bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Engineering for Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Authors: Murphy John D.
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces Collaboration Engineering as an approach to developing more effective collaborative sessions for interdisciplinary teams. Collaboration is the foundation for success for many academic teams; however, the benefits of collaborative sessions can be lost when group processes are not well understood and the needs of interdisciplinary teams are not met. As such, this chapter will identify key facets of how interdisciplinary teams develop and evaluate potential solutions. Groupthink and disciplinary ethnocentrism are also presented, as these factors can negatively impact interdisciplinary teams, and techniques are proposed that can help teams avoid these potentially negative effects. The central position of this chapter is that Collaboration Engineering based on proven group processes and guided by design recommendations specific for interdisciplinary team collaboration can result in session designs that improve outcomes for interdisciplinary teams.
Back to Basics
Authors: Pullen Darren Lee
Published: May 2011

Communication technology, which is not constrained by geographical boundaries, has increasingly resulted in faster and more efficient ways to maintain contact. When utilising electronic technology in the classroom it is essential for teachers to respect cultural differences and instil the importance of basic communication skills to their students. Many school students are extremely comfortable in using developing technologies, but are unaware of the equally important need to establish relationships to enhance the quality of information they are exchanging. Electronic communication is a necessary part of developing the skills of a lifelong learner. These forms of communication have encouraged processes such as collaboration to occur by creating exciting synergies between people and resources that may have not been previously possible. This chapter will explore several examples of how schools and teachers are using the Internet to collaborate and share ideas and resources between staff and students.
Integrating Student Peer Mentoring Online
Authors: Holland Janet L.
Published: May 2011

This chapter reports on a mixed study dealing with the impact of integrating student peer mentor facilitators into online discussions in an effort to improve the quality and effectiveness of collaborative learning. The study included developing and testing of an assessment scale for measuring students’ perceived peer mentoring course satisfaction. During the five-week study, training interventions were implemented in the third week. The study tested whether college students’ perceived peer mentoring course satisfaction scores increase as a result of the peer mentoring training intervention. The resulting increasing quantitative mean score trend combined with positive qualitative feedback provided evidence of an overall growth in students’ perceived peer mentoring community satisfaction, worthy of further investigation. The assessment instrumented created has positive implications for online collaboration at all education levels.
Overview on Information Systems and Tools for Collaborative Enterprise
Authors: Lee Gilliean
Published: May 2011

Recent industry and business trends can be described as shorter life cycle, increased speed to market, customizability, and a wide variety (rather than mass production) of products. In order to cope with the new environment, business organizations in the supply chain need to communicate, collaborate, and share information as efficiently as they can. There are a variety of collaborative information systems and tools that are actively being used in the enterprises that make collaborative efforts among supply chain partners using digital technologies. In order to maximize business impacts of those collaborative tools, proper policy, and support from users and management are required. Understanding of the managerial issues of the collaborative information systems and tools regarding deployment and usage is also important for successful deployment. We provide an overview on functionalities of the collaborative tools, their business impacts, and managerial issues that need to be addressed to maximize their effectiveness.
Collaboration in the Service of Knowledge Co-Creation for Environmental Outcomes, Science and Public Policy
Authors: Wilson Lynn
Published: May 2011

Environmental sustainability and global climate change issues intensify the need for collaborations between scientists and policymakers. Working in virtual spaces exacerbates many of the challenges inherent in these collaborative efforts. Ideal collaborations promote social learning that delivers integrated knowledge through synergies that develop across institutional, occupational and other boundaries. However, impediments arise when individuals with different specializations and degrees of expertise inhabiting different physical and psychological spaces bring different problem-solving methods and presuppositions. Values affect the potential for synergy and the ultimate products of such collaborations. Addressing social learning challenges among different disciplinary traditions requires identifying and then addressing core differences. Through examining a study of occupational values and resulting behaviors of ocean environmental policy actors, this chapter considers collaborations through theories of discourse, actor involvement, social learning, and policy analytics and offers suggestions to improve knowledge co-creation as a potential aid to these critical issues and processes.
Lessons Learned from the NASA Astrobiology Institute
Authors: Faithorn Lisa , Blumberg Baruch S.
Published: May 2011

Complex social, economic, political and environmental challenges as well as new research areas that cut across disciplinary, institutional and national boundaries are catalyzing a rapid increase in geographically distributed work groups. At the same time, advanced information technologies designed to facilitate effective communication and collaboration among remote colleagues are having a dramatic impact on social and professional relationships and organizational structures and forms. The practice of science is one of the domains that are undergoing significant change as a result of this trend toward increased collaboration. In this chapter we describe our efforts to promote collaboration among geographically dispersed multidisciplinary science teams in the NASA Astrobiology Institute. The lessons learned regarding the importance of recognizing and addressing the complex and inter-related dimensions of collaboration have implications not only for science but also for many other contemporary domains of activity.
Radio over Fiber for Broadband Communications
Authors: Karabetsos Sotiris , Mikroulis Spiros , Nassiopoulos Athanase
Published: May 2011

The high capacity offered by the optical fiber, combined with the mobility and the flexibility of wireless access, either fixed or not, provides an efficient approach to alleviating the requirements posed by the envisaged provision of any-service, anytime and anywhere, next generation communication networks. The objective of this chapter is to present an overview of Radio-over-Fiber technology, as an emerging infrastructure for next generation, fiber-based, wireless access broadband networking. In particular, the fundamental concept of Radio-over-Fiber technology is reviewed and the partial components comprising it are discussed. Furthermore, the associated architectures are depicted and a short literature survey of trends and applications is considered.
Simulation of Small-Scale Fading in Mobile Channel Models for Next-Generation Wireless Communications
Authors: Mitilineos Stelios A. , Capsalis Christos N. , Thomopoulos Stelios C.A.
Published: May 2011

Small-scale fading strongly affects the performance of a radio link; therefore radio channel simulation tools and models are broadly being used in order to evaluate the impact of fading. Furthermore, channel simulation tools and models are considered to be of utmost importance for efficient design and development of new products and services for Next Generation (Wireless) Networks (NGNs and NGWNs). In this chapter, a brief description of the most popular and broadly accepted mobile radio channel models and simulation techniques is given, mainly with respect to small-scale fading. In addition, certain research results on radio channel simulation are presented. The authors hope that the information provided herein will help researchers to acquire an insight to small-scale fading simulation techniques, which will be useful for a solid understanding of the underlying physical layer properties of NGWNs.
A Comparative Analysis of E-Collaboration Research Funding in the European Union and the United States
Authors: Kock Ned , Antunes Pedro
Published: May 2011

Much of the funding for research and development initiatives in the area of e-collaboration comes from government agencies in various countries. Government funding of e-collaboration research in the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.), in particular, seems to be experiencing steady growth in recent years. In the EU, a key initiative to promote governmental investment in e-collaboration research is the Collaboration@Work initiative. This initiative is one of the EU’s Information Society Technologies Directorate General’s main priorities. In the U.S., government investment in e-collaboration research is channeled through several government branches and organizations, notably the National Science Foundation. There are key differences in the approaches used for government funding of e-collaboration research in the EU and U.S. Among other differences, the EU model appears to foster research that is aligned with the action research tradition, whereas the U.S. model places emphasis on research that is better aligned with the experimental research tradition.
Intelligent Agents for Supporting Supply Chain Collaborative Technologies
Authors: Rodriguez Walter , Zalewski Janusz , Kirche Elias
Published: May 2011

This paper presents a new concept for supporting electronic collaboration, operations, and relationships among trading partners in the value chain without hindering human autonomy. Although autonomous intelligent-agents, or electronic robots (e-bots), can be used to inform this endeavor, the paper advocates the development of e-sensors, i.e., software based units with capabilities beyond intelligent-agent’s functionality. E-sensors are hardware-software capable of perceiving, reacting and learning from its interactive experience thorough the supply chain, rather than just searching for data and information through the network and reacting to it. E-sensors can help avoid the ‘bullwhip’ effect. The paper briefly reviews the related intelligent-agent and supply-chain literature and the technological gap between fields. It articulates a demand-driven, sense-and-response system for sustaining e-collaboration and ebusiness operations as well as monitoring products and processes. As a proof of concept, this research aimed a test solution at a single supply-chain partner within one stage of the process.
Functional Product Development Challenges Collaborative Work Practices
Authors: Löfstrand Magnus
Published: May 2011

Developing service-laden products in a virtual extended enterprise implies a wider distribution of resources and product development (PD) team members than what is the case today. In this setting, the challenge is getting a cross-disciplinary distributed team to collaborate effectively over distance using not only the tools available today, but also new tools and approaches. One such activity-based approach, based on an actual Volvo Aero service-provision process, is presented in this article. Supplying a physical product as part of a service contract within an extended enterprise demands increased speed and quality of the predictions the supplier wants to make in order to keep track of the product functionality, its cost effectiveness and lifecycle cost. One approach that has been proven in engineering is modeling and simulation, here implemented as activity-based simulation of an actual industrial work process that provides a maintenance service. The activity-based simulation approach is realized in the industry standard simulation environment MATLAB. It is created as a demonstrator of one of several future tools that may help a virtual extended enterprise to face the challenge of supplying function or services to the customer more effectively. Conclusions regarding Collaborative Working Environments include new requirements on quality of tools for supporting functional product development regarding knowledge availability, usability, security and interoperability. Conclusions also support the suggested approach concerning development of distributed, modular activity-based process simulation models as a suitable approach for supporting functional product development.
Managing Operational Business Processes with Web-Based Information Technologies
Authors: Kock Ned
Published: May 2011

Traditionally management schools of thought that emphasize certain types of work structures usually appear earlier than information technologies (IT) geared at supporting those work structures. This situation has undoubtedly changed recently, arguably around the mid-1990s, with the explosion in the commercial use of the Internet and particularly the Web. This calls for the development of a generic framework that ties together relevant management ideas that help organizations strategically and operationally align themselves with new Web-based IT. Our goal with this chapter is to provide some basic elements that can be used by managers and researchers as a starting point to develop this generic framework. As such, we focus on a particular set of activities associated with team coordination and communication in production and service delivery business processes through the Internet and the Web.
Digital Literacy and Cultural Mediations to the Digital Divide
Authors: Fantin Monica , Girardello Gilka
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the digital divide from the perspective of education and culture and highlights the forms in which the problem is presented in Brazil, understanding that it is not exclusive to this context. Given the complex challenges to digital inclusion in the context of globalization, the chapter emphasizes that for children and young people to be able to appropriate new technologies and languages in a significant manner, the promotion of digital literacy should be realized with respect to the concept of multiliteracies. Digital inclusion means much more than access to technologies and is understood as one of the fronts in the struggle against poverty and inequality. The authors propose that the understanding of the digital divide be enriched with the valorization of cultural mediations in the construction of digital literacy. In this sense, a culturalist perspective of media education can promote digital inclusion that is an experience of citizenship, belonging, and critical and creative participation of children and young people in the culture.
E-Government Strategies in Developed and Developing Countries
Authors: Chen Y. N. , Chen H. M. , Huang W. , Ching R. K.H.
Published: May 2011

Given the fact that more and more governments invest heavily in e-government design and implementation, e-government has become an evolving and important research area in the IS field. Most, if not all, currently published e-government strategies are based on successful experiences from developed countries, which may not be directly applicable to developing countries. Based on a literature review, this study summarizes differences between developed/developing countries. It identifies key factors for a successful e-government implementation and proposes an implementation framework. As a demonstration, we follow the guidance of the proposed framework in conducting a case study to analyze the implementation strategies of e-government in developed and developing countries.
IT Implementation in a Developing Country Municipality
Authors: Sanford Clive , Bhattacherjee Anol
Published: May 2011

This article presents an interpretive analysis of the key problems and challenges to technology implementation in developing countries, based on a three-year case analysis of an IT project in a city government in Ukraine. We employ the concept of technological frames of reference as an analytical tool for articulating the group-level structures related to the implementation context from the perspectives of key stakeholders and examine the degree of conflict between these frames using a Fishbone diagram. We report that conflict between technological frames held by key stakeholders in large-scale system implementation projects often create an unexpected, dysfunctional, and politically charged implementation environment, ultimately leading to project failures, even if the project enjoys a high level of financial and management support. This, in turn, creates unique challenges for technology implementation projects in developing countries that are often overlooked in the traditional academic and practitioner literatures based on experiences from developed countries.
Intellectual Property Rights
Authors: Ronchi Alfredo M.
Published: May 2011

“Creativity is one of the highest forms of human energy. It is a defining human trait that enables us to design and use tools, while giving us the ability to solve problems. In the modern world, creativity and its outcome–innovation–are credited as the greatest predictors for economic advancement, equal to, or surpassing, investments. Creativity can be a vehicle for empowerment and fulfilment or, if denied or abused, it can lead to frustration, apathy, alienation, and even violence. The role of creativity has been magnified by the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies. ICTs are the most powerful means to produce, preserve, and communicate the fruits of human creativity, including information, know-how, knowledge, and works of art.” (ICT and Creativity: Towards a global cooperation for quality contents in the Information Society – The Vienna Conclusions 2005)
Digital Rights Management in the Cultural Heritage Arena
Authors: de Polo Andrea
Published: May 2011

Digital Rights Management (DRM) describes a set of functionalities which control access to, and the use of, copyright material. In particular, they focus on the acquisition of revenue from copyright material, and the prevention of its re-use and misuse in the online environment. This document describes the DRM system in the cultural heritage sector; the value of the DRMS to the content repositories and also to the end users is described. Managing digital rights is a focal point for any content provider.
An Interactive and Digital Media Literacy Framework for the 21st Century
Authors: Lim Wei-Ying , Hung David , Cheah Horn-Mun
Published: May 2011

We are entering into a milieu which makes the global world look much smaller because of digital communications and technologies. More recently, there has also been a coming together of participants from the media world such as those in cinema and animation with those from the technology sectors. This partnership forms what we now know as interactive and digital media (or IDM). In this chapter, the authors aim to articulate the importance of IDM literacies in relation to the 21st century. They attempt to clarify the distinctions between ICT (information and communications technology) and IDM, and from their analysis, they propose a matrix integrating both.
Measuring and Evaluating ICT Use
Authors: Jamieson-Proctor Romina , Finger Glenn
Published: May 2011

Teaching and learning in the 21st Century requires teachers and students to capitalise upon the relative advantage of integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance current curriculum, pedagogy and assessment approaches, as well as transform teaching and learning. While most educational systems agree that ICT has the potential to transform teaching and learning, attention has been given recently to the challenge of how to measure and evaluate the impact ICT is having on teaching and learning. This Chapter argues that the most important focus in measuring ICT use needs to be on student use of ICT, as policies and teacher professional development initiatives by themselves are insufficient to ensure that student learning is either enhanced or transformed through ICT use. Insights are provided into the development of a contemporary instrument, for use by Education Queensland, Australia, which aims to measure teacher perceptions of the quantity and quality of student use (as opposed to teacher use) of ICT in the curriculum. The instrument enables teachers and schools to identify their current and preferred levels of student ICT use, and from this, to generate discussion about the integration and transformational potential of ICT and to develop strategic plans to achieve their preferred level of student use. This Chapter also provides summaries of the implementation of the instrument in two large Queensland education systems, and argues that ICT research, such as this approach, which enables large scale, evidence-based research to measure student outcomes as a result of using ICT in the curriculum should be a matter of priority to effectively monitor and manage learning with ICT.
Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) Tools to Enhance Success in School for Secondary Students with Special Needs
Authors: Mitchem Katherine , Fitzgerald Gail , Koury Kevin
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the use of electronic performance support systems (EPSS) as an assistive technology for students with mild disabilities, especially those with special learning and behavioral needs. This approach is a new development to use technology to support students in educational environments. In this chapter, the authors describe the need, rationale and technical development process of an electronic performance support system (EPSS), StrategyTools, a software program designed to support the successful integration of secondary students with mild disabilities in inclusive classrooms. In addition, they report the results from two federally funded projects related to research-based social and behavioral outcomes for secondary students and discuss recommendations for implementation of EPSS tool approaches. The authors hope this information on the innovative use of EPSS to support students with mild disabilities will improve success at school through the innovative use of technology.
Emerging E-Pedagogy in Australian Primary Schools
Authors: Way Jennifer
Published: May 2011

The purpose of this chapter is to provide some insight into the technology related changes that are occurring in Australian primary schools, particularly regarding pedagogy. It argues that the ways in which the digital generation use new technologies outside their school classrooms, to access information, communicate and learn, contrasts markedly with the more traditional pedagogies within the majority of Australian primary schools. Application of a research-based framework that allows the monitoring and description of the complex technology-mediated changes in pedagogy, has revealed that a small, but growing proportion of teachers are creating new learning environments that reflect some of the characteristics of the e-learners outside school. It is the intention of the author to encourage further exploration of this topic by providing background on the scope of the issues underpinning the development of e-pedagogy in schools, and a tool that can be used to examine changes occurring in schools.
Research Methodological Issues with Researching the Learner Voice
Authors: Conole Gráinne
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides a summary of current research exploring students’ use of technologies. It focuses in particular on a case study carried out in the UK, which explored the use of technologies by students in four different disciplines. The case study included an online survey, audio logs and interviews. The findings suggest that students are now immersed in a technology-enhanced learning environment and use technologies extensively to support their learning activities. It points to changing digital literacy skills and has profound implications for educational institutions in terms of how courses are designed and delivered and in how students are supported in their learning.
Usage of Electronic Portfolios for Assessment
Authors: Gulbahar Yasemin
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces the use of electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) as an assessment method in the K-12 classroom. Aligned with the constructivist approach, the term e-portfolio is considered to be an umbrella, actually comprising of various components reflecting both the teaching-learning process and the end products. Having many advantages, the use of e-portfolios is spreading all over the world. This chapter, in which issues such as conceptual underpinnings, possible advantages and challenges, implementation ideas, and content and assessment criteria for e-portfolios are also reviewed, concludes with suggestions for teachers who are interested in implementing e-portfolios into their own subject fields.
TPACK Development in a Teacher Education Program
Authors: Wentworth Nancy , Graham Charles R. , Monroe Eula Ewing
Published: May 2011

The teacher education program at Brigham Young University (BYU) includes three stages of development in technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) (Thompson & Mishra, 2007). The first stage consists of experience in a technology course with sections specific to early childhood education, elementary education, and secondary content areas. The next stage includes a series of methods courses in which instructors expand on the work of the introductory technology course. The third stage of technology development occurs during the final field experience. The candidates complete a Teacher Work Sample (TWS) (Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality, 2001) that must have a technology component. At each stage our candidates have consistent criteria for how technology should be appropriately used in active learning. These criteria are key to the lessons candidates develop that incorporate technology. This chapter describes each stage and how our program has worked to improve technology understanding of our candidates.
Search Engine Optimization an Action Research Project
Authors: Malaga Ross A.
Published: May 2011

A Web site that wants to increase its number of visitors can pay for search engine ads or attempt to improve its natural search engine ranking. Nobody really knows, which, if either, of these methods provides a positive return on investment. A search engine optimization (SEO) project was undertaken at a new e-commerce site. The site’s search engine rankings and traffic were measured after each phase in the project. The results indicate that SEO is an effective method for improving search engine rankings and site traffic. In addition, the costs and benefits of the SEO project are compared with a pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing campaign. The SEO project proved more cost effective than the PPC campaign.
Barriers to E-Commerce Adoption in SMEs
Authors: MacGregor Robert C.
Published: May 2011

It has long been known that small businesses have realised enhanced profits through the adoption of ecommerce. However, a number of recent studies have suggested that it is the larger businesses that are reaping the rewards of e-commerce rather than the smaller businesses. This slow growth of e-commerce adoption in SMEs has been attributed to various adoption barriers that are faced by small business owners/managers. These barriers have been well documented in numerous research studies. However, the relationship between these barriers has not been fully examined, particularly in developing countries. Of particular concern is the fact that the conclusions concerning the nature and role of barriers to e-commerce adoption have simply been transferred from studies in developed economies to those in developing ones. 96 non-adopting SMEs in Indonesia are compared to 129 in Sweden to determine whether the perception of importance of barriers differs between the two locations. The data is also analysed to determine whether the underlying factors of these barriers differs across the two locations.
Examining Online Purchase Intentions in B2C E-Commerce
Authors: Ranganathan C.
Published: May 2011

Research on online shopping has taken three broad and divergent approaches viz, human-computer interaction, behavioral, and consumerist approaches to examine online consumer behavior. Assimilating these three approaches, this study proposes an integrated model of online shopping behavior, with four major antecedents influencing online purchase intent: Web site quality, customer concerns in online shopping, self-efficacy, and past online shopping experience. These antecedents were modeled as second-order constructs with subsuming first-order constituent factors. The model was tested using data from a questionnaire survey of 214 online shoppers. Statistical analyses using structural equation modeling was used to validate the model, and identify the relative importance of the key antecedents to online purchase intent. Past online shopping experience was found to have the strongest association with online purchase intent, followed by customer concerns, Web site quality, and computer self efficacy. The findings and their implications are discussed.
The Impact of Missing Skills on Learning and Project Performance
Authors: Jiang James , Klein Gary , Beck Phil , Wang Eric T.G.
Published: May 2011

To improve the performance of software projects, a number of practices are encouraged that serve to control certain risks in the development process, including the risk of limited competences related to the application domain and system development process. A potential mediating variable between this lack of skill and project performance is the ability of an organization to acquire the essential domain knowledge and technology skills through learning, specifically organizational technology learning. However, the same lack of knowledge that hinders good project performance may also inhibit learning since a base of knowledge is essential in developing new skills and retaining lessons learned. This study examines the relationship between information system personnel skills and domain knowledge, organizational technology learning, and software project performance with a sample of professional software developers. Indications are that the relationship between information systems (IS) personnel skills and project performance is partially mediated by organizational technology learning.
Using Technology to Overcome the Password's Contradiction
Authors: Tenreiro de Magalhães Sérgio , Revett Kenneth , Santos Henrique M.D. , dos Santos Leonel Duarte , Oliveira André , Ariza César
Published: May 2011

The traditional approach to security has been the use of passwords. They provide the system with a barrier to access what was quite safe in the analogical world. The digital era provided the means to easily try thousands of passwords in a short period of time and now the password schema is no longer safe. Now it suffers of the password’s contradiction: the fact that it requires both simplicity and complexity to be usable and safe. Being so, new technologies are required that can preserve the easiness of use, but can provide stronger authentication processes. This chapter presents the latest advances in three technologies that can be used, unaided or together, to improve the safety of user/password schemas without significant changes in the protected information system architecture, despite the human factors that traditionally reduce the security of those systems. The presented technologies are Keystroke Dynamics, Graphical Authentication and Pointer Dynamic.
Official Tourism Web Sites and City Marketing
Authors: Díaz-Luque Pablo
Published: May 2011

Large cities are one of the most popular tourism destinations throughout the world. Business and leisure tourists visit these areas every year and before they travel there, they look for useful information on the Internet. This chapter analyses the tourism Web sites developed by Convention and Visitor Bureaus. These Web sites represent the official image of the city on the Internet and trough them tourism organizations can organize the marketing and mix strategy. The chapter studies the concept of a city as a tourism destination, the organizations that manage tourist activities, and the right marketing strategies to be developed on these official Web sites. The strategy begins with the market research to select the right marketing segments and it continues with the right actions from a marketing mix perspective. It means different options in terms of product-destination exhibition, price policies, commercialization, and communication actions.
The Use of Internet in Building the Brand of "Stockholm
Authors: Dobers Peter , Hallin Anette
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses a current example of the ongoing efforts of city managers to promote their cities, also known as place marketing or place selling. After introducing the concept of city branding, and a model of how Web site elements communicate brand values and messages, we analyze a recent attempt of city managers in Stockholm to promote the brand of “Stockholm: The Capital of Scandinavia”. The authors hope that the empirical illustrations of how city managers of Stockholm have worked to provide a broader understanding to the complex Web of communication and brand building on the Internet, both empirically and conceptually.
Usability, Testing, and Ethical Issues in Captive End-User Systems
Authors: Troutt Marvin D. , Druckenmiller Douglas A. , Acar William
Published: May 2011

This chapter uses some special usability and ethical issues that arise from experience with what can be called captive end-user systems (CEUS). These are systems required to gain access to or participate in a private or privileged organization, or for an employee or member of another organization wishing to gain such access and participation. We focus on a few systems we list, but our discussion is relevant to many others, and not necessarily Web-based ones. The specific usability aimed at in this chapter is usability testing (UT), which we use in its usually accepted definition.
Do Spreadsheet Errors Lead to Bad Decisions? Perspectives of Executives and Senior Managers
Authors: Caulkins Jonathan P. , Morrison Erica Layne , Weidemann Timothy
Published: May 2011

Spreadsheets are commonly used and commonly flawed, but it is not clear how often spreadsheet errors lead to bad decisions. We interviewed 45 executives and senior managers/analysts in the private, public, and non-profit sectors about their experiences with spreadsheet quality control and with errors affecting decision making. Almost all of them said spreadsheet errors are common. Quality control was usually informal and applied to the analysis and/or decision, not just the spreadsheet per se. Most respondents could cite instances of errors directly leading to bad decisions, but opinions differ as to whether the consequences of spreadsheet errors are severe. Some thought any big errors would be so obvious as to be caught by even informal review. Others suggest that spreadsheets inform but do not make decisions, so errors do not necessarily lead one for one to bad decisions. Still, many respondents believed spreadsheet errors were a significant problem and that more formal spreadsheet quality control could be beneficial.
Knowledge Patterns and Knowledge Refactorings for Increasing the Quality of Knowledge
Authors: Rech Jörg , Feldmann Raimund L. , Ras Eric
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management is a relatively young discipline. It has accumulated a valuable body-of-knowledge on how to structure and represent knowledge, or how to design socio-technical knowledge management systems. A wide variety of approaches and systems exist that are often not interoperable, and hence, prevent an easy exchange of the gathered knowledge. Industry standards, which have been accepted and are in widespread use are missing, as well as general concepts to describe common, recurring patterns of how to describe, structure, interrelate, group, or manage knowledge elements. In this chapter, we introduce the concepts “knowledge pattern” and “knowledge anti-pattern” to describe best and worst practices in knowledge management, “knowledge refactoring” to improve or change knowledge antipatterns, and “quality of knowledge” to describe desirable characteristics of knowledge in knowledge management systems. The concepts are transferred from software engineering to the field of knowledge management based on our experience from several knowledge management projects.
Emotional Digitalization as Technology of the Post-Modern
Authors: Hohmann Claus
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces emotional digitalization as a phenomenon of future information systems. It argues that emotional digitalization is a progress that will lessen the gap between technology and humanity as well as between computer and man. The author develops and verifies his assumption besides theoretical references arising from his experiences with the information technology within the BrandLand Autostadt.
Tacit Knowledge in Rapidly Evolving Organisational Environments
Authors: Jones Barbara , Failla Angelo , Miller Bob
Published: May 2011

Constant renewal of the self-image and self-knowledge of the organisation becomes part of the day-to-day knowledge-in-use of front-line practitioners. The Network Enterprise is a model of business conducted by shifting alliances of partners developing innovative products and processes in close collaboration with their clients. Organisations abandon the concept of a central product, redefining themselves as providers of solutions. We draw on the experience of two ‘solution-providers’, one for-profit and one not-for-profit. The concept of a solution or transition requires practitioners to consider each individual case drawing on personal knowledge of the organisation’s accessible competencies and capacities. Choices among the possible solutions to the client’s problems can have unpredictable effects on the dynamics of the wider organisation. The necessarily personal use of heuristics magnifies the inescapable element of ‘drift’ inherent in the network enterprise. The dynamics generated by this will require the wider organisation to develop new standards and solution bundles.
A De-Construction of Wireless Device Usage
Authors: Lind Mary R.
Published: May 2011

In this article, wireless technology use is addressed with a focus on the factors that underlie wireless interaction. A de-construction of the information processing theories of user/technology interaction is presented. While commercial and useful applications of wireless devices are numerous, wireless interaction is emerging as a means of social interaction—an extension of the user’s personal image—and as an object of amusement and play. The technology/user interaction theories that have driven the discussions of computer assisted communication media are information richness, communicative action, and social influence modeling. This article will extend this theoretical view of wireless devices by using flow theory to address elements of fun, control, and focus. Then, these technology/user interaction theories are used with respect to wireless devices to propose areas for future research.
An Ethnographic Study of IS Investment Appraisal
Authors: Howcroft Debra , McDonald Robert
Published: May 2011

Both academics and practitioners have invested considerably in the information systems evaluation arena, yet rewards remain elusive. The aim of this chapter is to provide rich insights into some particular political and social aspects of evaluation processes. An ethnographic study of a large international financial institution is used to compare the experience of observed practice with the rhetoric of company policy, and also to contrast these observations with the process of IS evaluation as portrayed within the literature. Our study shows that despite increasing acknowledgement within the IS evaluation literature of the limitations and flaws of the positivist approach, typified by quantitative, ‘objective’ assessments, this shift in focus towards understanding social and organisational issues has had little impact on organisational practice. In addition, our observations within the research site reveal that the veneer of rationality offered by formalised evaluation processes merely obscures issues of power and politics that are enmeshed within these processes.
A User-Centered Approach for Information Retrieval
Authors: Picariello Antonio
Published: May 2011

Information retrieval can take great advantages and improvements considering users’ feedbacks. Therefore, the user dimension is a relevant component that must be taken into account while planning and implementing real information retrieval systems. In this chapter, we first describe several concepts related to relevance feedback methods, and then propose a novel information retrieval technique which uses the relevance feedback concepts in order to improve accuracy in an ontology-based system. In particular, we combine the Semantic information from a general knowledge base with statistical information using relevance feedback. Several experiments and results are presented using a test set constituted of Web pages.
Web Mining by Automatically Organizing Web Pages into Categories
Authors: Choi Ben
Published: May 2011

Web mining aims for searching, organizing, and extracting information on the Web and search engines focus on searching. The next stage of Web mining is the organization of Web contents, which will then facilitate the extraction of useful information from the Web. This chapter will focus on organizing Web contents. Since a majority of Web contents are stored in the form of Web pages, this chapter will focus on techniques for automatically organizing Web pages into categories. Various artificial intelligence techniques have been used; however the most successful ones are classification and clustering. This chapter will focus on clustering. Clustering is well suited for Web mining by automatically organizing Web pages into categories each of which contain Web pages having similar contents. However, one problem in clustering is the lack of general methods to automatically determine the number of categories or clusters. For the Web domain, until now there is no such a method suitable for Web page clustering. To address this problem, this chapter describes a method to discover a constant factor that characterizes the Web domain and proposes a new method for automatically determining the number of clusters in Web page datasets. This chapter also proposes a new bi-directional hierarchical clustering algorithm, which arranges individual Web pages into clusters and then arranges the clusters into larger clusters and so on until the average inter-cluster similarity approaches the constant factor. Having the constant factor together with the algorithm, this chapter provides a new clustering system suitable for mining the Web.
Mining Matrix Pattern from Mobile Users
Authors: Goh John
Published: May 2011

Mobile user data mining is about extracting knowledge from raw data collected from mobile users. There have been a few approaches developed, such as frequency pattern (Goh & Taniar, 2004), group pattern (Lim, Wang, Ong, et al., 2003; Wang, Lim, & Hwang, 2003), parallel pattern (Goh & Taniar, 2005) and location dependent mobile user data mining (Goh & Taniar, 2004). Previously proposed methods share the common drawbacks of costly resources that have to be spent in identifying the location of the mobile node and constant updating of the location information. The proposed method aims to address this issue by using the location dependent approach for mobile user data mining. Matrix pattern looks at the mobile nodes from the point of view of a particular fixed location rather than constantly following the mobile node itself. This can be done by using sparse matrix to map the physical location and use the matrix itself for the rest of mining process, rather than identifying the real coordinates of the mobile users. This allows performance efficiency with slight sacrifice in accuracy. As the mobile nodes visit along the mapped physical area, the matrix will be marked and used to perform mobile user data mining. The proposed method further extends itself from a single layer matrix to a multi-layer matrix in order to accommodate mining in different contexts, such as mining the relationship between the theme of food and fashion within a geographical area, thus making it more robust and flexible. The performance and evaluation shows that the proposed method can be used for mobile user data mining.
The Gender Communication Gap in Online Threaded Discussions
Authors: Gefen David , Geri Nitza , Paravastu Narasimha
Published: May 2011

Threaded discussions are one of the central tools of online education. These tools enhance student learning and compensate for the lack of social interaction. This study examines whether these social interactions are affected by some typical gender related conversational behaviors, despite the fact that these threaded discussion are designed to operate in a seemingly gender neutral online environment. That men and women communicate differently in open conversation due to their different respective social objectives in communication is at the core of sociolinguistic theory. A direct result of these differences is a tendency toward same-gender oral conversations. To some extent, according to sociolinguists, cross-gender communication resembles cross cultural conversations. This study analyzes threaded discussions in online courses through the lens of sociolinguistic theory, and conjectures that these gender differences should be reflected in mild gender segregation in the threaded discussions as well as men showing a greater inclination to dominate the discussion. Data from 233 students in 27 online courses support these hypotheses and enable a significant identification of the gender of the student based on whom they reference in the threaded discussion and the way they reference others. Theoretical and practical implications on managing threaded discussions are discussed along with directions for further research.
Urbane-ing the City
Authors: Williams Amanda , Robles Erica , Dourish Paul
Published: May 2011

This chapter critically examines the notion of “the city” within urban informatics. Arguing that there is an overarching tendency to construe the city as an economically and spatially distinct social form, we review a series of system designs manifesting this assumption. Systematically characterizing the city as a dense ecology of impersonal social interactions occurring within recognizably public places, this construction can be traced to turn-of-the-century scholarship about the metropolis. The idealized dweller of these spaces, the flâneur, functions as the prototypical user for urban computing technologies. This assumption constrains the domain of application for emergent technologies by narrowing our conception of the urban experience. Drawing on contemporary urban scholarship, we advocate an alternative perspective which foregrounds the experience rather than the form of the metropolis. Users become actors embedded in global networks of mobile people, goods, and information, positioned in a fundamentally heterogeneous and splintered milieu. Grounding this approach in a preliminary study of mobility practices in Bangkok, Thailand, we illustrate how urban informatics might refine its subject, accounting for local particularities between cities as well as the broader global networks of connection between these sites.