Abstract-Academic advising of students is an expert task that requires a lot of time, and intellectual investments from the human agent saddled with such a responsibility. In addition, good quality academic advising is subject to availability of experienced and committed personnel to undertake the task. However, there are instances when there is paucity of capable human adviser, or where qualified persons are not readily available because of other pressing commitments, which will make system-based decision support desirable and useful. In this work, we present the design and implementation of an intelligent Course Advisory Expert System (CAES) that uses a combination of rule based reasoning (RBR) and case based reasoning (CBR) to recommend courses that a student should register in a specific semester, by making recommendation based on the student's academic history. The evaluation of CAES yielded satisfactory performance in terms of credibility of its recommendations and usability.

As water scarcity becomes a pending global issue, hygroscopic materials prove a significant solution. Thus, there is a good cause following the structure–performance relationship to review the recent development of hygroscopic materials and provide inspirational insight into creative materials. Herein, traditional hygroscopic materials, crystalline frameworks, polymers, and composite materials are reviewed. The similarity in working conditions of water harvesting and carbon capture makes simultaneously addressing water shortages and reduction of greenhouse effects possible. Concurrent water harvesting and carbon capture is likely to become a future challenge. Therefore, an emphasis is laid on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for their excellent performance in water and CO2 adsorption, and representative role of micro‐ and mesoporous materials. Herein, the water adsorption mechanisms of MOFs are summarized, followed by a review of MOF's water stability, with a highlight on the emerging machine learning (ML) technique to predict MOF water stability and water uptake. Recent advances in the mechanistic elaboration of moisture's effects on CO2 adsorption are reviewed. This review summarizes recent advances in water–harvesting porous materials with special attention on MOFs and expects to direct researchers’ attention into the topic of concurrent water harvesting and carbon capture as a future challenge.

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Abstract-ManyAfrican academic institutions have adopted the use of elearning systems, since they enable students to learn at their own pace, time, and without restriction to the classroom. However, evidence of usability evaluation of e-learning systems in Africa is mostly lacking in the literature. This paper reports the experimental heuristic evaluation of the e-learning system of a Nigerian University. The objective is to demonstrate the application of expertbased usability evaluation techniques such as Heuristic evaluation for assessing the attributes of existing e-learning systems. The study revealed that while the e-learning system has strong credentials in terms of support for Web 2.0 activities, good learning content and boasts of useful e-learning features, improvements are necessary in other areas such as interactive learning, assessment and feedback, and quality of learning content. The study adds to the body of extant knowledge in the area of usability evaluation of e-learning systems in African institutions.

The study examined the prospects of carrying out a post-occupancy evaluation of building facilities in a university community using an electronic platform. The SRS showed the user classes and characteristics, software architecture, functionality, the coding language used and external interfaces. The Web pages were designed using HTML, while the database management system was developed using MySQL. C-Sharp programming language was used to control the post-occupancy system. The three main users identified in this study; the building user, the maintenance manager/facility manager and the management team can access the system to evaluate the building facilities. In conclusion, the study developed a post-occupancy evaluation system for a university community to effectively manage the state of its building facilities. By using the proposed system, the study aims to increase the speed of maintenance works, improve the state of building facilities in schools of higher learning and ensure accountability in the building maintenance process. Keywords Building facilities  Electronic platform  Higher institution  Post-occupancy  Web-based system This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.