Faculty of Information and Communication Studies

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    17 MOOCs In Six Emerging APEC Member Economies –Trends, Research, and Recommendation
    (Routledge, 2020) Jung, Insung ; Garcia Mendoza, Gibran A. ; Fajardo, Jennifer Christine ; Figueroa, Roberto B. Jr. ; Tan, Siaw Eng
    A collaborative team of five foreign researchers who reside in Japan purposefully conducted research to describe the development of MOOCs in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Mexico. It is important to point out that these countries represent six emerging economies that are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). It seeks to answer three key questions: (1) When did MOOCs begin in APEC countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America? (2) How did they develop? (3) How were they supported? To accomplish these goals, research articles published in relevant local, regional, and international journals together with related books and reports were thoroughly examined. Furthermore, interviews of local experts were also conducted to provide meaningful context. This chapter begins with a review of the overall trends of MOOC growth in the six selected countries. It then discusses research findings and local experts’ comments on MOOC-based learning experiences and points out various challenges currently faced as well as apparent opportunities moving forward. Finally, it concludes with several valuable lessons learned from the MOOC experiences of those emerging economies.
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    A CSR Practitioner's Communication Practices in Engaging the Local Community in Watershed Conservation: An Autoethnography
    ( 2024) Amata, Dennis John M.
    This study aimed to answer the following questions: What are the CSR practitioner’s communication practices in engaging the local community in watershed conservation and what are the underlying views and assumptions of the communication practices? By positioning himself as the primary subject, the researcher employed autoethnography to deeply explore his interactions and communication practices used to engage a local community. Autoethnography as a research framework and methodology not only allows for an in-depth and reflective examination of his personal experiences but also provides a rich, nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in community engagement. The research methodology included gathering and review of the CSR practitioner’s personal journals during the implementation of the project from 2022- 2023, as well as a thorough review of related literature. Thematic analysis was employed to identify and explore recurring themes and provide insights into the patterns of his engagement with the local community. His journals were classified into two vignettes which included his communication practices when in project implementation and when the community is in conflict. Four communication practices during project implementation emerged in the analysis of data: engaging and empowering community leaders, integrating the local community’s wisdom and traditions; engaging the community in a long-term partnership; and recognizing literacy constraints. Each of these practices is made up of sub-practices, including: ● Sharing roles and responsibilities with the community ● Letting the community lead the completion of the project ● Including local voices in decision-making ● Inviting community leaders to educate employees and stakeholders ● Being mindful of local customs and traditions ● Respecting hierarchical structures ● Using the local language ● Involving community members in the storytelling process ● Bridging the language barrier ● Visiting the community to personally connect ● Immersing in the local community The findings from this study can inform more effective CSR communication practices and contribute to the growing body of research on the role of communication in fostering successful community engagement and partnerships in sustainability initiatives.
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    A Digital Platform for the Documentation and Exploration of Drag Culture and Artistry in the Philippines
    ( 2025) Bacanes, John Victor R.
    Makulay: A Digital Platform Prototype for the Documentation and Exploration of Drag Culture and Artistry in the Philippines is a project addressing the need for structured, inclusive, and accessible digital spaces for Filipino drag. Filipino drag remains underdocumented even though drag has gained visibility through popular culture and media. To address this gap, Makulay is designed as a digital platform that functions as a cultural archive, educational resource, and community hub dedicated to preserving and amplifying drag artistry in the Philippines. As informed by Queer Theory, Performance Theory, and the Queer Speculative Design for Cultural Empowerment (QSDCE) framework, this study employs a User-Centered Design (UCD) methodology. These perspectives guide both the conceptual grounding and design process, hence it ensures that the platform is inclusive, responsive, and culturally empowering. With that, the prototype integrates features such as drag artist profiles, an interactive historical timeline, a drag culture dictionary, a multimedia repository, and virtual interactive community hub. The data collection involved in this study were interviews, surveys, and user evaluations, which were analyzed thematically to identify user needs and challenges. Findings highlight four recurring themes: the urgency of archiving drag culture, the demand for representation and visibility, structural challenges faced by drag communities, and the potential of digital platforms to provide spaces of preservation, education, and empowerment. By situating Filipino drag within a digital framework, Makulay contributes to cultural preservation, queer representation, and multimedia design practices. The project demonstrates the role of digital platforms in legitimizing drag artistry and sustaining community engagement.
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    A Grounded Theory of Developer Communication in Extreme Programming Practices
    ( 2024) Viray, Ben Hur C.
    There is evidence that Extreme Programming (XP) software development practices are still actively used by Information Technology (IT) projects under the Agile methodology, one of the famous software development life cycle (SDLC) models. However, more information about the communication between programmers or developers for these XP practices is needed. Thus, this study, employing a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) design which emphasizes the construction of knowledge through the interpretation of data, was conducted to explore developer communication for significant XP practices. For the initial data, the researcher was fortunate to have the participation of eleven out of fifteen IT professionals, each with at least a decade of work experience. Their expertise was invaluable in shaping the direction of the research. Three out of four identified developers also participated in a follow-up questionnaire. Subsequently, semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted, focusing on their top three practices: Planning Game, Test-Driven Development (TDD), and Small Releases, which were selected based on their perceived importance in IT projects. During the interviews, it became evident that the developers play multiple roles, each significantly influencing communication. These fourteen identified roles highlight their work’s diverse and complex nature: Assessor, Collaborator, Coordinator, Designer, Developer, Documenter, Interpreter, Learner, Mentor, Negotiator, Presenter, Researcher, Tester, and Translator. The developers interacted with seven teams categorized into four groups based on their modes of communication: Direct Managers and Change management under Linear-Interactional, Business Team under Interactional, External Developers, Functional Resources, and Technical Team under Interactional-Transactional, and Transactional-Interactional for Internal Developers. With all the combined practices, roles, and interactions, this study has proposed an XP Developer Communication (XPDC) model. This framework can serve as a guide for understanding and improving developer communication in XP projects. For instance, it can help identify the key roles and their communication needs or guide the selection of appropriate communication modes for different teams. Although not all XP practices are covered, the components are enough to cover all the essential developer communication practices in XP.
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    A Home for Psychotic Depression: Building a Personal Knowledge Base for Meaning-Making in Obsidian
    ( 2025) Velo, Christian Paul R.
    This project outlines the creation of a multimedia prototype for an interactive digital environment that supports meaning-making, particularly in the context of psychotic depression, where meaning-making is severely compromised. The prototype comes in the form of a personal knowledge base (PKB) that captures and explores situational meanings and facilitates assisted meaning-making. The PKB was produced through techniques adapted from personal knowledge management — such as Johnny.Decimal, the Slip-box Method, and Maps of Content — and insights formed from my lived experience with psychotic depression, including a private dataset containing my firsthand account of the condition and other personal information. The methodology employed for the project is an iterative design approach that employs Obsidian third-party plugins, CSS, JavaScript, and Python to extend the functionality of the default Obsidian vault into a PKB optimized for meaning-making. Each iteration was documented using a changelog with semantic versioning. The methodology is rooted in the proposed Multimedia Meaning-making Model for Psychotic Depression (M4PD), a novel integrative framework derived from Hyper-meaning (van Os, 2014), Kegan’s Theory of Meaning-making (Kegan et al., 1982; Kegan, 1994), and the Meaning Making Model (Park, 2022). The project spanned an estimated 1 year, with the latest version of the PKB at Version 2.2.0. The PKB has multiple features that collectively enable the streamlined capture and exploration of situational meanings — which are excessive in states of psychosis — and facilitate assisted meaning-making, which addresses the disruptions to global meaning caused by depression. It is to be noted that the PKB successfully produced a topological network of over 12,000 nodes, comprised of entries about psychotic depression and my personal life from 2018 to 2025, suggesting an emergent yet unrefined map of my meaning-making. The results presented in this project are part of an ongoing, larger effort to develop an interactive digital environment for supporting meaning-making. The project concludes with a call for a future product, unique enough to warrant its own designation — the Personal Meaning Base or PMB.
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    A Narrative Inquiry into the Meaning of Smoking among Farmworkers in Southern Philippines
    (Southeastern Philippines Journal of Research and Development, 2024-09-14) Malinda, Reymark P. ; Flor, Benjamina Paula G.
    Cigarette smoking is recognized as a global health threat. By the same token, it remains highly prevalent in low and middle-income families like farmworkers, despite efforts by the government and private health agencies to prevent smoking. Thus, this study explored the meaning of smoking among farmworkers and how the meanings reproduced their tenets while living in a farming community. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that qualitatively investigated the smoking phenomenon among farmworkers in a rural area in Southern Philippines— a topic that has not been treated in much detail in the literature. The research framework used in this work is the socio-cultural tradition (SCT) of communication theory, which theorizes communication as the (re)production of the social order. Using narrative inquiry, the study delved into the seven narratives of farmworker participants about the meaning of smoking. Individual open interviews were conducted among the participants to elicit stories relative to their experience with smoking. The data were analyzed through re-storying and narrative thematic analysis, yielding five themes constituting their meaning of smoking that reproduced a new social order. Results showed that smoking is (1) a parent and peer influence, (2) a means to manage negative feelings and emotions, (3) a thought-provoker and organizer, (4) a culture among friends, and (5) an integral part of life. All these meanings consequently formed and reinforced a new social order, seemingly an indestructible barrier to smoking cessation. Anchored on SCT, it can be surmised that farmworkers’ tenets, while living in their community, were reproduced by these meanings of smoking that governed their lives.
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    A Quantitative Investigation into the Influence of User-Generated Content on Gen Z Consumers' Purchasing Behavior on Shopee and Lazada
    ( 2024) Guevarra, Preciosa Christine C.
    This study focuses mainly on the influence of user-generated content, specifically in the two popular e-commerce platforms, Shopee and Lazada, on the purchasing decisions of Gen Z consumers in Los Baños, Laguna. It also further explores how these Gen Z consumers rely on and trust UGC and critically review such content before deciding to purchase. Moreover, the sample size of respondents in this study is relatively small, as it is limited only to 100 and mainly Gen Z consumers of Shopee and Lazada who are 18 to 26 years old and live in Los Baños, Laguna. It will not cover or compare to the other generations and other e-commerce or social media platforms that have adopted the use of UGC. Lastly, the results or findings are limited only based on the information and insights provided by the respondents from the survey questionnaires as well as existing related literature and studies from various online sources.
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    A Study of Filipino Gen Zs Residing in the Greater Manila Area’s Perception of P-Pop’s Potential as a Global Phenomenon
    ( 2024) Buñag, Karla Kate M.
    Utilizing a quantitative-descriptive research design, this study determines the significant relationship between the level of activeness on social media platforms and the level of awareness and familiarity with P-Pop, determines the significant difference between the perceived P-Pop's ability to achieve global recognition and its factors, and determines the significant difference between the perceived P-Pop's ability to achieve global recognition and its cultural showcase, innovation and representation elements. It surveyed 385 Filipino Gen Zs residing in the Greater Manila Area about their perceptions of P-Pop and its potential to become a global phenomenon. The findings of this study revealed that Gen Zs view P-Pop’s potential to become a global phenomenon positively. In addition, they find that social media presence is the most important factor for P-Pop to achieve such status. Furthermore, cultural representation and innovative elements were also viewed positively and important factors as well. With these findings, the researcher gave recommendations of potential strategies and insights for P-Pop industry stakeholders and future interested researchers.
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    ACES: Automated Academic Essay Scoring Using a Natural Language Processing-Based Regression Mechanism
    (Asian Association of Open Universities, 2022) Pugoy, Reinald Adrian
    Academic essays are essential testing instruments that evaluate the students’ ability to organize thoughts and synthesize information. However, grading them is an exhausting and cumbersome process that requires considerable manpower. It may be prone to errors, and there are also serious concerns about fairness, such that an essay graded B+ today may be graded B- tomorrow by the same checker. Therefore, the author proposes ACES, an essay scoring mechanism that employs natural language processing (NLP) to address the issue at hand. NLP is a sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) concerned with granting computers the ability to understand texts in much the same way humans can. With essay scoring reformulated as a regression problem, ACES takes the essay answer as the input, converts it to a vector representation of numbers in the embedding space, and feeds it to the neural network model (which serves as the approximate regression function) to predict its score as the output. In this paper, the author successfully implements four versions of ACES that employ different embedding sources and neural network models, with the ACES variant that considers context and word frequency information performing the best (i.e., ACES-BERT).
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    Adapting the Compass Framework in a hybrid course on wearable technology design and futures thinking
    ( 2022-11) Maranan, Diego S.
    The Wearable Futures Hackathon (WFH) was a 12-week long, hybrid learning experience was collaboratively created with and for undergraduate students at UP Open University’s Bachelor of Arts program in Multimedia Studies (BAMS). The course explores wearable technology, e-textiles, speculative design, and futures thinking. The course is the first of its kind at the university in terms of the following aspects: - The course themes (i.e., physical computing, e-textiles, speculative design, and futures thinking); and - The use of a hybrid format (80% online, 20% face to face) for BAMS studio course. For this course, the Index Project's design thinking framework--the Compass--was integrated with UPOU’s standard principle and practices in outcomes-based online learning design resource-based course authoring.
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    Agile Communication in an International Educational Organization: A Phenomenological Study
    ( 2023) Aguilar, Monalice G.
    Using phenomenology, the researcher explored staff members' experiences in an international educational organization and made sense of the dynamic nature of their communicative practices in an ever-changing work environment. Based on the Husserl and Habermas frameworks, the study provided a comprehensive understanding of communication practices and organizational dynamics in the context of agile communication and the staff’s lifeworld. Through in-depth interviews and employing the Discourse of Understanding grounded on the Phenomenological Tradition of Communication, the researcher made sense of the experiences of selected staff members, resulting in an emergent communication-centric concept of Agile Communication. The inquiry revealed that Agile Communication is flexible, adaptive, and stakeholder-centered, enabling quick response to changing circumstances and delivering value to stakeholders. It is a collaborative, innovative, and iterative process that promotes efficient work environments by working hand-in-hand with the iteration process. Agile communication is direct and transparent, promoting simple, face-to-face interaction that leads to consistent feedback loops. It is embedded in organizational culture and process, allowing for pivot strategies, structures, and processes. Finally, it maintains the quality of work outputs, enabling stakeholders to respond to changes without compromising quality and ensuring the timely delivery of projects. Hence, Agile Communication is a flexible, user-centric, collaborative, and transparent approach that prioritizes organizational quality. It lies in the social interaction and communicative activities of people within the organization, which allow the utilization of appropriate strategies, processes, and tools in managing and responding to change. More importantly, the study revealed that agile communication had become a concept that limits the systems to colonize the staff members' lifeworld.
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    All Kinds of Blue: Exploring the Emotional Effect of Lucy's Blue Album on Selected Filipino Fans' Mental Well-Being
    ( 2024) Bacud, Francelle Joanne C.
    The pandemic has led to increased reports of depression and anxiety worldwide. While research on the emotional and well-being benefits of pop music is gradually increasing and evolving, there remains a gap in understanding the effects of foreign music on an individual's well-being and multimedia experiences. This study specifically analyses the effects of BLUE, an album by the Korean band LUCY, on the mental well-being of their Filipino fanbase. Using a qualitative approach, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with eleven (11) adult Filipino fans. The data collected were analysed through the frameworks of the Social Cognitive and Behavioral Theory as well as the Reception Theory. The study's findings indicate that the album has a positive effect on the fanbase, providing comfort through its ability to uplift, release, reflect, relax, distract, and excite individuals. This suggests that foreign music, including the dynamics of K-Pop or K-Band fandom culture, can serve as a healthy coping mechanism for mood regulation and enhance positive experiences through multimedia art. The study concludes that BLUE is seen as a valuable tool for mental support within the fandom. It is recommended that future research explore the dependent variables and examine similarities and differences among various audience types.
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    An Empirical Study Evaluating the Effects of Gamification in an E-learning Environment
    ( 2022) Fojas, April Felicia C.
    The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) is a fully online university that uses open and e-distance learning (ODeL) methods of teaching through the use of a learning management system (LMS) called Moodle, which is considered their virtual classroom. In an ODeL system, students are expected to study independently without meeting with their fellow students and instructors face-to-face. It is said that motivation is the main factor in a student’s learning, especially in a distance learning environment. However, distance learners tend to feel easily demotivated, distracted, and isolated as compared to students in a traditional learning environment (Manlapaz, 2020). This can often lead to lower performance and higher dropout rates. To make distance learners feel more motivated, many institutions have proposed the use of gamification as a way to motivate the students to be more engaged in class and improve their grade performance. In this study, the researcher aims to assess the effects of gamification on undergraduate UPOU students and to see if gamification is a factor that helps improve student performance. The results show that gamification has several positive effects on students in UPOU. There is also a significant difference between the performance and engagement of students in a gamified course compared to a non-gamified course.
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    Analyzing the Acceptance of Collaborative Learning Tools among Online Students Using the Technology Acceptance Model
    ( 2024) Billones, Jia P.
    Information and Communication Technologies, such as collaborative learning tools, were used in educational institutions to alleviate geographical restrictions and facilitate easier collaboration in education. This study used the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) to investigate the relationship between online students and their use of collaborative learning tools using a semi-structured survey questionnaire using Google Forms. A convenience sampling technique was used to identify the target participants, and the data from the 67 respondents were analyzed using a combination of data analysis methods. Results showed that online students’ Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Attitude Toward Using (AT), and Behavioral Intention to Use (BI) positively influence each component that predicts and confirms the Actual Usage (AU) of collaborative learning tools. Among the six types of collaborative learning tools, the most used is communication, and the least used is consensus building. For advantages, three themes were established from the online students’ responses: workflow, usability, and social. For disadvantages, there are four themes established from the responses of online students: workflow, technical, usability, and none. There are concerns regarding the accessibility and usability of the general collaborative learning tools. This study recommended investigating the workflow and usability concerns about using collaborative learning tools as it further understands the user experience (UX) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), as not all students can keep up before developing learning technologies that guarantee their future usage.
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    Anthropology Of, For, And With Design: A Philippine Perspective
    ( 2014) Cajilig, Pamela G. ; Maranan, Diego S.
    The intersection of the fields of design and anthropology emerges as fertile ground for study as societies increasingly acknowledge the tremendous impact the objects we create for ourselves have on our lives. As anthropologists and ethnographers involved in running our own design research company in the Philippines, negotiating the alignments and contradictions between the two fields of knowledge is an essential component of our everyday research practice. This paper outlines different models of the relationships between design and anthropology as systems of knowledge and practice. We first extend a theoretical framework that distinguishes between anthropology of, anthropology for, and anthropology with design (Gunn and Donovan 2013): we maintain that anthropology with design underlies an approach increasingly used in commercial industries known as "design thinking", and describe the different ways by which knowledge is generated and mobilized in each of these relationships; we further describe how the artifacts of design can be seen to either materialize, shape, or probe culturally-mediated meanings, power relations, and values. We illustrate these concepts through client-commissioned projects that our organization has conducted in the Philippines. We next examine how and when these design-anthropology relationships are realized when working with clients. While anthropology with design will likely create better outcomes for our clients, larger clients must often settle for anthropology for design; we describe how we have negotiated these tensions and present our outcomes from our engagement with them. We end with a call for the development of a local prism through which practitioners in the field of design can further engage in critical reflection of the production of artifacts, particular those created with the intent of addressing social concerns. Specifically, we call for more localized conceptual frameworks of design that can be patterned (for instance) on India's notion of jugaad, and advance an increased engagement for anthropology with design across various sectors of Philippine society.
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    Archiving as Artistic and Personal Practice: Tools, Methods, Examples, and Learning Resources
    ( 2022-05-22) Maranan, Diego S.
    This presentation was given at the Philippine Documentary Heritage Webinar Series: Digital Technology and Documentary Heritage. See https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/videos/2798957150400534 for the full video of the presentation. See also: *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/171802621911907 *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/174371968321639 *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/173741721717997
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    Artificial Intelligence in Social Sciences: Behavioral Intention and Use Among Students in a State University in Central Luzon, Philippines
    ( 2025-04-17) Soliven, Paolo Carl
    This study assessed the views and usage of AI among social sciences students in a state university in Luzon, Philippines, using the Unified Theory of Acceptance of Technology (UTAUT) theory. A total of 311 students were chosen through stratified proportional sampling and surveyed using Google Forms for 8 days. Data underwent statistical tests such as T-test and correlations (Point-Biserial, Spearman's rank, and Phi Coefficient). The behavioral intentions and actual use of AI among students were high. They actively utilize AI such as chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT) and writing assistance tools (e.g., Grammarly and QuillBot) to enhance their learning and assist with academic tasks. They hold a positive perception of AI, particularly in terms of performance expectancy and effort expectancy. They believe that AI enhances their academic performance and is easy to use. However, students remain neutral regarding social influence and facilitating conditions, suggesting that they feel neither strongly encouraged nor discouraged by their peers to use AI. Additionally, they perceive external support for AI as neutral, indicating a perceived lack of encouragement from academic institutions regarding its use. Students' attitudes toward AI are also neutral, due to the absence of standardized guidelines and implementation strategies from academic institutions. This seems to have created uncertainty, as students are unsure whether they are encouraged or discouraged from using AI. As a result, they approach the ethical use of AI with caution. Despite these, they still intend to use AI to enhance their creativity and ideas, innovate their academic methods, and improve the quality of their work.
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    Artscience Thinking for the Global South
    ( 2023-03-16) Maranan, Diego S.
    Pluridisciplinary practices that span art and science are well-known in Western research and creative communities. Some of the most interesting and significant of these works confront audiences with deep questions about "life, the universe, and everything” (with apologies to Douglas Adams). But in the Global South—where addressing basic human needs, achieving economic and political security, and adapting to the unfolding climate crisis—are widely regarded as priorities, is there even space or time for the same? Using recent artscience research and creative projects I have been involved in, I argue that despite—or indeed because—of the challenges confronting the Global South, research, practice, and education on the intersections of the arts and the sciences is more necessary than ever.
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    Artscience Thinking for the Global South
    ( 2022-02-22) Maranan, Diego S.
    Pluridisciplinary practices that span art and science are well-known in Western research and creative communities. Some of the most interesting and significant of these works confront audiences with deep questions about "life, the universe, and everything” (with apologies to Douglas Adams). But in the Global South—where addressing basic human needs, achieving economic and political security, and adapting to the unfolding climate crisis—are widely regarded as priorities, is there even space or time for the same? Using recent artscience research and creative projects I have been involved in, I argue that despite—or indeed because—of the challenges confronting the Global South, research, practice, and education on the intersections of the arts and the sciences is more necessary than ever.
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    ASEAN CONVERGENCE. Towards an ASEAN Identity: Discourses on Communication and Culture
    (Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, UPOU, 2019) FLOR, ALEXANDER G. ; GONZALES-FLOR, BENJAMINA PAULA G.
    This monograph is a collection of papers used as required reading for ASEAN Studies 231. The course was developed as a contribution of the UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies to the Master of ASEAN Studies (MAS) Joint Program of the five open universities in Southeast Asia: the UP Open University; Universitas Terbuka in Jakarta; Sukhothai Open University in Bangkok; the Hanoi Open University; and the Open University of Malaysia. MAS was meant as a major initiative for the regionalization of education in the ASEAN region. Hence, this course takes on a regional outlook on communication. By communication, we refer to information and communication technologies and media (traditional, mass and new media). This course is also crosslisted under the UPOU Master of Development Communication program as DEVC242.