bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sociability and Usability for Active Participation
Authors: Lambropoulos Niki
Published: May 2011

An online community is identified as a group of people who come together for a particular purpose guided by policies and supported by Computing Technology (Preece, 2000). Some community members act as invisible observers of synergetic activities and never cross the threshold of observation. Research has been conducted on these observers or lurkers, as it is considered to be a common phenomenon. Sproul and Faraj (1997) refer to an 80% lurking, Preece from 46% to 82% (2000) and Lambropoulos 97% (2004). Efforts for defining inactive contributors were made in order to portray the silent but mentally active involvement in discussions, “copying” creatively active members. The terms Potential Contributors and Contributors are introduced here, after Andrews, Preece and Nonnecke (2003) suggested that lurkers actually never participate in the discussion. Potential contributors are mainly the newcomers and the ones who might exhibit a wish for contribution and lurk before taking part in the discussion. The terms describe past and real-time situations, depending on the time view point of analysis, since it is not possible to predict the individuals who will lurk or contribute. The challenge was to investigate whether Informal Learning (IL) could result in Community Knowledge Building (CKB) for Communities of Interest (CoI). Deutsch (1949), in his theory of social interdependence, stressed the importance of promotive interaction that occurs as members encourage and facilitate each other’s efforts to help the community. There is a need to understand each other to a sufficient degree in order to build common knowledge. Awareness for understanding is another concept within the theory of social interdependence. In an IL framework, group-generated text and CKB are created by the active members. Dialogues increase the capacity to say to one’s self by means of words or symbols, what one has done or one will do (Bruner, 1995). The more advanced member acts as the leader, while there is no demonstration of his/her behaviour, but the waste of it in the abstract form of knowledge. Non-structured group messages taken out of CMC in a focus group might better: • test a specific question • obtain greater depth and breadth in responses compared to individual opinions • verify plans or findings • extract patterns and themes of agreement or disagreement as knowledge units • enhance the reliability of responses As a result, activities in an online discussion forum are not anthropologically strange. Common dialogues as conversational material contain stocks of knowledge based on common understanding, revealing patterns as a “cookbook recipe for actions.”
Supporting a Virtual Community for the Elderly
Authors: Camarinha-Matos Luis M. , Ferrada Filipa
Published: May 2011

An important application context for virtual communities is elderly care. One of the key challenges facing modern societies is the increasing speed at which the population is aging. In Europe, for example, during the last three decades the number of people aged 60 years or more has risen by about 50%. Traditional approaches to care provision are based on support from either the relatives or the elderly care centers. Nevertheless, these two solutions have become increasingly insufficient due to (1) the impractical responsibility onto relatives¾given the fact that more and more family members have to work to secure steady incomes; (2) the costs of providing sufficient care centers, which leads to a relocation of the elderly people, often beyond their home communities; and (3) the fact that many elderly people preserve enough robustness to be in their homes, a situation that is often preferable to them, and as such, better for their welfare (Castolo, Ferrada, & Camarinha-Matos, 2004). This will inevitably place a considerable strain on resources and finances. To deal with this challenge, new ways of providing elderly assistance and care must be found, including the creation of a new technological infrastructure. An integrated elderly care system comprises a number of organizations, such as social security institutions, care centers/day centers, health care institutions and so forth, and involves the cooperation of a number of different human actors; for example, social care assistants, health care professionals, the elderly people and their relatives. If supported by computer networks and adequate assistance tools, such systems may evolve towards operating as a long-term virtual organization, and the various involved actors become part of a virtual community. Furthermore, virtual communities can bring the sense of community and of recognition, respect and belonging, which gives the elderly a strong feeling of usefulness along with better support for their own needs. In this context, the IST TeleCARE project (Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh, 2002, 2004) was launched with the aim of designing and developing a configurable framework, based on mobile (software) agents, focused on the establishment of virtual communities for elderly support. In this article, the TeleCARE Time Bank virtual community concept is presented and the developed supporting infrastructure is discussed.
Trust Between Managers and Subordinates in Virtual Communities
Authors: Moustafa Karen South
Published: May 2011

Trust is a relationship between individuals. It requires that one individual believe that the other person or an idea is is ethical based on ethical behavior (Hosmer, 1995). Trust develops as a result of an individual’s propensity to trust, combined with appropriate and relatively equal exchanges of social capital over time. In the case of the manager–subordinate dyad, the subordinate exchanges services (performance) for money. If the manager determines that the subordinate is not earning the money paid for services (e.g., the subordinate performs poorly), then an unequal exchange takes place, reducing the manager’s trust of the subordinate.
User Trust in BBS Comunities
Authors: Chim Hung
Published: May 2011

The Bulletin Board System (BBS), when it first appeared in the middle 1970s, was essentially “a personal computer, not necessarily an expensive one, running inexpensive BBS software, plugged into an ordinary telephone line via a small electronic device called modem” (Rheingold, 1993). The networked computers used to create these parallel worlds and facilitate communication between human beings constitute the technical foundations of computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Nancy, 1998). CMC systems link people around the world into public discussions. While CMC can exist solely between two people or between one person and an anonymous group, increasingly, virtual communities of many people are being formed. With advent of the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) brought more new technologies to the BBS. Thousands of BBSs sprang up across the world. Many turned out tremendously successful and evolved into lively virtual communities. These communities provided forums with increasing importance for individuals and groups that share a professional interest or share common activities. Online BBS communities now play an important role in information dissemination and knowledge collaboration on the Internet. On one hand, online forums enable people to disseminate information in an extremely efficient way without geographical restriction. On the other hand, the freedom also comes with uncertainty. Any information can be released and the content is almost beyond control, or even unreliable. To understand the content and quality of the information in BBSs, we would split the task into two subjects: one is to assess the information sources; another is to assess the information providers, people themselves in the virtual communities. Most BBSs are anonymous, because people usually use a pseudonym rather than their real name when registering. A user does not need to provide real personal information to the system, either. Thus, how to assess the trust of the users in a BBS community and attract more trustful and worthy users to participate in the activities of the community have become crucial topics to establish a successful community. Two subjects are important for establishing user trust in a BBS community: First, a BBS system must be able to identify a user and provide efficient security protection for each user and his/her privacy. Second, the value and the trustworthiness of a user should be assessed according to that user’s behavior and contribution to the community in comparison to peers.
Virtual Communities in MBA
Authors: Brailovsky Signoret Françoise Dushinka
Published: May 2011

Have you ever felt desperate because of mutually inclusive demands on your time? For example: You have to meet with your case group for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) class, and as you are leaving work, your boss asks you to prepare a report that would take at least an hour to finish. I am sure this has happened to many of you on several occasions. This conflict exemplifies why it is so important that we, as workers and/or students, start to make use of information technology and virtual communities. This article presents some background, including definitions about virtual communities, the sense of virtual community and groups that have been created to follow an Internet connection, including e-MBAs. The use of technology in an MBA program is described as a practical application. Then the article suggests a future path to resolve the conflict, and finishes with the conclusion.
Virtual Community as New Marketing Channel
Authors: Wang Chingning , Wei Kangning , Kaarst-Brown Michelle L.
Published: May 2011

Virtual community is a virtual meeting place where individuals with common areas of interests share information, ideas, experiences, and feelings (Rheingold, 1993) by using information and communication technology (ICT), especially the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). It has been taken for granted that people with shared interests would aggregate together. This assumption is equally applicable to the virtual world. As such, a wide variety of discussion topics bring different Internet users together online across time and space. Virtual community has been a pervasive concept emphasizing social aggregation and social events in the computer-mediated environment. This concept has been extended to the horizon of commerce. Hagel and Armstrong (1997) contend in their book, Net Gain, that virtual community could be an important element of a successful Web-based business structure and that community-based business structure helps expand markets for businesses. Businesses have increasingly begun to recognize that they can build their brand images, deliver promotional messages, and retain consumers’ loyalty through online communities. As such, more and more businesses include bulletin boards, discussion groups, and e-mail functions in their business Web sites with the aim to creating a community atmosphere among their customers (Maclaran & Catterall, 2002). This strategy not only helps attract consumers but also helps increase return rate (Hagel, 1999). In the long run, it could promote favorable attitude toward the brand and increase purchasing behavior (Subramaniam, Shaw, & Gardner, 2000). Indeed, virtual communities have opened up new opportunities and established new models for business to reach out and communicate with their consumers. Although the market has become more and more fragmented with the globalization of commerce, virtual communities provide businesses with access to targeted consumers in that various aggregations of Internet users are like different segments of markets. Virtual community indeed has become a new marketing channel for business. Many online communities are business oriented in nature with business participating as organizers, sponsors, or advertisers.
Virtual Reality Technology in Computer-Aided Production Engineering
Authors: Modrák Vladimír , Marcincin Jozef Novák
Published: May 2011

After applications of virtual reality (VR) in the realm of flight simulators and computer games a need to exercise these technologies in industry is rising significantly. Nowadays one of the typical domains of using a virtual reality is designing and prototyping in automotive and air industry. A practical solution for a virtual model is using a virtual reality modeling language (VRML) that supports the distribution of three-dimensional models over the Internet. Web based virtual reality technology offers possibilities for sharing virtual models for supporting collaborative work and concurrent engineering. There are more standardized tools for virtual reality technology distributing 3D models by VRML. Another possible solution for exploiting an Internet environment through VRML is using a non-standard software package on PC basis created for 3D simulation and programming of automated workplaces, robots and other peripheral devices. The article is describing procedures for implementation of VRML 2.0 into software ROANS, which has been created in another programming language than VRML versions.
Privacy Policies and Their Negotiation in Distance Education
Authors: Yee George , Korba Larry
Published: May 2011

This chapter begins by introducing the reader to privacy policies, e-services, and privacy management. It then derives the contents of a privacy policy and explains “policy matching”. It next presents an approach for the negotiation of privacy policies for an e-learning service. Both negotiating under certainty and uncertainty are treated. The type of uncertainty discussed is uncertainty of what offers and counter-offers to make during the negotiation. The approach makes use of common interest and reputation to arrive at a list of candidates who have negotiated the same issues in the past, from whom the negotiator can learn the possible offers and counter-offers that could be made. Negotiation in this work is done through human-mediated computer-assisted interaction rather than through autonomous agents. The chapter concludes with a discussion of issues and future research in this area.
Mobile Payments (M-Payments)- An Exploratory Study of Emerging Issues and Future Trends
Authors: Ding Melissa S. , Unnithan Chandana R.
Published: May 2011

The opportunity to access information at any time and any place caused a boom in the development of small mobile devices in recent years. Due to their application, these handhelds become smaller and handier, which leads to new challenges in human-computer interaction. Due to limited resources of these devices new paradigms for information presentation and interaction facilities are needed. We take this into account by applying concepts for interaction and display of information from the field of information visualization to mobile pocket-sized devices. We focus on concrete problems caused by presenting huge images and large hierarchies in such environments. Moreover, we introduce an effective technique for browsing the World Wide Web via mobile handhelds. The presented techniques offer an improved support in navigation, orientation and interaction that enables the user to browse, interpret and handle presented information much more easily.
Impact of Mobile the Wireless Technologies on Developing Countries
Authors: Neuman Ran , Deans P.C.
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the impact of mobile and wireless technologies on developing countries. The new technological advances and capabilities allow developing countries the opportunity to “leapfrog” years of wired technology and infrastructure development. Based on this study, it appears that mobile and wireless technologies will not be enough to truly advance developing countries. In order to truly “leapfrog” and make up for years of technological advancements, developing countries must consider dealing with government corruption, violation of human rights and extremely low literacy rates. All those factors will derail the effort to “leapfrog” and gain economic benefits from technological advancements. The Village Cell Phone Program is an example where mobile technology created a business opportunity while at the same time changing the role of women in society. Any implementation of mobile and wireless technology must be complemented with social and political reform in order to be successful.
Indexing and Clustering of Wireless Broadcast Data
Authors: Chung Yon Dohn , Kim Myoung Ho
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes some data management issues that are necessary for wireless data broadcasting. The major topics we include in this chapter are (a) broadcast data indexing and (b) broadcast data clustering. Mobile clients can access the wireless data in an energy-efficient way with the index on the broadcast channel, and the well-clustered broadcast data enables mobile clients to access the wireless data in a short latency.
Connection Admission Control in Wireless Systems
Authors: Tugcu Tuna
Published: May 2011

Connection Admission Control (CAC) is the process that decides which connection requests are admitted to the system and allocated resources. CAC in wireless networks differs from wireline networks due to mobility and scarcity of wireless resources, and the physical properties of the radio channels. In this chapter, the basic issues in CAC for wireless systems are discussed in the context of resource management and trade-off between blocking and dropping rates. Though it is not among the topics of this chapter, quality of service (QoS) provisioning is also briefly mentioned due to its relationship with CAC. Following the discussion of the common and different points of CAC in both wireline and wireless systems, admission control in next-generation wireless systems is explained.
Location-Dependent Query Processing Benchmark
Authors: Seydim Ayse Yasemin , Dunham Margaret H.
Published: May 2011

Benchmarks define techniques which can be followed to determine the effectiveness of a given software or hardware design. Ever since the development of the Wisconsin Benchmark and subsequent transaction-processing (TPC) benchmarks, there has been a concensus and general acceptance of these performance comparison tools. However, these benchmarks are not sufficient to determine the performance of mobile-based applications. For example, these traditional benchmarks ignore some of the important wireless-mobile features such as location-dependent queries and movement of the mobile host. In this chapter we examine the issues needed for the development of such a mobile query benchmark. In particular, we focus on queries which involve location-dependent features. We first examine the unique aspects of this mobile architecture which impact any benchmark design, and then propose a benchmark suitable for it.
Continuous Media Web
Authors: Pfeifer Silvia , Parker Conrad , Pang André
Published: May 2011

The Continuous Media Web project has developed a technology to extend the Web to time-continuously sampled data enabling seamless searching and surfing with existing Web tools. This chapter discusses requirements for such an extension of the Web, contrasts existing technologies and presents the Annodex technology, which enables the creation of Webs of audio and video documents. To encourage uptake, the specifications of the Annodex technology have been submitted to the IETF for standardisation and open source software is made available freely. The Annodex technology permits an integrated means of searching, surfing, and managing a World Wide Web of textual and media resources.
Management of Multimedia Semantics Using MPEG-7
Authors: Srinivasan Uma , Divakaran Ajay
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents the ISO/IEC MPEG-7 Multimedia Content description Interface Standard from the point of view of managing semantics in the context of multimedia applications. We describe the organisation and structure of the MPEG-7 Multimedia Description schemes which are metadata structures for describing and annotating multimedia content at several levels of granularity and abstraction. As we look at MPEG-7 semantic descriptions, we realise they provide a rich framework for static descriptions of content semantics. As content semantics evolves with interaction, the human user will have to compensate for the absence of detailed semantics that cannot be specified in advance. We explore the practical aspects of using these descriptions in the context of different applications and present some pros and cons from the point of view of managing multimedia semantics.
Next Generation Cellular Network Planning
Authors: Louvros Spiros , Iossifides Athanassios C.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, a multi-layer ATM architecture is proposed for the interconnection of current and future mobile communications nodes. Consisting of different ATM node types with respect to switching capability, the proposed architecture is adapted to current 2G and evolving 3G systems as well as future 4G wireless systems, as a common and shared backbone transmission network interconnecting core and access nodes between each other and Internet or PLMN/PSTN. Moreover, facing the huge expansion of transmission interconnection network that will support current and future generation mobile communications, a modification of the standard ATM cell structure is introduced in order to efficiently support user mobility functional procedures. The proposed ATM architecture is integrated over a suitable, with respect to region and capacity, physical interface, consisting of SDH or SONET for wide area topologies, wireless links for outdoor areas and LED-POF combination for indoor areas. Being an interesting alternative over copper or traditional fiber, POF characteristics and performance issues are analyzed.
Video Abstraction
Authors: Oh Jung Hwan , Wen Quan , Hwang Sae , Lee Jeongkyu
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces Video Abstraction, which is a short representation of an original video, and widely used in video cataloging, indexing, and retrieving. It provides a general view of video abstraction and presents different methods to produce various video abstracts. Also, it discusses a new approach to obtain a video abstract called video digest that uses the closed-caption information available in most videos. The method is efficient in segmenting long videos and producing various lengths of video abstracts automatically. The authors hope that this chapter not only gives newcomers a general and broad view of video abstraction, but also benefits the experienced researchers and professionals by presenting a comprehensive survey on state- of-the-art video abstraction and video digest methods.
Competitive Intelligence Gathering
Authors: Parker Kevin R. , Nitse Philip S.
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management (KM) is the process through which organizational performance is improved through better management of corporate knowledge. Its goal is to improve the management of internal knowledge processes so that all information required for corporate decisions can be made available and efficiently used. Competitive intelligence (CI) is a process for gathering usable knowledge about the external business environment and turning it into the intelligence required for tactical or strategic decisions. The two are strongly connected because gathered CI has no long-term value unless an effective KM process is in place to turn the information into something usable. Although most information collected during a CI investigation is used in immediate decision making, it must be integrated into the internal knowledge systems to provide a long-term resource when companies attempt to detect trends or adapt to changes in their environments (Aware, 2004).
Human Capital in Knowledge Creation, Management and Utilization
Authors: Reychav Iris , Weisberg Jacob
Published: May 2011

Growing competitiveness, joined with the frequently occurring technological changes in the global age, raise the importance of human capital in the organization, as well as the development and sharing of knowledge resources, which lead to obtaining a competitive advantage.
Knowledge Management Software
Authors: Baroni de Carvalho Rodrigo , Tavares Ferreira Marta Arau´jo
Published: May 2011

Due to the vagueness of the concept of knowledge, the software market for knowledge management (KM) seems to be quite confusing. Technology vendors are developing different implementations of the KM concepts in their software products. Because of the variety and quantity of KM tools available on the market, a typology may be a valuable aid to organizations that are searching and evaluating KM software suitable to their needs.
Legal Knowledge Management
Authors: Zeleznikow John
Published: May 2011

Legal practice is primarily concerned with the transfer of legal knowledge from practitioners or clients. Whilst lawyers may draft contracts and make representations on behalf of their clients, their primary task is to advise their clients on appropriate remedies and courses of action. Rodríguez Morcón, Pérez García, and Sigüenza Pizarro Rodriguez (2002) claim that a lawyer sells what he knows, often in the form of a document (a contract, an opinion, a report) and much more often in a trial before a court or in a negotiation with a counterpart. Khandelwal and Gottschalk (2003) claim that lawyers can be defined as knowledge workers. They are professionals who have gained knowledge through formal education (explicit) and through learning on the job (tacit).
Operational Knowledge Management in the Military
Authors: Ariely Gil
Published: May 2011

This article intends to cover operational-knowledge management (KM) as implemented in the military. In particular, it is based on experience and published examples from the U.S. Army and the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). It concentrates on the characteristics of operational knowledge as the core type of interest for the military due to the nature of the mission. The proxy of human lives and mission success are used vs. the more common currencies in the business industry.
Capturing Community Memory with Images
Authors: Leath Ted
Published: May 2011

Around the world, communities are examining the issues of preserving cultural identity, documenting local history, promoting tourism and examining their shared heritage. Many communities have relied on official records, tradition, customs, stories (both oral and written), language, myth and similar means for the preservation of cultural identity and community memory. The Magee Community Collection (Leath, 2004) began in 1999 as an exploration of how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) might be used as a means of augmenting community memory through the provision of interactive and widely distributed ways of gathering, indexing and archiving multimedia assets. It was hoped that with time and effort cohesive processes and associated tools for these tasks would emerge (Leath, 2000). No established standards for processes and associated tools existed at the time of initial development, and it is anticipated that diversity in approaches, development and structure of community memory multimedia archives will exist for some time to come.
Civil Society and the New Economy
Authors: Finquelievich Susana
Published: May 2011

During 1990s, the transformations that took place in the world economy, focused mainly on information and communication technology (ICT), were expected to mark the beginning of an era in which recessions would only be a memory of the past. This transformation principally driven by the capacity of ICT was called the new economy (NE). At the early stages of the 21st century, it is increasingly evident that the NE did not accomplish all the marvels that were expected from it. However, Stiglitz (2003) stated that even if it was the basis for a short-term boom and for a recession that overcame even the postwar period rate, the basis for the NE is real. The Internet, technological advances, and the new ways to produce and make business are genuine. “If the 18th and 19th Centuries marked the passage from agricultural economy to the industrial economy, and most of the 20th Century witnessed the change from an industry-based economy to a services-based economy, the last decade of the 20th Century signaled the change to a weightless economy, the knowledge economy” (Stiglitz, 2003, p. 228). In such a situation, information management (Talero & Gaudette, 1996) becomes a window to opportunity.
Critical Mass and Self-Sustaining Activity
Authors: Gibbs Martin R. , Wright Philippa , Arnold Michael
Published: May 2011

Recent studies of community networks (CNs) have provided optimistic views of the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to support and enhance community life in various ways, in a variety of urban settings (di Maggio, Hargittai, Neuman & Robinson, 2004; Hampton & Wellman, 2001; Kavanaugh & Patterson, 2001). Consequently, there is growing interest from the community sector and ICT professionals in facilitating the social appropriation of ICT, and a growing interest from academics in the performance and evaluation of CN technologies.
Cultural Barriers of Human-Computer Interaction
Authors: Carstens Deborah Sater
Published: May 2011

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) researchers and practitioners are well aware of the cultural challenges brought on by a global market (Smith, 2004; Smith, Dunckley, French, Minocha, & Chang, 2004). However, there are many unresolved problems concerning the extent to which culture influences ICT usability. Businesses use ICT in the form of databases to house customer information, Web sites enabling customers to place orders, information systems for management or suppliers, training systems, and as products sold to customers. Internet growth enables businesses to expand their customer base to international markets. Thus, businesses benefit from the explosion of Internet usage but may be challenged by how to best meet the needs of their multi-cultural customers, suppliers, and employees. There is a need to develop a model of cultural barriers to human-computer interaction (HCI). With all of the technology in use today, along with the different cultures that interact with ICT, it is important to identify a model of ICT and the HCI barriers produced by it to better help designers of ICT avoid these technology pitfalls. Figure 1 displays how the incorporation of technology, people, and culture into businesses must be carefully positioned together to optimize the success of all involved.
Distance Education in the Era of Internet
Authors: Agosti Giorgio
Published: May 2011

Let us start with a definition: distance education can be called an educational learning process or system where teachers or instructors are separated in space from students.
ICT for Social and Cultural Capital in Pacific Island Communities
Authors: Harris Usha Sundar
Published: May 2011

When new technology arrives in a society, it enters an already existing order of social hierarchies, power relationships and a knowledge base. The adoption of the technology can enhance the position of individuals or groups in the social order and isolate those unable to co-opt it easily for their own benefit. It can widen class, gender and generational gaps. For example, young people are able to interact with new information and communication technologies (ICT) more easily then their parents. Women and rural dwellers, on the other hand, benefit the least from ICT diffusion through lack of access (Joshi, 1998). In developing countries, adoption is further constrained by the fact that the technologies which are introduced have been primarily developed for use in industrialised societies. The frustrations of rural communities, attempting to adapt to products which were designed for urban consumers, have been the cause of mirth as well as desperation among local users. The incompatibility of technology, human needs and lack of knowledge and infrastructure in developing countries is exemplified in the following anecdote which the writer first heard when working as a journalist for the Fiji Times: A rural dweller, Jone, arrives in the city of Suva to visit his niece. In the morning, when he awakes, his niece plugs in the electric kettle to boil some water for tea. Not having seen such technology before, Jone is amazed at this “miracle”. He decides to buy one and take it home for his wife. Upon his arrival in the village, Jone gathers the clan to show them his new miracle appliance. He takes the kettle out and plugs it into the wall of his thatched bure and they wait…and wait…and wait. Of course, nothing happens because Jone had missed out on one minor detail when he purchased this new technology. He needs electricity to boil his water and his village is still unconnected. Instead of enhancing his position in the clan as an early adopter, this lack of knowledge makes Jone a laughing stock of the village.
Medical Education in the 21st Century
Authors: Kaben Stefane M. , Takhar Jatinder , Leduc Raymond , Burjaw Rick
Published: May 2011

As with many disciplines, the fields of healthcare in general and medicine, in particular, have made vast strides in improving patient outcomes and healthcare delivery. But, have healthcare professionals and medical academia been able to maximize the utilization of new technologies to improve the delivery of the right knowledge, to the right people, at the right time across geographical boundaries? In order to provide the best quality of care, regardless of patient or provider location, specific issues must be addressed.
National Competition Policy and Broadband Provision in Australia
Authors: Cameron Alicia (Lucy)
Published: May 2011

National Competition Policy (NCP) implemented in Australia from 1995 has had a profound effect on the mode and level of service delivery in nonmetropolitan regional and rural areas. The implementation of NCP followed the lead of other countries in corporatising, segmenting, and privatising many state and national government services and utilities and promoting open global competition as the framework for service delivery in the future. As government moves out of the role of service provision and into the role of industry regulation, there has been significant jurisdiction shifting in terms of responsibility for services, as well as reduced subsidisation for the cost of service over distance: subsidisation that was previously enabled through government-owned nationwide monopolies. This is more of an issue in Australia than in many other countries due to the large landmass and relatively small but dispersed population. Unlike many other countries, however, Australia has been slow to increase the proportion of overall tax revenue given to local government bodies to ensure regional service delivery or to impose community service obligations (CSOs) at local levels. Confused local bodies have been left to build expensive business plans to attract new services in areas for which they currently have little or no funding, and in which they previously had no responsibility or expertise. Local bodies are currently being requested to aggregate demand across government, private, and residential customer bases. Management of the delivery of broadband services is an example of the confusion faced by regional bodies in Australia in the wake of a recently corporatised government utility and a liberalised telecommunications environment.
One Village One Computer Campaign in India
Authors: Shaligram Anil
Published: May 2011

For social development to take place in rural areas it is necessary to involve the people and assist them in becoming technology-enabled and knowledge-enabled because knowledge is always held collectively (Hayek, 1945). It is said that the growing digital divide has added one more dimension to the already skewed process of development-underdevelopment (Castells, 2000). In reality however it has more to do with the deprivation of information and knowledge than the non-availability of hardware and connectivity. To overcome this, it is necessary to look from a fresh perspective and introduce a new socio-organizational model that builds on the principles of Information Society (Castells, 2000), Economics of Knowledge (Machlup, 1962; Arthur, 1985; Romer, 1990) and Social Capital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1995) to ensure better development of human and social capital.
Poverty, Inequality and New Technologies in Latin America
Authors: Cecchini Simone
Published: May 2011

Poverty and inequality represent two enormous challenges for the countries of Latin America. In 2002, about 220 million people (44% of Latin Americans) were poor, and the average incomes of the richest 20% of the population were between 10 (Uruguay) and 44 times (Bolivia) higher than the average incomes of the poorest 20% (ECLAC, 2004). In an age where ICT is bringing about profound changes to societies, it is thus relevant to analyze whether these technologies can contribute to poverty reduction, and what the impact on inequality may be.
Producing and Sharing Free Advanced Scientific and Technological Knowledge Using the Internet
Authors: Rennard Jean-Philippe
Published: May 2011

During 1998-2000, the UK published 4,729 scientific articles per million inhabitants, the Czech Republic published only 1,401 and Turkey 278 (Sandelin & Sarafoglou, 2003). Each year, researchers produce about 2,000,000 refereed articles for 20,000 scientific journals (Harnad, 2003), the huge majority of them being printed in western countries. The contribution of developing countries to these publications is marginal. In 2000 India published less than 2% of world scientific articles. China’s share was about 3% and Brazil 1% (OST, 2004).
Promoting the Culture and Development of Regional Communities with Digital Libraries
Authors: McCarthy Cavan
Published: May 2011

Libraries and archives have always been major information sources for the history, culture and literature of regional communities. It is quite natural that in an increasingly electronic world, these rich collections are becoming available in digital form. Digital libraries permit local materials to be made available to a wide public, where they become a significant feature in the dissemination of regional culture (Love & Feather, 1998). Locally oriented digital libraries deal with specific communities, regions or states. The relationship is clear in this definition, published by the Washington-based Council on Library and Information Resources: Digital libraries are organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities. (Waters, 1998)
A Rural Multi-Purpose Community Centre in South Africa
Authors: Trusler Jonathan , Van Belle Jean-Paul
Published: May 2011

There is an increasing focus on the growing disparity between the involvement of developed and developing societies in the new “information age.” ICT are often seen as being the critical link to bridge this gap (Chapman, 2002). An ICT initiative that has been receiving increasing attention is that of the telecentre, and the related concept of the Multi-Purpose Community Centre (MPCC). The South African government is strongly promoting the diffusion of these MPCCs throughout the country, particularly in rural areas. An MPCC is specific type of telecentre, or “physical space that provides public access to ICTs for educational, personal, social, and economic development” (Gomez et al., 1999). The authors define an MPCC as a “telecentre which has a political motivation to aid in the upliftment of a disadvantaged group.” However, successful MPCC initiatives are still few and far between. As Benjamin (2001) notes, “while there is much talk in international conferences of them, there are not many successful [telecentres] in developing countries.” The reasons for the failure of many of these initiatives are still not clear, despite a number of research efforts (Avgerou, 1998; Montealegre, 1999; Moyo, 1996).
South African Women's Rural Development and E-Commerce
Authors: Rhodes Jo
Published: May 2011

Increasingly, social, economic, and political progress is linked with the ability of countries to make informed, knowledge-based decisions with ICTs performing an increasingly crucial role in many societies in this regard. While the potentially transformative nature of ICTs suggests an unprecedented opportunity to overcome existing social divisions and inequalities, the role of ICTs in development is suffused with contradiction and paradox (Morales-Gomez & Melesse, 1998; Marcelle, 2002). The panoply of recent technological innovation along with the convergence of content, computing, and telecommunications has created new and pervasive applications, such as e-commerce and e-marketing, all of which can impact significantly on organizational processes. While it seems to be a common a priori assumption that ICTs can “empower” individuals and increase levels of social interaction and civic involvement (D’Allesandro & Dosa, 2001), little effort, so far, has been made to understand both the changes enabled by the new technologies, and how they can be meaningfully applied to an African rural trading context.
Sustainability Issues for Australian Rural Teleservice Centres
Authors: Geiselhart Karin , Jamieson Peter
Published: May 2011

The overall economic, social and environmental health of rural communities is one of the critical issues facing Australia. Without access to basic services, a small community can be left with a standard of living more like that of a third world country. Increasingly, services have an electronic component. Convergent digital services can lead to transformative effects, but can also exacerbate existing divides if technologies and the capacity to use them effectively are not available. Teleservice centres have in the past provided many forms of electronic services and training: computing, fax, printers, banking, etc. Today Internet functionality is a central aspect of rural teleservice centres, with broadband a looming issue. This article presents teleservice centres as a strategic national resource. Their potential to contribute to rural sustainability and equitable access to government services means that at every level of community and government, teleservice centres can delivery triple bottom line benefits.
Ideas, Expressions, Universals, and Particulars
Authors: Powers Thomas M.
Published: May 2011

The distinction in U.S. copyright law between ideas and their expressions is of particular importance in protecting software. In literary works and software alike, the ideas that underlie these forms of intellectual property do not enjoy copyright protection, whereas the tangible expressions of the ideas, in fixed media and of sufficient originality, can have copyright protection. The idea vs. expression distinction has been the focus of many cases in the courts, especially where there was an alleged infringement of non-literal parts of a software program, such as “structure, sequence, and organization” or “look and feel.” I argue that this legal distinction relies on the metaphysical distinction between universals and particulars, one that has been a major topic of philosophical controversy for over two millennia. The unsettled nature of the philosophical debate serves as a good explanation of the meandering of case law in this area.
Trespass and Kyosei in Cyberspace
Authors: Spinello Richard A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter considers the theme of trespass in cyberspace. In order to prevent unauthorized use of their data several U.S. companies have hastily filed lawsuits alleging trespass to chattels. But some of this data usage, especially for metasites, is socially valuable. Nonetheless, the courts are generally sympathetic with these trespass claims even if this means that activities like spidering or e-mail are constrained in certain contexts. Legal scholars have criticized this trend because it creates a novel property right in factual data which is not eligible for copyright protection. These legal concerns are justified, but what should moralists be saying about this matter? We argue here that both eastern and western philosophies recognize the need to respect the common good of a community or common venture. This awareness should temper a company’s narrow focus on proprietary property rights. We attempt to define the Net’s common good (or commonly shared values) and make the case that Internet users have a prima facie duty to support that common good. Thus, prudent and morally responsible companies operating on the Net will seek to balance their property entitlements with this affirmative duty to support the Internet’s common good. There is no magic formula for achieving this precarious balance, but we offer some general criteria that will orient managers toward the right direction. Finally, we explain that a private settlement of trespass matters is clearly welfare-enhancing.
Routing Vulnerabilities
Authors: Janczewski Lech J. , Colarik Andrew M.
Published: May 2011

The graphic visualization of the Internet is usually presented as a mesh of connections among millions of nodes engaged in the transmission of billions of messages. These connections can be local (administered by the owner of the systems connected to the node) or general (the owner is responsible for a node or several nodes). The primary difference is the extent of control over the connected systems to the node(s).
Mobile Services in Japan
Authors: Vesa Jarkko
Published: May 2011

In the second section of this book, we will focus on the mobile industry in Japan and Europe, specifically in Finland and the United Kingdom. The goal is to use the various theories, models, and frameworks described in Section I to understand why the mobile industry looks like it does today and where the industry is going. Let us start with a brief overview of the mobile industry in Japan. The emphasizes is on the word “brief” because the intention is not to go very deep into the special characteristics of the Japanese way of doing business; neither does this book offer an in-depth description of mobile business in Japan — there are far better books and research reports for that. However, this chapter tries to pinpoint the features that are the most important for comparison of the business models in Japan and in the two selected European markets.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

Conventional wisdom often cites that individuals cannot advance their career without putting in daily face-to-face time with their managers; thus, members of virtual teams are inevitably less successful at career development than their co-located colleagues. Virtual team members lose out on the informal interactions that typically occur in the lunchroom, in the hallway, at the water cooler, and on the golf course; therefore, they are essentially out of sight, out of mind. Furthermore, conventional wisdom postulates, it is impossible to get the attention of upper management without these interactions, and people believe that if you want to advance, you will move to the companies selected “center of the universe” where the largest concentration of employees reside. This chapter will discuss the potential drivers behind the following myths that focus on this potential out-of-sight, out-of-mind dynamic, and will document some of the techniques that we’ve observed that help reduce the potential impact of the reduced face-to-face time that is inevitable with the implementation of virtual teams within an organization.
Where is Your Company or Organization on the Virtual Team Continuum?
Authors: Jones Robert , Oyung Rob , Pace Lisa Shade
Published: May 2011

Here is a quick quiz to test where your company or organization is regarding virtual team attitudes. We should state up front that this quiz is focused primarily on knowledge worker jobs that don’t require attendance at a physical, central location.