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2020
Thursday, October 1st
12:00 AM

Digital Transformation in e-Learning Education

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Naim Preniqi, University for Business and Technology
Muhamet Gërvalla, University for Business and Technology
Kaltrina Sylaj, University for Business and Technology

Lipjan, Kosovo

12:00 AM - 12:00 AM

Saturday, October 31st
9:00 AM

A Model For Increasing Quality Of Education By Using A Unified Repository Among EUA Universities

Agon Mehmeti, North Macedonia

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Anyone who had to create learning materials from scratch knows how intensive and time consuming this process can be. This process can be made easier by reusing existing learning and teaching materials. Creating a unified repository enables time and effort savings, opportunities to transfer technical and technological knowledge among educational staff, exchange of practical applications experience and, most importantly, quality enhancement of educational materials. Unified repository is a web-based database application software that is used for simplifying the tasks of sharing learning contents and resources between different universities through providing a unified solution and access point. This paper proposes a model for building a unified e-learning repository system for European University Association (EUA), to enable academics to store, classify, access and share teaching and learning materials, EUA resources and not only. Integrating different University repositories/applications, is by no doubt a big challenge due to different platforms. The model is based on using RESTful web services, offering full web-scale interoperability and scalability advantages while exchanging information between University repositories/applications, also offering HTTP content negotiation, most importantly discoverability for free and HTTP concurrency control and compression. There will be a centralized repository that will maintain application keys and generate tokens for access as required. The centralized repository will register a list of actions that each service provides. For example, given an endpoint, it provides a list of possible URL, with allowed HTTP verbs for each of them. The combination of the URL (pattern) and the verb may be used as a description of repositories/services and for specifying simple permissions. The proposed unified repository architecture should have the following characteristics: o Open: will create interoperated and connected applications, thus commercial tools from different universities could be assembled into a single system. o Scalable: the architecture must be defined to grow in the future. For example: as the educational repositories number increases, the applications in charge of the management must have enough capacity. o Global: To allow the linguistic and cultural diversity. o Integrated: Not only among the components of the system but among other applications which are not directly related to learning (such as: human resources, knowledge management systems). o Flexible: the ability to implement new solutions without making big changes in the system architecture is very important.

By providing flexible unified repository that can be adjusted to suit the diverse learning styles and necessities of students and staff, the structure proposed here can go a long way in alleviating the burden each university has to bear in terms of effort and finance.

An Investigation of the Effects of Digital Technologies on Business Processes: The Case Study of Banking Sector

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Ylber Limani, University for Business and Technology
Teuta Gazideda, University for Business and Technology - UBT

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the importance of Digital Technology in Banking business processes. There is a valuable evidence in the literature and within the banking business practices showing the processes of digitalization in the banking system is getting more frequent. In this regard, this research observes the implementation of digital technology in banking business processes and their role on the development of the distribution network through financial institutions. The digital technology implementation within the banking industry is assumed to have faced difficulties when comes to prove the overall bank productivity and cost reduction. The qualitative research is conducted with the aim of selecting and analyzing primary data, and the survey research is conducted aiming at quantitative data analyses throughout a structured questionnaire. The main assumption articulated in this research is that the implementation of digital technology significantly increases the productivity of bank operations. The subsequent assumption is about the return on investment on digital technology in banking sector.

Big data challenges, prospects, and their potential use in Kosovo

Mentor Geci, University for Business and Technology
Edrina Gashi, University for Business and Technology

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

In today’s era big data has major impact on business decisions, being key determinant for further business development. Ongoing publicity for big data has been gained from all stakeholders, namely, academics and professionals, as big data leads to valuable knowledge and promotion of activity of companies. This paper examines big data definitions, starting from existing one and covering big data characteristics also. However, the main objective of this paper is to explore and elaborate potential impact of big data and its challenges in specific sectors in Kosovo, and various tools associated with it. Based on the survey data, paper shows if recent trends in the field of big data technologies are used in business decision making process and if yes, to which extend it will affect business decisions of selected companies in Kosovo. As a result, specific possibilities are explored whether new technologies could help business decision process. Final goal is to show if these models can impact positively decision-making process in order to maximize profit.

Comparison And Evaluation Of Methods For Managing LMS In Republic Of Kosovo Universities

Mërgim H. Hoti, South East European University, North Macedonia,
Armend Salihu, South East European University, North Macedonia
Arbër H. Hoti, University “Ukshin HOTI” Prizren
Besmir Gashi, University “Ukshin HOTI” Prizren

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Using technology can be seen as an innovative challenge to restructure the teaching- learning process and integrate LMS in independent, collaborative and interactive work. Teaching and Learning are no longer restricted to traditional classrooms, while e-learning has become one of the most powerful supporting tools which have diversified the traditional context of learning in higher education. Knowledge management system is one of information system that supporting knowledge management implementation in government which categorized as people perspective, because this system has high dependency in human interaction and participation. Strategic plan for developing knowledge management system can be determine using some of information system strategic methods. This paper conducted to define type of strategic method of information system, stage of activity each method, strength and weakness. Literature review methods used to identify and classify strategic methods of information system, differentiate method type, categorize common activities, strength and weakness. The results showed that higher education institutions preparation stage regarding the application of e-learning, whereas private ones have applied this system since their foundation, and use it on daily basis where they perform all the services. They are a step forward related to demand- based learning that means giving the student more freedom of choice in his or her learning program.

Making vending machines smarter with the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence: Set-up and Architecture

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Dashmir Istrefi, University for Business and Technology - UBT
Eftim Zdravevski, University Ss Cyril and Methodius, 1000 Skopje, Macedonia,

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Machine Learning and Robust Optimization techniques can significantly improve logistics operations and improve stock quantity and maintenance intervals. Machine Learning will be used to forecast item demands for each of the vending machines, taking into account past demands and calendar effects. By performing such predictions which are forwarded to a Robust Optimization model, and whose outputs will be the cash transport that each vending machine should require. These transports guarantee that demand is fulfilled up to the desired confidence level, preventing downtime of vending machines due to unplanned maintenance and out-of-stock situations, while also satisfying additional constraints arising in this particular domain. As a result of such operations, we expect productivity improvements of vending machines from 20-40%.

Online Learning - An Academic Challenge or A New Success

Gelina Maliqi, University for Business and Technology

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

The whole world was involved since the end of last year and nowadays from the global Covid-19 pandemic and moreover dictated and reflected drastic changes in community life across the globe. Under these conditions, the population faced isolation and disruption of activities and life chain in most countries around the globe. The Republic of Kosovo also faced the situation of isolation and interruption of many processes where the most essential was that of educating children and education of university generations, where based on the importance of this process, distance learning resumed within few days, in conditions of at home, with little or no familiar methods for both academic staff and students. If we refer to the learning effect and learning outcomes during this new application as a concept and technically for the staff and students, it was noted that in the entirety of the elements that made up the process, there were technical difficulties and diversity in the possibility of Internet access, and various computer platforms applied to successfully carry out the learning process, where, by our educational institution, UBT College has put into operation and made available the integrated Moodle system and various online platforms. As a method of technological development, online teaching in the continuation of the academic year was a worldwide application and for some universities it was an applied and efficient method as it had been applied for years on distance learning programs, but for many others it applied for the first time, it was viewed with criticism and analyzed with prejudice how much result and effect online learning would give. This point of view should be analyzed with priority and in positive sense, taking into account the conditions and the emotional side of all actors in these processes, as well as conditions that were unknown to the most. In an analysis of the result, many elements were absorbed by the students and functioned quite well, just as there were difficulties in absorbing knowledge into scientific subjects that defined knowledge through laboratory work.

Predictive Data Analysis and Machine Learning for Telematics hub based on sensory data

Dashmir Istrefi, University for Business and Technology - UBT
Eftim Zdravevski, University Ss Cyril and Methodius

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Internet of Things (IoT) is fast emerging and becoming an almost basic necessity in general life, including the automobile industry. 'Connected Car' is a terminology often associated with cars and other passenger vehicles, which are capable of internet connectivity and sharing of various kinds of data with backend applications. The data being shared can be about the location and speed of the car, the status of various parts/lubricants of the car, and if the car needs urgent service or not. In this sense, the data collected from the devices and IoT sensors can be processed in order to analyze the driving habits and provide suggestions and optimizations for improving the economy and maintenance intervals of the vehicle. The processing of this relies on the fusion of heterogeneous multisource information and modeling intangible factors, which would facilitate predictive maintenance and energy saving.

Security Of Information Systems - Legal And Ethical Rules. Chalenges Of Appying In Kosovo

Ruzhdi Jashari, University for Business and Technology
Muhamet Avdyli, University for Business and Technology - UBT

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

While we are having our time off, lunchtime, sleep time or we disconnect from information network for some moments, we see that with the clicks we are making in our computer machine, we stumble in a lot of new information. But in the ICT field, we are full of information about hundreds of new software programs and applications..., which make work easier for us in these services e.g. banking, health care system, education, administration, production, etc. All these goods come as a result of the epochal development of digitalization. Large data collection; "BIG DATA", "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE", "COMMUNICATION NETWORKS", "e-GOVERNANCE" and "INTERNET", is a necessity, almost insurmountable in support of our work be they services; operational, educational, administrative... or scientific research. Whereas, the coherence of the implementation of international, constitutional, and ethical rules regarding the dignity of the individual, fundamental rights, privacy and security of personal data, leave much to be desired because their violation is the concern of the new democratic society. Understanding of Information Security, Information systems, Big Data, Legal-Ethical Rules, and Violation of the individual’s data, are the focus of the following topic.

Smart Home: Automatic Control Of Lighting Through Z- Wave Iot Technology

Zijadin Krasniqi, University for Business and Technology - UBT
Behar Vershevci, Department of Information Technology, Tax Administration of Kosovo

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Our life is surrounded by various information technology equipment, and home automation is one of the most interesting applications of technology in our homes. It includes controlling and automation of electronic and electrical devices. In this paper, we’ll focus on Z- Wave protocol and we will discuss its applications in smart homes such as automatic control of lighting. We will describe step by step all the processes that take place behind the scenes during the control of lighting through this the protocol.

The impact of security and privacy while using the Internet

Blerton Abazi, University for Business and Technology

Lipjan, Kosovo

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Information technology includes all types of technology used to exchange, store, use or create information. Information technology benefits from the business world by allowing organizations to work more efficiently and maximize productivity. Faster communication, electronic storage and data protection are advantages that information technology can have in your enterprise. The security and privacy of that data is extremely important, especially nowadays, where the security and privacy can be compromised quite easily. The topic under study is a very important issue to understand the importance of security and privacy in the use of the Internet. Initially the main purpose of this research was to inform about the main security points to protect the work of an organization. Starting with physical security, personnel security, network security and others. Through this research, the issue of information security risks is addressed as well as their management, including risk identification, assessment and control. The next main point in the last part will be cybercrime and digital forensics, where the areas in which forensics is being applied will be examined.

10:45 AM

Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Challenges in Smart Cities

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Arbër Perçuku, University for Business and Technology - UBT

Lipjan, Kosovo

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Smart city combines technologies with information to facilitate and improve daily life of citizens on different areas like transport, healthcare, education, environment impact, energy save and other. Big Data as technology to collect, store and analyze massive amounts of data, and Artificial Intelligence to extract the values from those data, have received a lot of attention recently. The aim of this paper is to discuss and highlight the challenges that engineers, scientists and other stakeholders can face practically in the development of smart city, and to enhance the integration of both Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.

Deep Passage Retrieval Reranking based on Semantic Enhancement

Liping Chen, Northeastern University,Shenyang,China
Junchao Ren, Northeastern University,Shenyang,China

Lipjan, Kosovo

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM

In the field of information retrieval, Passage related to Query are usually easy to get, and the passage that irrelevance is in a large collection and contain more noise. How do you get quality, irrelevant passage is vital. Based on this observation, we through a method of similarity measure, called “doc-ad-doc”, which get the irrelevant passage that is least relevant to the query and most similar to the relevant passage. Through experimental verification, The 0.8M training set constructed by our method can achieve the effect of constructing 8M training set by random sampling. Secondly, traditional information retrieval methods usually adopted sparse vector space model, such as BM25.As well as many mainstream deep relevance retrieval methods, They train the classification models of query and passage. In our work, we adopt the dense representation of the interactive query and passage,where embeddings are used a bert- base encoder model. We test it on MS MARCO data set, showing that the retrieval accuracy of our method outperforms the classification model and BM25-based Baselines.

Internet As Globalization Component And Kosovo Domain Challenges

Edrina Gashi, University for Business and Technology
Mentor Geci, University for Business and Technology

Lipjan, Kosovo

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Evidence shows that there is a positive correlation between internet and the globalization indexes. Internet has affected directly numerical transactions of global market especially on computer goods and services and on-line services in all industries. As the impact of internet continues to grow in different globalization indexes such as in economy, politics, and social interaction, Kosovo is still facing a very basic problem – the absence of the country domain. This paper firstly will deal with the importance of internet in general terms as very complex, multi-dimensional, and one of the unavoidable concepts in practically all fields in recent decades. Internet usage increase contributed in the economy also, namely, by digitizing the majority of the financial and economic activities. Section two of the paper shows the importance and usage of the internet in Kosovo economy with special focus on Kosovo banking sector, by showing continuous increase in the internet-based platforms and transactions. Actual data of the Kosovo banking sector are used to highlight internet-based activities. Apart from that, an attention will be devoted to the internet penetration in Kosovo. Section three describes the current situation and challenges regarding the absence of Kosovo country domain. Specific international references are used to show that Kosovo is eligible of having country domain. Nevertheless, country domain policy based on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be analyzed to address the Kosovo challenges, and steps to be followed in to be listed in the ICANN official country domains.

The Complexity Issues of Enterprise Digitalization and the Organisational Challenges of Operations: The Case of Kosova

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Ylber Limani, University for Business and Technology
Edmond Hajrizi, University of Business and Technology
Larry Stapleton, INSYTE Research Centre, Waterford Institute of Technology, Cork Road, Waterford, Ireland

Lipjan, Kosovo

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM

One of the main challenges to business digital transformation is lack of agile approach to the operations digitalization requirements. This problem can be translated on three main related hypothetical issues: business inability to change various things in a short period of time, lack of straightforward strategic line commitment, and failure to take iterative organisational fast approach towards simplification of technology complexity. This research aims to address the potential causes of organizational inflexibility, strategic issues, and the mode of response to the complex requirements of digitalization process. The target population is composed of Kosovar enterprises with a definite sample. Qualitative research provided forward-thinking knowledge about the theory of complexity and organization, while quantitative research provided testing of research hypotheses related to the three identified causes of the problem.