Costin Pribeanu

Academy of Romanian Scientists · Economic and Social Sciences

The advances in social media technology and mobile devices have an important impact on the educational process, in a general context in which the use of social networks have a great influence on many aspects of daily life. However, despite the great potential of social networks in the field of education, the possibilities of applying interactive me...

The educational crisis process generated by the Coronavirus COVID-19 had major consequences on the academic and personal life of university students. Universities had to move from the traditional classes and laboratories to the online platform. As extant research shows, this shift to online education had many negative consequences. The objective of...

The pandemic generated by the Coronavirus COVID-19 challenged universities to go exclusively online thus affecting both the education and personal life of teachers and students. This work analyzes the perceptions of Lithuanian and Romanian university students as regards the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation of online learning during the pandemic....

An important objective of the Digital Agenda for Europe is the web accessibility of the public sector. One of the most important goals of this strategy is to ensure equal access to education. To accomplish this goal, systematic evaluation and monitoring measures are needed. This paper aims to explore the accessibility of four university websites fo...

Self-efficacy is an important variable that explains students̕ behavior of engaging in school activities and persevering in the face of academic challenges. High confidence in personal competencies and in the ability to successfully accomplish a particular task or a certain goal, acts as a stimulating factor of mental resources (cognitive, affectiv...

The pandemic generated by the COVID-19 virus caused many changes in the education system. On the one hand, universities developed the infrastructure and provided more learning materials in digital format. On the other hand, the lockdown restrictions stimulated students to create new abilities and skills. Online communication with teachers improved...

Equal access to education is an important objective of the Digital Agenda for Europe. To ensure accessibility of the public web, systematic evaluation and monitoring measures are needed. This paper reports on a case study that targeted the accessibility evaluation of a Romanian university website. The approach to evaluation is user-centered. An eva...

The pandemic has posed a number of challenges to university studies. The whole study process, the conditions, the context, the conditions for student mobility, the technical possibilities, and finally the quality of the studies have changed. During the pandemic period, a number of studies have been carried out on how higher education is organised i...

The lockdown restrictions during the pandemic favored an intense use of online educational platforms thus bringing in front usability and technology acceptance. However, many studies are neglecting factors related to users, context, and actual use. Self-efficacy is an important variable explaining the behavior influencing the key determinants of te...

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic period, the need to continue the educational process imposed the exclusive move to the online environment - a new and insufficiently prepared experience, which generated controversies, but also reflections, and adaptation for teachers, students, decision-makers, and even parents. The major concern of the acad...

The pandemic challenged universities to move to distance education. The educational platform became the main working space and reshaped the teaching and learning tasks. After two years, university life came back to normal in Romanian universities. The objective of this paper is to explore the behavioral intention to use Microsoft Teams platform aft...

The pandemic generated by the coronavirus COVID-19 changed people’s lives and had major consequences on education. Because of lockdown restrictions, the online teaching and learning platform became the educational working space for teachers and students and usability has increased in importance. The objective of this research is to develop and test...

The pandemic forced universities across the entire world to use different online platforms to carry out their activities. Learning activities using an online platform is not the same as face-to-face case and affected both categories. Teachers and students with different degrees of online platforms understanding had to adapt to online teaching and l...

The pandemic generated by the coronavirus COVID19 forced universities to go online. A consequence of the shift to exclusive online education is the intensive use of online learning platforms which brings in front usability aspects. The perceived ease of use is a usability characteristic but also an important driver of technology acceptance. Taking...

People's lives changed during the pandemic. Because of the lockdown restrictions universities had to shift from face-to-face teaching and learning to distance education. Since online platforms became the working space for educational activities usability and quality in use became critical issues for technology adoption. However, the relationship be...

During the pandemic, the traditional education system shifted to online teaching and learning. In the time that has passed since the beginning of the pandemic, important changes were recorded in the way that education is thought and delivered, at any level of education. Starting with March 2020, when schools were physically closed, online learning...

Satisfaction with studies is an important aspect in assessing the quality of studies. It is understood that the constant changes in society’s life are changing the situation, and the assessment of satisfaction is also changing. However, university studies have been conducted remotely in recent years due to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pande...

The mobility constraints due to the coronavirus COVID19 disease forced the universities to go online. Although online learning is familiar to students, online teaching and learning during the pandemic is something else. First of all, is like distance education when online teaching and learning is the only option. Extant research shows many disadvan...

The pandemic generated by the COVID-19 challenged the education system to face the constraints of exclusively online teaching and learning. Like many other areas of life, education required rapid adaptation and finding the best solutions to continue the instructional-educational process. Teachers and researchers, educational policymakers, the commu...

The pandemic forced the universities to go online and brought in front the online lectures as focal activities. A lot of effort has been put to move the teaching and learning resources on the online platform which became the main interaction space between students and between students and teachers. An exclusive online learning environment has both...

The pandemic generated by the Coronavirus COVID-19 forced universities to shift from face-to-face to online education. This change has been a challenge for both teachers and students, as well as for the institution. Inherently, the new situation triggered a comparison with the traditional system and for many students, it seems to bring unforeseen b...

With the unprecedented crisis created by the Coronavirus pandemic, online teaching and learning became a global solution - embraced by the whole world - that tried to cover, at least in part, in part the problems encountered by the educational systems. An exclusively online format of teaching and learning proved to be a challenge for both the didac...

The coronavirus pandemic had a major impact on higher education by forcing the universities to go online. Despite many disadvantages in terms of socialization, face-to-face interaction, attention, and mental health, online teaching and learning provide many opportunities in terms of time management and personal development. This research is explori...

The pandemic generated by COVID-19 has a tremendous impact on the economy, society, and life of people all over the world. People suffer from the lockdown restrictions, reduced and very limited space. The situation is further aggravated by illnesses of family members, acquaintances, friends, illnesses caused by the coronavirus, and sometimes losses...

The educational process changed significantly in the context of the pandemic generated by the Coronavirus. University students had to move from the traditional classes and laboratories to the online platform. As extant research shows, this shift to online education has both advantages and drawbacks. The objective of this research is to analyze the...

The educational process changed significantly in the context of the pandemic generated by the Coronavirus. University students had to move from the traditional classes and laboratories to the online platform. As extant research shows, this shift to online education has both advantages and drawbacks. The objective of this research is to analyze the...

With the explosion of mobile technologies, mobile teaching and learning became an important educational challenge. Since both teachers and students are increasingly using mobile devices in their everyday life, the question is why so little progress has been made in this direction. Clearly, the initiative of introducing mobile technology in class sh...

For over a decade, Facebook is part of the everyday life of university students. Its growing popularity stimulated the research aiming to understand the motivations that are driving people to join and use social networking websites. To answer this research question various approaches have been taken: technology acceptance model (TAM), uses and grat...

Introducing mobile teaching and learning in schools represents a real challenge in nowadays education. Mobile devices are able to support a diversity of tasks such as communication, interaction, collaboration, information, and resource sharing. Although mobile devices are widely used for e-learning, but also very present in non-formal and informal...

The use of Facebook by university students is a hot topic of research for more than ten years. However, few studies exist that are questioning the minutes spent daily for various tasks, such as socialization, posting/reading information, entertainment, and creation/update of the personal profile. Also, there are few studies investigating group diff...

E-learning platforms are largely used in educational institutions around the world, in hybrid, mixed or blended learning formats. The power of those platforms has been proved extensively in the period of the global pandemic being used as main frameworks for offering and achieving educational services. This work is an exploratory study aiming to ana...

One can basically assert that technology use in educational practice becomes an inseparable part of educational activity. Both teachers and students are increasingly using mobile technologies in teaching and learning. However, still very little is known and there is very little proof about application effectiveness of these technologies in the teac...

The usage of Facebook among university students is more and more widespread. Students are using Facebook anywhere and anytime, sometimes too much. Several researchers questioned the usefulness and the motives for its use. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the motives for Facebook use and its perceived usefulness from the perspecti...

In the context of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), the global education system is currently facing an unprecedented situation which has proven to be difficult to be managed-closing schools and identifying alternative on-line methods in order to continue the educational process. Therefore, teachers, students and parents have beco...

The educational process changed significantly in the context of the pandemic generated by the Coronavirus. University students had to move from the traditional classes and laboratories to the online platform. As extant research shows, this shift to online education has both advantages and drawbacks. The objective of this research is to analyze the...

Nowadays, mobile devices are able to support a large diversity of tasks being used for communication, socialization, interaction, collaboration, sharing of information and resources. As already known, mobile phones became active parts of the lifestyle of many teachers and students. The powerful capabilities of mobile devices and the increasing numb...

The web is continuously growing in content and functionality having an important impact on society. An objective of the Digital Agenda for Europe is to make the web technologies available for all. Recently, a European directive has been issued that requires the accessibility of public websites by September 2020. Given the low accessibility of publi...

Introducing mobile teaching in school represents a challenge for teachers that have to adapt their teaching practice to benefit from the technological changes. Although mobile devices are widely used by teachers and students in everyday life, there are several barriers against the adoption of this technology for teaching purposes. There are also di...

Mobile technology is now part of the everyday life of teachers and students and thus tends to become an inseparable part of the educational activities. Teachers and students are increasingly using mobile technologies in teaching and learning. Therefore, it is purposeful to responsibly integrate technologies into the educational process. However, te...

Social networking websites provide several kinds of educational support. The powerful capabilities of social media technologies are expanding the traditional education in many directions, from paper-based learning to web-based learning, from individual learning to social learning, from formal learning in class to informal and nonformal learning out...

Web accessibility in the public sector is an important objective of the Digital Agenda for Europe and requires a systematic evaluation and monitoring strategy. Given the low accessibility of public websites as well as a large number of websites in the public sector, a tool-based approach is needed. The goal of this paper is to compare five accessib...

Web accessibility in the public sector is precondition towards the establishment of a barrier-free Europe. The Digital Agenda for Europe has clear objectives as regards the enhancement of digital literacy, skills, and inclusion. Recently, a new European directive has been issued that requires the web accessibility of public sector bodies by Septemb...

The Digital Agenda for Europe has clear objectives as regards the enhancement of digital literacy, skills, and inclusion. Poor web accessibility has a negative impact on the inclusion of citizens and customers in the provision of online services. In this respect, web accessibility is a critical precondition for a barrier-free Europe. Recently, a ne...

Among the professional factors that influence performance in the research-development-innovation (RDI) activities are: quality of occupation, organization and management in RDI activity, professional development and organization resources. This article analyzes the influence of job quality in increasing the performance in RDI activities. The analys...

Poor web accessibility has negative social and economic effects as regards the inclusion of citizen and customers in the provision of online services. In this respect, accessible university websites is a precondition to ensure fair access to education to all young people. In this work, the focus is on the web accessibility for people with visual im...

The social media technologies are blurring the boundaries between formal and informal/non-formal learning and provide new educational opportunities. Recent work shows that online social networks provide various kinds of educational support, such as social learning, informal/non-formal education, information, interaction, and collaboration. The aim...

In recent years there is an increasing interest in the quality of the educational software. Augmented Reality (AR) learning platforms have the potential to improve the understanding of specific concepts of a discipline. This paper aims to explore the effects of gender differences on the perceived learning quality of an AR-based learning scenario fo...

Social media technologies stimulate the implementation of the social learning paradigm. Online discussion groups created by educators to support a closer relationship with students are widely used in universities. However, the research on this topic has been carried on mainly by qualitative studies and there are few approaches aiming to measure the...

Currently, e-learning platforms are increasingly used tools in universities to easily and efficiently achieve the proposed educational goals. Students and teachers can choose from a variety of learning platforms that differ both in structure, function and facilities they offer. Under these conditions, usable platforms have much greater chances to b...

In the last years, software applications for medical care, including the guided self-management of medication, have known a continuous expansion. As such, there is a growing interest in the usability of these applications. A typical category of patients that need support for the self-management of medication and life style are the diabetics. This p...

The performance in the research, development and innovation activities is influenced by a diversity of economic, political, professional, and motivational factors. In this paper, the role and the influence of the factors associated with the management and resources of the organization is analyzed. Analysis of the relationship between these factors...

The potential benefits of the social networking websites for the higher education are a hot topic that has been intensively researched in the last decade. A lot of research effort has been devoted to the use of Facebook which is widespread among university students. Nevertheless, very little is known about the amount of time spent for specific acti...

The social media technologies are blurring the boundaries between formal and informal/non-formal learning and provide new educational opportunities. Recent work shows that online social networks provide various kinds of educational support, such as social learning, informal/non-formal education, information, interaction, and collaboration. This res...

In recent years, there has been a rapid development of social networks and an increase in their diversity both in terms of functionality and users. Online social networks (OSN) can offer considerable benefits to communication and user relationships as well as benefits for students in learning and participating in online courses and platforms. Among...

In the last decade, the teaching and learning processes have evolved and adapted in order to take into account the societal changes. The fast proliferation of online social networks creates new possibilities to get and share information as well as new opportunities for education. The powerful capabilities of the social media technologies make it po...

Social media technologies provide various forms of educational support. Online discussion groups have been created by educators to maintain a closer relationship with the students. Although the online discussion groups are widely used in universities, the research on this topic has been carried on mainly by qualitative studies. There are few approa...

The increasing popularity of Facebook among university students stimulates the study of social networking websites and associated social phenomena. As social networking websites are able to provide valuable resources for students there is an increasing interest in measuring the social capital that is formed and developed in university contexts. Thi...

Usability is a critical quality attribute in the information society. Inspection based evaluation relies on various forms of design knowledge that are used to assess the usability, such as ergonomic criteria, heuristics, and guidelines. Usability heuristics are widely recognized principles against which the usability of an interactive system could...

The usefulness of Facebook for the university students has been widely researched in the last decade. Existing studies reveal a diversity of potential educational benefits, such as better student engagement, better student integration in the community, and valuable support for social learning. Few studies exist that analyze the gender differences a...

The population is ageing and the percentage of the elderly is continuously growing. A key priority to address the demographic challenges is to implement more efficient e-services. The websites for active aging provide useful information and advice to old people, informal caregivers, and medical staff. In order to be an effective help, these website...

In the last years, there is an increasing demand to develop a national repository for software programs, especially in the area of public administration. This kind of e-service is required both by vendors interested in promoting their products and funding institutions, interested to estimate the costs and to improve the cost/benefit ratio. The Nati...

The time spent on Facebook by university students is continuously increasing. This fact is raising many questions as regards the relation between the social networking websites and the university. The educators are challenged to understand the factors that are driving the adoption of social networking websites, the characteristics of the daily use...

Today, the social networking websites are widespread among university students. The most prominent example is Facebook that had a considerable penetration rate in the last decade, especially among young people. In the era of social learning, educators have to understand the motives that are driving the daily use as well as the positive and negative...

Social networking websites are today part of the university students' lifestyle. This situation is challenging educators to adapt their teaching style by considering various social learning activities, such as: active participation, information and content sharing, collaboration, and debate. In order to exploit the educational potential of social m...

Social networking websites are today part of the university students' lifestyle. This situation is challenging educators to adapt their teaching style by considering various social learning activities, such as: active participation, information and content sharing, collaboration, and debate. In order to exploit the educational potential of social m...

Augmented reality (AR) technologies could enhance learning in several ways. The quality of an AR-based educational platform is a combination of key features that manifests in usability, usefulness, and enjoyment for the learner. In this paper, we present a multidimensional model to measure the quality of an AR-based application as perceived by stud...

The explosion of social networking websites in general, and Facebook in particular, impacts the educational context both positively and negatively. Too much time spent on Facebook leads to negative effects on the university work of students. The objectives of this research are to measure and analyse the relationship between the Facebook dependence...

Recent work on usability and user experience shows several concerns on the validity of evaluation instruments. There is a debate on the use of standardized scales versus short scales, such as UMUX and UMUX-LITE or even a single-item measure of usability. Nevertheless, there are relatively few papers reporting the testing of these scales together fo...

Recent research on the use of social networking websites reveals an intense use of Facebook that may cross the boundaries between use and abuse and may lead to dependence. The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the Facebook dependence and the negative consequences of the excessive use of Facebook on the students’ univers...

Social networking websites, in general, and Facebook, in particular, gained a lot of popularity among university students. The increasing rate of the Facebook adoption stimulates the researchers to analyze and explain its usage. A well-known model able to do this is the technology acceptance model (TAM) that has been tested on a large diversity of...

The text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis is widely used in the area of assistive technologies for visually impaired people as well as for people with dyslexia or related learning disabilities. In the case of multilingual text-to-speech synthesis, both the language identification and voice switching are desirable. This paper presents the implementation of...

Text-to-speech synthesis is a critical feature of the applications developed for people with visual or reading disabilities. In the last years, there is an increasing interest in multilingual text-to-speech synthesis, which requires multilingual text analysis and a language specific speech synthesis. In this case, the dynamic switching of the synth...

The platforms supporting social networking activities on the Internet are applications for the creation, sharing and exchange of user-generated content that manifests in various forms. Users can freely express their ideas and opinions, and have opportunities to launch and participate in collaborative projects and virtual communities. Facebook (FB)...

The intense use of Facebook by university students is raising several questions regarding the influence of the social networking websites on the educational processes. While social learning theories advocate towards the diversification of teaching methods, the important amount of time spent by students on social networking websites may negatively i...

The change of paradigm from learner-centered to social learning requires considering various activities such as active participation, information and content sharing, collaboration, and debate. The use of social networking websites takes a lot of time from the students’ university life thus challenging the educators to look for modalities to identi...

The increasing popularity of Facebook among university students stimulated the researchers to understand the reasons for joining and using the social networking websites. Several findings of the extant research suggest that the motives of using social networking websites are depending on the virtual community type and users’ profile. The objective...

Augmented reality (AR) technologies have a remarkable potential for developing novel applications in various educational settings. The interest in this technology is closely related to the educational and motivational value of AR-based applications that are able to create more engaging learning environments. An important goal when evaluating these...

Augmented Reality (AR) combines 3D visualization, multimodal interaction, animation and direct manipulation in a hands-on learning experience that is able to enhance the students' motivation to learn. Designers and educators need a deeper understanding of the key factors that drive learners' acceptance and continuing interaction with an AR-based ed...

Text-to-speech synthesis has many applications in the area of assistive technologies for visually impaired people. Some applications require multilingual text-to-speech synthesis. In this case, multilingual text analysis and voice switching are desirable. In this paper an improved functional version (beta) of a software component for polyglot text-...

Several initiatives at European level exist that promote e-inclusion and web accessibility. Despite all concerns, the accessibility of municipal websites is still low. This paper presents a study regarding the conformance of 60 municipal websites in 2014 with WCAG2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). A comparison of results with similar data in...

As social networking websites become more and more widespread there is an increasing interest to analyze and explain their usage. Facebook is a web-based service that is very popular among university students. In this paper a motivational model is presented that explains Facebook acceptance by university students with two key factors: perceived use...

The increasing popularity of Facebook among university students is raising several research questions regarding the characteristics of use. In the context of modern school, the academic use and the use related to the university context are of special interest. This paper aims at analyzing the main characteristics of Facebook use by students from a...