Department of Mutlimedia and Graphic Arts

Since the beginning of the twentieth century the definition of Cultural Heritage has gradually expanded from the scale of individual monument to the scale of cultural landscapes. The broadening of the term has at the same time increased the complexity of the information originating from different domains and being on different scales and forms. In this context, the objectives as well as the challenges involved in the Cultural Heritage sector have become highly diversified, often leading to fragmented and less successful interventions which do not conform with the principles of Sustainable Development. Therefore Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development should correlate with each another. Pursuing the achievement of sustainable models of development for cultural landscapes, this paper investigates how the factor of scale can act as a linkage between the fields of Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development.

In recent times, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, different terms that are similar in meaning have been adopted in the academic literature to describe the transition from face-to-face to online learning in Higher Education (HE). Emergency Remote Learning (ERL), Emergency Online Learning (EOL) and Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) all refer to the rapid transition to online/remote instruction by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that traditionally deliver face-to-face instruction. This transition, however, was troublesome, and several instructional challenges were identified, including the need for training in online education, learner access to the required technology and the maintenance of academic standards for online assessment. The aim of the Erasmus+ project 'DigitalHEIghts' is to promote a sustainable pathway for transforming online assessment of learning and to support the digital upskilling of academics in digital assessment through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity by making use of the DigComp Edu framework for HE. A European crosscountry and interdisciplinary needs analysis among academics from the project's partner countries and elsewhere is an integral part of the overall project aims. This article elaborates on the survey, the data gathered, as well as the results from this needs analysis.

The Erasmus+ project 'DigitalHEIghts' aims to promote a sustainable pathway for transforming online assessment of learning and to support the digital upskilling of academics in digital assessment through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity by making use of the DigComp Edu framework for Higher Education (HE). As part of the needs analysis, the authors gathered data from 19 European countries, including the five partner countries in this project (i.e. Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Italy and Portugal). In the first stage of the needs analysis, educators across Europe were surveyed about their digital competence in online assessment. This article focuses on the second stage of the needs analysis and investigates potential disciplinary differences in the competencies of academics concerning digital assessment within the DigComp Edu framework and chemistry, economics, information science and engineering, environmental and geosciences, life sciences, mathematics, physics, social sciences and humanities. The article begins with the rationale for the 'DigitalHEIghts' project, followed by a literature review on elearning and disciplinary differences. Some literature indicates that online learning is perceived differently among academic disciplines. For example, it has been argued that in the disciplines of business and management, education, mathematics and engineering, compared to law and art and design, elearning is more prominent. However, this does not tell us much about the competencies of academics vis-à-vis online assessment. The article continues with the methodology for the data collection and analysis and, finally, it elaborates specifically on digital assessment competencies among the disciplines covered.

The analysis of a sample of characteristic commercial shop signs in today’s Limassol, Cyprus, asserts their anchorage function as syncretic/polysemiotic texts relying upon the synergy of semiotic systems, in their commercial and broader informational function. The study of intersemiosis, i.e. of the translation between pictorial and linguistic semiotic systems and their hierarchy, can provide the basis for an in-depth semiotic study of the socio-economic and historical-aesthetic landscape of the city. This study offers a preliminary methodological separation of sign systems on the shop signs in Limassol, showing up the ways intersemiosis remains the standard historical communication method of shop signs since the advent of mass commerce.

The print advertisement produces meaning for its readers through the interaction of a complex system of semiotic elements. Understanding this meaning is based on readers' ability to follow the established reading conventions of their culture. The article describes a study that uses eye-tracking technology to examine readers' interaction with the semiotic elements of two print advertisements. The relation between print advertisements and semiotics is informed by intersemiotic analysis and the reading path concept. The advertisements' layout is rearranged to form two sets of texts: one original advertisement and a modified version. We have calculated the time sequence in which visual and verbal areas attract attention, the amount of time spent on them and the depth of attention paid to the areas read. The results show how layout rearrangement affects reading behaviour, such as reading the smallest visual first and the target text sequentially without visual elements interr...

derives from the Prague School of semiotics, the author issues a plea for further research in cultural semiotics with view to deepening our understanding about the often silent, yet resonant and occasionally conflicting argumentative underpinnings of advertising discourse. Cultural analysis of advertising messages continues in the paper by Evripides Zantides and Evangelos Kourdis Representations of children in food advertisements in Cyprus: A sociosemiotic perspective that furnishes an outlook on the structural components of Cypriot print advertising targeted to children (and/or their parents), while showing how local and global cultural values are reflected in the employed advertising executions by local and multinational brands. By pursuing a largely sociosemiotic perspective, while taking into account the relevant marketing literature and paying heed to inaugural structuralist texts that spawned extensive cultural semiotic research, the authors delve into how children are represented in print ads, while deconstructing salient facets of the modes whereby representations of the intended target-audience are formed, from hair-color to typographical features. Semiotic cultural analysis and interpretation of advertising messages is further expanded by Jennie Mazur in her paper IKEA: Ego and its Alter in inter-cultural communications, who adopts an inter-cultural perspective in marketing communications, while focusing on how IKEA managed to take by storm its intended target-audience in the German market by leveraging its concept of not necessarily Swedish swedishness. While drawing on Sonesson's model of Ego and Alter culture and on an extensive list of analytical categories for dissecting ad texts, she demonstrates how the company's indubitably clever advertising strategy that built both on embedded cultural mores, but also on an invented notion of Swedishness that brought forward novel stereotypes, attained to consolidate in the existing consumer ethos through a humorous and occasionally self-ironic discourse. An intensive analysis of 48 IKEA commercials spawned three communicative territories that matched different phases of the deployment of the brand's communication strategy in the German market, while highlighting, most interestingly, how the invented stereotypes in IKEA's ad films not only managed to catapult the brand to a leadership position in the German DIY market, but to create a whole new ethos,

This paper reports work in progress regarding the design, development and evaluation of a surface computing application in support of collaborative problem-based learning (PBL). The domain-independent application, so called Ideas Mapping, supports idea generation, collaborative decision making and group artifact construction -all of which are important aspects of collaborative PBL. During idea generation, Ideas Mapping replicates physical post-it notes on a multi-touch tabletop. Additional functionality supports student collaboration and interaction around the organization of ideas into thematic categories associated with the problem at hand. We report on the functionality of the application which was designed and developed following a user-centered approach. We also report preliminary results from a case study conducted to examine the affordances of the application for collaborative PBL.

This study examined the potential of simulations to bolster interest in middle school social studies classrooms. Using a pre-post-design, we examined 305 middle school students (49% female) who participated in the web-based GlobalEd simulation. In contrast to the motivation declines middle school students usually experience, participants in this simulation became more interested in social studies. We investigated four hypotheses as to why these increases may have occurred. We found no support for the possibility that, (a) students' interest in a particular issue area or (b) their increased valuing of the subject matter, were related to their increased interest. However, results suggested that, (c) the challenging nature of the activity and (d) students' increased propensity to engage in social perspective taking may have bolstered their interest in social studies. The discussion explores future research directions and whether implications for classroom teachers are warranted given the correlational nature of the research.

GlobalEd is a problem-based learning simulation on the web for middle school students to engage in negotiations on a variety of international policy issues such as human rights and international economics. The six-week simulation is embedded in the social studies curriculum of 10 schools across the country. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of multimedia in promoting student self-efficacy and learning, compared to text-based instruction. Data from 97 participants provided no evidence that multimedia-based instruction is more effective in promoting student self efficacy related to the social studies class and the use of technology. Student selfefficacy, actually dropped from pre to post testing; however a pre to post quiz demonstrated significant gains in social studies knowledge.

Increasingly, scholars have taken note of the tendency for women to conceptualize issues such as security, peace, war, and the use of military force in different ways than their male counterparts. These divergent conceptualizations in turn affect the way women interact with the world around them and make decisions. Moreover, research across a variety of fields suggests that providing women a greater voice in international negotiations may bring a fresh outlook to dispute resolution. Using experimental data collected by the GlobalEd Project, this article provides substantial support for hypotheses positing that females generate significantly different processes and outcomes in a negotiation context. These findings occur both in terms of female negotiation behavior and the impact of females as negotiation facilitators/mediators.

Learning (CALL), by building a framework of existing research work in the field. Based on a corpus of 163 articles, published between January 2009 and September 2010 in four major journals devoted to CALL, it sets out to describe the range of topics covered under the umbrella of CALL. The approach adopted in this research includes (a) development of the 2009-2010 CALL corpus; (b) literature overview and extraction of codes from the 2009-2010 CALL corpus; (c) refinement of the extracted codes through focus group and construction of the CALL chart Version 1.0 based on the elaborated coding scheme; (d) refinement of the CALL chart Version 1.0 following a systematic approach of content analysis and development of the CALL chart Version 2.0; and finally (e) card sorting evaluation of the proposed structure and inclusiveness of all categories in the CALL chart Version 2.0 which lead to the development of the CALL chart Version 3.0. The research trends in the major categories of the CALL chart are discussed, as well as possible future directions in the field.

This paper reports on a qualitative study of the use of social technologies, explored in the context of an intensive 650-hour Greek language course. Qualitative content analysis of instructors' field notes, students' and instructors' reflections, interviews and a focus group was employed aiming at identifying the use of social technologies as a platform for constructing an online artifact. To triangulate the findings, the study also collected data by observing students' activity with social technologies. A code scheme was developed which manifests the use of social technologies as a social constructionism platform identifying its major dimensions: exploration of ideas, construction of online artifact and evaluation of the constructed artifact. Actions within each dimension that indicate the manifestation of social constructionism are identified and discussed. This study revealed results in favor of the use of social technologies as social constructing platforms suggesting a new framework for their use.

Problem based learning (PBL) pedagogy aims to provide context-rich academic situations where students can work together and demonstrate authentic application of knowledge. This paper seeks to address a recurrent problem in education related to the implementation of PBL pedagogy that students are often disengaged from active collaboration, fertile discussion, physical interaction around emerging group artefacts, and reflection. The success of PBL implementation depends on both the selection of learning activities and development of appropriate infrastructurelearning spaces in which the activities can take place. Yet, the technologies often comprising the PBL learning space in the university classroom (e.g., projector, laptops, vertical smart board) and the way they are being used by instructors and learners seem to hinder the successful implementation of PBL.

Purpose -The purpose of this study is to chart the development in computer-assisted language learning (CALL), by building a map of existing research work in the field. Based on a corpus of 163 manuscripts, published between January 2009 and September 2010 in four major journals devoted to CALL, it sets out to describe the range of topics covered under the umbrella of CALL and provide a holistic view of the field. Design/methodology/approach -The approach adopted in this research includes: development of the 2009-2010 CALL corpus; literature overview and initial coding scheme development; refinement of the initial coding scheme with the help of a focus group and construction of the CALL map version 1.0; refinement of the CALL map version 1.0 following a systematic approach of content analysis and development of the CALL map version 2.0; evaluation of the proposed structure and inclusiveness of all categories in the CALL map version 2.0 using card sorting technique; and finally development of the CALL map version 3.0. Findings -The research trends in the categories of the CALL map are discussed, as well as possible future directions in the field. Originality/value -This paper provides a holistic view of the field of CALL guiding both junior CALL researchers to place themselves in the field, and policy and decision makers who attempt to evaluate the current and future scholar activity in the field. Finally, it caters for more experienced researchers to focus on certain underinvestigated domains.

This paper reports on the design and development of a surface computing application in support of collaborative idea creation and thematic categorisation. C.A.R.T (Collaborative Assisted Repository for Tabletops) allows up to 4 users to simultaneously interact with virtual objects, each containing a single concept, to create thematic categories. Each object, which replicates a physical post-it on a multi-touch tabletop, is created by one of the team members either previous to the meeting or during the initial stage. The application then encourages the exchange of debate and conversation by presenting the ideas one at a time for users to discuss and categorise. The resulting idea repository can be used for roadmap creation as well as comparative studies using further participants. The application's main task is similar to that of card sorting and affinity diagramming. We report on the functionality of the application which was designed and developed following a user-centred approach.

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which the base for learning is a real-world problem. A typical PBL setting is comprised of students working together on an authentic problem, using simple tools such as whiteboards and stationery. Online tools and multimedia technologies have also been used to support PBL activities. There is however no empirical work on the blended use of both physical and digital tools. This paper presents a case study in which we employed PBL pedagogy for the teaching of a post-graduate course in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The activities were situated in a multimodal information space, rich in digital and physical elements including: personal computers, projectors with downwards projection, tablets, iPods, digital pen readers, stationery and a Facebook group for each team among others. We administrated questionnaires assessing students' motivational beliefs and overall satisfaction with the learning experience. Our results show that students' overall satisfaction was highly rated, while the information space contributed to students' engagement and collaboration.