@article {835, title = {On the Quality and Validity of Course Evaluation Questionnaires Used in Tertiary Education in Greece}, journal = {Trends in Higher Education}, volume = {3}, year = {2024}, pages = {221{\textendash}234}, abstract = {

In compliance with national legislation, Greek tertiary education institutions assess educational quality often using a standardized anonymous questionnaire completed by students. This questionnaire aims to independently evaluate various course components, including content organization, instructor quality, facilities, infrastructure, and grading methods. Despite widespread use across universities, the questionnaire{\textquoteright}s validity remains unexamined. This study addresses this gap by analyzing 48,000+ questionnaire responses from the University of the Peloponnese (2014{\textendash}2022), encompassing 68 undergraduate and graduate programs. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the quality of the questionnaire, while exploratory factor analyses were used to assess the dimensions of the tool based on the data. Both analyses reveal shortcomings: confirmatory analysis detects strong correlations between supposedly different factors, and exploratory analysis identifies dimensions inconsistent with the expected structure. These findings question the questionnaire{\textquoteright}s quality and the validity of drawn conclusions, while additionally identifying opportunities for reducing the number of questions, which can contribute to increased questionnaire submission rates. Given its common use across Greek universities and its influence on shaping courses, urgent redesigning of the questionnaire for tertiary education evaluation is recommended.

}, keywords = {CFA, EFA, Higher Education, quality assurance}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/higheredu3020013}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2813-4346/3/2/13}, author = {Papadogiannis, Ilias and Vassilakis, Costas and Wallace, Manolis and Katsis, Athanassios} } @conference {809, title = {Digital applications for the preservation of historic memory: the case of the Kalamata digital museum (greek title: Ψηφιακές εφαρμογές για τη διατήρηση της ιστορικής μνήμης: Η περίπτωση του ψηφιακού μουσείου Καλαμάτας)}, booktitle = {4th PanHellenic Conference on Digital Cultural Heritage-EuroMed 2021}, year = {2021}, abstract = {

The evolution in technology and informatics have changed all aspects of our lives, including civilization-related ones. And while interdisciplinary research involving the scientific disciplines of human sciences and informatics was underdeveloped for many years, it seems that informatics and technology can constitute the catalyst for the rapid advancement of certain areas in human sciences. This has become more than apparent during the last decade, especially in museums and venues related to civilization, where the application of technology, both for the improvement of the visitors{\textquoteright} experience and for the support of scientists (archaeologists, museologists etc), is now taken as granted. In particular, the measures that have been applied during the last two years of the COVID19 pandemic, further accelerate the developments towards digitalization and switching to an online world. The "Kalamata 1821: roads of freedom" project was the starting point for the creation of the first mixed digital museum in the region of the Peloponnese; this museum is strongly related to the history of Greece, starting from the Revolution of 1821 and its relationship with Kalamata. This paper analyses the process of design, preparation and implementation of digital multimedia applications that are installed on the digital museum infrastructure. The applications have been designed to maximize the information that can be perceived within the limited time frame during of a museum visit, offering in parallel means to obtain some of the information presented and store them on a mobile device.

}, author = {Poulopoulos, Vassileios and Wallace, Manolis and Antoniou, Antzela and Vassilakis, Costas and Panagiotidi, Vayia and Zacharias, Nikolaos} } @conference {801, title = {An Interface for User-Centred Process and Correlation Between Large Datasets}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Design, User Experience, and Usability: UX Research and Design}, year = {2021}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, organization = {Springer International Publishing}, address = {Cham}, abstract = {

Standard database query systems are designed to process data on a single installation only, and do not provide optimal solutions for cases that data from multiple sources need to be queried. In these cases, the sources may have different data schemata, data representations etc., necessitating extensive coding and data transformations to retrieve partial results and combine them to reach the desired outcome. Differences in schemata and representations may be subtle and remain unnoticed, leading to the production of erroneous results. The goal of this paper is to present an easy-to-use solution for the end users, enabling them to query data from a given set of databases through a single user interface. This user interface allows users to visualize database contents and query results, while facilities for uploading and validating the data are also accommodated. To demonstrate the applicability of our approach, a use case is presented where data from two different sources are uploaded into the system and thereafter the data from the two databases can be utilized in tandem. The usability evaluation involved software developers in free evaluation scenarios.

}, keywords = {big data, Multiple data sources, Query, Usability, user interface, Visualisation}, isbn = {978-3-030-78221-4}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78221-4_32}, author = {Spiliotopoulos, Dimitris and Giannakopoulos, Theodoros and Vassilakis, Costas and Wallace, Manolis and Lantzouni, Marina and Poulopoulos, Vassilis and Margaris, Dionisis} }