Purpose In India, the COVID-19 outbreak has been declared an epidemic in all its states and union territories. To combat COVID-19, lockdown was imposed on March 25, 2020 which has adversely affected the education system in the country. It has changed the traditional education system to the educational technologies (EdTechs) model, where teaching and assessments are conducted online. This paper aims to identify the barriers faced by teachers during online teaching and assessment in different home environment settings in India. Design/methodology/approach Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of qualitative research methodology has been used in this research. The study was conducted among the teachers working in the government and private universities of Uttarakhand, India. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted among 19 teachers to collect data regarding the barriers faced by them during online teaching and assessment. ATLAS.ti, version 8 was used to analyze the interview data. Findings The findings revealed four categories of barriers that are faced by teachers during online teaching and assessments. Under home environment settings, a lack of basic facilities, external distraction and family interruption during teaching and conducting assessments were major issues reported. Institutional support barriers such as the budget for purchasing advanced technologies, a lack of training, a lack of technical support and a lack of clarity and direction were also reported. Teachers also faced technical difficulties. The difficulties were grouped under a lack of technical support, it included a lack of technical infrastructure, limited awareness of online teaching platforms and security concerns. Teachers’ personal problems including a lack of technical knowledge, negative attitude, course integration with technology and a lack of motivation are identified as the fourth category to damper their engagement in online teaching and assessments. Practical implications The findings of the study can be helpful to the regulatory authorities and employers of higher education institutions who are planning to adopt online teaching as a regular activity in the future. The insights gained from the findings can help them to revisit their existing policy frameworks by designing new strategies and technical structures to assist their teachers in successfully embracing the EdTech to deal with any crisis in the future. Originality/value Many authors have conducted research to address the problems faced by students related to online teaching and learning during COVID-19 in India. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that addresses the challenges faced by teachers during the online teaching and assessment in the home environment settings by using qualitative analysis (IPA) techniques. The current study replenishes the gap by contributing to the literature of online teaching and assessment under the home environment settings during the pandemic situation.

Purpose This paper aims to provide a systematic literature review on blockchain technology in education to offer a detailed understanding of the present scenario in terms of benefits, barriers, present blockchain technology application and future areas where blockchain technology can be implemented in the other fields of education. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis is conducted on for data in the publications, journals, authors and citations were collected, and examined by applying bibliometric measures. The data was collected from SCOPUS database on the topic “Blockchain Technology in Education”. The following research questions guided this systematic literature review (SLR: How blockchain technology has been defined in educational settings? How were the technology examined (i.e. the methodology)? What were the results of using this technology in an education system? Findings The study identifies the benefits, barriers and present application of blockchain technology in education. The analysis shows that blockchain technology in education is still a young discipline, but has a lot of potential to benefits the educational sector at large. Practical implications This research provides a groundwork for education institutions, the policymakers and researchers to explore other areas where blockchain technology can be implemented, though this research has also suggested some prospective uses of blockchain technology in different functions of an education system, more application can be brought into the education system to exploit the potential of blockchain technology. Originality/value The paper discusses the application of blockchain technology in education with the help of bibliometric analysis. This is one of the first known studies to review the blockchain technology by identifying its benefits, barriers, present blockchain technology application. Based on the analysis, future application areas are also identified.

Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCP II) catalyzes the extracellular hydrolysis of the neuromodulator N-acetyl-aspartylglutamate to N-acetyl-aspartate and glutamate. GCP II also hydrolyzes ␥-glutamyl bonds in folylpolyglutamate. The predicted amino acid sequence of GCP II displays similarities to aminopeptidases from Streptomyces griseus and Vibrio proteolyticus, whose crystal structures have been determined. These aminopeptidases are cocatalytic zinc metallopeptidases belonging to the peptidase family M28. Specific zinc and substrate ligands have been proposed in GCP II based on the amino acid sequence alignment to these M28 family members. In the present study, site-directed mutagenesis has been used to test the assignment of these putative ligands in human GCP II. Substitutions to the five putative zinc ligands resulted in severely reduced enzyme activity, although mutant protein was expressed as demonstrated by immunoblot analysis. In addition, substitutions of amino acids near the putative zinc ligands have identified other specific residues important for enzyme structure and/or function. Substitutions to putative substrate ligands were less perturbing, and increases in K m were observed for substitutions that introduced a large charge perturbation (e.g., Lys to Glu). The results from substitutions at the proposed zinc and substrate ligands are consistent with the assignment of these residues and suggest that GCP II has a three-dimensional structure similar to other members of the peptidase family M28.