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In this paper, we present an extended evaluation of a course recommendation system to primarily support students who struggle in the first semesters of their studies and are at risk of dropping out. The course recommendation system was developed in earlier work using a student-centered design and is based on the explainable k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm. The system recommends the set of courses that have been passed by the majority of their nearest neighbors who have completed their studies. The present evaluation is based on the data of students from three different study programs. The first result is that the recommendations do lower the dropout risk. A second result is that the set of recommended courses matches quite well the courses taken by students who completed the study program but differs from the courses taken by struggling students. Thus, though the course recommended system targets primarily struggling students, students doing well could use it. A third result is that the number of recommended courses for struggling students is less than the number of courses they actually enrolled in. We state that the recommendations given indicate a different and hopefully feasible path through the study program for students at risk of dropping out.

Supplemental Material for The role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch for gender inequalities in labor income of higher education graduates in Europe by Giampiero Passaretta, Petra Sauer, Ulrike Schwabe, and Katarina Weßling in Research in Comparative and International Education.

The expansion of higher education since the second half of the 20th century was particularly pronounced among women. In most high-income countries to date more women complete a tertiary level than men. But research on the implications of higher education expansion for labour income inequality has largely treated expansion as gender neutral. With this paper we build on prior studies that have ignored potentially differential effects by factoring in what it means for earnings inequality to increase tertiary education among women as compared to men. To this end we draw on harmonised data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) for 27 countries and two time points, 1995 and 2015, and use the method of Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regression. We obtain three main insights from our study. First, no average distributive effect of higher education expansion exists. Second, the distributive effect is gender-specific. The impact on the Gini coefficient of increasing tertiary attainment of men is positive and significant but the impact of increasing tertiary attainment of women is negative and significant. Third, the increasing share of tertiary educational attainment is the main factor explaining that distributive estimates shrink towards zero over time for both women and men. Only for men does larger inequality between and within educational groups significantly contribute to magnify the impact of educational expansion on earnings distributions across countries. Our analysis highlights that taking the gender dimension into account is crucial to obtain exhaustive understanding of the role of education for overall income inequality.

Special Issue on the Material Image. Affordances as a New Approach to Visual Culture Studies. Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director: Christiane Wagner Co-Editor for this Special Issue: Elisabeth Günther Senior Editor: Martina Sauer For more information about the board, please click onEditorial TeamandArt Style Magazine’s ScientificCommittee Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazineisanopenaccess,biannual, and peer-reviewed onlinemagazine that aims to bundle cultural diversity.All values of cultures are shown in their varieties of art. Beyond the importance of the medium, form, and context in which art takes its characteristics, we also consider the significance of socio-cultural, historical, and market influence. Thus, there are different forms of visual expression and perception through the media and environment. The images relate to the cultural changes and their time-space significance—the spirit of the time. Hence, it is not only about the image itself and its description but rather its effects on culture, in which reciprocity is involved. For example, a variety of visual narratives—like movies, TV shows, videos, performances, media, digital arts, visual technologies and video game as part of the video’s story, communications design, and also, drawing, painting, photography, dance, theater, literature, sculpture, architecture and design—are discussed in their visual significance as well as in synchronization with music in daily interactions. Moreover, this magazine handles images and sounds concerning the meaning in culture due to the influence of ideologies, trends, or functions for informational purposes as forms of communication beyond the significance of art and its issues related to the socio-cultural and political context. However, the significance of art and all kinds of aesthetic experiences represent a transformation for our nature as human beings. In general, questions concerning the meaning of art are frequently linked to the process of perception and imagination. This process can be understood as an aesthetic experience in art, media, and fields such as motion pictures, music, and many other creative works and events that contribute to one’s knowledge, opinions, or skills. Accordingly, examining the digital technologies, motion picture, sound recording, broadcasting industries, and its social impact, Art Style Magazine focuses on the myriad meanings of art to become aware of their effects on culture as well as their communication dynamics.

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In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income inequality around the globe. To address this research question in a comparative study, we examine a global sample of 73 countries between 1981 and 2010. Yet, we are particularly interested in the heterogeneity of inequality determinants across world regions, and along the income distribution. We find declining labour income shares and increasing imports from high-income countries to significantly contribute to increasing income inequality; taxation and imports from low-income countries exert countervailing effects. The impacts of technological change, financial globalization, domestic financial deepening, and public social spending turn out to be regionspecific. Most importantly, we do not find systematic evidence of education's equalizing effect across high- and low-income countries. Our results are largely robust to changing the underlying sources of income Ginis, but looking at different segments of income distribution reveals heterogeneous effects.

Kursempfehlungssysteme können den Studienerfolg unterstützen. Eine wichtige Komponente eines solchen Systems ist die Prognose der Note, die Studierende bei Kursbelegung erwarten können. In diesem Beitrag werden verschiedene Algorithmen zur Notenprognose eingesetzt und verglichen. Die Modelle der linearen Regression liefern die besseren Ergebnisse. Darüber hinaus haben sie den Vorteil, nachvollziehbar zu sein, was Nutzende befähigt, die Grenzen des Modells besser einzuschätzen, und somit zu entscheiden, wie viel Vertrauen sie dem System schenken möchten.

Using the IIASA/VID dataset of populations by age, sex and level of education, I calculate education Gini coeffients and decompose the overall degree of educational inequality into age, sex and within-group components. I analyze the relative relevance of these components for inequality reduction and investigate the distributional outcomes of education expansion. I find that, on average, equalization between males and females, younger and older cohorts as well as within these subgroups of the population has significantly contributed to declining educational inequality over the observed sample period around the globe. But the relative role of these components fluctuates in the process of education expansion. First, as improvements are initiated by enhancing the educational opportunities of the youth, the gap between cohorts widens in transition phases but vanishes thereafter. Second, gaps between sexes have been reduced but are predicted to widen again if either males or females are the first to enter higher education levels. To a lesser extent, this is also true for gaps within population subgroups which can be due to the ethnic background or the social and economic status of people., Series: INEQ Working Paper Series

What can we say about systematic global and broad regional trends in the drivers of income inequality in countries? In order to address this question, this work takes an integrated approach in that it looks at a broad set of countries and examines a broad set of determinants. We thus model technological progress, non-resource trade flows, the education distribution, labor vs. capital income as well as heterogeneity in public social spending and analyze the relation to three income inequality measures in Advanced and Developing Economies. Our findings indicate the main factors adding to increasing inequality globally to be technological progress and trade with high-income countries. Trade with low-income countries, public spending on health and decreasing shares of people without any formal education, on the other hand, had significant equalizing effects on the income distribution. The estimated effects of the education distribution, public education spending and the labor income share are highly region specific and thus indicate the importance of disentangling global effects., Series: INEQ Working Paper Series