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This study aims to identify the gap between the requirements of the accreditation bodies and the widely used learning management systems (LMSs) in assessing the intended learning outcomes (ILOs). In addition, this study aims to introduce a framework, along with the evaluation of the functionality of the LMS, for measuring the ILO.

A qualitative method was deployed to examine the gap between the requirements of the accreditation standards and the LMS functionalities. The researchers collaborated to design a mechanism, develop a system architecture to measure the ILO in alignment with the accreditation standards and guide the development of the Moodle plugin. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the plugin were evaluated within the scope of assessment mapping and design. Focus group interviews were conducted to collect feedback from the instructors and program leaders regarding its implementation.

The results of this study indicate that there is no standardized mechanism to measure course and program ILO objectively, using the existing LMS. The implementation of the plugin shows the appropriateness and effectiveness of the system in generating ILO achievement reports, which was confirmed by the users.

This study proposed a framework and developed a system architecture for the objective measurement of the ILO through direct assessment. The plugin was tested to generate consistent reports during the measurement of course and program ILO. The plugin has been implemented across Gulf University’s program courses, ensuring appropriate reporting and continuous improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how emerging open standards are replacing traditional industrial networks. Current industrial Ethernet networks are not interoperable; thus, limiting the potential capabilities for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). There is no forthcoming new generation fieldbus standard to integrate into the IIoT and Industry 4.0 revolution. The open platform communications unified architecture (OPC UA) time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a potential vendor-independent successor technology for the factory network. The OPC UA is a data exchange standard for industrial communication, and TSN is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standard for Ethernet that supports real-time behaviour. The merging of these open standard solutions can facilitate cross-vendor interoperability for Industry 4.0 and IIoT products.

A brief review of the history of the fieldbus standards is presented, which highlights the shortcomings for current industrial systems in meeting converged traffic solutions. An experimental system for the OPC UA TSN is described to demonstrate an approach to developing a three-layer factory network system with an emphasis on the field layer.

From the multitude of existing industrial network schemes, there is a convergence pathway in solutions based on TSN Ethernet and OPC UA. At the field level, basic timing measurements in this paper show that the OPC UA TSN can meet the basic critical timing requirements for a fieldbus network.

This paper uniquely focuses on the specific fieldbus standards elements of industrial networks evolution and traces the developments from the early history to the current developing integration in IIoT context.

The purpose of this paper is to find out tourism movement patterns via the tracking of tourists with the help of positioning systems like GPS in the rural area of the Lake Constance destination in Germany. In doing so past, present and future of tourist tracking is illustrated.

The tracking is realized via common smartphones extended by an app, with dedicated sensors like position loggers and a survey. The three different approaches are applied in order to compare and cross-check results (triangulation of data and methods).

Movement patterns turned out to be diverse and individualistic within the rural destination of Lake Constance and following an ants trail in sub-destinations like the city of Constance. Repeat visitors and first-time visitors alike always visit the bigger cities and main day-trip destinations of the Lake. A possible prediction tool enables new avenues of governing tourism movement patterns.

The tracking techniques can be developed further into the direction of “quantified self” using gamification in order to make the tracking app even more attractive.

An algorithm-based prediction tool would offer new perspectives to the management of tourism movements.

Further research is needed to overcome the feeling of invasiveness of the app to allow tracking with that approach.

This study is original and innovative because of the first-time use of a smartphone app in tourist tracking, the application on a rural destination and the conceptual description of a prediction tool.

This paper aims to describe the development of a knowledge management system (KMS) for the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery (NOMAD) instrument on board the ESA/Roscosmos 2016 ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft. The KMS collects knowledge acquired during the engineering process that involved over 30 project partners. In addition to the documentation and technical data (explicit knowledge), a dedicated effort was made to collect the gained experience (tacit knowledge) that is crucial for the operational phase of the TGO mission and also for future projects. The system is now in service and provides valuable information for the scientists and engineers working with NOMAD.

The NOMAD KMS was built around six areas: official documentation, technical specifications and test results, lessons learned, management data (proposals, deliverables, progress reports and minutes of meetings), picture files and movie files. Today, the KMS contains 110 GB of data spread over 11,000 documents and more than 13,000 media files. A computer-aided design (CAD) library contains a model of the full instrument as well as exported sub-parts in different formats. A context search engine for both documents and media files was implemented.

The conceived KMS design is basic, flexible and very robust. It can be adapted to future projects of a similar size.

The paper provides practical guidelines on how to retain the knowledge from a larger aerospace project. The KMS tool presented here works offline, requires no maintenance and conforms to data protection standards.

This paper shows how knowledge management requirements for space missions can be fulfilled. The paper demonstrates how to transform the large collection of project data into a useful tool and how to address usability aspects.

The review examines the existing literature on blockchain-based small and medium enterprise (SME) finance and highlights its trend, themes, opportunities and challenges. Based on these factors, the authors create a framework for the existing literature on blockchain-based SME financing and lay down future research paths.

The review follows a systematic approach. It includes 53 articles encompassing multiple dimensions of blockchain-based SME finance, including peer-to-peer lending platforms, supply chain finance (SCF), decentralized lending protocols and tokenization of assets. The review critically evaluates these approaches' theoretical underpinnings, empirical evidence and practical implementations.

The review demonstrates that blockchain-based SME finance holds significant promise in addressing the credit gap by leveraging blockchain technology's decentralized and transparent nature. Benefits identified include reduced information asymmetry, improved access to financing, enhanced credit assessment processes and increased financial inclusion. However, the literature acknowledges several challenges and limitations, such as regulatory uncertainties, scalability issues, operational complexities and potential security risks.

The article contributes to the growing knowledge of blockchain-based SME finance by synthesizing and evaluating the existing literature. It also provides a framework for the existing literature in the area and future research paths. The study offers insights for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand the potential of blockchain technology in filling the SME credit gap and fostering economic development through improved access to finance for SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way technology affects the provision of prehospital emergency care, upgrading the quality of services offered and significantly reducing the risk of premature termination of the patients.

The paper presents the development of the eEKAB, a pilot emergency medical information system that simulates the main services offered by the Greek National Instant Aid Centre (EKAB). The eEKAB was developed on an agile system methodology. From a technical perspective, the features and the technology were mainly chosen to provide reliable and user-friendly interfaces that will attract many users. eEKAB is based on three important pillars for offering health care to the patients: the “On-time Incident Reporting”, the “On-time Arrival at the Incident” and “Transfer to the Health Center”. According to the literature review, the emergency medical services (EMS) systems that combine all the features are very few.

It reduces the total time of the EMS procedures and it allows for an easier management of EMS, by providing a better allocation of human resources and a better geographical distribution of ambulances. The evaluation displayed that it is a very helpful application for the ambulance drivers as it reduces the ambulance response time to arrive in the patient's location and contributes significantly to the general performance of the prehospital medical care system. Also, the survey verified the importance of implementing eEKAB on a larger scale beyond the pilot usage. It is worth mentioning that the younger ambulance drivers had a more positive view for the purpose of the application.

The paper clearly identifies implications for further research. Regarding interoperability, the mobile app cooperates with the Operational Center of EKAB, while further collaboration could be achieved with other operational ambulance handling center, mainly, of the private sector. The system can evolve to include better communications among the EKAB departments. Particularly, the ambulance crew as well as the doctors should be informed with more incident features such as the emergency signal so that they know whether to open the siren, the patient's name, etc. The authors are currently working on implementing some features to provide effective medical health services to the patient in the ambulance.

eEKAB will have very significant implications in case of its enforcement, such as the reduction of the total time of EMS procedures with a corresponding reduction of the operating costs of an accident management system and an ambulance fleet handling system while in parallel informing in time the doctors/clinics. It will provide better distribution of ambulances as well as of total human resources. It will greatly assist ambulance drivers, while reducing ambulance response time to reach the patient's location. In other words, the authors will have a better performance of the whole prehospital care system.

Providing emergency care before the hospital is of great importance for upgrading the quality of health services provided at the accident site, thus significantly reducing the risk of premature death of patients. This in itself has a significant social implication.

The paper demonstrates a solid understanding in the field of the EMS systems and the corresponding medical services offered. It proposes the development of an effective, feasible and innovative EMS information system that will improve the existing emergency health care system in Greece (EKAB). An in depth literature review and presentation of the adopted new technologies and the respective architecture take place. An evaluation and statistical validation were conducted for proving the high applicability of eEKAB in case of real-life running.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.

This study aims to understand how marketing faculty become reference-educators of business executives by exploring the factors that contribute to their teaching performance.

Exploratory qualitative research, using in-depth interviews in which the object of the study was the marketing educator, based on three Brazilian business schools.

The teaching performance depends on the teaching practice, which is influenced by technical knowledge, pedagogical factors and personal features. The development of a practitioner-educator is a complex process that arises from both formal and informal learning.

Deepens the understanding of marketing educators’ individual factors, proposing a model to expand the knowledge of the factors shaping a reference-educator.

Raises awareness among managers of Higher Education institutions of the relevance of the development of its educators considering not only pedagogical skills but also marketing and social skills.

Improvements in education generate a positive contribution to society. Better marketing educators may result in better professionals, which could, ultimately, generate more benefits both for corporations and for society.

Existing literature has neglected the understanding of how marketing educators’ individual factors may impact on good teaching to create a well-rounded practitioner-educator. This study seeks to address that gap by exploring how marketing faculty, especially practitioners of marketing, become reference-educators, that is, educators identified as exemplars of good practice by their students and peers.

This study aims to explore the need for highly technological complexes for control and monitoring, as well as, new concepts and methodologies for maritime resource exploration and exploitation, which are in great demand nowadays.

This paper provides an analysis of demand, means of creation and development of the methodology and infrastructure for global monitoring, pollution control and supervision of smart systems for activities in exploration, future resource exploitation in deep-water and coastal areas based on Smarthub architecture, Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Continuous Acquisition and Life-Cycle Support (CALS) and Blockchain technologies.

Observational, experimental, simulation, derivational, hybrid descriptive and analytical models, as well as, surrogate models were created, analyzed and implemented for assigned tasks realization. Concept of distributed system for marine environmental monitoring, control and supervising as pilot technology in the context of Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 3–5 was designed and evaluated.

The activities described in this article should be realized in the design and development of a complex, reliable, robust and sustainable monitoring and inspection system for the control and evaluation of the impact and risk assessment of the exploration and future exploitation of maritime resources.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate both long-run and short-run dynamics among the software and services export, investment in information technology (IT) and GDP in India and to investigate the direction of the relationship among the given three macro-economic variables.

The time series data have been taken to investigate the long-run relationship exists among the variables. Annual data were collected from the NASSCOM Annual Reports, Planning Commission of India and Reserve Bank of India during the period 1980–2016. Cointegration and vector error correction model have been used for analyzing the causal relationship among investment in IT, software exports and GDP in India.

Cointegration results confirm that software and services export, investment in IT and GDP are cointegrated, implying that there exists the long-run equilibrium relationship among the given three macro-economic variables. Similarly, vector error correction mechanism Granger causality results hold that there is uni-directional long-run causality running from software and services export and investment in IT to GDP, implying that software and services export is an important determinant of economic growth in India.

The limitations of the paper are generalization of the results and proxy variable for IT investments.

The paper has implications for the expansion of market concentration, diversification of software and service exports, and investments in R&D for increasing competitiveness of the industry in the global market.

This paper focuses on originality in the analysis of the relationship among the given variables software exports, investment in the IT sector and GDP in India. All the work has been done in original by the authors and the work used have been acknowledged properly.