these environments. In the context of how to show the content, respondents want to see shorter text on the screen. Therefore the instructions should include little amount of text and must be supported with figures and interactive elements. The instructional materials developed for such learner groups should support both linear and non-linear instructions. While analyzing the content to be provided, we have seen that, most of the participants do not have access to high level equipments and traditional experiments are considered as the necessary ones for both engineers and technicians.Article Citation - WoS: 22Citation - Scopus: 34An Analysis of Course Characteristics, Learner Characteristics, and Certification Rates in MITx MOOCs(Athabasca Univ Press, 2020) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Cagiltay, Kursat; Celik, Berkan; Software EngineeringMassive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), capable of providing free (or low cost) courses for millions of learners anytime and anywhere, have gained the attention of researchers, educational institutions, and learners worldwide. Even though they provide several benefits, there are still some criticisms of MOOCs. For instance, MOOCs' high dropout rates or predominantly elite participation are considered to be important problems. In order to develop solutions for these problems, a deeper understanding of MOOCs is required. Today, despite the availability of several research studies about MOOCs, there is a shortage of in-depth research on course characteristics, learner characteristics, and predictors of certification rates. This study examined MOOC and learner characteristics in detail and explored the predictors of course certification rates based on data from 122 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MOOCs (MITx) on edX platform as well as data about the 2.8 million participants registered in these MOOCs. The results indicated that as the number of courses offered and the number of learners enrolled increased in years, there was a decrease in the certification rates among enrolled learners. According to our results, the number of average chapters completed, total forum messages, and mean age predicted course certification rates positively. On the other hand, the total number of chapters in a course predicted the course certification rates negatively. Based on these results, shorter and more interactive MOOCs are recommended by considering the needs of the learners, course content design, and strategies encouraging the enrolled students to enter the courses.Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 7Teaching Software Verification and Validation Course: a Case Study(Tempus Publications, 2014) Mishra, Deepti; Hacaloglu, Tuna; Mishra, Alok; Computer Engineering; Software Engineering; Information Systems EngineeringSoftware verification and validation (V & V) is one of the significant areas of software engineering for developing high quality software. It is also becoming part of the curriculum of a universities' software and computer engineering departments. This paper reports the experience of teaching undergraduate software engineering students and discusses the main problems encountered during the course, along with suggestions to overcome these problems. This study covers all the different topics generally covered in the software verification and validation course, including static verification and validation. It is found that prior knowledge about software quality concepts and good programming skills can help students to achieve success in this course. Further, team work can be chosen as a strategy, since it facilitates students' understanding and motivates them to study. It is observed that students were more successful in white box testing than in black box testing.Article Citation - WoS: 5Citation - Scopus: 7Teaching Usage of Equipments in a Remote Laboratory(Turkish online Journal Educational Tech-tojet, 2008) Alparslan, N. Ceren; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Ozen, Mustafa; Aydin, Elif Uray; Software EngineeringRemote laboratories are technologies that aim to increase the effectiveness of educational programs. European Remote Radio Laboratory (ERRL) is an e-learning project for students, teachers and technicians who will use very important devices of a radio frequency laboratory remotely. As a solution we have developed an e-learning system which aims to support the ERRL learners while studying on how to use equipments in the system. The system is developed according to the electronic performance support system (EPSS) approach. An EPSS is a computer-based, well-structured system which improves the performance of individuals. It is an electronic infrastructure that contains, stores and distributes personal (individual) or corporate knowledge to enable people to reach necessary levels of performance in the fastest possible time and with minimum teaching support of other people. This paper discusses how the content for such a system is developed and how this content is interactively used in the EPSS platform. The technical details of the developed EPSS are also discussed in this study. We believe that this paper will help instructional system designers for designing different alternatives to improve learners' performance.Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 7An Enhanced Course in Digital Communications(Tempus Publications, 2014) Kara, Ali; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Dalveren, Yaser; Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering; Software EngineeringToday technological improvements provide several alternatives and opportunities for improving traditional educational systems. However, integrating these technologies in an appropriate and successful way into the curriculum of traditional systems is a challenge. This work presents the enhancements added to an undergraduate course on Digital Communications which is an introductory course offered to senior undergraduates or first year graduate students. The Digital Communications course covers some essential stages in a typical digital communication system, namely, signal formatting such as analog to digital conversion, baseband modulation and bandpass modulation by concentrating on demodulation and detection at the receiver end. The enhancements include computer simulations, web-based simulation tools and remote laboratory experiments along with several out of class activities. The enhancements have improved the course significantly by supporting constructivist and blended learning methods. The improvement to the course was demonstrated over two years, from the student progress assessed from the collated results of the student evaluation forms and a questionnaire on the course learning outcomes, and a comparison of their performance in the written exams. The results show that there is a significant improvement both in the progress and satisfaction of the students on the enhanced course curriculum. This study shows how different technologies have been successfully integrated to the curriculum of Digital Communications course in a higher education organization and concludes its success factors.Article Citation - WoS: 12Citation - Scopus: 17Students' Preferences on Web-Based Instruction: Linear or Non-Linear(int Forum Educational Technology & Soc-ifets, 2006) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Yildirim, Soner; Aksu, Meral; Software EngineeringThis paper reports the findings of a study conducted on a foreign language course at a large mid- west university in the USA. In the study a web- based tool which supports both linear and non- linear learning environments was designed and developed for this course. The aim of this study was to find out students' preferences pertaining to the learning environment and to address the factors affecting their preferences. The results of this study showed that the individual characteristics of the students affected their preferences on the learning path ( linear or non- linear).
