Community Notebook. People, Education and Welfare in the Society 5.0

Integrating Chatgpt Into Teaching: Students’ Perceptions Of Its Usefulness And Reliability As A Pedagogical Resource

José Sánchez-Labella — 2025-07-31

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence in higher education presents both opportunities and pedagogical, ethical, and cognitive challenges. This study combines a recent theoretical review with empirical analysis involving Social Work students to explore the impact of ChatGPT on learning. Students especially valued its ability to structure information and facilitate specific tasks such as data searching or initial text drafting. However, some students expressed concerns about the accuracy of generated content, its influence on teamwork, and potential risks of dependency. Responses underscore ChatGPT’s potential as a professional support tool, while emphasizing the need for critical, ethical, and context-aware use. The study concludes with recommendations for a responsible integration of AI into universities, particularly in disciplines with a strong relational component such as Social Work.

Eco-Friendly Digital Educational Practices That Promote Sustainability

Edita Lenkauskaite — 2025-07-31

The European Union initiated the creation of European Universities Alliances (EUA), which should tackle today's world challenges by joining together the resources of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) all over Europe. These Alliances are not only solving the world's environmental challenges, but also should face their own sustainability question, because of their project-based nature. If the European Commission hopes for at least 50 per cent mobility within the EUA, but the financial resources they generate don’t allow for the physical implementation of this, the only other option is eco-friendly digital mobility. Digital mobility is environmentally sustainable because it has an almost zero carbon footprint. Moreover, it also helps EUA to be adaptable and persistent, which are the key components of EUA sustainability.

Leveraging LLM With RAG For Feedback In Medical Data Science Courses

Ivan Letteri — 2025-07-31

Providing feedback during formative assessment has proved to increase learning outcomes. Recently, the authors explored using large language models (LLMs) to produce scalable, cost-effective, and time-efficient feedback. The research focuses on short written answers from students concerning the interpretation of normality and hypothesis testing. Preliminary findings show promising performance: the LLaMA-3.3-7B model achieved an average accuracy of 0.93 in understanding if right or wrong, and suitable explanations in over 75% of cases. This study examines previously unsatisfactory LLM-generated explanations using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). A blind evaluator scored 64 responses (three RAG variants and one non-RAG). RAG-based methods improved explanation quality, making up to 25% of previously inadequate responses satisfactory. Besides the small sample size, these results underscore the flexibility of LLMs in multilingual, domain-specific contexts and highlight RAG's potential to enhance performance without retraining. Further research is needed to improve the alignment between the LLM's focus and the pedagogical intent.

Integrating Digital Feedback To Enhance Sustainable And Equitable Peer Collaborative Skills, Feedback Literacy And Reflective Practice In Undergraduate Groups: Learnings From Australian Case Studies

Kirsty Emery — 2025-07-31

Flinders University (Australia) transitioned to a new learning management system facilitating access to a suite of eco-friendly digital tools, sustained by renewable energy sources. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of online peer feedback tools on group assessment skill development, learning processes and self-reflection within two different undergraduate student cohorts. Consistent with current theoretical knowledge in this field, we demonstrated that the implementation of effective peer feedback requires consideration of four influential factors: student characteristics, environment, learning processes and learning outcomes. Importantly, these case studies highlight the ability to readily digitalise assessment and feedback processes for undergraduate student groups, reducing hard-copy resources and enabling equitable student access via laptops, smart phones or tablets at any time. At a broader educational level, digital feedback tools such as FeedbackFruits, can be scaled-up to deliver sustainable higher education practices fostering inclusive, future-ready learning environments for the acquisition of core graduate qualities.

Digital Technologies For Environmental Education And Civic Engagement: A Case Study On A Pre-Secondary Pathway For Unaccompanied Foreign Minors Preparing For Entry Into High School

Vincenzo Salerno — 2025-07-31

The dual transition—ecological and digital—requires a profound cultural shift. It's not about modifying individual behaviors, but promoting collective change. In a growing interethnic landscape, intercultural education plays a strategic role in civic education and global ecological and technological skills. From this perspective, educational settings that welcome unaccompanied foreign minors may be relevant, although they have remained understudied. The aim of the research, conducted with educators at a reception center for UFM in Italy, is to identify best practices for overcoming disadvantage and promoting the inclusion of UFM in secondary schools through multilingual digital classroom-labs and experiential learning workshops, such as those on horticulture and ecological and civic education. The educational community is configured as a micro-laboratory of the dual transition, where sustainability and digital innovation intertwine to build intercultural citizenship.

The Contribution Of Vet To Twin Transition: Quality, Competence And Participatory Improvement Through Peer Review

Diego Boerchi — 2025-07-31

This contribution presents peer review as a key strategy for transforming quality assurance of Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems, particularly in the context of the green and digital transitions. Grounded in the EQAVET framework, Peer Review is framed not as a bureaucratic exercise but as a participatory and competence-driven process. The article describes an in-progress study mapping the roles and competences required to implement peer review effectively. Using task and job analysis combined with semi-structured interviews and the Critical Incident Technique, the study identifies six essential roles, including emerging ones such as Green and Digital Managers. These roles contribute to a sustainable culture of quality and help align institutional practices with EU priorities. The paper emphasizes the strategic importance of investing in human capital to support systemic change and ensure VET’s proactive contribution to Europe’s twin transition.

Adopting An Evidence-Based Management Approach In Teaching: Perspectives, Barriers And Enablers Among Academics In Business And Management

Katarzyna Tracz-Krupa — 2025-07-31

This study investigates how business and management instructors in Central Europe comprehend and apply Evidence-Based Management (EBM) in their classrooms, the obstacles they face and the resources they require to adopt an EBM approach in their teaching. Thirty academics from three HEIs in Prague, Zagreb, and Opole answered a supervised, semi-structured questionnaire. Results showed that their view of EBM frequently differs from the mainstream definition, with a predilection for case studies, qualitative research, and readily available sources. Time constraints, a lack of instructional resources, and inadequate institutional support were salient obstacles. Access to resources, professional development, peer support, and local language content were critical facilitators. The findings are discussed, and the study provides practical recommendations to improve EBM integration in business and management education.

The Role Of Quality Assurance In Supporting Micro-Credentials In European Education And Training Systems

Concetta Fonzo — 2025-07-31

This article explores the evolving landscape of micro-credentials in European Education and Training systems, emphasizing the central role of quality assurance in ensuring their credibility, portability and alignment with societal, personal and labour market needs. Drawing on recent European recommendations and research conducted by INAPP, it examines the structural features of micro-credentials, the challenges posed by their implementation, and the quality frameworks required for their success. It highlights how robust quality assurance mechanisms, both internal and external, are essential for stakeholder trust and the effective integration of micro-credentials into national qualification systems, particularly within the context of the green and digital transitions.

Innovating The Curriculum: Analysing The Transformation Of First Year Students’ Agency In The “Cultivating Knowledge And Care” Course

Emiliane Rubat du Mérac — 2025-07-31

This paper addresses the research problem of merging curricular innovation and civic engagement, through the case study of the “Cultivating knowledge and care” course, an elective course for first year Educational Science students from Sapienza, University of Rome. Curricular innovation stems from the course embodied approach to learning. Civic engagement, instead, enters the picture as activities are conducted from the students together with their young adult counterparts from a social promotion association, supporting deaf-mute people. How do students understand their agency to have developed through the course? Reflexive thematic analysis is conducted on letters that students wrote to selected trees in the university park, imagining to write them to themselves in a mimesis exercise.

The Twin Transition Strategy Framework: How Universities Can Effectively Leverage Their Capabilities In Research, Teaching, And Collaborations

Anna Kyawt Ni — 2025-07-31

The twin transition (digital and ecological transformations) is crucial for addressing sustainable growth within Higher Education (HE). This conceptual paper proposes a Twin Transition Strategy Framework for Higher Education institutions, focusing on how universities can leverage their research, teaching, and collaboration capabilities to address sustainable growth through digital and ecological transformations. The framework identifies four key entities: Research Culture, University Curricula, University-Industry Partnerships, and University-Government Partnerships. It highlights significant opportunities for universities, including pioneering interdisciplinary research and adapting curricula, while also acknowledging challenges like potential conflicts between digital and environmental goals. The paper advocates for a holistic, integrated approach, emphasizing innovative teaching, strong partnerships, and ambitious sustainability targets for university operations, ultimately offering recommendations for contributing to a sustainable and digital future.

Micro-Credentials And The Digital Transformation Of Higher Education

Sergio Pappagallo — 2025-07-31

Through microcredentials and open badges, education transcends rigid monoliths, evolving into a dynamic mosaic of granular competencies certified. This represents a digital revolution championed by the European Union to foster lifelong learning and employability (Council of the European Union, 2022). This study delves into how these tools, grounded in constructivist principles, democratize education by empowering learners as active architects of knowledge, with badges validating real-world experiences and personalized pathways (Gibson et al., 2015: 403). The objective of this exploratory study is to balance anticipated benefits—such as equity and flexibility—with sociological risks, hypothesizing that, in stratified contexts, micro-credentials may amplify inequalities by reducing human essence to quantifiable skill units (Wheelahan & Moodie, 2021). What is the intrinsic value of microcredentials and open badges? How do they navigate digital and regional divides? Employing documentary analysis of EU policies, Eurostat statistics, and institutional reports (EUA Trends 2024), the article adoptes sociological lens, critiquing neoliberal commodification (Bourdieu, 1986). Future endeavors might incorporate stakeholder interviews and longitudinal studies to map impacts from a qualitative point of view, advancing inclusive policies.