bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Politeness as a Social Software Requirement
Authors: Whitworth Brian
Published: May 2011

If politeness makes society a nicer place to be, by lubricating the interaction of its human parts, then the same is important for online society. As the Internet becomes more social, software can mediate social interactions, serve as a social agent or act as a personal assistant, but to succeed in these roles it must learn a new skill - politeness. This article proposes politeness as the distinguishing mark of a new generation of community software based on the benefits of social synergy rather than technical efficiency. Conversely, selfish software is currently a widespread problem as politeness is a software design “blind spot”. An informational definition of politeness as the giving of choice suggests social software should be: 1. Respectful, 2. Transparent, 3. Helpful, and 4. Personal and 5. Responsive. For the Internet to realize its social as well as technical potential, software must be not only useful and usable but also polite.
Using Activity Theory to Assess the Effectiveness of an Online Learning Community
Authors: Wyeld Theodor G. , Prasolova-Forland Ekaterina
Published: May 2011

Remote, collaborative work practices are increasingly common in a globalised society. Simulating these environments in a pedagogical setting allows students to engage in cross-cultural exchanges encountered in the profession. However, identifying the pedagogical benefits of students collaborating remotely on a single project presents numerous challenges. Activity Theory (AT) provides a means for monitoring and making sense of their activities as individuals and as a collective. AT assists in researching the personal and social construction of students’ intersubjective cognitive representations of their own learning activities. Moreover, AT makes the socially constructed cultural scripts captured in their cross-cultural exchanges analysable. Students’ reflection on these scripts and their roles in them helps them better understand the heterogeneity of the cultures encountered. In this chapter Engestrom’s (1999) simple AT triangular relationship of activity, action and operation is used to analyze and provide insights into how students cooperate with each other across different cultures in a 3D collaborative virtual environment.
The Role of Virtual Communities in the Customization of e-Services
Authors: Karakostas Bill , Kardaras Dimitris , Zichová Adéla
Published: May 2011

Virtual communities are groups of people with similar interests who meet online and together act as a learning environment, place for social support, or as bodies for influencing public opinion. In this paper, the authors identify characteristics of a virtual community that influence its members to customize e- services provided to or received by the virtual community. The authors propose a theoretical framework of factors influencing service customization in a virtual community that has been validated with two case studies conducted in health-focused virtual communities. The findings confirm that the quality of the learning environment, social support, and the virtual communityâ€™s ability to influence public opinion, positively contribute to the perceived usefulness and active participation in the community by its members. In turn, these factors were found to have a positive influence on customization of e-services by the members, based on the communityâ€™s suggestion. The research also suggests several areas of focus to enhance e-service customization through virtual communities.
Designing Practice-Oriented Toolkits
Authors: Akoumianakis Demosthenes
Published: May 2011

This article aims to develop a conceptual frame of reference for analyzing and gaining insight to virtual community practices. The author’s normative perspective is that the vast majority of studies on virtual communities concentrate on managing (i.e., identifying, forming and sustaining) virtual communities, dismissing the practice the community is about. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that practice-oriented insights may offer new grounds for innovative engagement in virtual settings. Following a thorough analysis of seemingly heterogeneous concepts from new media, community-oriented thinking and practice-based approaches the article discusses what is it that differentiates offline from online practice, how these two are intertwined and why the literature lacks detailed insights on the actual practice virtual communities become engaged in. In light of this discussion, the Community-media-Practice grid is proposed as a guide for designing practiceoriented toolkits fostering a shared language for co-engagement in linguistic domains.
Social Support for Ontological Mediation and Data Integration
Authors: Correndo Gianluca , Alani Harith , Salvadores Manuel
Published: May 2011

Most organizations store their data in several databases with no flexible mechanism for integration and access, and with no common vocabulary in place. Maintaining local vocabularies while realizing distributed access is a challenge that most organizations face regularly. For several years, the Semantic Web community has been developing algorithms for mapping data models (ontologies). Nevertheless, ontology mapping remains to be a great challenge, and humans are always expected to verify the results of existing automatic mapping tools. The spread of social web demonstrate the possibility of using collaborative techniques for reaching consensus and fostering user participation. While a number of prototypes for collaborative ontology construction are being developed, collaborative ontology mapping is not yet well investigated. In this article, the authors describe an approach that combines off-the-shelf ontology mapping tools with social software techniques to enable users to collaborate on mapping ontologies.
Using Notification Systems to Create Social Places for Online Learning
Authors: Laffey James M. , Amelung Christopher J.
Published: May 2011

Context-aware activity notification systems have potential to improve and support the social experience of online learning. The authors of this chapter have developed a Context-aware Activity Notification System (CANS) that monitors online learning activities and represents relevant contextual information by providing notification and making the learning activity salient to other participants. The chapter describes previous efforts to develop and support online learning context awareness systems; it also defines the critical components and features of such a system. It is argued that notification systems can provide methods for using the context of activity to support members’ understanding of the meaning of activity. When designed and implemented effectively, CANS can turn course management systems (CMS) into technologies of social interaction to support the social requirements of learning.
Trust Modeling in a Virtual Organization Using Social Network Metrics
Authors: Kolaczek Grzegorz
Published: May 2011

One of the most important factors in human interaction and communication is trust. Each organization performing its quotidian tasks use intentionally or involuntary established trust relations to estimate the probability of achieving the expected results or the level of confidentiality. As in societies that evolved from real world relationship (e.g. school, office, sport activity, etc.) also in virtual communities (e.g. chat rooms, Web boards, mailing lists, etc.) trust is one of the most fundamental type of binding among the group members. In this article the trust relation establishment and evolution in virtual communities has been investigated. The presented model uses some typical parameters like node degree and centrality coefficient related to social network description and analysis.
Collaborating with a (Non)Collaborator
Authors: Kristjánsson Carolyn
Published: May 2011

In a climate of increasing globalization with calls for the development of online learning communities that thrive on diversity, it is important to consider how diversity might influence the nature of interpersonal action and the dynamics of collaboration in computer-mediated education. This chapter considers the case of problematic collaboration in an online graduate program. Discourse analysis grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics is applied to illustrate how various aspects of stakeholders’ identities can be traced in the discourse related to online collaborative processes. A model of situated multidimensional identity is used to consider how localized constructions of identity may be linked to broader frames of reference. Findings suggest that when stakeholders from a range of backgrounds are drawn together, online collaboration becomes a complex social practice.
Virtual Knowledge-Building Communities
Authors: Rafaeli Sheizaf , Hayat Tsahi , Ariel Yaron
Published: May 2011

A virtual knowledge-building community is a group of people who collaboratively produce knowledge through an online-mediated environment. The process and means for sharing and producing knowledge in such a community can be described as a place where “knowledge creation is built into the social fabric and into the technologies that support knowledge work” (Scardamalia, 2001). Virtual knowledge-building community is a unique case of a virtual community in which the processes of knowledge building are preformed through interactions between group members. In the early twenty-first century, on the Internet we observe a rapid growth in the number of virtual knowledgebuilding communities. These include joint authoring tools, collaborative tagging arrangements, collective recommendation aggregators, and other creative uses of the Internet. One of the most prominent forms of virtual communities involved in the practice of building knowledge, are the ‘open source’ communities such as the Wikipedia project (Rafaeli, Hayat, & Ariel, 2005).
Resolving Wicked Problems through Collaboration
Authors: Denning Peter J.
Published: May 2011

Wicked problems (messes) are tangled social situations that are too costly to stay in and too intransigent to get out of. Collaboration is essential to resolving them. This chapter examines five main ideas: (1) Messes and wicked problems are the most difficult in a hierarchy of difficult problems.(2) Why mess resolution usually involves disruptive innovation. (3) Why collaboration is essential and hard to achieve. (4) Collaboration is a practice generated in six kinds of conversations. (5) Someone who understands the practice of collaboration will find many information technology tools to help with the process: exchangers, coordinators, and games, and can design better tools.
Social Capital, Social Networks, and the Social Web; The Case of Virtual Volunteering
Authors: Mukherjee Dhrubodhi
Published: May 2011

Social interaction technologies create communicative possibilities that go beyond dyadic interactions and across physical boundaries, bringing a qualitative shift in the functioning of the Internet. The present chapter employs social capital and social networks perspectives to identify the social determinants of virtual volunteering in the age of Web 2.0, explores the social motivation of volunteers who perform tasks using the Social Web in the context of online volunteering, and addresses the dynamic interplay of social capital, social networks, and the Social Web with implications for virtual volunteering. The argument furthered is that active participation in social networks generates social capital and facilitates the development of the Social Web.
Blending Virtual Campuses Managing Differences through Web 2.0 Experiences in Transnational Cooperation Projects
Authors: Kazepov Yuri , Torris Giovanni
Published: May 2011

Starting from the increasingly widespread need to develop effective teaching in complex transnational settings, this chapter presents an innovative blended model with Web 2.0 collaborative learning strategies built in. The model balances pedagogical, technical and content related issues into an ad hoc institutionally designed 60 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) curriculum of the European Masters in Comparative Urban Studies (E-Urbs). The chapter aims at disentangling the different dimensions involved in the curriculum delivery, highlighting the pros and cons of all dimensions of the model adopted. In doing so the chapter is divided into three sections. The first section addresses the challenges that effective teaching in complex transnational settings has to face, in particular it highlights the crucial need of managing differences. In the E-Urbs project we had 24 students from 14 countries, 5 continents, 6 disciplinary backgrounds, 32 scholars from 9 partner institutions in 8 countries. The second section deals with the way in which challenges and differences have been addressed and describes the dimensions of the blended model the authors adopted, arguing that a sound virtual campus arrangement should address the pedagogical, technical and content related dimensions in a balanced way considering the institutional setting within which they are embedded. The third section addresses the way in which the blended approach has been enriched through a Web 2.0 perspective, promoting p2p (peer-to-peer) collaboration in the generation of knowledge. The main argument is that an increasingly fluid society generates and treats information differently and learning agencies should not only acknowledge these differences but should address them with balanced learning models which take advantage of the new 2.0 paradigms. The authors argue that the result of a balanced blended Web 2.0 approach helps to transform the challenges into a resource for each of the stakeholders involved (e.g., students, scholars, partners, institutions) providing an added value in each dimension of the learning process (pedagogical, technical, content related and institutional).
Blueprint for a Mashup
Authors: Peachey Anna , Livingstone Daniel , Walshe Sarah
Published: May 2011

In 2005 the Centre for Professional Learning and Development at the Open University (OU) established a pioneering collaboration with Reuters (which in 2008 became Thomson Reuters), working together on The Management Challenge Online (TMCO), a 10-week cohort-based course for First Line Managers. The course is currently delivered in the open source Moodle environment using Flash learning modules, to a model that encourages and supports collaborative participation and deep learning for delegates. This chapter will begin with an introduction to TMCO, providing some context and background to its development, structure and delegate groups. This has been described in detail elsewhere, see Peachey & Walshe (2008), where it was identified that “a Second Life activity programme element for TMCO would offer additional engagement potential for a significant number of participants.” The chapter will describe the virtual world Second Life and the course management integration system Sloodle before exploring the motivation and structure for integrating these new tools into the next evolution of TMCO. The chapter will propose an adaptation of an evaluation framework originally proposed by de Freitas & Oliver (2006), creating a tool for evaluating the introduction of virtual world technology into a work based training curriculum, and will outline the proposed Second Life/Moodle/Sloodle activity for TMCO in some detail.
A Social Capital Perspective on Collaboration and Web 2.0
Authors: Widén-Wulff Gunilla , Tötterman Anna-Karin
Published: May 2011

Social interaction technologies can successfully employ the previously untapped power of the web to utilize the collaborative creation of information and user-driven content. In this chapter, the social capital framework is applied to illustrate how Web 2.0 tools and techniques can support effective information and knowledge management in organizations. Interactions within and between organizations generate important practices that underscore the role of social capital. Managing social capital for effective knowledge sharing is a complex process, and Web 2.0 lends some support for organizations by creating a new culture of voluntary, contributive, and collaborative participation. The argument is made that Web 2.0 technologies can be seen as important tools that can bridge the creation and sharing of knowledge in diverse organizational contexts.
Challenges on Semantic Web Services
Authors: Vargas-Vera Maria , Nagy Miklos , Zyskowski Dominik , Haniewicz Konstanty , Abramowicz Witold
Published: May 2011

The promise of being able to support Business-to-Customer applications with a rapidly growing number of heterogeneous services available on the Semantic Web has generated considerable interest in different research communities (e.g., Semantic Web, knowledge representation, software agents). However, in order to overcome the challenges of the current Web services, new level of functionalities is required in order to integrate distributed software components using existing Semantic Web standards. In this chapter, the authors discuss and suggest insights into new solutions to the main challenges in the area of Semantic Web services: composition, discovery and trust. For the first problem they suggest to use program transformation coupled with services’ descriptions. For the second problem (discovery of Web services) a solution based on the authors’ mapping algorithm between ontologies is suggested. While, for the last problem a solution based on fuzzy voting model is outlined. Through the chapter, the authors work with an investing scenario, in order to illustrate our suggested solutions to these three challenges.
Assessing the Total Cost of Ownership of Virtual Communities
Authors: vom Brocke Jan , Sonnenberg Christian , Lattemann Christoph , Stieglitz Stefan
Published: May 2011

The usage of social software and virtual community platforms opens up opportunities to bridge the gap between customers and companies and to integrate customers into the value-added process. Ideas generated by members of a virtual community can be utilized to improve and to innovate a company’s value adding activities. However, the implementation and operation of virtual communities may have a considerable impact on financial performance measures of a company. Hence, to measure the profitability of a virtual community appropriately, means of efficiency calculations have to be employed. The objective of this chapter is, therefore, to develop a measurement framework to evaluate the financial performance of a virtual community. The focus is on calculating the total cost of ownership. After introducing a general measurement framework, a particular measurement system is derived from the framework and is subsequently applied to a real life example of the Berlin Stock Exchange.
Mobile Social Web; Opportunities and Drawbacks
Authors: Caus Thorsten , Christmann Stefan
Published: May 2011

As mobile Internet usage continues to grow, the phenomenon of accessing online communities through mobile devices draws researchers’ attention. Statistics show that close to 60 percent of all mobile Internet traffic worldwide is related to the use of mobile social networks. In this chapter, the mobile social web is defined, categories of mobile communities explained, and success factors and drawbacks discussed from the technical, social, and economic perspectives. Challenges, including low transmission rates, changes in usage patterns, search for new revenue sources, as well as the need for development of original mobile web content and applications are addressed. The technical requirements for the mobile use of online communities are identified. The chapter closes with a summary of potential economic and social prospects of the emerging mobile social web.
Social Interactive Media and Virtual Community Practices
Authors: Akoumianakis Demosthenes
Published: May 2011

This chapter attempts to consolidate concepts, ideas and results reported in this volume in an effort to synthesize an agenda and sketch a roadmap for future research and development on virtual community practices facilitated by synergistic combination of social interactive media. In this endeavor, the author revisits the notions of new media, communities and social practice, in the light of the preceding chapters and with the intention to pickup seemingly heterogeneous concepts and sketch the puzzle of social interactive media and virtual community practice. The ultimate target is to make inroads towards a reference model for understanding and framing online social practice under the different regimes constituted by new media and social computing.
Data Mining Techniques for Outlier Detection
Authors: Suri N , Murty M , Athithan G
Published: May 2011

Among the growing number of data mining techniques in various application areas, outlier detection has gained importance in recent times. Detecting the objects in a data set with unusual properties is important as such outlier objects often contain useful information on abnormal behavior of the system described by the data set. Outlier detection has been popularly used for detection of anomalies in computer networks, fraud detection and such applications. Though a number of research efforts address the problem of detecting outliers in data sets, there are still many challenges faced by the research community in terms of identifying a suitable technique for addressing specific applications of interest. These challenges are primarily due to the large volume of high dimensional data associated with most data mining applications and also due to the performance requirements. This chapter highlights some of the important research issues that determine the nature of the outlier detection algorithm required for a typical data mining application. The research issues discussed include the method of outlier detection, size and dimensionality of the data set, and nature of the target application. Thus this chapter attempts to cover the challenges and possible research directions along with a survey of various data mining techniques dealing with the outlier detection problem.
Using an Ontology-Based Framework to Extract External Web Data for the Data Warehouse
Authors: Greenidge Charles , Peter Hadrian
Published: May 2011

Data warehouses have established themselves as necessary components of an effective Information Technology (IT) strategy for large businesses. In addition to utilizing operational databases data warehouses must also integrate increasing amounts of external data to assist in decision support. An important source of such external data is the Web. In an effort to ensure the availability and quality of Web data for the data warehouse we propose an intermediate data-staging layer called the Meta-Data Engine (M-DE). A major challenge, however, is the conversion of data originating in the Web, and brought in by robust search engines, to data in the data warehouse. The authors therefore also propose a framework, the Semantic Web Application (SEMWAP) framework, which facilitates semi-automatic matching of instance data from opaque web databases using ontology terms. Their framework combines Information Retrieval (IR), Information Extraction (IE), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and ontology techniques to produce a matching and thus provide a viable building block for Semantic Web (SW) Applications.
From Data to Knowledge
Authors: Wijaya Tri
Published: May 2011

This chapter will discuss a very useful technique to get (or to mine) a hidden information or knowledge which is lie in our data namely, data mining, which is a powerful and automatic (or semi-automatic) technique. Not only about the concept and theory, this chapter will also discuss about the application and implementation of data mining. Firstly, the authors will talk about data, information, and knowledge, whether they are different or not. After understand the term, they will discuss about what data mining is and what the importance of it. Second, they describe the process of gaining the hidden knowledge, how it is done, from the beginning until presenting the result. The authors will go through it step by step. In the next section, they will discuss about the several different tasks of data mining. In addition, to get a better understanding, the authors will compare data mining with other terminology which closely related so called data warehouse, and OLAP. For the last, but not the least, as stated before, this chapter will tell us about the real implementation of data mining in several different areas.
Use of SciDBMaker as Tool for the Design of Specialized Biological Databases
Authors: Hammami Riadh , Fliss Ismail
Published: May 2011

The exponential growth of molecular biology research in recent decades has brought concomitant growth in the number and size of genomic and proteomic databases used to interpret experimental findings. Particularly, growth of protein sequence records created the need for smaller and manually annotated databases. Since scientists are continually developing new specific databases to enhance their understanding of biological processes, the authors created SciDBMaker to provide a tool for easy building of new specialized protein knowledge bases. This chapter also suggests best practices for specialized biological databases design, and provides examples for the implementation of these practices.
Interactive Visualization Tool for Analysis of Large Image Databases
Authors: Doloc-Mihu Anca
Published: May 2011

Navigation and interaction are essential features for an interface that is built as a help tool for analyzing large image databases. A tool for actively searching for information in large image databases is called an Image Retrieval System, or its more advanced version is called an Adaptive Image Retrieval System (AIRS). In an Adaptive Image Retrieval System (AIRS) the user-system interaction is built through an interface that allows the relevance feedback process to take place. In this chapter, the author identifies two types of users for an AIRS: a user who seeks images whom the author refers to as an end-user, and a user who designs and researches the collection and the retrieval systems whom the author refers to as a researcher-user. In this context, she describes a new interactive multiple views interface for an AIRS (Doloc-Mihu, 2007), in which each view illustrates the relationships between the images from the collection by using visual attributes (colors, shapes, proximities). With such views, the interface allows the user (both end-user and researcher-user) a more effective interaction with the system, which, further, helps during the analysis of the image collection. The author‘s qualitative evaluation of these multiple views in AIRS shows that each view has its own limitations and benefits. However, together, the views offer complementary information that helps the user in improving his or her search effectiveness.
Emerging Business Models
Authors: Chen Te Fu
Published: May 2011

This chapter, therefore, develops in scientific literature, the concept of e-Business 2.0 where e-Business companies are actively using Web 2.0 to create and appropriate value from, for, and with stakeholders. This research also makes a distinction between an internal and external focus. This research looks at e-Business 2.0 and has an external focus. E-Business 2.0 pure players depend on Web 2.0 to create and appropriate value with a focus to external customers, instead of internal organisations. There is a new wave of business communication tools including blogs, wikis and group messaging. There are new digital platforms for generating, sharing and refining information that are already popular on the Internet. These platforms are collectively labeled Web 2.0 technologies. The term ‘Enterprise 2.0’ focuses only on those platforms in which companies can buy or build in order to make the practices and outputs of their knowledgeable workers visible. Enterprise 2.0 looks at Web 2.0 technologies and practices within organisations and businesses and is therefore, referred to as internal focus. Enterprise 2.0 is the term used to describe how a Web 2.0 approach can be used to work more collaboratively together in business. Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies or between companies and their partner or customers. However Enterprise 2.0 is much more than just ’Web 2.0 for business’. Moreover, the study proposed a case study of Enterprise 2.0 to demonstrate by a detailed KPI analysis, how collaboration platforms (and related HR management) can drastically improve the global performance of an international group. Furthermore, the study was to further propose another case study of e-gov 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 is an evolutionary step forward releasing employees from the constraints and limitations of the legacy communication and productivity tools. The study concludes the challenges of the Enterprise 2.0: ten facts and Six Enterprise 2.0 - Myths. Enterprise 2.0, being more a philosophy than a technology, can truly create huge added value for organizations in any sector and it is often remarkable to see in what way the Enterprise 2.0 methods are used to solve specific problems.
The CSFs Methodology and Modified DEA Approach to Construct a New Business Model to Evaluate Operational Performance of all International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan
Authors: Ko Chieh-Heng
Published: May 2011

This chapter evaluates the operational performance of International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan, and explores the critical success factors that contribute to good performance. This research initially adopted data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure the relative operational efficiency of 57 international tourist hotels in Taiwan. However, the DEA approach can only determine relative operational efficiency but does not identify the factors that give rise to inefficiency or lead to efficiency. Furthermore, DEA only calls attention to those hotels in which efficiency and inefficiency exist, but cannot provide suggestions on how to improve operational efficiency. A qualitative approach is a good way to address this limitation of DEA. Thus, after using DEA to evaluate hotel’s operational efficiency, this research used a qualitative approach to further explore the critical success factors that contribute to hotels having good performance in Taiwan. Through determination of these factors, this research provides hotel managers with a list of advice and recommendations to develop effective strategies to meet a highly competitive environment.
Modeling Multi-Criteria Promotional Strategy Based on Fuzzy Goal Programming
Authors: Mangaraj B.K.
Published: May 2011

Promotional strategy is one of the four major facets of marketing; informative on how to advertise and sell products. This can be divided into two broad categories: personal selling strategy (selling the product door-to-door) and mass marketing strategy (announcing the product to the customers). The very first and most important step in choosing the right promotional strategy requires understanding of the target customers. Knowing how the target customer likes a thing can greatly influence the type of promotional item that one considers and how well the promotion performs in the marketing domain. Apart from designing advertising messages, the problem lies with selecting suitable advertising media vehicles which would communicate the message to the right segment at the right time. At the same time, it should have specific and measurable marketing objectives. This paper presents a multi-criteria promotional model for a rural product of a co-operative society in TV channels through popular programmes. An interactive fuzzy goal programming model has been developed for the purpose to handle this problem for selection of TV programmes in some networks for communicating the message of the product. A case study in Indian context has been considered for highlighting the promotion of handloom products by the Bottom of Pyramid producers of the Indian economy to be marketed in all segments through an optimal media selection process.
Towards a Semiotic Metrics Suite for Product Ontology Evaluation
Authors: Leukel Joerg , Sugumaran Vijayan
Published: May 2011

In recent years, product ontology has been proposed for solving integration problems in product-related information systems such as e-commerce and supply chain management applications. A product ontology provides consensual definitions of concepts and inter-relationships being relevant in a product domain of interest. Adopting such an ontology requires means for assessing their suitability and selecting the “right” product ontology. In this article, the authors (1) propose a metrics suite for product ontology evaluation based on semiotic theory, and (2) demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the metrics suite using a supply chain model. The contribution of our research is the comprehensive metrics suite that takes into account the various quality dimensions of product ontology.
Social Impact and Challenges of Virtual Reality Communities
Authors: Capilla Rafael
Published: May 2011

The phenomenon of virtual reality has crossed geographical and social barriers since virtual reality applications started to be used massively by non-expert users. The development of high-cost and complex virtual reality applications for concrete domains and highly skilled users have widened its scope to the general public, which exploits the Internet to create, share, and configure virtual communities of users and avatars that transcend organizational, political, cultural and social barriers. This chapter analyses the social impact of different software platforms and environments that can be used to create virtual communities, and also how these platforms provide different collaborative capabilities among their members. The author also analyzes how virtual reality technology impacts in the creation and use of virtual communities, as well as outlining the benefits and drawbacks in a globalized context.
Information Technology Adoption by Groups Across Time
Authors: Sauter Vicki L.
Published: May 2011

Today’s technologies can support joint, but physically disparate work efforts. Some groups of professionals that could benefit from using these technologies do not adopt them, while others use the technologies frequently. This study provides an in-depth examination of how and when one organization accepted technology in their decision-making efforts. The research examines actual usage of the technology rather than the less strong, but more common measure, intention to use technology. As a result, the paper has helped bridge the gap between what people intend to do and what they actually do, thereby providing both a stronger theoretical basis for the TAM model and some insights into the evolution of the TAM model. It examines an emerging extension to the TAM and provides evidence of the behavior of users when they must act as a group.
A Comparison of Audio-Conferencing and Computer Conferencing in a Dispersed Negotiation Setting
Authors: Foroughi Abbas , Perkins William C. , Jessup Leonard M.
Published: May 2011

The growing globalization of business is making face-to-face communications, decision-making, and negotiations more the exception than the rule. Internet communication in text-only, audio, and video form are all becoming feasible methods of communication between distantly located parties. However, in order for these new technologies to be used most effectively, more investigation is needed into the impact of various media on decision-making, such as that in negotiation. In particular, negotiators need to have a means of choosing the most appropriate communication medium, based on the amount of richness inherent in the medium, for the particular task at hand. This paper presents the results of an empirical study to examine the effectiveness of a computerized negotiation support system (NSS) in supporting bargaining carried out in a dispersed, but synchronous setting. In the study, pairs of college students, using the NSS, participated in a simulated industrial bargaining scenario that tested the impact of communication media employed and level of conflict on contract outcomes and negotiator attitudes. The subjects, located in separate rooms, played the roles of buyer and seller engaged in negotiations either by telephone (audio-conferencing) or Lotus Notes (computer conferencing). In both low and high conflict, the efficiency aspects of audio-conferencing — a richer medium in which more communication can take place more quickly — overshadowed any negative social cues transmitted.
The Role of Culture in Knowledge Management
Authors: Leidner Dorothy , Alavi Maryam , Kayworth Timothy
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management (KM) approaches have been broadly considered to entail either a focus on organizing communities or a focus on the process of knowledge creation, sharing, and distribution. While these two approaches are not mutually exclusive and organizations may adopt aspects of both, the two approaches entail different challenges. Some organizational cultures might be more receptive to the community approach, whereas others may be more receptive to the process approach. Although culture has been cited widely as a challenge in knowledge management initiatives, and although many studies have considered the implications of organizational culture on knowledge sharing, few empirical studies address the influence of culture on the approach taken to knowledge management. Using a case study approach to compare and contrast the cultures and knowledge management approaches of two organizations, the study suggests ways in which organizational culture influences knowledge management initiatives as well as the evolution of knowledge management in organizations. Whereas in one organization, the KM effort became little more than an information repository, in the second organization, the KM effort evolved into a highly collaborative system fostering the formation of electronic communities.
Security Personalization for Internet and Web Services
Authors: Yee George , Korba Larry
Published: May 2011

The growth of the Internet has been accompanied by the growth of Internet services (e.g., e-commerce, e-health). This proliferation of services and the increasing attacks on them by malicious individuals have highlighted the need for service security. The security requirements of an Internet or Web service may be specified in a security policy. The provider of the service is then responsible for implementing the security measures contained in the policy. However, a service customer or consumer may have security preferences that are not reflected in the provider’s security policy. In order for service providers to attract and retain customers, as well as reach a wider market, a way of personalizing a security policy to a particular customer is needed. We derive the content of an Internet or Web service security policy and propose a flexible security personalization approach that will allow an Internet or Web service provider and customer to negotiate to an agreed-upon personalized security policy. In addition, we present two application examples of security policy personalization, and overview the design of our security personalization prototype.
Data Mining in Web Services Discovery and Monitoring
Authors: Nayak Richi
Published: May 2011

The business needs, the availability of huge volumes of data and the continuous evolution in Web services functions derive the need of application of data mining in the Web service domain. This article recommends several data mining applications that can leverage problems concerned with the discovery and monitoring of Web services. This article then presents a case study on applying the clustering data mining technique to the Web service usage data to improve the Web service discovery process. This article also discusses the challenges that arise when applying data mining to Web services usage data and abstract informat
Online Assessment
Authors: Walker David
Published: May 2011

This chapter reports the findings of a study which investigated the learning processes, expectations and perceptions underpinning undergraduate science student’s use of online assessment. The aims of the study were to: review the way students interact with online assessments within the context of their studies; examine how this interaction was shaped by their preparation and prior experience with online tools; explore the prominence of test anxiety and the extent to which the student’s anxieties influenced their interaction with the technology and the learning approach employed; and analyse the student’s perspectives on the use of online assessment in higher education and, in particular, in their disciplinespecific courses.
Representational Inquiry Competences in Science Games
Authors: Magnussen Rikke
Published: May 2011

This chapter considers the enactment of competences in a particular science learning game Homicide, which is played in lower secondary schools. Homicide is a forensic investigation game in which pupils take on the role of police experts solving criminal cases in the space of one week. The Homicide game-based learning environment was designed with the aim of supporting scientific inquiry through a simulation of elements of a professional forensic practice situation. The game is thus designed to support work with genuine scientific inquiry and to meet the seventh- to tenth grade curriculum objectives for science and Danish education in Danish schools. This chapter presents the results of a long-term empirical study conducted with four school classes who played the game. The focus of the study has been to understand what competences are enacted when a professional inquiry is played out in schools. The chapter considers how students constructed visual representations of the cases they investigated and how they used these representations to establish hypotheses and evidence. The term ‘representational inquiry competences’ is developed; it refers to the students’ ability to construct, productively use, transform and criticize visual representations as an integrated part of conducting an inquiry in the science game.
Integrating Adult Learning and Technology for Effective Education
Authors: Collins Royce Ann , Martin James B.
Published: May 2011

This chapter is an examination of the influences involved in the integrating of adults into higher education. The chapter begins with an exploration of the increase in the number of adults in higher education since 1969. Comparing the changes in demographics from 1969 to 2007 shows how little large public universities have done to integrate adults into higher education. This examination shows significant participation by three types of institutions; community colleges, small private four year liberal arts institutions, and for-profit institutions created to meet the higher education needs of adults. The chapter defines adult and higher education and discusses how they differ or interact. A discussion of how adult students learn and effective techniques to facilitate learning in adult classrooms follows these definitions. Finally, a discussion identifying how teaching techniques that are effective for adults can be integrated into traditional classrooms in higher education brings the chapter to a close.
The Electronic Patient Record
Authors: Bircher Nicholas G.
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides a novel, unique, and reasonably broad set of perspectives on the human resources (HR) and information technology (IT) ramifications of the electronic patient record (EPR) as an integral component of the total hospital information system.
Recent Trends in Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing
Authors: Singh Ramesh
Published: May 2011

Pervasive computing is the trend towards increasingly ubiquitous connected computing devices in the environment, a trend being brought about by a convergence of advanced electronic – and particularly, wireless - technologies and the Internet. Pervasive computing devices are not personal computers but very tiny - even invisible - devices, either mobile or embedded in almost any type of object imaginable, including cars, tools, appliances, clothing and various consumer goods – all communicating through increasingly interconnected networks. In the future these smart devices will maintain current information about their locations, the contexts in which they are being used, and relevant data about the users. The goal of researchers is to create a system that is pervasively and unobtrusively embedded in the environment, completely connected, intuitive, effortlessly portable, and constantly available. Among the emerging technologies expected to prevail in the pervasive computing environment of the future are wearable computers, smart homes and smart buildings. Among the myriad of tools expected to support these are: application-specific integrated circuitry (ASIC); speech recognition; gesture recognition; system on a chip (SoC); perceptive interfaces; smart matter; flexible transistors; reconfigurable processors; field programmable logic gates (FPLG); and micro electromechanical systems (MEMS).
A Software Component Generation Model for Pervasive Computing Environment
Authors: N/A Ratneshwer
Published: May 2011

In order to develop software components that are reusable across the pervasive computing applications it would be required to consider the variations and properties (mobility, adaptability, composability, context awareness etc.) that may be required for different pervasive computing applications (application types). It should go without saying that various requirements and variations may not always be known a priori and hence developing all the multiple variants may not always be possible or feasible. It is quite unlikely that all the pervasive computing applications would be able to reuse a component ‘as-is’ always. One idea is to use lightweight components such that the overheads (those that are not required in a particular pervasive computing application) do not get transported with the body of the component. Based on this idea, a model of “Generic Component” with ‘Component Generator’ has been proposed that will generate components according to the requirements of a specific pervasive computing application. This work starts a discussion and calls for more extensive research oriented studies by professionals and academicians for perfection of the model.
SRIP
Authors: N/A Rajshree , Pandey Ravi Prakash , Sharma Sanjeev , Shukla Vivek
Published: May 2011

Security in Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET)/ Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is very important issue. Due to dynamic topology and mobility of nodes, Mobile Ad hoc Networks/ WSNs are more vulnerable to security attacks than conventional wired and wireless network. Nodes of Mobile Ad hoc Network communicate directly without any central base station. That means in ad hoc network, infrastructure is not required for establishing communication. In this chapter we are describing Route Falsification Attack which is easy to launch in MANETs or wireless ad hoc network. Route Falsification attack is referred to as a node with no special hardware capability can use packet encapsulation and tunneling to create bogus short-cuts in routing paths and influence data traffic to flow through them. This chapter shows the implementation of a Secure Hybrid Routing Information Protocol (SRIP) which can be used to prevent route falsification attack in MANETs. We evaluated performance of SRIP in Qualnet Simulator with and without route falsification attack. Our analysis indicates that SRIP is very suitable to stop this attack and performs well with low overhead in normal networks.