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The COVID-19 pandemic forced Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to adopt alternative approaches to the delivery of their learning activities, including examinations. Many HEIs choose Remote Electronic Examinations (REEs) as a one-way solution due to physical presence restriction measures imposed by governments around the world. The present study aimed to record and analyze students' perceptions of the implementation of remote electronic examinations by the Hellenic Open University (HOU). A number of 5412 students participated voluntarily and filled out a questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed. Results revealed that students were satisfied in general with the examination process. Regarding integrity assurance issues, students were also satisfied. Furthermore, they expressed their desire to be examined remotely again. Avoiding traveling and saving money were the main benefits of remote electronic examinations. Regarding the examination topics and the duration of the examination sessions, some issues were reported. Finally, students suggested the provision of more time length.

This study introduces a hybrid text summarization technique designed to enhance the analysis of qualitative feedback from online educational surveys. The technique was implemented at the Hellenic Open University (HOU) to tackle the challenges of processing large volumes of student feedback. The TextRank and Walktrap algorithms along with GPT-4o mini were used to analyze student comments regarding positive experiences, study challenges, and suggestions for improvement. The results indicate that students are satisfied with tutor–student interactions but concerns were raised about educational content and scheduling issues. To evaluate the proposed summarization approach, the G-Eval and DeepEval summarization metrics were employed, assessing the relevance, coherence, consistency, fluency, alignment, and coverage of the summaries. This research addresses the increasing demand for effective qualitative data analysis in higher education and contributes to ongoing discussions on student feedback in distance learning environments. By effectively summarizing open-ended responses, universities can better understand student experiences and make informed decisions to improve the educational process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia educational applications convey meanings through several semiotic modes (e.g. text, image, sound, etc.). There is an urgent need for multimedia designers as well as for teachers to understand the meaning potential of these artifacts and discern the communicative purposes they serve. Towards this direction, a hermeneutic semiotic framework is proposed, which provides a controlled vocabulary for describing the logical meanings among the components that constitute multimedia representations. The framework in turn is implemented in the analysis of some multimedia materials in order to detect the types of their components and the logico-semantic relations identified among them. Using that framework, teachers would be equipped with visual literacy skills for reading the logical meanings of multimedia learning materials and multimedia designers would be able to design their own applications with respect to the logical meanings they want to promote through them.

This paper presents a genre-based conceptual framework for designing content for learning objects. Some content aggregation models are reviewed in order to stress the lack of such an approach. In this framework, learning objects are considered as multimodal macrogenres. These macrogenres are constituted of content objects which in fact are several types of digital microgenres. The information linking of content objects can be achieved through particular logicosemantic relations between them. Finally, if adopting this framework, an author/teacher is supported by a repertoire of concepts which make him capable of creating coherent material in order to affect and motivate his/her students in particular ways, through his/her intended social and educational purposes.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to adopt alternative approaches to the delivery of their learning activities, including examinations. Many HEIs choose Remote Electronic Examinations (REEs) as a one-way solution due to physical presence restriction measures imposed by governments around the world. The present study aimed to record and analyze students' perceptions of the implementation of remote electronic examinations by the Hellenic Open University (HOU). A number of 5412 students participated voluntarily and filled out a questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed. Results revealed that students were satisfied in general with the examination process. Regarding integrity assurance issues, students were also satisfied. Furthermore, they expressed their desire to be examined remotely again. Avoiding traveling and saving money were the main benefits of remote electronic examinations. Regarding the examination topics and the duration of the examination sessions, some issues were reported. Finally, students suggested the provision of more time length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia educational applications convey meanings through several semiotic modes (e.g. text, image, sound, etc.). There is an urgent need for multimedia designers as well as for teachers to understand the meaning potential of these artifacts and discern the communicative purposes they serve. Towards this direction, a hermeneutic semiotic framework is proposed, which provides a controlled vocabulary for describing the logical meanings among the components that constitute multimedia representations. The framework in turn is implemented in the analysis of some multimedia materials in order to detect the types of their components and the logicosemantic relations identified among them. Using that framework, teachers would be equipped with visual literacy skills for reading the logical meanings of multimedia learning materials and multimedia designers would be able to design their own applications with respect to the logical meanings they want to promote through them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]