Adoption and Use of Learning Management Systems in Education: The Role of Playfulness and Self-Management

This article investigates the factors affecting primary and secondary education teachers’ behavioral intention to adopt learning management systems (LMSs). Information technology (IT) innovations have the power to change the way we work, educate, learn, and basically the way we live. The effect of IT innovations on education makes it critical to understand the current usage situation of LMSs and the factors affecting their adoption by teachers. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was extended with factors from education and game-based learning literature. In order to see the effect of individual- and organizational-level characteristics, multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted and discrepancies in relationships were reported. Evaluation of users and non-users and teachers of different fields were also compared to each other. The findings of this study not only contribute to theory through the development and testing of a thorough model relating technology features and individual characteristics to behavioral intention to use, but also offer strong implications for practitioners who would like to increase LMS usage and create a more effective learning environment.

The Clash of the Titans

The emergence of digital technologies provides organizations with affordable, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn technologies that opens line-of-business (LOB) managers to participate in information technology-led innovations. Such participatory actions by the LOB-managers in information technology (IT) innovations at the department levels will lead the creation of new roles like the ‘chief digital marketing officer.' While the overall outlook for innovation becomes positive through such expanding contributions of the LOB-managers, such additions will ignite new challenges. Especially, such roles and approaches will contest the traditional centralized technology management approaches. This chapter provides three engagement models on how the LOB-managers and chief information officers could interact harmoniously to enhance the quality of IT innovations led by LOB-managers.

Analysis of business processes of agricultural enterprises for the implementation of IT innovations

This article touches upon digital transformation in agriculture. Firstly, classification of core business processes of agriculture is presented with examples of primary and support business processes at animal breeding farms. Later the article gives an overview of innovative information technologies used nowadays in agriculture worldwide. Finally, it is justified that for the successful digital transformation it is vital to evaluate current IT-maturity level of business processes in order to fix their “bottlenecks” before the implementation of innovative information technologies. While common models of IT-maturity, level does not take into account features of specific industries, it is necessary to develop a stand-alone model for agricultural companies.

IMPACT OF PERSONNELS' RECEPTIVITY OF INNOVATIONS ON IT INNOVATIONS IMPLEMENTATION

The article analyzes the level of perception of IT innovations and its impact on the state of innovative receptivity of staff in an organization. In this regard, Adapting the staff to changes and managing the innovation implementation process become acute issues for the firm.

Optimising intensive apple crown pruning by IT improvements

Prunig is a key element of fruit production technology and is affected by a number of subjective factors. Putting research findings into practice is often hindered by bad and harmful habits that make plantations and trees heterogenious in terms of growth and fruiting features, which can even lead to significant financial losses. Having identified this challenge, in this publication we aim to present some guidelines for those who are open to new ways and believe in the power of innovation. The 21st century is undoubtedly the century of unstoppable IT innovations filtering through into our everyday lives. The fact that our project is based on IT innovations is not only essential due to the subject matter itself but also because it makes it easier to address younger generations. Whichever tool they choose to use (smartphone, tablet, laptop), all registered students have access to our web contents, making it super easy for them to practice pruning techniques. Students don’t just read texts in our training materials but have access to a pool of pictures and images to illustrate the different procecces and phenomena. All the different phrases have explanations against them, so anyone can understand the ins and outs of why and how to prune or remove the different crown parts (5-year-old and above crown parts, 2–4-year old parts or 1-year-old parts) to achieve specific results, whether it be apple, pear or cherry trees etc. Our database comprises thousands of pictures that will walk you through the entire fruit tree pruning process, without you even having to leave your desk. There is an old proverb that also applies to pruning: „The wise man learns from the mistakes of others, the fool has to learn from his own”. Our program aims to help students by presenting a number of bad examples along with their corrections as well as photos of ideal ways to prune multiple different crown shapes. Using our web-based tool eliminates time and space limitations, i.e. you can access our interactive contents to gain or extend your pruning skills, irrespective of the pruning time and location.