bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System
Authors: Chang Mei-Yu , Tarng Wernhuar , Shin Fu-Yu
Published: May 2011

This study combined ideas from learning hierarchy andscaffolding theory to design a web-based, adaptivelearning system to investigate the effectiveness ofscaffolding for elementary school students having different levels of learning achievement. The topic chosen forlearning was the Three States of Water. A quasi-experiment was conducted. In this experiment, students were divided into three groups: control group (without scaffolds), experimental group A (scaffolds providing by on-line conversation) and experimental group B (scaffolds providing by face-to-face conversation). The experimental results showed significant improvement for students afterthey had studied using the web-based, adaptive learningsystem. Specifically, scaffolds in the form of face-to-face conversations greatly enhanced the learning of high-achievement students. However, there were no significant differences between the low-achievement students with or without the provision of scaffolds. It was also discovered that the web-based, adaptive learning system could help students develop their learning responsibility.
Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course
Authors: Chou C. C.
Published: May 2011

This study explores student views of various E-Learningtools as teaching and learning media in an online course for pre-service and in-service teachers. This chapter also examines the pedagogical applications of E-Learning toolsin an online course. The capabilities of a system that allows meaningful interaction, reflection, personal identification,and a sense of community play a key role in the degree of social presence. This study highlights some key findings regarding the efficacy of E-Learning tools from studentperspectives and make recommendations for futurepedagogical practice.
A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education
Authors: Adaktilou Nektaria , Cartalis Costas , Kalkanis George
Published: May 2011

The goal of this study is the presentation of a learning toolfor satellite Remote Sensing. The target group of thelearning platform is students of Higher Education Institutions in Greece. The purpose of this work is to use technology as a way to create an environment in which students can learn by doing, receiving feedback, continually refining their understanding and building knowledge. Thelearning environment is interactive and supports collaborative experiences. Evaluation constitutes a key element of the entire work, as a means to investigate, provide evidence and make judgments about the tool’s effectiveness and benefits. A series of features characterizing the learning platform have been considered in order to assess its function and potential usability. Thescores achieved showed that the platform’s design and structure were quite satisfactory and indicated its potential use as a good learning tool for the distribution of knowledge in the field of remote sensing.
Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students
Authors: Alden Jay
Published: May 2011

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies with its emphasis on social networking has presented an opportunity for academic institutions to take advantage of new tools tosupport educational courses. One of these tools is a Wiki. This chapter discusses the merits and challenges of using a Wiki to support the activities of students during group projects. It shows the importance of student collaborationin online courses by fostering deeper learning, producing higher quality team products, and preparing students for today’s collaborative workplace. The chapter focuses on the best practices of faculty from setting up the Wiki at the onset through the final phase of evaluating the group product and the individual contribution of individual team members. It also discusses a number of ways in which Wiki-supported collaborative activities can be introduced into online courses and the criteria for selecting particular Wiki products for an institution.
Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage
Authors: Wang Chengbo
Published: May 2011

For supporting the effectiveness and efficiency of the students’ learning and the educators’ teaching, as a favored approach in recent years, e-learning technology has been widely used in the academic institutes. However, with regarding to the students community, how much they use the e-learning technology, what types of e-learningmethods are being mainly used by the students, as well as the barriers for enjoying the advantages of e-technology, remain interesting topics for the educators to explore. This article, by focusing on these issues, through aninvestigation among the students within a higher education institute, presents an understanding regarding the usage of e-learning methods, and the factors hindering the efficacy of their usage among the students, as well as a primary analysis on the usage difference between undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers
Authors: Holdan E. Gregory , Hansen Mary
Published: May 2011

Discourse has been thought to be an essential aspect of high quality education (Bean & Stevens, 2002; Harkness, D’Ambrasio & Marrone, 2006; Wade, Fauske & Thompson, 2008; NCTM, 2000; Heller, 2004). But because the teaching profession is sometimes one of isolation and disconnecteness (Wong & Wong, 2001; Zmuda, Kuklis & Kline, 2004; Sparks & Hirsh, 1997), teachers may not get opportunities to engage in thoughtful discourse. With advances in on-line education, however, teachers who might otherwise not have opportunities to engage in meaningful, reflective discourse about teaching and learning can easily, and at their own relative convenience, do so. Through an on-line venue, teachers can get involved in substantive communication about teaching and learning, address valid and invalid preconceptions about the profession, and work to improve their practice through directed meta-cognitive reflective activities.
Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning
Authors: Negash Solomon , Wilcox Marlene V. , Emerson Michelle
Published: May 2011

An empirical analysis in the form of a pilot study was conducted to compare a complex information technology course taught in a synchronous hybrid e-learning environment with one taught in a traditional classroom. The aim of the pilot study was to explore whether virtual learning environments (VLEs) are ready for teachingcomplex courses. Three courses taught during the summer semester of 2006 were used for the study; the results indicate the promise of synchronous hybrid e-learning forcomplex courses. Self-efficacy and satisfaction were also examined, and no differences were found between students in the two learning environments. Directions for future research were proposed to further evaluatesynchronous hybrid e-learning environments.
Integrating Classroom and Online Instruction in an Introductory American Government Course
Authors: Engstrom Richard
Published: May 2011

This case outlines the author’s experience teaching a large Introduction to American Government course using a hybridclassroom/online approach. The benefit of adding a set ofonline modules to the course was that students were able to engage the material in ways that are more readily available in traditional, smaller sections of a course. The rationale behind each module, as well as the problems andsuccesses that accompanied each of them, are presented. Finally, the technical and human challenges that accompany the approach and the overall benefits of adopting hybrid approaches to teaching and learning are discussed.
Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr- University Bochum, Germany
Authors: Ziegleder Diana , Feldmann-Hahn Felix
Published: May 2011

This case study looks at the postgraduate program inCriminology and Police Science at the Ruhr- UniversityBochum, Germany. This practice oriented course of study is designed as a distance learning course (blended learning)and therefore focuses on techniques of e-learning. Thecase study describes the history of origins and examinesthe educational situation before this master’s program was established and how an idea became reality. It is one ofthe very few possibilities in Germany to receive a deeper insight into criminology and police science. Despite the fact, that the students are all professionals and thus working mostly full time, the technical premises make a discourse possible as in on-campus programs. These innovative forms of learning are the focal point of the following case study. It is our aim to provide insight into how a master’s program could be set up and to promote new concepts of e-learning in the field of criminology.
The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning
Authors: Ashcraft Donna , Treadwell Thomas
Published: May 2011

Many social psychological phenomena that are found in face-to-face group work are also found in online group work (i.e., collaborative learning). In this chapter, we describe some of these more common phenomena, including social loafing, social categorization, and a variety of cognitive distortions. We also describe the stages that groups go through in order to become fully functioning teams. Because some of these experiences are unpleasant for both the instructor and the student, both faculty andstudents sometimes resist the use of collaborativelearning. Furthermore, because of the anonymous nature of online group work, these negative experiences can be magnified. We therefore make recommendations on how best to respond to and resolve them. We specifically draw on our experiences with Collaborative Online Research andLearning (CORAL) in order to demonstrate these phenomena and recommendations. CORAL is a teaching/learning method that integrates two course topics through assignments. Teams of students at two universities must complete together by utilizing video conferencing and other online tools.
What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning in a Web-Based Course?
Authors: Wang Xinchun
Published: May 2011

Although the pedagogical advantages of online interactivelearning are well known, much needs to be done in instructional design of applicable collaborative learningtasks that motivate sustained student participation andinteraction. This study investigates the factors that encourage student interaction and collaboration in both process and product oriented computer mediated communication (CMC) tasks in a Web-based course that adopts interactive learning tasks as its core learningactivities. The analysis of a post course survey questionnaire collected from three online classes suggest that among others, the structure of the online discussion, group size and group cohesion, strictly enforced deadlines, direct link of interactive learning activities to the assessment, and the differences in process and product driven interactive learning tasks are some of the importantfactors that influence participation and contribute tosustained online interaction and collaboration.
Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students
Authors: Braidic Silvia
Published: May 2011

This paper introduces the reader on how to fostersuccessful learning communities to meet the diverse needsof university students by creating a brain based onlinelearning environment. Students come in all shapes and sizes. At the university level, students enrolled in online programs, have made a choice to do so. Today, online education is a unique and important venue for manystudents wishing to continue (or start) their education. It is part of a new culture with many distinct characteristics (Farrell, 2001). For instructors, online instruction creates its own set of challenges in terms of the course design and implementation. The author hopes that developing an understanding of how to create a brain based onlinelearning environment will inform the reader of ways to foster successful learning communities to most effectivelymeet the diverse needs of the students it serves.
Learning With Online Activities
Authors: Abdallah Salam
Published: May 2011

Learning through social interactions and critical thinking is becoming a fundamental teaching approach, especially for adult students. This approach promotes holistic and deeper understanding for the subject being learned. Onlinetechnologies are offering us new opportunities to create communities of inquiry that allow for more active learningthat enhances students’ critical thinking. This article introduces an exploratory case in a Middle Eastern context that uses multiple online activities to supplement and strengthen the students’ face-to-face learningenvironment. This interpretive case discusses the students’ perceptions of their experience when using onlineactivities. The case indicates that students improved theirlearning, are very positive about their first interaction withonline activities and would like to see it as a standard practice to supplement their face-to-face learning.
Issues in Implementing Online Education in a Developing Country
Authors: Bristol Tim
Published: May 2011

This article highlights the issues that may arise whenimplementing online education in a developing country. In 2005, Faculté des Sciences Infirmières (FSIL) opened in Leogane, Haiti. The mission of this school is to provide nursing professionals for the country of Haiti, especially the southern half of the country. This facility was built with funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is managed by the l’Université Episcopale d’Haïti. The school maintains a curricular format similar to that of baccalaureate nursing programs in the U.S. Haiti is in great need of health care professionals. In Haiti, there are 11 nurses per 100,000 population. In the U.S. this ratio is 770 per 100,000. Given that infant mortality is 10 times worse than that in the U.S. and that the lifespan is 15-20 years less, the need for qualified health care professionals is overwhelming. Even though the income of FSIL is 1/3 what is actually needed, the school has managed to keep enrolling students and maintaining the facility. They have also managed to maintain a computer lab with 13 computers and a stable satellite Internet connection. The author visited the campus in July of 2007. The purpose of this initial visit was to evaluate the information technology structure and the capabilities of the staff and students to determine what if any connections could be made between American nursing programs and FSIL. A SWOT analysis was conducted to assess internal strengths and weaknesses for FSIL as well as external Opportunities and Threats related to using E-learning to enhance FSIL.
Adult Learners, E-Learning, and Success
Authors: Hsu Hsu , Hamilton Karin
Published: May 2011

Adult learners have a set of specific and unique needs, andare different from traditional college students. Possessing greater maturity, interest in learning, and also career andlife-oriented objectives, they have different expectations for their education, as well as different backgrounds andgoals. This chapter examines what adult learners are, theories of adult learning, and the applicability of onlinelearning to adult learners. Specific teaching methods andtechniques are discussed for online and hybrid distancelearning courses, as well as hybrid arrangements; encompassing teaching methods, types of exercises andactivities, intensive course structures, block scheduling, andthe use of modular course segments. Examples from anadult learner hybrid distance learning undergraduateprogram, Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Global Business Management, are also provided. Future trends and areas for further research conclude the chapter.
Instructor Presence in Online Distance Classes
Authors: Lear Janet
Published: May 2011

Instructor presence are words that call to mind a professor at the front of a classroom lecturing to a room full of students. Today the image associated with instructorpresence is quite different. The vision is one of an individual engaged with the student, leading, and mentoring students, and facilitating classes either visibly in the classroom or invisibly in the online environment. Instructorpresence is a broad phrase that refers to the instructor’s jobs of structuring and presenting the materials as well as providing feedback and engaging with the student academically through e-mail, by telephone, or by instant messaging either text or video. The roles are different but the outcome is the same, student learning. Gone are the days where the instructor was the center of the class, lecturing and passing along knowledge to students. Because today’s learner is actively involved in the building of new knowledge, learning is more student-focused. As the environment changes, the instructor assumes a variety of roles from designer to facilitator to mentor. The new roles are the same for both instructors in the face-to-face classroom and instructors in the online environment.Instructors for classes in the online environment cannot just compile a site for the class with materials available to the students. Instructors need to have an online presenceas they facilitate the class mentoring students, providing activities, encouraging students, and communicating with student on a regular basis.
The Perfect Blend?
Authors: Di Scala Roberto
Published: May 2011

This chapter tackles the implementation of the way onlinecourses of English language are structured within the on-line degree courses of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. Moving from a double theoretical framework grounded on the links between e-learning and communication and between e-learning and multimedialearning, The author will outline the basic features of thecourse the author is currently teaching. Besides thestandard tools provided by the university platform (thecourse portal and forum and the course content slides), he has added some ‘external’ tools to offer students further possibilities to interact and take an active role in thelearning environment which thus becomes actually ‘blended.’ By making practice of the language through posting comments on a dedicated blog and by exchanging impressions and making queries at a number of Skype-mediated meetings, instructor and students can further interact and create a stronger ‘studying community.’
When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code
Authors: Wherry Peg , Lundberg Windes Deborah
Published: May 2011

This case study outlines problems with student conduct in an online undergraduate program and explains how astudent code was applied to resolve the issues and institute procedures to reduce future incidents of academic dishonesty and incivility. The study describes several instances of student misconduct and explains how online program administrators responded by improving communication with both students and faculty and by modifying course design and development processes as well as instructional practices. It also reports on how other administrators assisted in handling resolution and discipline. While technology itself may both complicate themaintenance of conduct standards and provide new ways to protect academic integrity, this study demonstrates thatthe introduction of technology should not change the rules.
Wired for Learning—Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning
Authors: Chen Irene , Kidd Terry T.
Published: May 2011

This is an introductory discussion into Web 2.0 technologiesfor teaching and learning. It is based on a review of the current literature and thinking around Web 2.0 and its potential in education. There has been a surge in internet services that attract the label “Web 2.0”. Wide acceptance of this term implies that together these services identify a change in the nature of the World Wide Web. This report seeks to define Web 2.0 and how it can used. Consideration is also given to how these new technologies create opportunities for educational practice. Because these opportunities are not yet being widely taken up, the present discussion focuses on identifying challenges that may be impeding adoption of Web 2.0 ideas in teachingand learning.
Electronic Marketplace Support for B2B Business Transactions
Authors: Archer Norm
Published: May 2011

Information systems that link businesses for the purpose of inter-organizational transfer of business transaction information (inter-organizational information systems or IOIS) have been in use since the 1970s (Lankford & Riggs, 1996). Early systems relied on private networks using electronic data interchange (EDI) or United Nations EDIFACT standards for format and content of transaction messages. Due to their cost and complexity, the use of these systems was confined primarily to large companies, but low cost Internet commercialization has led to much more widespread adoption of IOIS. Systems using the Internet and the World Wide Web are commonly referred to as B2B (business to business) systems, supporting B2B electronic commerce. Technological innovations have led to several forms of B2B Internet implementations, often in the form of online exchanges or electronic marketplaces (Wang et al., 2005). These are virtual marketplaces where buyers and sellers exchange information about prices, products, and service offerings, and negotiate business transactions. They are major components of the supply chains that they support. In addition to substituting proprietary lines of communication, emerging technologies and public networks have also facilitated new business models and new forms of interaction and collaboration in areas such as collaborative product engineering or joint offerings of complex, modularized products. During the years 1999-2001, a number of online exchanges were introduced, but many of these failed (Gallaugher & Ramanathan, 2002) due mainly to an inability to attract participating business partners, but also because potential participants and their business partners did not perceive enough value added through the significant investment they required. Those that have survived are often owned by companies or consortia that are also exchange customers or suppliers. The objective of this overview is to describe the evolution and the characteristics of B2B Internet implementations, and to discuss management considerations, the evaluation, and adoption of B2B applications, and the technical infrastructure supporting these systems. We also indicate some of the open issues that remain as the technology and its adoption continues to evolve.
Creating Successful Portals with a Design Framework
Authors: Lamantia Joe
Published: May 2011

Portal designers and managers face the difficulties of creating effective information architectures for portals, dashboards, and tile-based platforms for delivering business information and functionality using only flat portlets. This article introduces the idea of a system of standardized building blocks that can simplifies portal design and management, and effectively support growth in content, functionality, and users over time. In enterprise and other large scale social settings, using standardized components allows for the creation of a library of tiles that can be shared across communities of users. It then outlines the design principles underlying the building block system, and the simple guidelines for combining blocks together to create any type of tile-based environment.
Model-Driven Engineering of Service-Oriented Systems
Authors: Gaševic Dragan , Hatala Marek
Published: May 2011

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are an essential platform to provide infrastructures that support widespread collaboration between organizations. These service-oriented systems are a new context for software developers, who must now be equipped with new development methods and technologies. This new context has specific requirements, such as better collaboration and communication between business users and software engineering across organizations and increased agility of the development and maintenance processes to better respond to newly emerged or changed requirements. In this paper, the authors present a research agenda that looks at the use of a novel software engineering discipline—model-driven engineering. By switching the focus from low-level technical details to high-level problem-specific details, model-driven engineering addresses challenges in the development of service-oriented systems. This paper particularly discusses the approach to the development of service-oriented systems based on business process modeling, which integrate business vocabularies and rules in different stages of the development lifecycle. Here, model-driven engineering can provide many promising solutions.
The Challenge of Designing User-Centric E-Services
Authors: Lombardi Patrizia , Cooper Ian , Paskaleva-Shapira Krassimira , Deakin Mark
Published: May 2011

Harnessing ICTs effectively is one of the main vehicles for achieving the EU’s 2010 strategy to become the most competitive digital knowledge-based economy. Achieving this requires innovation and a process of cultural, structural, and economical change towards the so-called eAgora. This requires that citizens are at the center of attention in the design of civic on-line developments in terms of accessibility. This chapter identifies significant challenges to the design of such user-centric e-services, by illustrating some key results of the European Union (EU) IST Framework 6 research project - IntelCities (2004). It presents the City e-governance framework developed in the research project and it shows how the contents of cities’ existing Web sites do not completely satisfy the expectations of the OECD in the European cities visited by the IntelCities Roadshows. It indicates a consistent way forward for the development of the online services offered by the IntelCities e-learning platform. The chapter closes by querying whether either the European cities examined or their citizens have the appetite for the proposed eAgora that will be necessary for its effective implementation and operation.
Policy-Based Security Engineering of Service Oriented Systems
Authors: Maña Antonio , Pujol Gimena , Muñoz Antonio
Published: May 2011

In this chapter the authors present a policy-based security engineering process for service oriented applications, developed in the SERENITY and MISTICO projects. Security and dependability (S&D) are considered as first-class citizens in the proposed engineering process, which is based on the precise description of reusable security and dependability solutions. The authors’ process is based on the concept of S&D Pattern as the means to capture the specialized knowledge of security engineers and to make it available for automated processing, both in the development process (the focus of this chapter) and later at runtime. In particular, in this chapter they focus on the verification of the compliance with security policies, based on the formal specification of S&D Properties. The main advantages of the approach presented in this chapter are precisely that it allows us to define high-level policies and to verify that a secure oriented system complies with such policy (developed following the SERENITY approach). They also describe the application of the proposed approach to the verification of S&D properties in the web services (WS) environment. Concretely, the authors describe the use of SERENITY framework to facilitate the development of applications that use standard security mechanisms (such WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-Security Policy, etc) and to ensure the correct application of these standard mechanisms, based on predefined policies. Finally, they show how to verify that the application complies with one or several S&D policies.
E-Impresa
Authors: Sedehi Habib
Published: May 2011

Electronic commerce, marketing on line, and network economy are today’s keywords of (possible) success. But how many managers effectively know about the cost and benefits of starting to sell their products and services through the Web? How much they should invest at the beginning and how long does it takes to have a break-even point of their investment? In order to give support for better understanding the process of the Web marketing and to have more elements to decide to “dive” or not in this virtual world a System Dynamics (SD) model (Forrester J.W. 1961, 1971, 1980), has been developed. The model has the aim to support strategic decisions for SME involvement in e-Commerce, pointed out to guarantee sustainable growth and medium-long term success. The project e-Impresa1 analyses the whole process of the investment in building and maintaining a web site, taking into account the main variables of E-commerce. Through a case study, a SD business game model has been developed. The model gives the opportunity to users to evaluate different what-if analysis through the simulation period time (2 years) at each model step time (4 weeks). This chapter will explain the overall architecture of the model and will present some results of use of the model in different conditions.
QoS-Aware Web Services Discovery with Federated Support for UDDI
Authors: Zhou Chen , Chia Liang-Tien , Lee Bu-Sung
Published: May 2011

Web services’ discovery mechanism is one of the most important research areas in Web services because of the dynamic nature of Web services. In practice, UDDI takes an important role in service discovery since it is an online registry standard to facilitate the discovery of business partners and services. However, QoS related information is not naturally supported in UDDI. Service requesters can only choose good performance Web services by manual test and comparison. In addition, discovery among private UDDI registries in a federation is not naturally supported. To address these problems, we propose UDDI extension (UX), an enhancement for UDDI that facilitates requesters to discover services with QoS awareness. In this system the service requester invokes and generates feedback reports, which are received and stored in local domain’s UX server for future usage. By sharing these experiences from those requesters in the local domain, the UX server summarizes and predicts the service’s performance. A general federated service is designed to manage the service federation. The discovery between different cooperating domains is based on this general federated service, and therefore the links between domains are maintained dynamically. The system handles the federated inquiry, predicates the QoS difference among different domains, and provides a simple view over the whole federation. Meanwhile, the UX server’s inquiry interface still conforms to the UDDI specification.
The Semantic Side of Service-Oriented Architectures
Authors: Ferreira da Silva Catarina , Rupino da Cunha Paulo , Ghodous Parisa , Melo Paulo
Published: May 2011

In Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), service descriptions are fundamental elements. In order to automatically execute SOA tasks, such as services discovery, it is necessary to capture and process the semantics of services. We review several Semantic Web Services frameworks that intend to bring semantics to Web Services. This chapter depicts some ideas from SOA and Semantic Web services and their application to enterprise application integration. We illustrate an example of logic-based semantic matching between consumer services and provided services, which are described in ontologies.
Identification of Vulnerabilities in Web Services using Model-Based Security
Authors: Höhn Sebastian , Lowis Lutz , Jürjens Jan , Accorsi Rafael
Published: May 2011

In a service-oriented architecture, business processes are executed as composition of services, which can suffer from vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities in services and the underlying software applications put at risk computer systems in general and business processes in particular. Current vulnerability analysis approaches involve several manual tasks and, hence, are error-prone and costly. Service-oriented architectures impose additional analysis complexity as they provide much flexibility and frequent changes within orchestrated processes and services. Therefore, it is inevitable to provide tools and mechanisms that enable efficient and effective management of vulnerabilities within these complex systems. Model-based security engineering is a promising approach that can help to fill the gap between vulnerabilities on the one hand, and concrete protection mechanisms on the other. The authors present an approach that integrates model-based engineering and vulnerability analysis in order to cope with the security challenges of a service-oriented architecture.
Evolution of Online Financial Trading Systems
Authors: Yap Alexander
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on the theme of e-service innovation in financial electronic markets. The discussion will cover the theories of “technology bundling” and how bundling creates value-added in servicing electronic markets. More specifically, this chapter looks at innovations created through e-service bundling for online brokers connected to various financial electronic markets. The proliferation of different e-trading systems raises the question of which systems provide better service to online stock traders. Many online brokers (e-brokers) now provide low-cost transactions and financial research capabilities, so where is the next level of innovation? The objective of this chapter is to show that several innovations in broker e-services are critical in the following areas: (a) how order processes are efficiently managed in financial e-markets; (b) how responsive e-trading systems are in handling trading rules and regulations; (c) how different systems address unique niches in financial e-markets; and (d) improving systems stability and reliability.
Exploring the Adoption of Technology Driven Services in the Healthcare Industry
Authors: Topacan Umit , Basoglu A. Nuri , Daim Tugrul U.
Published: May 2011

Recent developments in information and communication technologies have helped to accelerate the diffusion of electronic services in the medical industry. Health information services house, retrieve, and make use of medical information to improve service quality and reduce cost. Users—including medical staff, administrative staff, and patients—of these systems cannot fully benefit from them unless they can use them comfortably. User behavior is affected by various factors relating to technology characteristics, user characteristics, social environment, and organizational environment. Our research evaluated the determinants of health information service adoption and analyzed the relationship between these determinants and the behavior of the user. Health information service adoption was found to be influenced by service characteristics, user characteristics, intermediary variables, facilitating conditions, and social factors.
Lotus Workforce Management-
Authors: O’Connor Jerh. , Dalton Ronan , Naro Don
Published: May 2011

Human Resources departments are often burdened with administrative tasks performed on behalf of employees who lack the tools necessary to complete these tasks themselves. A software approach known as self-service aims to streamline HR processes by providi
Web Service Enabled Online Laboratory
Authors: Yan Yuhong , Liang Yong , Roy Abhijeet , Du Xinge
Published: May 2011

Online experimentation allows students from anywhere to operate remote instruments at any time. The current techniques constrain users to bind to products from one company and install client side software. We use Web services and Service Oriented Architecture to improve the interoperability and usability of the remote instruments. Under a service oriented architecture for online experiment system, a generic methodology to wrap commercial instruments using IVI and VISA standard as Web services is developed. We enhance the instrument Web services into stateful services so that they can manage user booking and persist experiment results. We also benchmark the performance of this system when SOAP is used as the wire format for communication and propose solutions to optimize performance. In order to avoid any installation at the client side, the authors develop Web 2.0 based techniques to display the virtual instrument panel and real time signals with just a standard Web browser. The technique developed in this article can be widely used for different real laboratories, such as microelectronics, chemical engineering, polymer crystallization, structural engineering, and signal processing.
Media Richness in Online Consumer Interactions
Authors: Pollach Irene
Published: May 2011

Consumer-opinion Web sites provide people with unparalleled opportunities to articulate their opinions on products and services, read those of others, or interact with other consumers. The success of such Web sites is limited by three challenges: the quality of contributions, users’ motivation to participate, and readers’ trust in the writer’s competence. Drawing on the concept of media richness, this article investigates how such Web sites could provide richer and more useful exchanges to both consumers and companies. The results suggest that consumer-opinion Web sites can provide richer exchanges when they separate the tasks of information exchange and social interaction and support them with appropriate levels of richness.
Determinants of Goal-Directed Mobile Ticketing Service Adoption Among Internet Users
Authors: Wang Shen-Yao , Lie Ting
Published: May 2011

This study aims to understand the driving factors that influence the attitudes and behavioral intention to adopt mobile ticketing services, a new mobile Internet service in Taiwan applying the Theory of Planned Behavior. Empirical findings suggest that the intention to adopt the mobile ticketing service is significantly affected by the attitude towards the service, as well as the self-efficacy and controllability of adopting the mobile ticketing service. Attitude towards using the mobile ticketing service is significantly influenced by perceived usefulness and perceived monetary value of the service, whereas perceived usefulness is significantly affected by the perceived ease of use of the mobile ticketing service. Implications of this study and directions for future research are discussed.
The Effects of System Features, Perceived Risk and Benefit, and Customer Characteristics on Online Bill Paying
Authors: He Fang
Published: May 2011

Along with the exponential increase in online business transactions, the online payment system has gained in popularity because vendors and creditors realize its growing importance as a foundation to improve their information infrastructure and to achieve “paperless” operating efficiency.However, due to per se different characteristics among customers and Web-systems, both sides’ perspectives and technology factors could cause a significant level of variation in customers’ acceptance of online payment methods. Our research involving 148 subjects who participated in a field survey, examined the impact of a series of possible decision factors, including perceived risk, perceived benefits, vendor’s system features, and customers’ characteristics, on the intention to use an online payment system by customers. The results suggest that vendors/creditors should:one, pay particular attention to improving the security and the ease-of-use of their transaction network; and two, focus on adding necessary option features, such as recurring automatic deductions, so that they can speed up the transformation process and encourage customers to switch to using online payment methods.
Effectiveness of Web Services
Authors: Karoui Kamel , Ftima Fakher Ben
Published: May 2011

With the development of the Internet, the number of people buying, selling, and performing transactions is expected to increase at a phenomenal rate. The emergence of e-commerce applications has resulted in new net-centric business models. This has created a need for new ways of structuring applications to provide cost-effective and scalable models. Mobile Agents (MA) systems are seen as a promising paradigm for the design and implementation of distributed applications, including e-commerce. MA are also useful in applications requiring distributed information retrieval because they move the location of execution closer to the data to be processed. While MA have generated considerable excitement among the research community, they have not been applied into a significant number of real applications. Web services (WS) are emerging as a dominant paradigm for constructing distributed business applications and enabling enterprise-wide interoperability. A critical factor to the overall utility of WS is a scalable, flexible and robust discovery mechanism; an application can be built by integrating multiple services together to make a more efficient service. WS represent a major development in the e-commerce sector. They enable companies to capitalize on their existing architecture by making their application services accessible via the Internet. The application of MA and WS technologies to e-commerce will provide a new way to conduct business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and consumer-to-consumer transactions (C2C) and facilitate the communication between heterogeneous environments. In this article, we first focus on these two technologies of actuality and show their integration in an e-commerce system. Second, we present different kinds of interaction between MA and WS and study their effect on application performance. We also study an example that illustrates an e-commerce system including three categories of transactions: -Shopping transactions: a customer delegates one MA for research and purchase of articles online. The MA will interact with available WS to find the article and its best price. -Salesman transactions: to valorize their products, WS will invoke MA to make publicity for the customers. -Auction transactions: for this type of transaction, a MA (respectively a WS) can sell and buy a product from/to others MA (WS) by auction. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on our inferences and their implications. This work is structured as follows: Section “background” reviews the notions of e-commerce system, WS and MA paradigms. Section “Web services and mobile agents’ technologies on e-commerce system” presents the integration of these two paradigms on the e-commerce system. In section “performance evaluation,” we evaluate the performances of our approach and we study an illustrated example in the section “a case study.” The section “future trends” presents our future perspectives and we end this work with the “conclusion” in the last section.
Issues in Using Web-Based Course Resources
Authors: Nantz Karen S. , Garrett Norman A.
Published: May 2011

Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error. John Chambers, Cisco Systems, New York Times, November 17, 1990 Web-based courses (Mesher, 1999) are defined as those where the entire course is taken on the Internet. In some courses, there may be an initial meeting for orientation. Proctored exams may also be given, either from the source of the Web-based course or off-site at a testing facility. The Internet-based course becomes a virtual classroom with a syllabus, course materials, chat space, discussion list, and e-mail services (Resmer, 1999). Navarro (2000) provides a further definition: a fully interactive, multimedia approach. Current figures indicate that 12% of Internet users in the United States use the Internet to take an online course for credit toward a degree of some kind (Horrigan, 2006). That number is indicative of the rapid proliferation of online courses over the past several years. The Web-enhanced course is a blend with the components of the traditional class while making some course materials available on a Web site, such as course syllabi, assignments, data files, and test reviews. Additional elements of a Web-enhanced course can include online testing, a course listserver, instructor-student e-mail, collaborative activities using RSS feeds and related technologies, and other activities on the Internet. One of the biggest concerns about Web-based courses is that users will become socially isolated. The Pew Internet and America Life Project found that online communities provide a vibrant social community (Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001). Clearly, students are not concerned or feel that other benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks. According to government research (Waits and Lewis, 2003), during the 2000-2001 academic year alone, an estimated 118,100 different credit courses were offered via distance education (with the bulk of that using Internet-based methods) by 2- and 4-year institutions in the United States. Over 3 million students were registered in these courses. Navarro (2000) suggests that faculty members are far more likely to start by incorporating Internet components into a traditional course rather than directly offering Web-based courses. These Web-enhanced courses might be considered the transition phase to the new paradigm of Internet-based courses. Rich learning environments are being created, with a shift from single tools to the use of multiple online tools, both to enhance traditional courses and to better facilitate online courses (Teles, 2002).
Knowledge Sharing Online
Authors: Kim Hyunjung , Stefanone Michael A.
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the contribution of information communication technology (ICT) to the operation of social and public policy. The governmentality analytic is introduced as a way in which to highlight how ICT is used by the state in governing populations. The chapter identifies four ways ICTs relate to social and public policy. First, social policy can be a response to ICT innovation and use. Second, ICT is used to implement and administer social policy. Third, ICT is used to develop and evaluate social policy. Fourth, the use of ICT can shape the very nature and substance of social policy. The chapter illustrates these theoretical and conceptual approaches by examining the extensive and innovative use of ICT in Australia’s national income security agency, Centrelink.The aim of this chapter is to explore the utility of online knowledge sharing for the health and human services. Experiences in marketing are used as a basis for the development of three broad and interrelated theoretical concepts—the diffusion of innovations, viral marketing, and online word of mouth advertising—as well as several other influential factors to explain online knowledge sharing. Three major elements that stimulate online knowledge sharing are distilled from these theoretical perspectives including internal factors such as altruism, online social network size, and topic salience. This chapter uses these elements to propose a model of e-Mavenism which explains the cognitive processes that lead to online knowledge sharing behavior. Based on the e-Mavenism model, several strategies are suggested for online health promotion and community education.