This thesis aim is to do a critical evaluation on SRK STORE APP (Shopping app for android) by applying the heuristic principles of usability, to obtain the usability issues or problems for the respective mobile application. Another vital element of this thesis is to attain the necessary suggestions for the respective mobile application by accomplishing the principles of the heuristic evaluation required for the mobile application. On the other hand, the outcome should be demonstrated that the mobile application is user flexible by following the principles of heuristic.

Background: To be aesthetic and attractive, the mobile application should be given an ideal user experience with usability. So we decided to focus on this utility field and while looking through the different articles, we came across one that talks about design principles and their concepts. The current thesis idea has been obtained by the literature survey we have done on the design principles of the heuristic evaluation and its concepts. This thesis is to attain the necessary suggestions and as well as the complemented solutions/recommendations for the specific mobile application by accomplishing the principles of the heuristic evaluation required for the mobile application.

Objectives: The main objectives of this project are examining the design principles and identifying the usability issues or problems of the respective mobile application and anthologizing a list of necessary suggestions for enhancing the mobile application and providing absolute recommendations to the existing application.

Methods: To compile a list of necessary suggestions and providing absolute recommendations for the mobile application, we have applied Jakob Neilson’s design principles. This specific method aids in determining the utility of design criteria and aids in the transformation of the interactive system by analyzing factors such as usability. Using this method, we will provide a concise detailed overview of the importance of design principles in an interaction. The key aim of employing design principles of usability is to ensure the performance and reliability of the effective interaction design, to provide meaningful user interaction assistance, and as well as to dispense an acceptable and optimal user experience.

Results: The results here obtained are the usability issues of the respective mobile application i.e., SRK STORE APP, and the heuristic principles which are not satisfied by the specific mobile application. The severity level of the heuristic principles will have resulted and the list of necessary suggestions for enhancing the mobile application and providing absolute recommendations to the existing application.

Conclusions: This study was conducted to evaluate the mobile application. Heuristic evaluation methodology was used to evaluate the system. Jakob Neilson’sdesign principles were used to depict the usability issues of the mobile application. The required suggestions and absolute recommendations/solutions are provided to the existing mobile application. 

Online instruction has become increasingly common as an alternative to face-to-face instruction (Crawford-Ferre & Wiest, 2012; Maertens et al., 2016; Ananga & Biney, 2017). One benefit with online instruction is that it is more easily accessible for students who are not able to fully access the more traditional face-to-face instruction on campus. After the Covid-19 pandemic, online instruction has gained further ground (Zhu & Liu, 2020; Kerres & Buchner, 2022; Li et al., 2022). At the same time, we have seen a rapid increase in new educational technologies, including that of virtual reality (Ding & Li, 2022; Al-Ansi et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2022). Studies show that virtual reality (VR) can make the learning process more engaging and interactive (Jackson & Fagan, 2000; Ardiny& Khanmirza, 2018; Roopa et al., 2021) and that it can increase reception levels and train collaborative skills (Isik-Ercan et al., 2010; Petersen et al., 2023). This paper raises the question of how the use of virtual reality in online instruction affects learning experiences. While the participants in the pilot study displayed a genuine enthusiasm for using VR in an online setting, results showed a lack of knowledge in how to use VR to improve student learning. One area of investigation was concentration. Here, results were inconclusive as 50 % of the participants in group 1 (G1) were unsure of whether VR improves concentration, while 50 % of the participants in group 2 (G2) claimed that the use of VR does improve their concentration level. Another area of investigation was understanding the topic. The participants from G1 gave higher ratings than those who performed the experiment in G2, which implies that the impact was not as great as expected. In fact, the participants in G2 found that the VR equipment shifted focus from learning to other details in the visual medium. Another area was interactivity. Here, results indicated that VR technology has the didactic potential of engaging students and making them more interactive in the learning situation. The study concludes that while VR technology has the possibility of enhancing learning, a prerequisite is that both students and teachers have the skills and knowledge of how to use VR technology in a pedagogical setting; furthermore, a few technical modifications to the device itself are required.

Högskolepedagogisk utveckling har under senare år fått en tydligare och mer framträdande roll vid universitet och högskolor. Under senare år har också ett allt större fokus riktats mot utbildningars resultat. Frågor som rör kvaliteten i undervisningen blir därmed centrala. Att utveckla och stödja lärares pedagogiska skicklighet samt belysa villkoren för den undervisning som bedrivs inom högre utbildning är angeläget. Behovet av en gemensam samlingspunkt för pedagogiska och didaktiska diskussioner där lärare och andra yrkeskategorier som är intresserade av av ämnet på BTH, Högskolan i Kristianstads och Linnéuniversitetet kan träffas och föra dessa diskussioner tillsammans och över ämnesgränser är stort. Genom att anordna en årlig högskolepedagogisk konferens vill vi främja ett utbyte av erfarenheter från den dagliga undervisningen och insikter kring det lärande som möjliggörs.

Lärarlärdom 2017 gick av stapeln på Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, campus Karlshamn den 16 augusti och samlade ett femtiotal deltagare.

Högskolepedagogisk utveckling har under senare år fått en tydligare och mer framträdande roll vid universitet och högskolor. Under senare år har också ett allt större fokus riktats mot utbildningars resultat. Frågor som rör kvaliteten i undervisningen blir därmed centrala. Att utveckla och stödja lärares pedagogiska skicklighet samt belysa villkoren för den undervisning som bedrivs inom högre utbildning är angeläget. Behovet är stort av en gemensam samlingspunkt för pedagogiska och didaktiska diskussioner där lärare och andra yrkeskategorier som är intresserade av av ämnet kan träffas och föra dessa diskussioner tillsammans och över ämnesgränser. Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Högskolan i Kristianstad och Malmö universitet samarrangerar därför den årliga högskolepedagogiska konferensen Läralärdom.

Lärarlärdom 2019 gick av stapeln på Blekinge Tekniska Högskola i Karlskrona den 15 augusti och samlade ett sjuttiotal deltagare. Ett urval av konferensens presentationer finns på https://play.bth.se

Om att träna studenter till ett vetenskapligt uttryckssätt på teknikutbildningar

The learning outcomes or educational objectives (goals) of a remote controlled laboratory via the Internet is the subject of discussion in this paper. The developers of remote laboratories are often self motivated individuals or academic groups, who only focus on development, accessibility and usability of their laboratories. The key question i.e. the intended learning outcomes or educational goals of a remotely controlled laboratory are frequently ignored or simply not given enough priority to be considered. This may lead to under utilization or complete failure of a particular remote laboratory. In this paper the challenges in formulating and achieving the educational objectives of a remotely controlled active noise control and acoustics laboratory are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic effect on society, including teaching within higher education that was forced to adapt to online teaching. Research on this phenomenon has looked at pedagogical methods as well as student perceptions of this way of teaching. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have looked at the wider perspective, within the entire student populous of a university, what students’ perceptions are and how these correlate with the students’ previous experiences and habits with online platforms, e.g., online streaming or social media. In this study, we perform a questionnaire survey with 431 responses with students from 20 programs at Blekinge Institute of technology. The survey responses are analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis to draw its conclusions. Results show that there is no correlation between previous habits and student experience with online platforms in relation to online learning. Instead, other factors, e.g., teacher engagement, is found central for student learning and therefore important to consider for future research and development of online teaching methodologies. © 2023 by the authors.

Higher education (HE) today is a diversified area which has grown expansively in response to a rapidly changing educational and political climate over the past decades. In this age of complexity, development and change are omnipresent and intrinsic parts of the university teacher’s practice, from the development of the teachers’ individual practice at micro-level to the collaborative development of scholarly practice at the meso-level of the department and to the strategic institutional approach at macro-level, which links to employment and promotion frameworks and the recognition of teaching quality. As requirements for pedagogical competence have been built into career structures and criteria for promotion, academic developers have become central to the implementation of these strategies. This development goes hand in hand with the shift in focus from quality assurance to quality enhancement, which has extended the range of professional activities for academic developers. The allowing of the universities to develop their own quality assurance systems, signals a heightened awareness of the importance of ownership and the possibility of influencing quality processes, which in turn relates to national governance strategies of teaching and learning. As the changing educational and political demands on higher education have deeply affected the professional activities of the academic developer and the academic teacher, this article addresses the changes and challenges faced. The aim is to discuss these implications particularly for academic development in this diversified context and to contribute with further knowledge and understanding of structural and organizational prerequisites for the advancement of teaching in higher education.

Hur kan vi skapa ett systematiskt, långsiktigt och hållbart pedagogiskt utvecklingsarbete för studenters lärande och för en högre utbildning som håller hög kvalitet? Denna fråga ställde sig UKÄ när myndigheten i augusti 2018 fick i uppdrag att göra en uppföljning av pedagogiskt utvecklingsarbete vid svenska lärosäten. När regeringsuppdraget redovisades i december 2019 pekade UKÄ på vikten av att skapa ett varaktigt kretslopp för det pedagogiska utvecklingsarbetet. UKÄ menar att lärosätena bör betrakta utvecklingsarbetet som en viktig del av kvalitetsarbetet och en gemensam fråga för högskolans personal och studenter. För att få ut maximal effekt av det lokala utvecklingsarbetet menar UKÄ att vi i första hand behöver skapa en nationell strategi för det pedagogiska utvecklingsarbetet för att på bästa sätt planera, samordna och systematisera ett kontinuerligt informations- och erfarenhetsutbyte. Men hur ska vi i realiteten ta tillvara på det spännande och innovativa arbetet kring pedagogisk utveckling på enskilda lärosäten? I detta paper lyfter författarna fram fyra aspekter som de menar att ett pedagogiskt utvecklingsarbete är beroende utav för att få långsiktig och hållbar effekt: kultur, tillit, delaktighet och systematik. 

Higher education (HE) today is a diversified area which has grown expansively over the last twodecades in response to a rapidly changing educational and political climate (e.g., Englund, 2018).In this age of complexity, development and change are omnipresent and intrinsic parts of theuniversity teacher’s practice, from the development of the teachers’ individual practice at microlevel, to the collaborative development of scholarly practice at the meso-level of the department,and to the strategic institutional approach at macro-level, which links to employment andpromotion frameworks and the recognition of teaching quality (Bolander Laksov & Scheja, 2020).As changing demands has placed focus on learning and teaching, higher education in Swedenhas followed the European development from quality assurance towards quality enhancement(e.g., Pelik, 2016; Nygren & Sjöberg, 2022). The universities are now responsible for developingtheir own quality assurance systems and more emphasis has been placed on ownership and thepossibilities of influencing the process (Swedish Higher Education Authority), which has grownmore complex. Through their professional teaching work, academic teachers are expected tostrengthen a pedagogical "culture of quality" at the higher education institution (e.g., Elken &Stensaker, 2018).

What we are witnessing is a more mature quality assurance work which is characterized byincreased trust in the universities themselves and the ways in which they choose to organize theirquality work. But we are also witnessing the heightened complexity of academic developmentwhere academic developers has become involved in work on all three levels (micro, meso,macro), for example, appointment procedures, career structures and promotion criteria.Academic developers have become central to the implementation of these strategies, which hasgreatly extended the range of their professional activities. This development goes hand in handwith the shift in focus from quality assurance to quality enhancement. By allowing the universitiesto develop their own quality assurance systems, the new quality assurance system signals aheightened awareness of the importance of ownership and to affect the process, which relatesto national governance strategies of teaching and learning. As the changing educational andpolitical demands on higher education have deeply affected the professional activities of theacademic developer and the academic teacher, this article addresses the changes andchallenges faced.

The present paper will present the results of a study of Swedish academic development unitsplanned to be conducted in early 2023 and which focus on the areas of responsibilities and29everyday practice of academic developers today. In the paper, we will discuss the implicationsfor teachers and academic developers in this diversified context. Our aim is also to contributewith further knowledge and understanding of structural and organisational prerequisites foracademic development in higher education.