The Editorial Board of International Journal of Research in E-learning (IJREL) is privileged to present a new volume 9(2) 2023. The content of the current issue was divided into two chapters. The first is devoted to Research on AI and VR in E-learning and Science. The second contains articles concerned with Innovative Methods, Technology and Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Education.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now one of the most important and contemporary directions of development of science in an interdisciplinary context. The EU’s approach to artificial intelligence centres on excellence and trust, aiming to boost research and industrial capacity while ensuring safety and fundamental rights (A European approach to artificial intelligence). Strengthening the fostering excellence in AI will strengthen Europe’s potential to compete globally. Simultaneously not yet solved are a lot of challenges and issues. The problem raised in the article is to explore and analyse computer science and education students’ attitude to educational, social, and ethical aspects of AI implementation. The purpose is to discover and analyse computer science students and pedagogical attitude towards education, social-, and ethical aspects of AI implementation. Students of two faculties of the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, were asked to respond to a survey. They were mainly students of two specializations – Computer Science and Pedagogy. As many as 103 students have been surveyed. The Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for verification. The main issues studied were the students’ level of competence in AI, their awareness of AI applications in various areas of life and economy, and the importance of the AI field. The study also included the level of confidence towards AI and the level of anxiety towards AI. Various types of dependencies and connections between these aspects were investigated. The hypotheses were mostly confirmed. Finally, the article presents the discussion and main conclusions.

Новые технологии и социальные изменения глубоко влияют на коммуникации и проведение встреч. За последние несколько лет количество онлайн-конференций увеличилось. Литературные источники указывают, что онлайн-мероприятия позволяют снижать затраты и социальные неравенства. Тем не менее, они также представляют собой вызовы в области невербальной коммуникации и уменьшают чувство совместного присутствия, что влияет на сетевое взаимодействие. Текущие академические обсуждения преимуществ и ограничений организации дистанционных академических конференций обычно ограничиваются теми, которые проводятся с использованием систем видеоконференций. Цель этого исследования - изучить потенциал технологии виртуальной реальности (VR) и социальных платформ VR как альтернативных методов организации онлайн-академических конференций. Авторы представляют ход одной из первых академических конференций, полностью проведенной в социальной VR (Wirtualium 2.0), а также результаты опроса относительно потенциала этой среды для проведения академических конференций. Наши выводы указывают, что по сравнению с системами видеоконференций, социальные платформы VR предоставляют большинству участников более высокое чувство совместного присутствия, способствуя сетевому взаимодействию и участию в неформальных беседах. В этом контексте выявленные ограничения социальных платформ VR включают в себя ограниченный доступ к устройствам, технические проблемы и трудности в эффективной записи. Тем не менее, большинство пользователей считают социальную VR подходящей для проведения академических конференций. Это предполагает, что, несмотря на технические проблемы и отличия от очных конференций, стоит использовать потенциал технологии VR для достижения того, что невозможно в физической среде.

This article presents a comparative international research study analyzing the opinions of students from Poland, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan regarding the importance, popularity, and elements of educational platforms in the field of computer science. The study employed the Kruskal-Wallis test for statistical analysis. The research questions addressed are as follows: RQ1: What are educational platforms in general, and which specific platforms are most popular among students from Poland, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan? RQ2: Which topics are most frequently searched for on educational platforms, and what motivates students from these countries to engage in learning through educational platforms? RQ3: How do students from Poland, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan evaluate the usefulness of different types of content posted on educational platforms, and do they use various platforms to share their code? Two hypotheses are proposed: firstly, that the country of origin of the student does not significantly affect the frequency of use of educational platforms, and secondly, that the country of origin does influence the choice of courses students are interested in on educational platforms. The most popular topics on these platforms are programming and computer networks, with students from Kazakhstan also displaying a keen interest in subjects related to artificial intelligence and computer graphics. Additionally, this study analyzes the conditions of learning and teaching in specialized modules at each university, including teacher requirements, curriculums, and the potential for practical implementation of new knowledge by students. Furthermore, the study examines course elements that are most essential to students, such as video recordings of lectures, tutorials/instructional videos, practical tasks, and solutions to tasks. The article concludes with a discussion and summary of the findings.

This study investigated Nigerian university students’ awareness and how this influences their perception and use of Open Educational Resources (OER). The study adopted a descriptive method of quantitative research. 4 research questions were developed and answered and a hypothesis was also tested to determine the relationship between students’ awareness of and their perceptions of OER. Percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation and t-test were used for the analysis. A correlation coefficient was employed to test the hypothesis. The findings of the study were: Nigeria university students have a high level of awareness of OER; the most popular OER among the Nigeria university students were Coursera, EdX, and OpenStax; OER are generally well-perceived by Nigerian university students; lack of digital literacy skills and lack of adequate knowledge to determine the quality assurance of OER are the only challenges hindering the effective use of OER among the students, and there is a significant relationship between awareness and the perception of OER by the students. The study concluded that the majority of Nigerian university students are familiar with OER and have positive perceptions of OER. The research recommends that educational institutions provide training on digital literacy skills for students to access and effectively use these OER. Also, efforts should be made to improve the quality assurance mechanisms for OER, including the involvement of educational experts in reviewing and curating OER materials. Lastly, universities, lecturers and librarians should continue to promote OER usage in teaching and learning activities to promote its adoption.

The article reveals the trends in the use of digital technologies in teaching physics by summarizing scientific results over the past 20 years. To solve the problem, a bibliographic analysis of the sources of the scientometric database of the WOS was used with the involvement of the computer tool VOSviewer (for the construction and visualization of bibliographic data) as of June 2023. The tool was used to analyse publications by keywords (a network of connections is built on the basis of all keywords of given publications). Networks of connections of keywords were built according to the queries: “physics learning”, “physics education”, “physics teaching” and “technologies”, as well as “digital technologies in teaching physics”, “physics application”, “mobile physics learning”, “virtual physics laboratory”, “digital physics laboratory”, “virtual reality & physics”, “augmented reality & physics”. The landscape of the use of digital technologies in teaching physics is characterized by four aspects (general, technological, educational-motivational, educational-organizational). Modern trends in teaching physics are singled out: the use of environments where simulation, modelling, visualization, virtualization of physical processes, etc. are possible; increasing popularity of virtual, augmented and mixed reality tools; use of mobile applications for learning physics; using artificial intelligence to teach physics; organization of an educational environment based on mobile or online learning, where active learning methods are determined to be appropriate. The importance of developing young people's intellectual skills (computational skills, algorithmic thinking skills, modelling processes, etc.) and visual thinking for the successful mastery of various sections of physics has been confirmed. The demand for integration links between natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, and digital technologies for STEM education has been monitored. Recommendations for the training of physics teachers have been formulated.    

A thorough theoretical and practical preparation is crucial in the education of medical professionals. Present-day knowledge recipients expect a broad range of multimedia and interactive resources in the consumed media. The article discusses examples of such implementations for the nationwide education of a pharmacy technician, massage technician, medical sterilization technician, and occupational therapy technician. These examples were created for the Integrated Education Platform of the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland, as part of an EU-funded project. This study delineates the characteristics of e-materials, such as instructional and educational videos, film sequences, scenario-based learning games, interactive documentation, 3D animations, simulators and virtual tours. We prepared a learner benefit analysis based on the e-materials discussed. We aimed to formulate recommendations and guidelines for designing and developing multimedia and interactive resources, paying special attention to educational values and content for the medical industry. Regardless of the type of multimedia, profession and content, materials should prioritize realism, interactivity and detailed presentation of the situations/cases. The same multimedia rarely achieve different learning objectives and learning outcomes. To design and produce high-quality multimedia, it is necessary to know their characteristics and to work with a team of subject matter experts experienced in e-learning development.

Эта статья касается реализации рекомендаций WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 в курсах электронного обучения. Основой для внедрения компонента WCAG стала платформа электронного обучения Quizer, позволяющая создавать интерактивные мультимедийные курсы. Платформа состоит из двух основных инструментов: создания упражнений и представления упражнений. После анализа Конструктора упражнений на платформе Quizer была разработана концепция и реализован компонент, позволяющий создавать курсы электронного обучения в соответствии с рекомендациями WCAG и предназначенные для людей с ограниченными возможностями. Также была представлена технология изготовления этого компонента. Также обсуждаются функции и правомерность навигации по курсам с помощью клавиатуры и использования программ чтения с экрана. Исследование правильности реализации стандарта WCAG в электронных учебных курсах проводилось с использованием разработанных тестов в области кибербезопасности. Были сравнены также окончательные результаты тестов, приготовленных в соответствии с рекомендациями WCAG и без WCAG. В исследовании приняли участие студенты факультета информатики Люблинского политехнического университета. Результаты исследования свидетельствуют о правомерности использования рекомендаций WCAG при разработке образовательного контента для студентов

В статье проанализированы модели и методы обработки естественного языка и выбраны современные технологии обучения моделей с целью разработки веб-сервиса для создания тестов на основе анализа текста с использованием технологий обработки естественного языка. В исследовании используются интеллектуальные методы анализа данных и алгоритмы для генерации вопросов, а также правильных и неправильных ответов из текста. Авторы обосновывают выбор нейронной сети для генерации тестов на основе текста на английском и украинском языках и характеризуют источники данных для обучения. В исследовании также описана работа предложенной модели, которая послужит основой для создания веб-сервиса. Необходимые для эксперимента данные были извлечены и преобразованы в удобный для
использования формат после детального рассмотрения этих наборов данных. Был разработан и реализован алгоритм обучения для 6 моделей, после их обучения были получены ценные метрики. Дополнительно были разработаны серверный интерфейс и веб-интерфейс для взаимодействия с ними.