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The purpose of this paper is to report on the innovative employment of students as technology mentors as part of a Blended Learning Program (BLP) that supported a group of owner-managers of small businesses to adopt appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance their work practices.

This discussion uses various evaluations undertaken throughout the project to examine why the technology mentor role is vital in supporting small businesses to develop digital literacies. The participants’ self-reporting of their ICT skills as well as their progress in using ICT was also assessed by technology mentors in the course of the program and reported in mentor reflections. Academic staff also evaluated the performances of technology mentors in relation to each business.

Participants in the BLP pilot program singled out the technology mentors as being essential in promoting their uptake of ICT and in their ability to use specific technologies at work.

Findings are based on a pilot program involving six learners and two technology mentors. While this is a statistically insignificant number of evaluations, both the findings and the model of the BLP remain of interest. This model has the capacity to address a long-standing and global challenge to support small businesses in the use of ICT. A scaled up version of the program is required to validate the findings.

In the final evaluation, participants all self-assessed as having increased ICT knowledge and skills. They provided specific examples of how they now use ICT. The BLP could be taken up by local and state governments who periodically attempt to support small businesses in the uptake of technologies. The BLP could also be applied to vocational education students in business, information technologies or information systems. As well as supporting small businesses to adopt ICT, this model also provides an important alternative to resource-intensive work-placement programs that are designed to develop students’ employability skills through work-integrated learning.

Less effective attempts to support small businesses often involve face-to-face training for unrealistic periods of time that foreground technology rather than real world, useful and relevant outcomes (IBSA, 2013). This BLP successfully supported owner operators of small businesses to identify, apply and evaluate a range of software applications (“apps”) and online programs to enhance their work practices.

The objective of this research is to explore factors that influence interns' satisfaction (is) toward the e-internship program, an alternate adopted by management institutes in lieu of the regular summer internship amidst the global pandemic, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

A cross-sectional research design with a self-reported questionnaire was conducted on business school (B-school) interns to rate the factors that contribute to their e-internship satisfaction. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the responses obtained from 203 B-school interns with a diverse demographic background belonging to a government university of North India. Convenience sampling was employed to get valid responses from interested respondents.

Results revealed that although all the four factors under consideration, faculty mentors' preparedness (FMP), industry mentors' preparedness (IMP), interns' readiness toward online internship and interns' Internet efficacy (IIE) are significantly related to IS, industry mentors' role was found to have a major impact on the IS. The study unravels that industry mentors' interaction has a potential role in the successful implementation of e-internships.

The study has implications for the university as well as the companies to ponder on factors that satisfy interns during the virtual internship and designing an effective internship program by having a collaborative approach.

There is a dearth of empirical studies on internships in general and e-internship in particular, so this study fills the gap and contributes to the existing literature and provides ways to satisfy B-school interns toward e-internship by addressing the key factors.

The paper aims to review existing performance indicators in technology business incubators (TBIs) and propose some new indicators with a focus on incubation activities in higher educational institutes (HEIs) of India.

Performance indicators of various types of incubators were identified from research papers followed by interview, consultation and suggestion from experts of the subject. Nature of interrelationship between the identified indicators has been established with the help of Interpretive Structural Modelling methodology and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis.

Number of ideas came for screening and number of ideas converted to start-ups, survival rate of incubatees is the indicators which have the highest driving power followed by time taken in screening an idea and number of failed or rejected ideas returned back into incubation. Few indicators (driving indicators) are affecting performance of other indicators as well.

Some performance indicators are proposed which can be used for measuring performance of technology incubators in India. The actual implications will be known when these findings are used to assess performance of some technology incubator. This also is the limitation of the study that some cases can be included to validate the findings of this research.

A total of 15 performance indicators for measuring performance of TBIs in Indian HEIs have been proposed. The proposed indicators will help incubator management to prioritize the efforts and resource allocation.

TBIs are looked upon as mechanism for promoting entrepreneurial culture in Indian HEIs. Their success is well linked to growth of society. This research will help technology incubators to identify the most important factors in incubation process. Performance improvement will directly affect society in whole. Culture of IEE (Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Employment ) can be achieved through technology incubators

Identification of new indicators for performance measurement of incubators in Indian HEIs is the novelty of this research. This has a lot of value due to multilevel hierarchy model.

The purpose of this paper is to present extensions of Semantic MediaWiki for the purpose of technology forecast and technology monitoring. The user friendliness and applicability of the components is evaluated by task-based user studies.

Based on the requirements given by potential end users (technology experts), visualization possibilities were designed and implemented. Potential users used the new features of technology forecast and monitoring within a semantic wiki and were controlled regarding the effectiveness.

Although semantic wikis are ideal tools for knowledge management in industry settings, especially due to their user-friendly way of storing and retrieving knowledge, they have rarely been used for technology forecast and monitoring purposes so far. The authors show that the additional requirements for such purposes can be met and provide established technology analysis possibilities within Semantic MediaWiki. In that way, a new application area of Semantic MediaWiki is introduced.

Tools and techniques for Semantic MediaWiki are presented, opening the application area of Semantic MediaWiki for technology and innovation management. The research provides evidence that the open-source implemented visualization and storage techniques can be applied in real-world settings, where so far mainly costly dedicated software has had to be used.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the traditional mentoring practices of mentors and protégés.

As a matter of fact students with disabilities, as a group, have the lowest participation in postsecondary education programs and the highest unemployment rates. Effective mentoring programs can change these outcomes. These students need knowledgeable mentors who are familiar with technology and disabilities to help them in their fields of education. Access to technology and emphasis on using the technologies for mentors will be discussed.

Traditional in‐person mentoring is problematic because of transportation problems with appointment or location. In addition, mentors can help their protégés explore career options, set academic and career goals develop social and professional contacts, identify resources, and strengthen interpersonal skills. Using technology between mentors and protégés makes it easy to exchange information at anytime from anywhere.

The paper discusses in detail two widely used e‐mentoring programs. The first program is DO‐IT, a program which is sponsored by the University of Washington and the second program is MentorNet, which deals with mentoring and increasing diversity in the engineering and science fields.

As one writer stated: “mentoring is a win‐win situation”. This article describes the need for intervention, mentoring and retention of students with disabilities in Higher Education.

This chapter dwells upon reverse mentoring as a specific kind of mentoring practice. This chapter draws upon a consulting assignment on reverse mentoring at a global metal company in India. Presented in the form of a case study, this chapter highlights the possible conditions under which reverse mentoring becomes a strategic HR initiative in an organization. It does this by drawing attention to various contextual dimensions such as organizational culture of the firm, the socio-cultural and economic context of the firm. After describing the process of setting up a reverse mentoring program, it also suggests the manner in which reverse mentoring addresses some of concerns arising from such a context, as well as the manner in which efficacy of the practice is likely to be impacted by those conditions such as high power distance.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, teacher education in Qatar, similar to many countries around the world, witnessed a succession of disruptions to the way it operated. The disruption continued throughout much of 2020, and the need to adapt to arising changes and concerns permeated all aspects of teacher education, particularly the practicum experience. The chapter presents our attempt to investigate the influence of an adapted practicum experience which was based on the synthesis of qualitative evidence (SQD) model on the development of six student teachers’ technology knowledge and skills. Using a qualitative case study research design, we collected data from multiple data sources, including pre–post-interviews and weekly reflection logs. Quantitative data collected from a pre–post-administration of the SQD survey and TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge)-practical survey were used to triangulate the qualitative data. Findings from the thematic analysis and descriptive statistical analysis revealed evidence for participants’ increased TPACK-practical knowledge and skills, specifically in the domains of practical teaching and curriculum design. However, an emerging theme revealed that participants considered technology before pedagogy during instructional design. Findings also revealed two challenges to participants’ further development, namely working within a restricted learning environment and experiencing limited mentoring opportunities. We illustrated several implications for the design of the practicum experience and the required institutional support within the context of continued disruption to education and thereafter.

The unequitable representation among genders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees and careers remains a persisting challenge. Peer mentoring has been cited as one method for supporting women and racial and ethnic minorities in becoming interested in, experiencing self-efficacy in and persisting in STEM. The current study was undertaken to explore how and in what ways peer mentors' participation in the program (namely, the mentoring experience) influenced their STEM self-efficacy beliefs, interests, skills and behaviors, including their intent to persist and actual persistence in STEM.

Using a multisite case study design, the current study implemented a blended peer mentoring program at two historically black institutions.

The experience in the peer mentoring process increased mentors' self-efficacy, career interest, perceived mentoring skill development in most areas and intent to persist in STEM. Evidence from the interviews and open-ended survey questions demonstrated that the peer mentoring experience had a direct influence on the mentor's self-efficacy, career interest, leadership and professional skills and persistence. The thematic analysis of the data sources revealed that specific elements of the peer mentoring experience influenced mentors' beliefs, interests, skills and behaviors, including recognition, functioning as a mentor, developing an other's orientation, engaging in a sisterhood and developing competencies.

Findings support the benefit of the blended peer mentoring program model among women who identify as a racial or ethnic minority across two historically black college or universities (HBCUs). Peer mentoring programs should include training to increase competencies and skills, should provide resources targeted to specific mentor needs and should include opportunities for self-reflection and components of faculty support.

This chapter presents digital reverse mentoring as a novel kind of human and technological resource management intervention. It presents a case study of digital reverse mentoring at a large metal multinational. It highlights the various design elements of digital reverse mentoring that contribute towards achieving digital transformation and rebuilding of mindsets in the company. Through the case study the chapter also suggests that HRM needs to look beyond adoption of technological tools to actively participate in addressing the strategic concerns of digital transformation in a company.

This chapter discusses the distributed, volunteer nature of an information delivery cooperative which became formally designated as the IDS Project and how a “coalition of the willing” has been able to move the resource sharing community forward on a national scale through innovations in training, support, and technology. The authors use a case study approach to highlight some of the major accomplishments of the IDS Project, such as the Article Licensing Information Availability Service (ALIAS), IDS Search, the Mentor Program, and the Regional Users Groups. The team-based structure of the IDS Project allows for groups to work independently and from multiple locations while still creating a synergistic result through the combination of community and innovation. Distributed teams often provide enriched user skills for the group but often cause difficulties due to the distance, communication, and differing requirements of the different local institutions. The IDS Project’s use of technology and periodic face-to-face meetings has reduced the issues with distributed teams and created highly effective working groups. These groups, such as the mentors and the Technology Development Team, have provided excellent service and training to the member libraries. Through the use of the Best Practices Toolkit, the Getting It System Toolkit, ILLiad Addons produced by IDS, and other national services, the IDS Project has made it possible for libraries that use ILLiad to benefit from its developments.