This work explores the initial interactions and perceptions of computer engineering students who have no prior experience with low-code platforms. Specifically, undergraduate computer engineering students participated in a comprehensive experiment at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Patras, adhering to a structured experimental protocol encompassing questionnaire completion, exposure to an introductory video on low-code concepts, eye-tracking analysis, interaction with the platform, and interview. The investigation aims to uncover the perspectives of computer engineering students as they encounter a low-code platform for the first time, leveraging concurrent eye-tracking data to gain insights into their focal areas, the patterns that emerged in their approaches to tasks, and the elements that captured their attention. The findings suggest that students demonstrated efficient and swift recognition skills, showcasing various patterns in their task approaches, unveiling a spectrum of strategies and preferences. Interviews conducted post-interaction unveiled positive sentiments, with the majority acknowledging the low-code platform's effectiveness in minimizing application development time. Notably, ease of use emerged as a prominent aspect, with a substantial number finding the platform exceptionally user-friendly.

Serious Games have proved to have instructional potential due to their ability to present realistic simulations of real-life situations. In this study, a serious game called “Galaxy Solutions” was developed. This game simulates all the stages of the recruitment process. It starts when the player is searching for vacancies and submitting applications, continues to the interview process, and concludes at the last stage, in which a company named “Jupiter Solutions” hires the player. Consequently, new challenges unfold in the working environment. The main objective of this game is to help graduates acquire basic interview skills and be aware of the whole process by making the learning experience more enjoyable and engaging. Throughout the game, the player must make decisions through multiple-choice actions and dialogue, and all these decisions affect the character's events in the future. The game was evaluated by 105 students, and it was found usable by all the students, regardless of their success level in the game, and had a statistically significant learning effect, as the pre-posttest analysis revealed.

Anxiety is prominent among university students and can cause many problems in students’ mental life. It is more important than ever to promote positive mental health in young people in a way that is understandable, reliable, and accessible. The PLAY learning environment was created to help students deal with their anxiety. Students can decide to either play a game scenario that simulates a stressful situation -in the context of academic life- and learn by doing or participate in an anonymous virtual counseling session and discuss their anxiety issues with a counselor. This paper examines whether such an environment can increase anxiety awareness and whether it helps students develop coping mechanisms. It also explores whether a virtual world is a proper medium to deal with anxiety issues. The paper presents the results from the evaluation from students from the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of the University of Patras that offered early feedback on the PLAY environment. Regarding anonymous counseling, we present our findings concerning the viability of online counseling in a 3D virtual environment.

Serious games play an important role in an individual's training and have been used for many educational purposes. In the context of this work, an educational game was developed which is called “My life as a software engineer” and focuses on technological as well as ethical dilemmas that software engineers may face during their careers. This game was used as an educational tool for the “Software Engineering” course in the Computer Engineering Department of the University of Patras. By playing this serious game, students had the opportunity to encounter situations and challenges related to the software engineering work environment. The game was found usable by the students and had a statistically significant learning effect as revealed at the pre-test and the post-test analysis. The data analysis also showed gender differences for usability as perceived by the students.

This paper describes the design and delivery of a postgraduate course on “Design and Evaluation of Interactive Systems”, part of an M.Sc. program on Human-Computer Interaction jointly offered by the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This course was initially intended to use the flipped classroom model but was shifted online due to the COVID-19 lockdown imposed during the Spring 2020 semester. The paper discusses student attitudes towards the online flipped classroom model and draws preliminary conclusions on the advantages and limitations of the approach. Qualitative and quantitative assessment data indicate a positive overall students' perception of the online flipped classroom model.