AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
to deeper skills development and exploitation through
participation.
However, there are no limitations avoiding its use in other
situations like brainstorming meetings or other discussions
requiring the same or analogue functionality supplied by the
proposed concept.
It intends to foster the collecting of experiences in decision
making that represents a significant activity in managerial
positions in any type of an organization. It aims to enhance the
collecting of necessary experiences already during the academic
studies of any business specialization with sufficient room for
internalization through several iterations, analysis of conducted
practical exercises to gain knowledge from lessons learnt and
facilitating the development of soft skills by a guidance of
lecturing experts.
2.1 Architecture
The proposed concept is based on combining available and
affordable technology into an intrinsic system that provides
required functionality with versatile usability. Required
functionality includes real time receiving and processing of
requests and providing responses. In other words, students can
build a connection, submit their assessment and send it. The
system receives assessments and processes them in a queue by
combining all assessments into one: the results. The results are
the output of the iteration and can be analyzed in the class under
the supervision of the lecturer.
The system consists of following necessary parts that are further
described in subsequent subsections:
Entry point
Database with user data
Processing system
Database with object data
Presentation system
2.1.1 Entry point
Entry point may denote a Mobile Application for smart phones,
tables or other mobile devices enabling the access to the
processing system set up on an online server over the Internet. A
mobile app is easy to be shared and installed on devices of
participants and the smart phone is wide spread among
university students. The proposed concept model utilizes the
powerful equipment that every student brings along with
himself/herself.
Another recommendable option for integrating the entry point
denotes an access through a web page portal optimized for
computer internet browsers. Based on the omnipresence of smart
phones and connectivity as well as considering the targeted use,
a mobile application for smart phones will denote the standard
entry point further in this paper. An end user would access the
system via the mobile app by providing his/her user credentials
and remain signed for a limited or even unlimited period of time
depending on the actual implementation of proposed concept.
The integration of entry point optimized for computer internet
browsers is highly recommended as it may represent a more
comfortable and convenient access for setting up of new objects
where various settings can be placed on one page without
excessive scrolling. Next aspect to consider is also the comfort
of lecturers who might be more proficient with working on a
computer and therefore prefer this entry point.
2.1.2 User Data Database
The credentials are to be verified against a database containing
all user accounts allowed to access the application. This may be
represented by a separate database where those user accounts are
set up e.g. manually by an administrator or in another database
of given institute and accessed through an application
programming interface (API). APIs allow composing flexible
and business specific applications (Molnár, Kryvinska &
Greguš, 2014). In the analyzed utilization case, a management
faculty of a university represents the institution and users denote
students attending academic lectures. It is possible to
communicate with university information system via designed
API for accessing those relevant data with no need of additional
separate database. The authors will further consider an API for
communicating with university information system.
2.1.3 Processing System
Next necessary item of proposed conceptual architecture is
represented by the processing system. A recommended
implementation denotes the integration in form of a web
application running on an online server accessible via Internet
that collects data of sent requests and processes those in a query
by providing resulting responds. The system counts the votes for
a specific object and processes those according to set up rules.
This is possible to implement also with several various checks
for example: only one vote per user ID for a particular object, to
determine how many users of all voted, how many times a user
voted and with which answer etc. The system stores all the
information in an appropriate database.
2.1.4 Object Data Database
A separate database for object data stores data assigned to each
voting event. Those data may include but are not limited to: a list
of users that voted, optionally list of users not allowed to vote,
occurrences of various voting options, the number of all users
authorized to vote, date and time, name of the user creating
given object, title of given object, categorizing attributes for later
listing options etc. It is also possible to differentiate various
indicators or aspects that end-user shall assess.
2.1.5 Presentation System
Last part of proposed concept model denotes a presentation
system. This could be the same mobile application that denotes
also the entry point. However, as the concept is designated to
serve in an academic lecture class attended by students, it is
recommendable to implement also a web interface accessible
through an internet browser that would display the results of
occurred voting in a window easily projectable through a
projector on a wall or plane. This may increase the collective
visibility to everyone and simplify the post analysis of results as
well as possible defense of submitted voting of a participant
(described later).
2.1.6 Concept Visualization
Figure 1: Simple concept for voting integrated by ICT means
Source: own elaboration
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