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Women may be considered to have hidden, unutilized potential for the economy and society, if not utilized at their full capacity, i.e., with effective educational, social and political policies. Allowing women to participate fully in an economy may contribute to the sustainable development of the country in question. The empowerment of women may be accelerated if women are educated for this purpose; as a result, the political authorities in Saudi Arabia have proposed a comprehensive framework to empower women. The empowerment of women is essential in the academic sector to develop educational policies for women's capacity-building. The empowerment of women in the political process is also very important, so they can suggest appropriate policies, rules and laws that favor the empowerment of women in all sectors of the economy and society. The present research aims at testing the effects of academic and political empowerment on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women, and opens a new horizon of debate in the practical and theoretical domain of female empowerment in Saudi Arabia. To this end, we utilized structural equation modeling due to the endogenous nature of relationships among the hypothesized variables. Perception-based data were collected on the political, academic, economic, social and managerial empowerment of women through a well-structured questionnaire. The data were collected during the period from October 2019 to January 2020 through a simple random sampling method. Then, we tested the direct effect of political empowerment, and its indirect effects through academic empowerment, on the economic, social and managerial empowerment of women. We found that political empowerment has a positive direct effect on economic and managerial empowerment, but an insignificant effect on social empowerment. Further, political empowerment has a positive direct effect on academic empowerment, which, in turn, has positive effects on economic, social and managerial female empowerment. Moreover, these indirect effects are found to be magnitudes larger than the direct effects of political empowerment. This study recommends improving the economic, social and political status of women through political and academic policies, to accelerate sustainable development.

The study aims to investigate Saudi ESL learners' attitudes toward utilizing social media as a sustainable tool of learning and their experience of learning and teaching with social media integration in ESL classrooms. In addition, it seeks to understand if the learners differ in their attitudes toward social media due to the differences in their demographic profiles. Using a simple random sampling method, 288 students were selected from the total population comprising different levels of the graduate program at Business College, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University. Data were collected through a questionnaire and quantitative analysis was applied. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA were employed to address the research questions.  The study demonstrated that Saudi ESL learners differ in their perspectives on social media based on their parents' profession but not based on the gender and education of parents. The study suggests that promoting social media and its integration in ESL classrooms can play a vital role in academic empowerment, enhancement of language proficiency, and self-regulated learning of Saudi ESL learners who are eager to enter the ever-expanding job market in the kingdom.

Objective of the study was to assess selected principles of effective online education. Elements of those principles were identified and ranked in terms of their relative importance through Delphi procedures. Research steps included (1) a review of relevant literature critically reporting challenges and credibility of online course delivery experienced in the higher education, (2) developing a list of major principles for online learning (efficacy, student empowerment, and academic integrity) based on the literature, (3) selecting a sample through a chain-referral technique of faculty members and supporting technology staff involved in online teaching at selected university campuses, (4) interviewing respondents in two rounds to rank goals and means of each of the three evaluative principles, and (5) analyzing data and subjecting them for reliability and validity analyses. The study found strong academic support in the matters of efficacy and student empowerment for online teaching; but also found some concerns respondents had about the issues of maintaining adequate integrity of online courses.    Keywords: online education, teaching-learning process, identifying three effectiveness evaluation principles of efficacy, student empowerment and academic integrity; ranking goals and means for three principles through Delphi method, reliability, validity 

This chapter presents a teacher agency framework that is in alignment with the orienting assumptions of the Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed). It highlights three key inclusionary practices in the structure, content, and method of the elementary teacher education curricular framework that characterize the author's work as a pre‐service teacher educator in a women's undergraduate college of Delhi University in New Delhi, India. The inclusionary practices are: academic empowerment by critical interdisciplinary engagement, self‐development by emphasis on the personal context of student teachers' lives as a point of curricular enquiry and opportunities for reflective practice in a specific socio‐political locale during fieldwork in school education. The study of “Classroom Management” which is a practicum course is not limited to formulating rules and procedures for maintaining learner engagement in teaching‐learning activities or facilitating the conditions for learners' personal growth or even student teachers' personal reflections of teaching‐learning experiences.

English language learners (ELL) are students with a primary language spoken other than English enrolled in U.S. educational settings. As ELL students take on the challenges of learning English and U.S. culture, they must also learn academic content. The expectation to succeed academically in a foreign culture and language, while learning to speak and comprehend the language itself, would be a stressful and challenging task for almost anyone. In comparison with non-ELL students, ELL students tend to demonstrate lower levels of academic achievement. The current study examined ELL students' perceptions on teacher power and its' influences on self-perceptions of learner empowerment. Quantitative data was collected measuring perceptions of teacher power use and self-perceptions of learner empowerment. Qualitative data consisted of twenty in-depth interviews with ELL students illuminating their perceptions of teacher power and its relationship to their perceptions of learner empowerment. Differences were found by language in coercive, legitimate, and expert teacher power. Four themes emerged from interviews; what good teachers do, what bad teachers do, what teachers should know, and understanding ELL students. Implications for educators and future research are discussed.

Neo-liberal reforms in higher education have resulted in corporate managerial practices in universities and a drive for efficiency and productivity in teaching and research. As a result, there has been an intensification of academic work, increased stress for academics and an emphasis on accountability and performativity in universities. The paper proposes that while managerialism in modern universities is now the norm, corporate approaches have disempowered academics in their institutions and reduced productivity because they ignore the nature of academic work. Using Foucault's conception of power relations in institutions, policies that directly affect academic work such as workload allocation and performance management are identified as key ways in which power is exercised in universities. The paper reports on a case study in one university which explored the relationship between the academic workload allocation and performance management policies and concludes that a more balanced power relationship is needed in which academics can have more influence over these key processes which control their work so they preserve the self-managed aspects of academic work and the intrinsic motivations driving their careers.

Artificial intelligence (AI), once a phenomenon primarily in the world of science fiction, has evolved rapidly in recent years, steadily infiltrating into our daily lives. ChatGPT, a freely accessible AI-powered large language model designed to generate human-like text responses to users, has been utilized in several areas, such as the healthcare industry, to facilitate interactive dissemination of information and decision-making. Academic advising has been essential in promoting success among university students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Unfortunately, however, student advising has been marred with problems, with the availability and accessibility of adequate advising being among the hurdles. The current study explores how AI-powered tools like ChatGPT might serve to make academic advising more accessible, efficient, or effective. The authors compiled a list of questions frequently asked by current and prospective students in a teacher education bachelor’s degree program in the United States. Then, the questions were typed into the free version of ChatGPT, and the answers generated were explored and evaluated for their content and delivery. ChatGPT generated surprisingly high-quality answers, written in an authoritative yet supportive tone, and it was particularly adept at addressing general and open-ended career-related questions, such as career outlook, in a clear, comprehensive, and supportive manner using plain language. We argue that AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT, may complement but not necessarily replace human academic advisers and that these tools may very well serve to promote educational equity by empowering individuals from a wide range of backgrounds with the means to initiate effective methods of seeking academic advice.

Background: The electronic health record (EHR) has been fully established in all Norwegian hospitals. Patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) are available to citizens aged 16 years and older through the national health portal Helsenorge. Objective: This study aimed at understanding how patients use PAEHRs. Three research questions were addressed in order to explore (1) characteristics of users, (2) patients’ use of the service, and (3) patient experience with the service. Methods: We conducted an online survey of users who had accessed their EHR online at least once through the national health portal. Patients from two of the four health regions in Norway were invited to participate. Quantitative data were supplemented by qualitative information. Results: A total of 1037 respondents participated in the survey, most of whom used the PAEHR regularly (305/1037, 29.4%) or when necessary (303/1037, 29.2%). Service utilization was associated with self-reported health, age, gender, education, and health care professional background. Patients found the service useful to look up health information (687/778, 88.3%), keep track of their treatment (684/778, 87.9%), prepare for a hospital appointment (498/778, 64.0%), and share documents with their general practitioner (292/778, 37.5%) or family (194/778, 24.9%). Most users found it easy to access their EHR online (965/1037, 93.1%) and did not encounter technical challenges. The vast majority of respondents (643/755, 85.2%) understood the content, despite over half of them acknowledging some difficulties with medical terms or phrases. The overall satisfaction with the service was very high (700/755, 92.7%). Clinical advantages to the patients included enhanced knowledge of their health condition (565/691, 81.8%), easier control over their health status (685/740, 92.6%), better self-care (571/653, 87.4%), greater empowerment (493/674, 73.1%), easier communication with health care providers (493/618, 79.8%), and increased security (655/730, 89.7%). Patients with complex, long-term or chronic conditions seemed to benefit the most. PAEHRs were described as useful, informative, effective, helpful, easy, practical, and safe. Conclusions: PAEHRs in Norway are becoming a mature service and are perceived as useful by patients. Future studies should include experimental designs focused on specific populations or chronic conditions that are more likely to achieve clinically meaningful benefits. Continuous evaluation programs should be conducted to assess implementation and changes of wide-scale routine services over time.

Socializing students to Academic Integrity (AI) in the face of great cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic diversity in the student population in higher education calls for innovative strategies that are aligned with equity, diversity and inclusion principles. Through a mixed method of quantitative analysis of learner engagement data from the Learning Management System (LMS) and analysis of anonymous evaluation survey, along with thematic analysis of students’ open-ended responses in the evaluation survey, the authors explored how students responded to AI Socialization during a 4-week non-credit, online co-curricular program called ‘Reading and Writing Excellence’ (RWE). Nine groups of undergraduate students ( N =182) from 34 disciplines in different global locations during the COVID-19 pandemic were introduced to a curated set of AI online resources. Through a learner-driven, instructor-facilitated approach the AI Socialization also engaged students in language development and empowered them to communicate about their disciplinary course topics through written journal entries, receiving instructor feedback that increased their cultural and linguistic capital for further academic writing. This approach led to a high volume of written output (on average 6064 words per student written over a 4-week period). Nonparametric ANOVA was used to establish that low-proficiency students were able to produce as much written output as their more proficient peers. Survey results for various aspects important to academic integrity show students’ self-perception of readiness for academic writing: paraphrasing and summarizing (92%); organization of ideas (92%); critical thinking (93%); logic/argument (92%). Insights gained about educative engagement, language development and learner empowerment that can help students from diverse backgrounds to avoid Academic Integrity Violations (AIVs) and gain transformative access and success in higher education are incorporated into a set of recommendations that are applicable to a wide range of teaching contexts.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) and community-engaged research have been established in the past 25 years as valued research approaches within health education, public health, and other health and social sciences for their effectiveness in reducing inequities. While early literature focused on partnering principles and processes, within the past decade, individual studies, as well as systematic reviews, have increasingly documented outcomes in community support and empowerment, sustained partnerships, healthier behaviors, policy changes, and health improvements. Despite enhanced focus on research and health outcomes, the science lags behind the practice. CBPR partnering pathways that result in outcomes remain little understood, with few studies documenting best practices. Since 2006, the University of New Mexico Center for Participatory Research with the University of Washington’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and partners across the country has engaged in targeted investigations to fill this gap in the science. Our inquiry, spanning three stages of National Institutes of Health funding, has sought to identify which partnering practices, under which contexts and conditions, have capacity to contribute to health, research, and community outcomes. This article presents the research design of our current grant, Engage for Equity, including its history, social justice principles, theoretical bases, measures, intervention tools and resources, and preliminary findings about collective empowerment as our middle range theory of change. We end with lessons learned and recommendations for partnerships to engage in collective reflexive practice to strengthen internal power-sharing and capacity to reach health and social equity outcomes.