Trung Tran

The use of mobile learning, or M-learning, has been increasingly appreciated by educators due to its sustainability potential in different facets such as finance (i.e., affordable cost) and flexibility (i.e., time and pace of learning). However, it may not be effective in all situations. This study explored the feasibility of using M-learning for students’ self-study of mathematics in the context of Vietnamese high schools. Using 542 student and 40 teacher responses to two surveys, the study showed that the use of M-learning might not be feasible for students’ self-study of mathematics due to difficulties related to accessing mathematics websites, the quality of mathematics website content, students’ low level of self-learning ability and learning disengagement. This study suggests that the use of M-learning may contribute to the sustainability of education; adopting it should be based on a critical examination of contextual factors, especially students’ self-learning ability and engagement. M-learning can be promising and beneficial to students due to its capability to equip students to prepare for the fast-changing and technological-driven world. Educators have increasingly appreciated the use of M-learning, because it becomes more affordable and flexible. Nonetheless, there is still a question about near-future adoptions of M-learning due to unavailability of and inaccessibility to quality contents from trusted maths websites. The propensity of student engagements in M-learning is also an important issue for future research.

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management.