| Digital educational game value hierarchy from a learners' perspective | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-12 | |
| Hong-Wen Lin; Yu-Ling Lin | |||
| Although much research in the past has pointed out that SimCity offers many
learning opportunities, few have focused on how these were derived from game
attributes and the personal value they offered. In this research, the means-end
chain theory and ladder interview were chosen as the approach to explore the
structure of SimCity's game attribute -- learning effect -- terminal value
chain from learners' perspective. Findings from the study indicate that through
attributes such as Construction of simulated city, Become the mayor, Offer
incidents of simulated disasters and Table of information overview, learners
were able to benefit from the learning effects of Cultivate imagination and
creativity, Cultivate problem-solving ability, Strengthen sense of
responsibility, Increase planning experience, Cultivate organizational
thinking, Strengthen leadership decision-making and Improve control ability in
their pursuit of values such as Sense of achievement, Fun and enjoyment of
life, Self-fulfillment and Self-respect. The research has taken one step
further to explore the differences in value hierarchies for respondents of
different majors and levels of education for a discussion in management
significance. The findings revealed the key points that learners focus on when
playing digital educational games and provide useful guidelines for
improvements and teaching strategies for digital educational game developers
and educators. Keywords: Digital game-based learning; Media in education; Simulation games; Means-end chains theory | |||
| Giving and receiving emotional support online: Communication competence as a moderator of psychosocial benefits for women with breast cancer | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 13-22 | |
| Woohyun Yoo; Kang Namkoong; Mina Choi; Dhavan V. Shah; Stephanie Tsang; Yangsun Hong; Michael Aguilar; David H. Gustafson | |||
| This study examines the moderating role of emotional communication
competence in the relationship between Computer-Mediated Social Support (CMSS)
group participation, specifically giving and receiving emotional support, and
psychological health outcomes. Data were collected as part of randomized
clinical trials for women diagnosed with breast cancer within the last two
months. Expression and reception of emotional support was assessed by tracking
and coding the 18,064 messages that 236 patients posted and read in CMSS
groups. The final data used in the analysis was created by merging (a)
computer-aided content analysis of discussion posts, (b) action log data
analysis of system usage, and (c) baseline and 6-month surveys collected to
assess change. Results of this study demonstrate that emotional communication
competence moderates the effects of expression and reception of emotional
support on psychological quality of life and breast cancer-related concerns in
both desired and undesired ways. Giving and receiving emotional support in CMSS
groups has positive effects on emotional well-being for breast cancer patients
with higher emotional communication, while the same exchanges have detrimental
impacts on emotional well-being for those with lower emotional communication
competence. The theoretical and practical implications for future research are
discussed. Keywords: Computer-mediated social support groups; Emotional support; Emotional communication competence; Breast cancer | |||
| Adding self-explanation prompts to an educational computer game | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 23-28 | |
| Harold F. O'Neil; Gregory K. W. K. Chung; Deirdre Kerr; Terry P. Vendlinski; Rebecca E. Buschang; Richard E. Mayer | |||
| Proponents envision a role for computer games in improving student learning
of academic material, including mathematics and science. Asking learners to
engage in self-explanations during learning has been found to be an effective
instructional method. In the present experiment, we examined the effects of
adding a self-explanation prompt -- asking players to answer one of three
questions after completing each level of the game -- within a children's math
game on addition of fractions. Middle-school participants played either a base
version of the game (n = 57) or the base version with a self-explanation
instructional feature (n = 57). Participants' learning was measured by a
fractions posttest and their learning processes measured via in-game measures
of game progress and errors. When we separated the self-explanation condition
into participants who used a focused self-explanation strategy versus those who
did not, the focused participants had significantly fewer game level deaths,
game level resets, and progressed significantly farther in the game, compared
to the control group, than participants not using a focused self-explanation
strategy. The major new contribution of this study is that self-explanation can
help the process of playing educational games in some situations and hurt in
others. In particular, the most effective self-explanation prompts were aimed
at helping learners make connections between game terminology and mathematics
terminology, whereas the least effective self-explanation prompts asked very
simple or very abstract questions. Keywords: Educational games; Computer games; Self-explanation; Fractions | |||
| Evaluating multiple aspects of a digital educational problem-solving-based adventure game | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 29-38 | |
| Huei-Tse Hou; Ming-Chaun Li | |||
| This study aims to evaluate multiple aspects of a problem-solving-based
educational adventure game, Boom Room©. The learning effectiveness, game
acceptance, and flow experience of the game were empirically investigated. The
game was designed and developed for teaching knowledge of computer assembly.
Sixty-seven university students in Taiwan were asked to complete a pre-test
before playing the game and a post-test after playing the game. These students
also provided evaluations of not only the usefulness, ease of use, and design
elements of the game but also their experience with various flow dimensions of
the game. A 2-stage cluster analysis was also conducted to explore the
potentially different groups of students by categorizing them in accordance
with their performance, degree of game acceptance and flow states. The results
suggest that this game is beneficial for students with insufficient background
knowledge of computer assembly, allowing these students to obtain vital
knowledge of this topic if they achieved a sufficient acceptance of the game
and an adequate flow experience from their game-playing experiences. The
various dimensions of flow that were experienced by these students were
significantly correlated with game acceptance. Suggestions for future study,
game design, and instructional practice are discussed. Keywords: Game-based learning; Adventure game; Problem-solving; Technology acceptance; Flow; Cluster analysis | |||
| Expressive participation in Internet social movements: Testing the moderating effect of technology readiness and sex on student SNS use | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 39-49 | |
| Juan D. Borrero; Shumaila Y. Yousafzai; Uzma Javed; Kelly L. Page | |||
| An understanding of students' use of social networking sites (SNS) for
expressive participation in Internet Social Movements (ISMs) is absent in the
literature on the social psychology of student social networking behavior.
Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as a
theoretical framework and survey data collected from 214 students in Spain, we
empirically test the UTAUT theory in this context. Our results confirm that
effort expectancy, social influence, and performance expectancy significantly
affect students' intentions to use SNS for expressive participation in Internet
social movements. We also test the moderating effect of students' sex and
Technology Readiness (TR) on these UTAUT relationships. Our results show that
the intention to use SNS is strongly influenced by effort expectancy for female
students and students with self-reported low-levels of technology readiness.
For male students and students with self-reporting high-levels of technology
readiness, the relationship is strongly influenced by social influence. The
implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed. Keywords: Social networking sites; Internet social movement; UTAUT; Gender; Sex; Technology readiness | |||
| Facebook self-disclosure: Examining the role of traits, social cohesion, and motives | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 50-58 | |
| Erin E. Hollenbaugh; Amber L. Ferris | |||
| Facebook has been shown to be the most popular social network in the United
States. Facebook not only has implications in the online world, but
face-to-face connections are also affected by this medium. This study explores
the uses of Facebook for self-disclosure behavior utilizing the uses and
gratifications perspective. Using a convenience sample of Facebook users, this
study examines individual and sociological factors as well as Facebook motives
to discover the impact on depth, breadth, and amount of user self-disclosure.
Path analyses showed that the Big Five personality factors, self-esteem, social
cohesion, and motives contribute to self-disclosure dimensions. However,
demographic variables did not impact disclosiveness. Limitations are discussed
and directions for future research are proposed. Keywords: Facebook; Self-disclosure; Uses and gratifications; Big five; Motives | |||
| Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for using a booth recommender system service on exhibition attendees' unplanned visit behavior | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 59-68 | |
| Namho Chung; Chulmo Koo; Jae Kyeong Kim | |||
| Our study on unplanned behavior theory examines the effect of the booth
recommender system (BRS) service on exhibitions arising from either extrinsic
or intrinsic motivation. Previous studies have ignored the importance of the
unplanned behavioral effectiveness through a BRS service that joins extrinsic
and intrinsic motivations to deliver unexpected outcomes at exhibitions. In
this paper, we propose a model for the impact of BRS service in which the
perception of usefulness and the threats to freedom of choice mediate the
effect of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on unplanned booth visit
behavior. We collected data from 101 exhibition visitors and analyzed the data
using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Our findings indicate that
intrinsic motivations (escape, event attractions) are significantly related to
both the perceived usefulness of the BRS service and the threats to freedom of
choice, while extrinsic motivation (information gain) were not significantly
related to those characteristics. The perceived usefulness of the BRS service
directly mediates the effect of escape and event attractions on unplanned booth
visit behavior. The results and implications of these findings are further
discussed in the paper. Keywords: Booth recommendation system service; Unplanned visit behavior; Motivation; Perceived usefulness; Threats to freedom of choice | |||
| How does online social networking enhance life satisfaction? The relationships among online supportive interaction, affect, perceived social support, sense of community, and life satisfaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 69-78 | |
| Hyun Jung Oh; Elif Ozkaya; Robert LaRose | |||
| The purpose of this study is to examine whether supportive interactions on
social networking sites mediate the influence of SNS use and the number of SNS
friends on perceived social support, affect, sense of community, and life
satisfaction. Employing momentary sampling, the current study also looked at
the relationship between supportive interaction and immediate affect after the
interaction over a period of 5 days. An analysis of 339 adult participants
revealed a positive relationship between supportive interaction and positive
affect after the interaction. A path model revealed positive associations among
the number of SNS friends, supportive interactions, affect, perceived social
support, sense of community, and life satisfaction. Implications for the
research of online social networking and social support are discussed. Keywords: Social networking sites; Social support; Affect; Sense of community; Life satisfaction; Momentary sampling | |||
| Visiting theories that predict college students' self-disclosure on Facebook | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 79-86 | |
| Chen-Wei Chang; Jun Heo | |||
| This study explores factors that may explain information disclosure behavior
on Facebook and provides understanding of each factor's contribution in
explaining such behavior. Factors tested in this study are drawn from theories
(e.g., social contract theory and uses and gratification theory) and constructs
(e.g., trust/self-disclosure relationships, time spent on Facebook, number of
Facebook friends, and gender difference). Findings suggest the potential of all
the factors examined in this study as frameworks to explain self-disclosure
behavior on Facebook. This social media-specific study offers evidence that
these theories may have implications that are different from the current
e-commerce literature on self-disclosure. Both theoretical and practical
implications are discussed. Keywords: Self-disclosure; Social networking sites; Uses and gratifications; Social contract theory; Trust; Facebook | |||
| Emergence and predictors of alcohol reference displays on Facebook during the first year of college | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 87-94 | |
| Megan A. Moreno; Jonathan D'Angelo; Lauren E. Kacvinsky; Bradley Kerr; Chong Zhang; Jens Eickhoff | |||
| The purpose of this study was to investigate the emergence of displayed
alcohol references on Facebook for first-year students from two universities.
Graduated high school seniors who were planning to attend one of the two
targeted study universities were recruited. Participants' Facebook profiles
were evaluated for displayed alcohol references at baseline and every four
weeks throughout the first year of college. Profiles were categorized as
Non-Displayers, Alcohol Displayers or Intoxication/Problem Drinking Displayers.
Analyses included logistic regression, univariate and multivariate Cox
proportional hazard analysis and multi-state Markov modeling. A total of 338
participants were recruited, 56.1% were female, 74.8% were Caucasian, and 58.8%
were from University A. At baseline, 68 Facebook profiles (20.1%) included
displayed alcohol references. During the first year of college, 135 (39.9%)
profiles newly displayed alcohol. In multivariate Cox proportional hazard
analysis, university (University B versus A, HR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.28-0.77, p =
0.003), number of Facebook friends (HR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.09-1.28, p < 0.001
for every 100 more friends), and average monthly status updates (HR = 1.03, 95%
CI: 1.002-1.05, p = 0.033) were identified as independent predictors for new
alcohol display. Findings contribute to understanding the patterns and
predictors for displayed alcohol references on Facebook. Keywords: Facebook; College student; Alcohol | |||
| Authenticity and well-being on social network sites: A two-wave longitudinal study on the effects of online authenticity and the positivity bias in SNS communication | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 95-102 | |
| Leonard Reinecke; Sabine Trepte | |||
| In offline settings, authentic behavior has frequently been linked to
increased well-being. Social network sites (SNSs) provide a new venue for
authenticity, yet the effects of online authenticity are largely unknown. The
present study investigated the reciprocal effects of authenticity on SNSs and
the psychological well-being of SNS users in a two-wave longitudinal study (N =
374). The results demonstrate that online authenticity had a positive
longitudinal effect on three indicators of subjective well-being. The data
further illustrate that this beneficial effect of SNS use is not equally
accessible to all users: participants with low levels of well-being were less
likely to feel authentic on SNSs and to benefit from authenticity. We propose
that the results can be explained in light of a "positivity bias in SNS
communication" that favors positive forms of authenticity over negative ones. Keywords: Social network sites; Authenticity; Psychological well-being; Positivity bias; Self-presentation; Longitudinal study | |||
| More than search? Informational and participatory eHealth behaviors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 103-109 | |
| Wenhong Chen; Kye-Hyoung Lee | |||
| Few studies in the eHealth literature have paid attention to participatory
eHealth behaviors. Addressing this gap, the present study examines how
informational and participatory eHealth behaviors are related to eHealth
literacy, Internet use and Facebook interaction, as well as user
characteristics. Drawing on a sample of college students (N = 540), results
from Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis show that eHealth literacy has
a positive direct effect on informational eHealth behaviors. It also serves as
a mediator suppressing the negative relationship between excellent mental
health status and eHealth behaviors. While both instrumental Internet use and
Facebook interaction are related to participatory eHealth behaviors, only
instrumental Internet use is associated with informational eHealth behaviors.
There are significant eHealth disparities by health status, gender, and class.
Implications for health communication and promotion are discussed. Keywords: eHealth literacy; Online health information search; Informational eHealth behaviors; Participatory eHealth behaviors; Facebook; Health 2.0 | |||
| The impact of hyperlink affordance, psychological reactance, and perceived business tie on trust transfer | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 110-120 | |
| Kun Chang Lee; Sangjae Lee; Yujong Hwang | |||
| This study investigates the impact of hyperlink affordance, psychological
reactance, perceived loss of freedom, perceived business tie between sites, and
trust in source site, on trust in target site. Hyperlink affordance represents
the extent that the Web encourages users' behavior. Perceived loss of freedom
is based on psychological reactance, which refers to the extent that users
react to hyperlink affordance. In order to examine the research model, this
study used 305 responses from Korean users to conduct three experiments: (1)
evaluate trust transfer from the online source Web site to another online
target site (Experiment 1), (2) evaluate trust transfer from an online site to
an offline target site (Experiment 2), and (3) evaluate trust transfer from an
offline site to an online target site (Experiment 3). Trust is transferred from
source to target site in the test results of all three models. The hyperlink
affordance affects trust transfer in the test results of Experiment 1.
Perceived loss of freedom based on psychological reactance negatively affects
trust transfer in the test results of Experiments 2 and 3, which decreases the
effect of hyperlink affordances on trust transfer. The perceived business tie
between sites affects trust transfer in the test results of Experiment 3. The
study provides insights into the application of trust transfer in various
settings of source and target site in online and offline business. Keywords: Hyperlink affordance; Loss of freedom; Perceived business tie between the sites | |||
| Qualitatively different cognitive processing during online reading primed by different study activities | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 121-130 | |
| Hector R. Ponce; Richard E. Mayer | |||
| This article uses eye-tracking technology to examine how study activities
such as taking notes or filling in a graphic organizer affect cognitive
processing during learning. College students read a computer-presented passage
that compared the characteristics of eastern steamboats (top section) and
western steamboats (bottom section), either by reading it twice (read-only
group), typing notes into a textbox on the right side of the screen
(note-taking group), or typing characteristics of the two types of steamboats
into a compare-and-contrast graphic organizer on the right side of the screen
(graphic organizer group). Compared to the note-taking group, the graphic
organizer group displayed more eye movements between the top and bottom of the
passage (i.e., integrative saccades, d = 1.03), more eye movements between the
text and the type-in window on the right side (i.e., constructive saccades, d =
0.79), fewer constructive saccades during initial reading (d = -0.64), and less
time looking to the right side during initial reading (d = -0.81); and scored
higher on a comprehension test given afterwards (d = 1.17), although both study
groups outscored the read-only group. Results suggest that students in the
note-taking group (and read-only group) tended to use a linear learning
strategy in which their eyes followed the text in the order presented whereas
students in the graphic organizer group tended to use a generative learning
strategy in which their eyes searched for connections between specific
information across the passage required to make comparisons. Keywords: Graphic organizer; Note-taking; Eye tracking; Learning strategy; Reading | |||
| Activity theory as a framework for building adaptive e-learning systems: A case to provide empirical evidence | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 131-145 | |
| Alejandro Peña-Ayala; Humberto Sossa; Ignacio Méndez | |||
| We apply activity theory (AT) to design adaptive e-learning systems (AeLS).
AT is a framework to study human's behavior at learning; whereas, AeLS enhance
students' apprenticeship by the personalization of teaching-learning
experiences. AeLS depict users' traits and predicts learning outcomes. The
approach was successfully tested: Experimental group took lectures chosen by
the anticipation AT principle; whilst, control group received randomly selected
lectures. Learning achieved by experimental group reveals a correlation quite
significant and high positive; but, for control group the correlation it is not
significant and medium positive. We conclude: AT is a useful framework to
design AeLS and provide student-centered education. Keywords: Activity theory; Adaptive e-learning systems; Proactive student model; Anticipation principle; Teaching-learning experience | |||
| The effects of controlling visual attention to handbags for women in online shops: Evidence from eye movements | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 146-152 | |
| Hong-Fa Ho | |||
| This study investigates how e-consumers perceive online pictures of women's
handbags, whether they are motivated to observe specific parts of the picture,
and the sequence of their fixations on each handbag areas. The author conducted
a task-free eye-tracking experiment in which 33 female participants look at 74
randomly displayed pictures of handbags. Seven types of attention-based regions
of interests (ROIs) were coded for data analyses. Based on statistical
analysis, the data yielded the following findings: (1) the main body ROI first
attracts the attention of the participants; (2) the handle ROI receives the
most attention; (3) the featured area ROI has the greatest capacity to hold
attention; and (4) the handle and strap ROIs have a stronger visual attraction
than any other ROI. This study provides eye-tracking evidence that may be
applied to future empirical research and the theory construction of visual
behavior in consumers. Keywords: Eye tracker; Visual attention; Visual behavior; Women's handbag; Fashion product picture | |||
| Beauty is more than screen deep: Improving the web survey respondent experience through socially-present and aesthetically-pleasing user interfaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 153-163 | |
| Tristan W. Casey; Arthur Poropat | |||
| Web surveys are rapidly becoming standard issue in many researchers'
toolkits; however, measurement error has been shown to affect web surveys to a
greater extent than paper-and-pencil surveys (Couper, 2000; Manfreda &
Vehovar, 2002). Principles of aesthetic design and social presence have been
applied to web surveys to reduce the prevalence of such error with promising
results, which were further investigated in this research. A sample of 181
first-year psychology undergraduate students participated in this study.
Participants were randomly allocated to view one of eight web survey
interfaces, which varied by aesthetic quality and social presence. Exploratory
structural equation modeling using the partial least squares method revealed
that classical aesthetic quality and social presence were both positively
related to perceived ease of use of the web survey interface and positive state
affect; social presence and perceived ease of use were positively related to
trust in the web survey researcher; classical aesthetic quality was negatively
related to negative state affect; and, expressive aesthetic quality was
negatively related to perceived ease of use and positively related to positive
state affect. Interestingly, expressive aesthetic quality was also positively
related to negative state affect. These relationships between aesthetic quality
and social presence should inform best practice web survey design
recommendations, and future empirical work should extend and test the
generalizability of these findings. Keywords: Web surveys; Perceived ease of use; Aesthetics; Trust; Human-computer interaction | |||
| Loneliness, social contacts and Internet addiction: A cross-lagged panel study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 164-170 | |
| Mike Z. Yao; Zhi-jin Zhong | |||
| This study aims to examine the causal priority in the observed empirical
relationships between Internet addiction and other psychological problems. A
cross-lagged panel survey of 361 college students in Hong Kong was conducted.
Results show that excessive and unhealthy Internet use would increase feelings
of loneliness over time. Although depression had a moderate and positive
bivariate relationship with Internet addiction at each time point, such a
relationship was not significant in the cross-lagged analyses. This study also
found that online social contacts with friends and family were not an effective
alternative for offline social interactions in reducing feelings of loneliness.
Furthermore, while an increase in face-to-face contacts could help to reduce
symptoms of Internet addiction, this effect may be neutralized by the increase
in online social contacts as a result of excessive Internet use. Taken as a
whole, findings from the study show a worrisome vicious cycle between
loneliness and Internet addiction. Keywords: Internet addiction; Depression; Loneliness; Social isolation; Cross-lagged panel design | |||
| Compulsive internet use in adults: A study of prevalence and drivers within the current economic climate in the UK | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 171-180 | |
| Cristina Quiñones-García; Nada Korak-Kakabadse | |||
| Compulsive Internet Use (CIU) refers to a maladaptive relationship with the
tool, including a loss of control over the use, the use for mood change and
withdrawal symptoms. Most studies have relied on student samples, thus little
is known about its prevalence in adults. The first objective of this study was
to examine CIU in adults that were either employed (N = 260) or unemployed
within the last year (N = 256). Second, the drivers of CIU were examined, with
a focus on attitudes that reflected the reality of long working hours and job
insecurity that people experience in current workplaces. A high risk of CIU
(63%) with no significant differences between employed and unemployed
individuals was found. However, unemployed individuals were in the highest band
of Internet use, a risk factor for CIU. Interestingly, unemployed 40-55 years
old females experienced higher CIU than their male counterparts. Regarding
drivers of CIU, the job attitudes working excessively and compulsively were the
strongest predictors, beyond emotion stability. This was particularly true at
high levels of social support. In view of this, organizations should
proactively evaluate the risks associated with encouraging working excessively
as ill-health consequences associated with CIU could outweigh the benefits. Keywords: Compulsive internet use; Internet addiction; Problematic internet use; Technophiles; Workaholism; Employed/unemployed | |||
| Voluntary sexual exposure online among Swedish youth -- social background, Internet behavior and psychosocial health | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 181-190 | |
| Linda S. Jonsson; Gisela Priebe; Marie Bladh; Carl Göran Svedin | |||
| Studies have described the phenomenon of voluntary sexual exposure among
youth online but only a few focus on the typical young person who has this
experience. The purpose of this study was to investigate Swedish youth with
experience of voluntary sexual exposure online, with regard to Internet
behavior, social background, and psychosocial health including parent-child
relationships. A representative sample of 3503 Swedish youths in their third
year of high school completed a survey about Internet behavior,
Internet-related sexual harassment, sexuality, health, and sexual abuse. Out of
those taking part in the survey, 20.9% (19.2% boys and 22.3% girls) reported
experiences of voluntary sexual exposure online. Multivariate analysis showed a
significant association between voluntary sexual exposure online and a number
of different forms of harassment online. Neither poorer psychosocial health nor
problematic relationships with parents remained significant in the final model.
The results underlined the fact that voluntary sexual exposure online is
associated with vulnerability on the Internet among both boys and girls and
that there is a need for parents and professionals to better understand what
young people do on the Internet and the risks they may incur. Keywords: Youth; Internet; Technology; Sexual exposure; Sexting | |||
| Do feelings matter? The effects of intrinsic benefits on individuals' commitment toward knowledge systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 191-198 | |
| Hui Lin; Yujong Hwang | |||
| Knowledge management systems have been shown to increase creativity and
innovation in the workplace. This study aims to find out if and how feelings
matter in individuals' knowledge management practices in knowledge-intensive
firms. We develop and test a research model that explores the effects of
intrinsic benefits (knowledge self-efficacy and perceived self-worth) on users'
commitment to knowledge systems. Theoretically grounded in the three-component
model of commitment, the research model tests the relationships between the
intrinsic benefit constructs and the affective, continuance, and normative
dimensions of commitment. Survey results of 78 accounting professionals from
both public and corporate accounting fields found support for the research
model. Knowledge self-efficacy is positively associated with affective and
continuance commitment. Perceived self-worth is positively related with
affective and normative commitment. Knowledge self-efficacy significantly
influences individuals' perceived self-worth. This study raises implications
for researchers and practitioners interested in commitment in knowledge
management for creativity generation and particularly for knowledge-intensive
firms on how to tap into the power of commitment and intrinsic benefits to gain
and sustain a competitive advantage. Keywords: Affective commitment; Continuance commitment; Knowledge self-efficacy; Normative commitment; Self-worth | |||
| Reliability and usability of an internet-based computerized cognitive testing battery in community-dwelling older people | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 199-205 | |
| D. G. Darby; J. Fredrickson; R. H. Pietrzak; P. Maruff; M. Woodward; A. Brodtmann | |||
| Cognitive decline is an early feature of neurodegenerative conditions.
CogState has developed a game-like computerized test battery with demonstrated
acceptability, validity, reliability, stability, efficiency and sensitivity to
detecting cognitive decline in older people under supervised conditions. This
study aimed to evaluate an internet-based version of this test when used
remotely and self-administered in a cohort of healthy, community-dwelling older
adults aged 55 and above over a 12 month period at 1-3 monthly intervals. Test
usability and reliability was examined in terms of acceptability, stability and
reliability. Of 150 participants (age: 63.6 ± 5.6, range 55-83 years),
143 (95%) successfully completed a valid baseline test. Of these, 67% completed
3 month and 43% 12 months of testing. Technical difficulties were reported by
9% of participants. For those participants who completed 12 months tests, all
tasks showed moderate to high stability and test-retest reliability.
This brief computerized test battery was shown to have high acceptability for baseline self-administered testing and moderate to high stability for repeated assessments over 12 months. Attrition was high between baseline and 3 months. These data suggest that this tool may be useful for high frequency monitoring of cognitive function over 6-12 months, and deserves further evaluation. Keywords: Computerized testing; Elderly; Cognition; Usability; Screening; Community based | |||
| Don't miss your train! Just follow the computer screen animation: Comprehension processes of animated public information graphics | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 206-221 | |
| Jonathan Groff; Jean-Michel Boucheix; Richard K. Lowe; Stéphane Argon; Laurent Saby; Aline Alauzet; Laurence Paire-Ficout | |||
| Computer graphic animated information displays have the potential to
communicate public information in situations where normal announcement types
are ineffective. This study used eye tracking techniques to analyze
comprehension mechanism of event-related information on railway traffic
disruptions presented via different graphic formats presented on computer
screen. 86 participants were asked to understand series of traffic disruption
messages delivered via four purely visual formats: Static simultaneous, Static
sequential, Animated simultaneous and Animated sequential. Across these four
conditions, and contrary to the most common materials used in the studies on
animation comprehension, the sequentiality and the animated properties of the
entities of the presentation were not confounded. Results revealed the Animated
sequential displays were the most effective presentation type. Eye tracking
data showed why an animation facilitates comprehension of public information
graphics: it enhances processing strategies which provide the best condition
for segmenting and composing the causal chain of the events provided in the
message. Keywords: Animation formats; Public information; Disruption messages; Comprehension; Eye movements | |||
| Emotional display behavior in different forms of Computer Mediated Communication | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 222-229 | |
| Daejoong Kim; Mark G. Frank; Sung Tae Kim | |||
| The primary purpose of the current study is to explore whether
emotional-display behavior varies on different forms of CMC in a context of
one-to-one online chat. Eighty college students (40 males and 40 females)
participated in this experiment, and participants were randomly and equally
assigned to one of the four different chat conditions (i.e., joint-view,
no-view, view-in, and view-out), manipulating visibility (whether or not
participants could see their chat partner) and monitorability (whether or not
participants could be monitored by their chat partner). In an assigned chat
condition, participants were asked to read, consecutively, two different
emotional (happy and disgusting) stories typed by their chat partner. The
emotional behavior participants displayed while reading the emotional stories
was measured by self-reports and a facial-action coding system. Results reveal
(1) no main effects for visibility and monitorability on the degree of social
presence; (2) significant differences in the use of emotion-management
techniques in response to happy and disgust emotions, respectively; and (3)
less likelihood of a facial expression of disgust in the monitored conditions
than in the unmonitored conditions. The results indicate that there are some
differences between text-based chat and video-based chat in terms of
emotional-display behavior. These findings make meaningful contributions to the
ongoing debate regarding communication behavior in CMC. Keywords: Computer Mediated Communication; Text-based CMC; Video-based CMC; Social presence theory; Social information processing theory; Emotional display behavior | |||
| Computers work for women: Gender differences in e-supported divorce mediation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 230-237 | |
| Katalien N. L. Bollen; Alain-Laurent Verbeke; Martin C. Euwema | |||
| Despite the increasing use of e-mediated services to settle divorce,
research on its effectiveness is limited. In this paper, we investigate the
effectiveness of an asynchronous e-supported tool to mediate divorces in the
Netherlands. In order to do so, we rely on (a) the number of agreements reached
and (objective) (b) with the help of a survey, we ask men and women about their
perceptions of justice when involved in an e-mediated divorce (subjective).
Results show that in more than 75% of the cases parties reach an agreement.
Furthermore, findings indicate that both Dutch men and women evaluate
e-supported divorce mediation favorably with high levels of perceived
distributive, procedural, interpersonal as well as informational justice.
Although men and women do not differ regarding perceptions of distributive and
informational justice, women perceive significantly more procedural and
interpersonal justice than men. Theoretical and practical implications are
discussed. Keywords: E-supported mediation; Divorce; Gender; Justice; Mediation effectiveness; Computer-mediated communication | |||
| The cognitive benefits of dynamic representations in the acquisition of spatial navigation skills | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 238-248 | |
| Olurotimi Richard Akinlofa; Patrik O'Brian Holt; Eyad Elyan | |||
| A representational theory of the mind suggests that human experiences and
activities are underpinned by mental representations. This abstract task
representation paradigm may explain a cognitive benefit of dynamic
instructional visualisations over static alternative in the acquisition of
novel procedural motor skills. In this sequel work, we explore and extend this
view through empirical investigations of novel skill acquisitions in a separate
but related domain of spatial navigation. We compare the post-learning virtual
maze navigational performance of sixty novel learners across two groups. After
controlling for spatial orientation ability and prior video gaming experience,
participants that learned the task using dynamic instructional visualisations
recorded significantly better performance measures than those in the static
group. Additionally, within-group comparisons also show that the beneficial
advantage of dynamic instructional visualisations over statics remained
consistent across different task complexities. These findings provide further
evidence to support the view that dynamic instructional visualisations afford
more efficient transfer of novel procedural skills through computer based
training than static visualisations. This has implications for instructional
design especially when rapid novel situational awareness is desired such as in
briefings for emergency firefighting or tactical military operations. Keywords: Instruction design; Spatial navigation; Procedural skill transfer; Computer based training | |||
| Sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with a learning management system in post-adoption stage: A critical incident technique approach | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 249-261 | |
| A. K. M. Najmul Islam | |||
| This study investigates the factors that generate user satisfaction and the
factors that generate user dissatisfaction during post-adoption usage of an
information system. Drawing on the theoretical assumptions from Oliver's
expectation-confirmation theory, Herzberg's two-factor theory and Kano's
satisfaction model, we propose a generic theoretical framework that argues
environmental factors and job-specific outcome factors may generate
satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The framework extends our understanding of
user satisfaction and dissatisfaction and helps to clarify and categorize the
factors that are salient for generating user satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
By collecting text data responses using open-ended survey questions following
critical incident technique and analyzing them, we identify a list of factors
that generate user satisfaction and a list of factors that generate
dissatisfaction in a learning management system utilization context. The
results of our research are that satisfaction is generated by both
environmental and job-specific factors, while dissatisfaction is generated only
by environmental factors. Overall, the results suggest that sources of
satisfaction and dissatisfaction mostly differ in a particular context. Keywords: Two-factor theory; Kano's satisfaction model; Learning management system; Expectation-confirmation theory; Dissatisfaction; Satisfaction | |||
| Kindergarten social assistive robot: First meeting and ethical issues | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 262-272 | |
| Marina Fridin | |||
| Kindergarten Social Assistive Robot (KindSAR) is an innovative tool that
promotes children's development through social interaction. In this report we
describe how KindSAR was introduced to a group of preschool children in a
one-to-many setup, and how it engaged the children in play-like interactions.
Ethical guidelines were successfully implemented.
Children's (N = 11) reactions and performance were video-recorded for analysis. Most of the children interacted positively with the robot, exhibited heightened attention, performed motor and cognitive tasks, and reported a high degree of enjoyment of the interaction. A relationship was observed between children's poor social skills and their refusal to participate in interaction with the robot. A many-to-one setup was found to be preferable to a one-to-one setup. This study demonstrates the feasibility and potential benefit of incorporating KindSAR in preschool education. Keywords: Humanoid; Social Assistive Robotics; Educational robotics; Interaction; Ethical guidelines | |||
| We are so close, less than 4 degrees separating you and me! | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 273-285 | |
| Eman Yasser Daraghmi; Shyan-Ming Yuan | |||
| Nowadays, the glory of social networking sites is unprecedented. Thus, we
are so close; the world is even smaller than you thought; a friend of your
friend probably knows a friend of others friend; Facebook shrunk the gap
between us. The six degrees of separation theory proposed in 1967 stated that
we are all just six degrees of separation apart. This paper addresses the
research problem of identifying the degree of separation from a different
viewpoint by considering not only the degree of separation between two
normal-persons or famous-persons, but also between two persons with very
rare-special features. We re-evaluate and extend the six degrees of separation
theory by using a real social searching Facebook tool "We R So Close".
Experiments were performed on Facebook platform; and the graph database was
used to store the collected data. Results add a new phase to the research that
cemented the phrase "six degrees of separation", it reported that the average
number of acquaintances separating any two people no matter who they are even
with rare-special features, i.e. those who work in rare jobs, is not six but
3.9. Keywords: Six degrees of separation theory; Small world experiment; Facebook; Graph database; Special-rare features; We are so close | |||
| Learning programming via worked-examples: Relation of learning styles to cognitive load | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 286-298 | |
| Siti-Soraya Abdul-Rahman; Benedict du Boulay | |||
| This paper describes an experiment that compared learners with contrasting
learning styles, Active vs. Reflective, using three different strategies for
learning programming via worked-examples: Paired-method, Structure-emphasising,
and Completion. The quality of the learners' acquired cognitive schemata was
assessed in terms of their post-test performance. The experiment investigated
variations in learners' cognitive load, taking both the learning strategies and
the learners' learning styles into account. Overall, the results of the
experiment were inconsistent. In comparing the effects of the strategies during
the learning phase, the study found significant differences in cognitive load.
Unexpectedly, no differences were then detected either in cognitive load or in
performance during the post-test (post-test). In comparing the effects of the
learning styles during the learning phase and the transfer phase, medium effect
sizes suggested that learning style may have had an effect on cognitive load.
However, no significant difference was observed in performance during the
post-test. Keywords: Cognitive load; Learning styles; Worked-example strategies; Programming | |||
| The role of disclosure of personal information in the evaluation of risk and trust in young peoples' online interactions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 299-306 | |
| Jo Bryce; James Fraser | |||
| This study examined the relationship between the evaluation of risk, trust
and disclosure of personal information in young peoples' online interactions. A
series of 18 focus groups were conducted with young people aged 9-19 years old.
The results suggested that the majority of young people have a high level of
awareness of the risks and potential outcomes associated with their online
behaviour. Participants perceived disclosure of personal information to be
important for the development of online relationships, and discussed associated
strategies for evaluating trust and verifying identity. The study suggests that
the perceived benefits associated with the disclosure of personal information
and interacting with 'strangers' online may outweigh the perceived risks
associated with these behaviours as the result of the importance of peer
relationships and the exploration of identity during adolescence. Identified
age-related differences and similarities in relation to the themes are
explored, and areas for future research discussed. Keywords: Adolescence; Risk; Trust; Internet | |||
| Positive affect predicting worker psychological response to cyber-bullying in the high-tech industry in Northern Taiwan | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 307-314 | |
| Jon-Chao Hong; Lin Chien-Hou; Ming-Yueh Hwang; Ru-Ping Hu; Yi-Ling Chen | |||
| Online cyber-bullying has become a frequent occurrence in organizations. To
understand individual dispositions and the organizational factors that effect
online cyber-bullying, the present study investigates the relationship among
positive affect, the perceived organizational innovation climate, and
psychological responses to cyber-bullying. The research samples for this study
are staff members from the high-tech manufacturing industry in Northern Taiwan.
A total of 396 responses were validated for confirmatory factor analyses,
correlation coefficient, and structural equation modeling (SEM). The research
results revealed that a positive affect (PA) has a positive influence on
perceived organizational innovation climate. Moreover, the perceived
organizational innovation climate has a negative influence on psychological
responses to cyber-bullying. Finally, the experience of cyber-bullying was
positively correlated to the psychological response of being cyber-bullied,
i.e., the more an individual had experienced cyber-bullying, the higher
psychological response. The results further indicated an interesting finding
for the mediating role of perceived organizational innovation climate between
positive affect and psychological responses to cyber-bullying. Therefore,
organizations can enhance the positive affect for employees and foster an
effective organization innovation climate, so those workers are better
adaptable to cope with cyber-bullying. Keywords: Positive thinking; Organizational innovation climate; Psychological response; Cyber-bullying; Workplace bullying | |||
| Perceived control and gender difference on the relationship between trialability and intent to play new online games | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 315-320 | |
| Edward Shih-Tse Wang | |||
| With the growing number of online game players and the increasing of new
online games development, it is imperative for marketers to develop a better
understanding of players' new game adoption decisions. This study examines
perceived control as a mediator of trialability-product adoption relationship,
and gender difference as a moderator of the relationship between
trialability-product adoptions. A field survey was conducted to test the
hypotheses of the study. Respondents were graduate students from Taiwan
universities. A total of 411 undergraduate students with massively multiplayer
online gaming (MMOGs) experience participated in this study. The structural
equation model (SEM) method was employed to analyze the data. The findings
indicate that perceived product trialability has a direct influence on intent
to play new games, and indirect effects through perceived process control.
Gender differences also moderate the trialability effects on the adoption of
new online games. Perceived trialability had more of an effect on intention to
play new online games for female players than for male players. To develop an
effective product development and communication strategy, the finding suggests
that online game firms should focus on new product characteristics and consider
consumer gender differences. Keywords: Massively multiplayer online gaming; Trialability; Perceived control; Behavioral intention; Gender difference | |||
| The attraction of online games: An important factor for Internet Addiction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 321-327 | |
| Hui-Jie Tone; Hao-Rui Zhao; Wan-Seng Yan | |||
| This study examined the attraction of online games and their contribution to
Internet Addiction (IA) among college students in China in a series of
cross-sectional studies. Study 1 tested the theoretical framework of the online
games attraction and developed an assessment instrument: the Online Game
Attraction Inventory (OAI). Study 2 surveyed 635 students using a battery of
questionnaires that included the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS) to assess
IA levels and determine which predictor contributed the most to IA. The results
indicated the OAI to be a psychometrically sound tool with acceptable levels of
reliability and validity. The OAI score was positively related to the CIAS
score (r = .397, p < .01), and the structural equation modeling results
revealed that online game attraction mediates the relationships among
personality, family function, life events, social support and IA. Thus, the
attraction of online games may affect the IA of college students; therefore,
more attention should be paid to this issue. Keywords: Internet Addiction; Online games; Attraction; Structural equation modeling | |||
| Investigating consumer attitude and intention toward free trials of technology-based services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 328-334 | |
| Dong Hong Zhu; Ya Ping Chang | |||
| Offering free trials can be an effective strategy to promote the diffusion
of technology-based services. However, few studies have focused on the adoption
of free trials toward technology-based services. This study examined the
antecedents of consumer attitude and intention toward free trial of
technology-based services under the framework of the technology acceptance
model (TAM). The proposed model was tested by using the Partial Least Squares
(PLS) technique. Results indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of
use, perceived risk and social influence are some of the important determinant
factors. In addition, significant differences exist between female and male
consumers. Keywords: Technology-based service; Free trial; Consumer attitude; Trial intention; Gender differences; Technology acceptance model | |||
| An assessment of equivalence between paper and social media surveys: The role of social desirability and satisficing | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 335-343 | |
| Jiaming Fang; Chao Wen; Victor Prybutok | |||
| Investigation of the underlying mechanisms responsible for measurement
variance has received little attention. The primary objective of this study is
to examine whether paper and social media surveys produce convergent results
and investigate the underlying psychological mechanisms for the potential
measurement nonequivalence. Particularly, we explored the role of social
desirability and satisficing on the measurement results. We collected data via
five different survey modes, including paper survey, ad hoc Web survey, online
forum (message boards)-based, SNS-based and microblog-based surveys. The
findings show that socially desirable responding does not lead to inconsistent
results. Rather we found that satisficing causes inconsistent results in paper
versus online surveys. Sociability reduces the possibility of engaging in
satisficing that results in inconsistent results between traditional Web
surveys and social media-based Web surveys. Keywords: Social media; Social media surveys; Web survey; Measurement invariance; Social desirability; Satisficing | |||
| New members' online socialization in online communities: The effects of content quality and feedback on new members' content-sharing intentions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 344-354 | |
| Sungwook Lee; Do-Hyung Park; Ingoo Han | |||
| Online communities' viability and success are dependent on current members'
active participation and content contribution, as well as on the sustainable
community registration of new members. Based on the member-life cycle
perspective, this study attempted to discover mechanisms that might be employed
to increase new members' community participation. This study focused on
user-generated content (UGC) sharing. The results of this study suggest that
UGC quality gaps that exist between current and new members are important
factors that might affect new members' socialization. In addition, the results
demonstrated that feedback provided by members can affect new members'
participation when UGC quality gaps exist. The results revealed that new
members preferred an equivalent UGC community to either a superior or inferior
community when they were unable to derive benefits from those communities.
However, an investigation of the types of feedback provided revealed that new
members expressed preferences for superior UGC communities to obtain learning
opportunities and expressed preferences for inferior UGC communities to develop
social relationships. This study can help researchers better understand how UGC
communities' elements can affect new members' behaviors. In addition, the
results can help community managers devise differentiated approaches. Keywords: Online socialization; Online community; Member life-cycle; User generated content | |||
| Exploring the positive side of personal internet use at work: Does it help in managing the border between work and nonwork? | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 355-360 | |
| Cornelius J. König; Mariette E. Caner de la Guardia | |||
| Many employees use the internet at work for personal reasons, and it has
been suggested that this behavior can be understood as an attempt to manage the
border between work and nonwork. Using data from 190 office workers, the study
aims to test how well work/family border theory can explain personal internet
use. The results only partly support work/family border theory, as only the
amount of private demands and identification with work at work were significant
predictors of personal internet use (which was found to be unrelated to
work-nonwork balance). These findings suggest that work/family border theory
offers only a limited perspective for the explanation of why people use the
internet at work for personal business. Keywords: Cyberloafing; Cyberslacking; Non-work-related computing; Work/life balance; Work/family border theory | |||
| Special issue on Information and communication technologies for human capital development | | BIB | Full-Text | 361 | |
| Miltiadis D. Lytras; Eugenijus Kurilovas | |||
| Improving e-learning communities through optimal composition of multidisciplinary learning groups | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 362-371 | |
| Maria-Iuliana Dascalu; Constanta-Nicoleta Bodea; Miltiadis Lytras; Patricia Ordoñez de Pablos; Alexandru Burlacu | |||
| The current study proposes an intelligent approach to compose optimal
learning groups in which the members have different domain backgrounds. The
approach is based on a well-known evolutionary algorithm -- Particle Swarm
Optimization. The authors claim that quantifying various indicators, such as
background diversity and similarity between the type of interest of the
participants, within a group and between groups can positively impact on
building learning groups.
The algorithm is integrated in an ontology-based e-learning system, designed to create self-built educating communities, in which a trainees goes through the education process, gains points through achievements and ultimately becomes a trainer. When creating a new account, the newly created trainee is asked to self asses himself by filling out a form. The resulting profile is used to assign the user to the most suitable learning group. We propose to assign him by the following rule: maximizing the diversity within a group (due to the fact that multidisciplinary teams are more challenging) and minimizing the diversity between groups (all the groups should have similar composition), meaning a group will have members with similar interests. The study is presented in the context of group building strategies in adults' education. Keywords: Multidisciplinary learning groups; Particle Swarm Optimization; E-learning communities | |||
| Analysis of assessment opportunities of learning spaces: On-line versus face to face methodologies | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 372-377 | |
| Ana Salomé García; María Teresa García-Álvarez; Blanca Moreno | |||
| In the last decade, new methodologies have been introduced in higher
education, based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), with the
aim of promoting a new teaching based on learning. Moreover, the new standards
under the European Higher Education Area, show the relevance of using the
concept of competences as a basis for learning outcomes. In order to measure
and evaluate the students' learning outcomes, assessment methods become a key
tool in teaching and learning systems.
In this context, several forms of assessment have been introduced in higher education where ICTS have changed the traditional assessment. Therefore, a key concept is to detect the implications of the different teaching methodologies (face to face and on-line) and assessment activities in the learning process of students. This paper develops a methodology, based on information theory measures, that allows us to determine which assessment activity involves a better discrimination of students' levels of acquired competences in a subject of Business Administration and Management degree. The results show that continuous assessment methodology, based on ICTs, have a positive impact in the learning process and in the obtained grades in the final exam. Keywords: Information and communication technologies; Economic statistic; European Higher Education Area; Assessment activities; Information theory measures | |||
| Exploiting location information for Web search | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 378-388 | |
| Jie Zhao; Peiquan Jin; Qingqing Zhang; Run Wen | |||
| Most Web pages contain location information, which are usually neglected by
traditional search engines. Queries combining location and textual terms are
called as spatial textual Web queries. Based on the fact that traditional
search engines pay little attention in the location information in Web pages,
in this paper we study a framework to utilize location information for Web
search. The proposed framework consists of an offline stage to extract focused
locations for crawled Web pages, as well as an online ranking stage to perform
location-aware ranking for search results. The focused locations of a Web page
refer to the most appropriate locations associated with the Web page. In the
offline stage, we extract the focused locations and keywords from Web pages and
map each keyword with specific focused locations, which forms a set of
<keyword, location> pairs. In the second online query processing stage,
we extract keywords from the query, and computer the ranking scores based on
location relevance and the location-constrained scores for each querying
keyword. The experiments on various real datasets crawled from nj.gov, BBC and
New York Time show that the performance of our algorithm on focused location
extraction is superior to previous methods and the proposed ranking algorithm
has the best performance w.r.t different spatial textual queries. Keywords: Ranking algorithm; Spatial textual query; Web search; Location extraction | |||
| Towards federated interoperable bridges for sharing educational remote laboratories | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 389-395 | |
| Pablo Orduña; Philip H. Bailey; Kimberly DeLong; Diego López-de-Ipiña; Javier García-Zubia | |||
| Educational remote laboratories are software and hardware tools that allow
students to remotely access real equipment located in the university as if they
were in a hands-on-lab session. Different initiatives have existed during the
last two decades, and indeed toolkits (e.g. iLabs, WebLab-Deusto or Labshare
Sahara) have been developed to ease their development by providing common
management features (e.g. authentication or scheduling). Each of these systems
was developed aiming particular constraints, so it could be difficult to
migrate the labs built on top of one system to other. While there is certainly
some overlap among these systems, with bridges among them they become
complimentary. Given that these systems support web services based federation
protocols for sharing labs, it is possible to achieve this goal, and share labs
among different universities through different systems. The impact of this goal
is that different institutions can increase the experiential activities of
their students, potentially improving their learning goals. The focus is the
integration of WebLab-Deusto labs inside the iLab Shared Architecture, as well
as the integration of iLab batch labs inside WebLab-Deusto, detailing
limitations and advantages of both integrations and showing particular cases. Keywords: Remote laboratories; Federation; Interoperability | |||
| Modeling and exploiting collaborative traces in web-based collaborative working environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 396-408 | |
| Qiang Li; Marie-Hélène Abel; Jean-Paul A. Barthès | |||
| In a Web-based Collaborative Working Environment (CWE), traces are always
produced by past activities or interactions. Although every trace derives from
the stored information, the modeled trace not only represents knowledge but
also experience from the interactive actions among the actors or between an
actor and the system. Normally, with the increasing complexity of group
structure and frequent collaboration needs, the existing interactions become
more difficult to grasp and analyze. This article focuses on defining, modeling
and exploiting the various traces in the context of CWE, in particular
Collaborative Traces (CTs) left in the shared/collaborative workspace. A model
of collaborative trace that can efficiently enrich group experience and
facilitate group collaboration is proposed and explained in details.
Furthermore, we introduce and define a type of complex filter as a possible
approach to exploit the traces. Four basic scenarios of collaborative trace
exploitation are presented to describe its effects and advantages in CWE. A
general model and framework of CT-based SWOT Analysis is discussed with
examples. For practical applications, the validation of our model is examined
in the context of the collaborative platform E-MEMORAe2.0. In addition, a
remark concerning recommendations based on collaborative traces is given in the
conclusion. Keywords: Collaborative working environment; Trace-based system; Collaborative trace; Collaborative engineering; Experience Management | |||
| A new e-learning tool for cognitive democracies in the Knowledge Society | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 409-418 | |
| José María Moreno-Jiménez; Jesús Cardeñosa; Carolina Gallardo; Miguel Ángel de la Villa-Moreno | |||
| Cognitive democracies can be defined as new models of e-democracy that are
based on the evolutionism of living systems and deal with their vital
(cognitive) process by means of the continuous education of citizens with
regards to one of the essential characteristics of humankind: decision making.
The education is provided by the social democratisation of the knowledge. This
corresponds to the proportion of the arguments that support the positions.
These arguments are extracted from the opinions expressed in the discussion
stages included in the e-democracy models. (Moreno-Jiménez et al., 2012)
presented a collaborative platform which is currently being used as the
methodological support for the cognitive democracy known as e-cognocracy
(Moreno-Jiménez, 2003a, 2004, 2006; Moreno-Jiménez & Polasek,
2003, 2005) and for identifying and classifying the messages or opinions that
favour the different individual positions through the employment of
quantitative (data mining) and qualitative (text mining) approaches. This paper
represents the next step in the phase concerned with extraction of the
policy-making arguments. Using opinion analysis techniques, the new e-learning
tool extracts the arguments that support the different opinions. This tool has
been applied to the discussion stage of a case study developed at the
University of Zaragoza concerning the possible location of Europe's biggest
leisure complex (Gran Scala) in Aragon (Spain). Keywords: E-democracy; E-cognocracy; Cognitive democracy; Knowledge extraction; Learning; Opinion mining; Sentiment analysis | |||
| Performance optimality enhancement algorithm in DDBS (POEA) | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 419-426 | |
| Hassan I. Abdallaha; Ali A. Amer; Hassan Mathkour | |||
| Proper data allocation is a key performance factor for an efficient
functionality of Distributed Database Systems (DDBSs). Therefore, if data
allocation across sites is performed accurately while preserving the issues of
communication and site constraints, an optimal solution for DDBS performance in
a dynamic distributed environment will be achieved.
In this paper, a new dynamic data allocation algorithm for non-replicated DDBS is presented, the proposed Performance Optimality Enhancement Algorithm (POEA) explores and improves some concepts used in previously developed algorithms to reallocates fragments to different sites given the changing data access patterns, time and sites constraints of the DDBS. Moreover, the POEA adopts the shortest path between the old location and the new anticipated location for the transferred fragments when migration decision is made. Experimental results show that POEA has efficiently reduced the transmission cost subsequently minimizing the frequency and the time spent on fragment migration over the network sites resulting to a great improvement in the overall DDBS performance. Keywords: Allocation; DDBS; Fragment; Redistribution; Algorithm | |||
| A synchronized design technique for efficient data distribution | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 427-435 | |
| Hassan I. Abdalla | |||
| One of the important features of database fragmentation and allocation
techniques is the fact that they depend not only on the entries of a database
relation, but also on their empirical frequencies of use. Distributed
processing is an effective way to improve performance of database systems.
However, for a Distributed Database System (DDBS) to function efficiently,
fragments of the database need to be allocated carefully at various sites
across the relevant communications network. Therefore, fragmentation and proper
allocation of fragments across network sites is considered as a key research
area in distributed database environment. However, fragments allocation to the
most appropriate sites is not an easy task to perform. This paper proposes a
synchronized horizontal fragmentation, replication and allocation model that
adopts a new approach to horizontally fragment a database relation based on
attribute retrieval and update frequency to find an optimal solution for the
allocation problem. A heuristic technique to satisfy horizontal fragmentation
and allocation using a cost model to minimize the total cost of distribution is
developed. Experimental results are consistent with the hypothesis and confirm
that the proposed model can efficiently solve dynamic fragmentation and
allocation problem in a distributed relational database environment. Keywords: Synchronization; Distribution; Fragmentation; Replication; Allocation | |||
| Agriculture satellite image segmentation using a modified artificial Hopfield neural network | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 436-441 | |
| Rachid Sammouda; Nuru Adgaba; Ameur Touir; Ahmed Al-Ghamdi | |||
| Beekeeping plays an important role in increasing and diversifying the
incomes of many rural communities in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, despite
the region's relatively good rainfall, which results in better forage
conditions, bees and beekeepers are greatly affected by seasonal shortages of
bee forage. Because of these shortages, beekeepers must continually move their
colonies in search of better forage. The aim of this paper is to determine the
actual bee forage areas with specific characteristics like population density,
ecological distribution, flowering phenology based on color satellite image
segmentation. Satellite images are currently used as an efficient tool for
agricultural management and monitoring. It is also one of the most difficult
image segmentation problems due to factors like environmental conditions, poor
resolution and poor illumination. Pixel clustering is a popular way of
determining the homogeneous image regions, corresponding to the different land
cover types, based on their spectral properties. In this paper Hopfield neural
network (HNN) is introduced as Pixel clustering based segmentation method for
agriculture satellite images. Keywords: Beekeeping; Hopfield neural network; Satellite image segmentation; Pixel clustering | |||
| School networks to promote ICT competences among teachers. Case study in intercultural schools | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 442-451 | |
| Marcelo Careaga Butter; Laura Jiménez Pérez; María Graciela Badilla Quintana | |||
| The aim of this quantitative, exploratory and descriptive research is to
know if teachers that work in intercultural contexts develop ICT competences by
using virtual platforms. The innovation of the teaching-learning processes is
promoted through the virtual platform, keeping a connection by forming school
networks among schools in indigenous contexts. 51 teachers from 10 schools from
the Bío-Bío and Araucanía regions in Chile were part of
the development of the networks. The main results show that the participant
teachers increased their ICT competences in the different dimensions of the use
of the ICT: pedagogical management, knowledge management, deepening of
knowledge; and social, ethic and legal dimensions, by applying the knowledge
and talent management models. Keywords: ICT competences; Virtual platforms; Teachers; Interculturality; School networks | |||
| Comparing student competences in a face-to-face and online business game | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 452-459 | |
| Àngels Fitó-Bertran; Ana Beatriz Hernández-Lara; Enric Serradell-López | |||
| In today's globalized environment, universities and business schools need to
incorporate elements and tools to obtain high-performance capabilities.
Curricular schooling can benefit from the usage of educational business games.
We analyzed the evolution and performance of two group of students who have
followed a business simulation during some academic semesters. Data from a
questionnaire answered by 146 students were analysed and compared with the
European Tuning Project competence ranking. The results showed that the level
of generic and specific competences obtained using business games is quite
high. Moreover, the study have found that the assessment of competences
acquired by students with a business game is not the same in the case of
on-campus students than in the case of online students, in most cases the
online group values specific competences higher than the face-to-face group.
Our results suggest that the use of business games and can be considered a
useful tool to improve student's achievements and to foster a good level of
competences. Keywords: Business game; Competences; Face-to-face learning; Online learning | |||
| Otsopack: Lightweight semantic framework for interoperable ambient intelligence applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 460-467 | |
| Aitor Gómez-Goiri; Pablo Orduña; Javier Diego; Diego López-de-Ipiña | |||
| In Ambient Intelligence environments machines proactively and transparently
work on behalf of humans. The nature of these machines and the communication
protocols they use is multifarious. Therefore, the applications running on top
of them remarkably demand interoperability. The Triple Space Computing (TSC)
paradigm addresses that problem by sharing information represented in a
semantic format through a common virtual space. As long as application
developers use standard ontologies, different applications using the same
spaces will interact automatically. The focus of this paper is to present
Otsopack, a fully distributed TSC middleware designed to meet the needs of
mobile and resource constrained devices. Otsopack defines a simple HTTP
interface for the TSC operations. This interface focuses on simplicity and
modularity, so that two implementations that support different modules can
still interact. To assess the middleware we provide time and load measurements,
and we analyze two independent implementations. Keywords: Ambient intelligence; Semantic web; Web of things; Tuple space; Internet of things; Space-based computing | |||
| Evaluating the impact of a cloud-based serious game on obese people | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 468-475 | |
| Atif Alamri; Mohammad Mehedi Hassan; M. Anwar Hossain; Muhammad Al-Qurishi; Yousuf Aldukhayyil; M. Shamim Hossain | |||
| This paper describes the process of monitoring obese people through a
cloud-based serious game that promotes them to engage in physical exercises in
a playful manner. The monitoring process focuses on obtaining various health
and exercise-related parameters of obese during game-play, such as heart rate,
weight, step count and calorie burn, which contributes to their weight loss.
While the obese are engaged in the game session, therapists/caregivers can
access their health data anytime, anywhere and from any device to change the
game complexity level and accordingly provide on the spot recommendation. In
our study, we evaluate how the different physical activities performed through
this game impact their cognitive behavior in terms of attention, relevance,
confidence and satisfaction. The evaluation was based on the participation of
150 undergraduate obese and overweight students who were asked to play the game
and fill a questionnaire after game-play. The data analysis conducted on their
feedback showed that they were self-aware and motivated to play the game for
weight loss. Keywords: Obesity; Serious game; Cloud computing; Health monitoring and cognitive behavior | |||
| An analysis of the determinants of students' performance in e-learning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 476-484 | |
| David Castillo-Merino; Enric Serradell-López | |||
| Previous studies show empirical evidence on the positive effect on students'
performance from the adoption of innovations in the technology of teaching and
learning. These innovations do not affect all teaching methods and learning
styles equally. Rather, it depends on some variables, such as the strategy of a
university towards adoption of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT), students' abilities, technology uses in the educational process by
teachers and students, or the selection of a methodology that matches with
digital uses. This paper provides answers to these questions with data from an
experimental set-up performed within the eLene-EE project, and using an
empirical model based on structural equations. Our results show that motivation
is the main variable affecting performance of online students, confirming the
importance of this factor as a source of educational efficiency. Motivation
appears in our model as a latent variable receiving the influence of students'
perception of efficiency, which is, in turn, a driver for the indirect positive
and significant effect on students' performance from students' ability in ICT
uses. Keywords: E-learning; Efficiency in higher education; Students' performance; Determinants of efficiency; Structural equations | |||
| Automated and user involved data synchronization in collaborative e-health environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 485-490 | |
| M. Shamim Hossain; Mehedi Masud; Ghulam Muhammad; Majdi Rawashdeh; Mohammad Mehedi Hassan | |||
| This paper presents a data synchronization model using automated and user
involved process during execution of conflicting updates. Data synchronization
is performed using three techniques, namely, (i) auto synchronization, (ii)
semi-automatic synchronization, and (iii) user-involved synchronization. We
have evaluated and measured users' acceptability of the proposed data
synchronization approach in an e-health environment. The results show the
effectiveness of the proposed approach. Keywords: e-Health; Collaborative environment; Data synchronization; User interaction | |||
| The impact of m-learning technology on students and educators | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 491-496 | |
| Hamid R. Abachi; Ghulam Muhammad | |||
| This paper addresses the notion of the impact of mobile learning technology
from the learner's as well as educator's point of view. The authors have
outlined the application of the e-learning in smart classes, which is followed
by a similar argument with regard to the m-learning technology. This is
followed by a statistical evaluation of the m-learning which through multiple
surveys is conducted among the undergraduate and postgraduate students as well
as the academics. In conclusion, the outcomes of these surveys are presented in
graphical forms that highlight the merits and demerits of the m-learning
technology. Keywords: E-learning; m-Learning; Learning system; Smart class; Learning management system | |||
| Breaking the walls of social exclusion of women rural by means of ICTs: The case of 'digital divides' in Galician | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 497-507 | |
| Isabel Novo-Corti; Laura Varela-Candamio; María Teresa García-Álvarez | |||
| This paper examines the digital divides for women in rural areas within the
Information Society, referring particularly to the Galician experience
(Autonomous Region in the North West of Spain). In order to explore the
barriers to social and labor exclusion it was elaborated a survey relating with
the use and impact of ITC in social and labor experiences of rural women. The
results showed that rural women are aware of the key role played for ITC on
their way to achieve the participation on decision making process as well as in
social life and labor. The main barriers to the Internet penetration in women
social life were employment, education and income. From an individual point of
view, the existence of non-users was explained by a combination of access
problems, lack of ICT skills or rather negative attitudes towards ITC. Finally,
a bunch of policy recommendations is proposed focus on providing better
Internet access in rural areas and to sensitize the population, particularly
the oldest, about the importance of gender equality in access to technology in
order to avoid digital barriers for rural women and reduce social exclusion of
this group. Keywords: Information Society; ITC; Digital divides; Digital literacy; Rural women; Social inclusion | |||
| Another look at 'being there' experiences in digital media: Exploring connections of telepresence with mental imagery | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 508-518 | |
| Inma Rodríguez-Ardura; Francisco J. Martínez-López | |||
| Substantial multidisciplinary research has established foundational support
for the consumer behaviour phenomenon that underlies the experience of
telepresence within online social networks and other digital media products
that provide hedonistic value. A review of major perspectives in this field
provides justification of the important role mental imagery processes play in
the phenomenon of telepresence. In line with this, we propose to extend
existing approaches to mental imagery to reach the context of user experiences
in digital media, and to theoretically connect telepresence with mental
imagery. On this basis, and in conjunction with investigations bringing to
light processes that intervene in the terrain of mental imagery, we present an
integrative conceptual framework concerned with telepresence, and discuss the
role of telepresence within a user's hedonistic usage of digital media
products. Keywords: Sense of telepresence; Mental imagery; Thought-imagery; Imagination-imagery; Cognitive elaboration; Narrative transportation theory | |||
| Social career management: Social media and employability skills gap | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 519-525 | |
| Vladlena Benson; Stephanie Morgan; Fragkiskos Filippaios | |||
| Social capital theorists have established decades ago that better connected
people do better in life. The emergence of online social networking sites have
given a new impetus to building and exploiting connections for career
management. While professionals acknowledge that social networking is essential
for business and development, new graduates coming into the corporate world are
not equipped with the uptodate skill set. Through the lens of the improved
employability objectives, this paper draws conclusions from a recent study of
UK business graduates and their use of social networking. The paper presents
for discussion an employability skill set for contemporary business
professional and calls for higher education to address the skill gap. Further
research directions are discussed. Keywords: Educational technology; Employability; Knowledge management; Higher education; Student lifecycle | |||
| Expert centred vs learner centred approach for evaluating quality and reusability of learning objects | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 526-534 | |
| Eugenijus Kurilovas; Silvija Serikoviene; Riina Vuorikari | |||
| The aim of the paper is to present and compare so-called bottom-up and
top-down approaches for evaluating quality and reusability of learning objects
(LOs). The paper proposes bottom-up methodology that outlines the central role
of learners' individual and social behaviour while working with LOs. This
includes social tagging and some parameters of interaction for measuring
context to describe LOs usage, attention, and other aspects of the context as
well as helps to exploit context data towards making LOs repositories more
useful, and thus enhance the reuse. The paper also presents top-down
methodology for the expert evaluation of LOs quality and reusability. This
methodology consists of consecutive application of several scientific
approaches, methods, and principles. The authors investigate how these two
different, however complimentary approaches for evaluating LOs quality and
reusability can be better applied for the aims of eQNet project in order to
select reusable ("travel well") LOs for implementing in different educational
contexts and countries. These approaches could be considered as suitable
applications of information and communication technologies (ICT's) for
development of human capital. The examples of practical application of these
approaches for evaluating LOs quality and reusability in eQNet project are also
presented in the paper. Keywords: ICT's for human capital; Learning objects; Learners' behaviour; Social tagging; Quality criteria; Reusability | |||
| Affective command-based control system integrating brain signals in commands control systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 535-541 | |
| Ghada Al-Hudhud | |||
| Speech interaction systems are currently highly demanded for quick
hands-free interactions. Conventional speech interaction systems (SISs) are
trained to the user's voice whilst most modern systems learn from interaction
experience overtime. However, because speech expresses a human computer natural
interaction (HCNI) with the world, SIS design must lead to interface computer
system that can receive spoken information and act appropriately upon that
information. In spite of significant advancements in recent years SISs, there
still remain a large number of problems which must be solved in order to
successfully apply the SISs in practice and also comfortably accepted by the
users. Among many other problems, problems of devising and efficient modeling
are considered the primary and important step in the speech recognition
deployment in hands-free applications. Meanwhile, the brain-computer interfaces
(BCIs) allow users to control applications by brain activity. The work
presented in this paper emphasizes an improved implementation of SIS by
integrating BCI in order to associate the brain signals for a list of commands
as identification criteria for each specific command for controlling the
wheelchair with spoken commands. Keywords: Human computer natural interaction; Speech interaction modality; Affective computing applications; SISs interface design requirements | |||
| What can we learn from advertisements of logistics firms on YouTube? A cross cultural perspective | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 542-549 | |
| Yen-Chun Jim Wu; Taih-cherng Lirn; Tse-Ping Dong | |||
| The current leading third party logistics industry players have all
experienced a shift towards an increasingly retail consumer point of contact,
therefore facilitating the need to appeal to the retail consumer through
advertising and brand management. With the rise in word-of-mouth (WOM)
advertising in online, Web 2.0 contexts, this empirical work represented a
first attempt to investigate the correlation between the placement of corporate
ads on a user-generated Web 2.0 platform with the bottom line of the logistics
firms involved, with a focus on the express package industry. The study further
investigated whether there were common characteristics of effective
advertisements in Web 2.0 environments as rated by viewers, and whether such
assessments would hold across cultural and demographic boundaries, given the
global nature of Web 2.0 content. It was found that both page hit popularity
and respondent agreement on effective advertisement characteristics related
positively to sales, with results being consistent cross-culturally. Firms are
strongly advised to take note of the massive potential for highly low cost or
free advertising such platforms can provide. Conversely, firms must become
aware of both the benefits and risks of Web 2.0 environments, including damage
caused by potential saboteurs to their brand control and image. Keywords: Web 2.0; Social media; Market intelligence; Performance measurement; Case studies; Survey methods | |||
| Recommending suitable learning scenarios according to learners' preferences: An improved swarm based approach | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 550-557 | |
| Eugenijus Kurilovas; Inga Zilinskiene; Valentina Dagiene | |||
| The paper presents a new approach for recommending suitable learning paths
for different learners groups. Selection of the learning path is considered as
recommendations to choosing and combining the sequences of learning objects
(LOs) according to learners' preferences. Learning path can be selected by
applying artificial intelligence techniques, e.g. a swarm intelligence model.
If we modify and/or change some LOs in the learning path, we should rearrange
the alignment of new and old LOs and reallocate pheromones to achieve effective
learning recommendations. To solve this problem, a new method based on the ant
colony optimisation algorithm and adaptation of the solution to the changing
optimum is proposed. A simulation process with a dynamic change of learning
paths when new LOs are inserted was chosen to verify the method proposed. The
paper contributes with the following new developments: (1) an approach of
dynamic learning paths selection based on swarm intelligence, and (2) a
modified ant colony optimisation algorithm for learning paths selection. The
elaborated approach effectively assist learners by helping them to reach most
suitable LOs according to their preferences, and tutors -- by helping them to
monitor, refine, and improve e-learning modules and courses according to the
learners' behaviour. Keywords: ICT's for human capital; Learning paths; Learners' behaviour; Learning objects; Swarm intelligence; Ant colony optimisation algorithm | |||
| Text mining approach for knowledge extraction in Sahîh Al-Bukhari | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 558-566 | |
| Fouzi Harrag | |||
| The areas of information retrieval (IR) and information extraction (IE) are
the subject of active research for several years in the community of Artificial
Intelligence and Text Mining. With the appearance of large textual corpora in
the recent years, we felt the need to integrate modules for information
extraction in the existing information retrieval systems. The processing of
large textual corpora leads needs that are situated at the border of
information extraction and information retrieval areas. Our work in this paper,
focus on the extraction of the surface information, i.e. information that not
requires complex linguistic processing to be categorized. The goal is to detect
and extract passages or sequences of words containing relevant information from
the prophetic narrations texts. We propose Finite state transducers-based
system that solves successively the problem of texts comprehension.
Experimental evaluation results demonstrated that our approach is feasible. Our
system achieved encouraging precision and recall rates, the overall precision
and recall are 71% and 39% respectively. Keywords: Text mining; Information extraction; Named entity extraction; Prophetic narrations texts; Finite state transducer | |||
| Enhancing enterprise training performance: Perspectives from knowledge transfer and integration | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 567-573 | |
| Jingyuan Zhao; Zhongying Qi; Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos | |||
| Training is a way to achieve knowledge transfer among enterprise employees.
This study designs an enterprise training system facilitating knowledge
transfer so that enterprise training is more responsive to employees' demand
through reasonable classification of staff. The individual tacit knowledge can
be explicit by means of the selection of trainers, as well as the sorting and
preparation of training contents by trainers in the process of training, while
the individual explicit knowledge can become collective explicit knowledge
through the explanation by trainers and the learning by trainees, and then
trainees improve individual skills and apply them in practice to achieve the
transformation from collective explicit knowledge to individual tacit knowledge
when trainees master and digest knowledge. When an enterprise acquires
knowledge through training, the acquired knowledge will be diffused and
accumulated to become a valuable asset through a knowledge integration
mechanism including human bridge, organizational bridge and procedural bridge,
accordingly, the training performance will be enhanced. Keywords: Enterprise training; Knowledge transfer; Knowledge integration | |||
| Assessing social construction of knowledge online: A critique of the interaction analysis model | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 574-582 | |
| Margarida Lucas; Charlotte Gunawardena; António Moreira | |||
| The growing adoption of communication technologies to mediate teaching and
learning processes fostered the study of asynchronous communication as an
activity that can reveal students' behavior during learning processes. Much of
the research conducted on this topic focuses on the application of interaction
models to analyze the content of asynchronous discussions and assess their
quality. Despite the existence of different models, the one developed by
Gunawardena, Lowe, and Anderson (1997) remains as one of the most used in the
study of online interaction. In this respect, the present work focuses on
studies that mention the application of this model in its analysis and
discusses the extension of its application as well as its limitations. Results
reinforce the adequacy of the model to analyze knowledge construction in
different types of communication tools, but they also suggest the need to look
at how learning is orchestrated and the importance of re-defining some aspects
of the model in question. Keywords: Human-computer interaction; Social knowledge construction; Asynchronous discussions; Interaction analysis model; Content analysis | |||
| Understanding users' behavior with software operation data mining | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 583-594 | |
| Stella Pachidi; Marco Spruit; Inge van de Weerd | |||
| Software usage concerns knowledge about how end-users use the software in
the field, and how the software itself responds to their actions. In this
paper, we present the Usage Mining Method to guide the analysis of data
collected during software operation, in order to extract knowledge about how a
software product is used by the end-users. Our method suggests three analysis
tasks which employ data mining techniques for extracting usage knowledge from
software operation data: users profiling, clickstream analysis and
classification analysis. The Usage Mining Method was evaluated through a
prototype that was executed in the case of Exact Online, the main online
financial management application in the Netherlands. The evaluation confirmed
the supportive role of the Usage Mining Method in software product management
and development processes, as well as the applicability of the suggested data
mining algorithms to carry out the usage analysis tasks. Keywords: Software usage; User behavior; Software operation knowledge; Software analytics; Log data; Data mining | |||
| Do studies level and age matter in learning and social relationship in the assessment of web 3.0? A case study for 'digital natives' in Spain | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 595-605 | |
| Laura Varela-Candamio; Isabel Novo-Corti; María Barreiro-Gen | |||
| In the recent years, a growing body of research calls into question the
homogeneity of digital natives in the knowledge and use of the web. This paper
studies the assessment of the current web 3.0 by youth in terms of social
networks and the Internet reliability using a model based on univariate and
multivariate analysis with structural equations. A sample of 152 young people
was interviewed in Spain between August and September 2012 and divided into
different subsamples: a sample of Higher Education Students (HES) and a mixed
group of young people (MGS) used as the control group. A double analysis is
presented using both statistical-descriptive and a comparison between means
between the two groups and then a structural equation multivariate analysis is
implemented to complete the analysis. This paper concludes that whilst there
are strong age and level of education related variations between both samples
in the assessment of web 3.0. In particular, higher education students increase
the assessment of the web 3.0, not only for purposes of social relationship and
friendship but as an important role of knowledge and learning, whether formal
or informal and they are able to better harness the Internet resources and
social networks, combining both academic and social uses. Keywords: Internet reliability; Social networks; Semantic web; Digital natives; Age; Educational level | |||
| Social media utilization in business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 606-613 | |
| Jari J. Jussila; Hannu Kärkkäinen; Heli Aramo-Immonen | |||
| Even today, it is a fairly common argument in business-to-business
companies, especially in traditional industrial companies, that social media is
only useful in the business-to-consumer sector. The perceived challenges,
opportunities and social media use cases in business-to-business sector have
received little attention in the literature. Therefore, this paper focuses on
bridging this gap with a survey of social media use cases, opportunities and
challenges in industrial business-to-business companies. The study also
examines the essential differences between business-to-consumer and
business-to-business in these respects. The paper starts by defining social
media and Web 2.0, and then characterizes social media in business, and social
media in business-to-business. Finally, we present and analyze the results of
our empirical survey of 125 business-to-business companies in the Finnish
technology industry sector. This paper suggests that there is a significant gap
between the perceived potential of social media and social media use with
customers and partners in business-to-business companies, and identifies
potentially effective ways to reduce the gap. Keywords: Social media; Business-to-business; Customer interface; Partner interface; Technology industry; Survey | |||
| Adapting the Technology Acceptance Model to evaluate the innovative potential of e-learning systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 614-622 | |
| Donatella Persico; Stefania Manca; Francesca Pozzi | |||
| This paper describes an experience where the Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM) has been adapted for use in the evaluation of methodological and
technological innovations determined by the introduction of a new e-learning
system in an Italian online university. While the original TAM allows one to
assess acceptance and adoption of a new technology, in this case there was also
a need to consider all the phases of use of the system (course design, running
and evaluation), all the users of the system (students, teachers and e-learning
management), and all the system's components (the e-learning platform, the
learning resources and mostly the underlying pedagogical approach). The
resulting model, which is an extension of the original TAM, is a
three-dimensional one, with three aspects to be considered on each axis (phases
of use, users and components). For each of the 27 combinations of these
aspects, indicators of usefulness and ease-of-use have been identified. When
available, data concerning actual use (derived from the tracking functions of
the platform) and effectiveness (based on teachers' adoption of new tools and
students' learning outcomes) have also been used to complement the data. Keywords: E-learning; Evaluation; Technology Acceptance Model (TAM); Tracking; Learning outcomes; Educational innovation | |||
| Assessment frequency in introductory computer programming disciplines | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 623-628 | |
| Miguel A. Brito; Filipe de Sá-Soares | |||
| Introductory computer programming disciplines commonly show a significant
failure rate.
Although several reasons have been advanced for this state of affairs, we argue that for a beginner student it is hard to understand the difference between know-about disciplines and know-how-to-do-it disciplines, such as computer programming. This leads to failure because when students understand they are not able to solve a programming problem it is usually too late to catch all the time meanwhile lost. In order to make students critically analyse their progress, instructors have to provide them with realistic indicators of their performance. To achieve this awareness and to trigger corrective actions in a timely manner there is a need to increase assessment frequency. This paper discusses how this can be done, analyses benefits of the proposed approach and presents data on the effects of changes in assessment frequency for a university first year course in fundamentals of computer programming. Keywords: Assessment frequency; Computer programming; Constructivism; Learning; Novice students; Programming education | |||
| E-mentoring: The effects on pedagogical training of rural teachers with complex geographical accesses | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 629-636 | |
| María Graciela Badilla Quintana; Eduardo Parra Zambrano | |||
| Considering multi difficulties that determine the labor of rural teachers
who perform their teaching practices in semi-isolated contexts, it is necessary
to provide them a supportive system which favors their pedagogical performances
to benefit rural students' education. The aim of this phenomenological study is
to describe and analyze how e-mentoring can strengthen pedagogical performances
of primary rural teachers with complex geographical accesses in Chile,
exploring the subjective experiences of four couples of teachers and mentors
that take place in this process by e-mail relationship. Results show the
necessity of considering the accompaniment as a horizontal pedagogical
assistance which can be influenced by the technological resources availability,
identifying an adequate profile of e-mentor to influence teacher adherence to
the process, such as his communicative style, empathy, pedagogical and
cognitive skills. Finally, this investigation allows projecting a viable model
to be applied as support for rural education with access to Internet resource. Keywords: E-mentoring; Teaching practices; Rural education; ICT; Pedagogical accompaniment | |||
| Global social knowledge management -- Understanding barriers for global workers utilizing social software | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 637-647 | |
| Henri Pirkkalainen; Jan M. Pawlowski | |||
| Utilizing social software as a part of a global knowledge management
strategy has raised increasing interest in enterprises as well as in the
educational domain. Rather than being proactive, organizations tend to face
barriers related to knowledge management after the problems occur. When dealing
with social technologies in a distributed setting, organizations and
individuals face a variety of barriers currently unrecognized in knowledge
management literature. Within the study, we analyze knowledge management
literature extending the body of knowledge with barrier analysis regarding
global challenges as well as social software. Our focus is especially on
knowledge exchange and globally distributed collaboration activities in
organizations. We argue for contextualized understanding of the barriers,
recognizing the challenges studied in similar activities. The paper concludes
with a synthesis of these interrelated components, proposing a Global Social
Knowledge Management-barrier framework that demonstrates the wide spectrum of
possible challenges in globally distributed, social software supported
knowledge management activities. Keywords: Barriers; Knowledge management; Knowledge sharing; Social software; Global collaboration | |||
| Copyright for web content using invisible text watermarking | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 648-653 | |
| Nighat Mir | |||
| Digital watermarking is a copyright protection technique used to embed
specific data in a cover file to prevent illegal use. In this research
invisible digital watermarking based on the text information contained in a
webpage has been proposed. Watermarks are based on predefined semantic and
syntactic rules, which are encrypted and then converted into whitespace using
binary controlled characters before embedding into a webpage. Structural means
of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) are used as a cover file to embed the
formulated watermarks. Proposed system has been validated against various
attacks to find optimum robustness. Keywords: Digital watermarking; HTML; Copyrights; HASH; Invisible; Embedding | |||
| Web 3.0 -- Based personalisation of learning objects in virtual learning environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 654-662 | |
| Eugenijus Kurilovas; Svetlana Kubilinskiene; Valentina Dagiene | |||
| The paper aims at research on Web 3.0 -- based personalisation of learning
objects (LOs) while learning in virtual learning environments. Learning
personalisation is analysed in terms of suitability of LOs and VLEs to
particular learning styles. The novel sets portrait analysing interconnections
between students' learning styles, their preferred learning activities,
relevant teaching/learning methods, and LOs types is presented in more detail.
The well-known standardised vocabularies of teaching/learning methods and LOs
types were used to establish these interconnections. The sets portrait of these
interconnections is followed by the appropriate ontology. The ontology is
considered as an appropriate tool to create learners' personalised learning
environments consisting of LOs, suitable teaching/learning methods and
activities according to their preferred learning styles. The ontology should
help the learner to find suitable LOs according to preferred learning
methods/activities, and vice versa, and thus to personalise learning. The
presented Web 3.0 -- based approaches are the typical cases of information and
communication technologies (ICT's) application for development of human
capital. Keywords: ICT's for human capital; Learning objects; Virtual learning environments; Personalisation; Learners' behaviour; Learning styles | |||
| Elicitation of latent learning needs through learning goals recommendation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 663-673 | |
| Nicola Capuano; Matteo Gaeta; Pierluigi Ritrovato; Saverio Salerno | |||
| The aim of a recommender system is to estimate the relevance of a set of
objects belonging to a given domain, starting from the information available
about users and objects. Adaptive e-learning systems are able to automatically
generate personalized learning experiences starting from a learner profile and
a set of target learning goals. Starting form research results of these fields
we defined a methodology and developed a software prototype able to recommend
learning goals and to generate learning experiences for learners using an
adaptive e-learning system. The prototype has been integrated within IWT: an
existing commercial solution for personalized e-learning and experimented in a
graduate computer science course. Keywords: Adaptive learning; Recommender systems; Intelligent tutoring systems | |||
| Empowering the access to public procurement opportunities by means of linking controlled vocabularies. A case study of Product Scheme Classifications in the European e-Procurement sector | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 674-688 | |
| Jose María Alvarez-Rodríguez; José Emilio Labra-Gayo; Alejandro Rodríguez-González; Patricia Ordoñez De Pablos | |||
| The present paper introduces a method to promote existing controlled
vocabularies to the Linked Data initiative. A common data model and an enclosed
conversion method for knowledge organization systems based on semantic web
technologies and vocabularies such as SKOS are presented. This method is
applied to well-known taxonomies and controlled vocabularies in the business
sector, more specifically to Product Scheme Classifications created by
governmental institutions such as the European Union or the United Nations.
Since these product schemes are available in a common and shared data model,
the needs of the European e-Procurement sector are outlined to finally
demonstrate how Linked Data can address some of the challenges for publishing
and retrieving information resources. As a consequence, two experiments are
also provided in order to validate the gain, in terms of expressivity, and the
exploitation of this emerging approach to help both expert and end-users to
make decisions on the selection of descriptors for public procurement notices. Keywords: e-Procurement; Product Scheme Classifications; Linked open data; Semantic web; Expert systems | |||
| Text classification using a few labeled examples | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 689-697 | |
| Francesco Colace; Massimo De Santo; Luca Greco; Paolo Napoletano | |||
| Supervised text classifiers need to learn from many labeled examples to
achieve a high accuracy. However, in a real context, sufficient labeled
examples are not always available because human labeling is enormously
time-consuming. For this reason, there has been recent interest in methods that
are capable of obtaining a high accuracy when the size of the training set is
small.
In this paper we introduce a new single label text classification method that performs better than baseline methods when the number of labeled examples is small. Differently from most of the existing methods that usually make use of a vector of features composed of weighted words, the proposed approach uses a structured vector of features, composed of weighted pairs of words. The proposed vector of features is automatically learned, given a set of documents, using a global method for term extraction based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation implemented as the Probabilistic Topic Model. Experiments performed using a small percentage of the original training set (about 1%) confirmed our theories. Keywords: Text mining; Text classification; Term extraction; Probabilistic topic; Model; Data mining | |||
| Towards healthcare business intelligence in long-term care: An explorative case study in the Netherlands | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 698-707 | |
| Marco Spruit; Robert Vroon; Ronald Batenburg | |||
| This research contributes to the domain of long-term care by exploring
knowledge discovery techniques based on a large dataset and guided by
representative information needs to better manage both quality of care and
financial spendings, as a next step towards more mature healthcare business
intelligence in long-term care. We structure this exploratory research
according to the steps of the CRoss Industry Standard Process for Data Mining
(CRISP-DM) process. Firstly, we interview 22 experts to determine the
information needs in long-term care which we, secondly, translate into 25 data
mining goals. Thirdly, we perform a single case study at a Dutch long-term care
institution with around 850 clients in five locations. We analyze the
institution's database which contains information from April 2008 to April 2012
to identify patterns in incident information, patterns in risk assessment
information, the relationship between risk assessments and incident
information, patterns in the average duration of stay, and we identify and
predict Care Intensity Package (ZZP) combinations. Fourth and finally, we
position all data mining goals in a two-by-two matrix to visualize the relative
importance of each goal in relation to both quality of care and financial state
of care institutions. Keywords: Healthcare business intelligence; Knowledge discovery; Data mining; Crisp-dm; Long-term care | |||
| A study of the social networking website service in digital content industries: The Facebook case in Taiwan | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 708-714 | |
| Tse-Ping Dong; Nai-Chang Cheng; Yen-Chun Jim Wu | |||
| In recent years, a social networking service (SNS) not only thrives in
digital content industries but also functions as a platform that focuses on
facilitating the building of social interactions among people. Based on the
DeLone and McLean model (2003), this study develops a modified model to examine
the effect of the three website technology characteristics on user
satisfaction, benefits of social interaction, and continuance usage. Based on a
survey of 346 participants, the study uses a structural equation modeling (SEM)
approach as the research model to investigate the above issues. The results
provide an expanded understanding of the factors that measure SNS success. The
results also indicate that system quality, information quality and privacy
protection service had a significant effect on the continuance usage of a SNS
in relation to user satisfaction and benefits of social interaction. In
conclusion, implications of the research and practice are discussed, as well as
future research directions; furthermore, research finding implies that
psychological rather than technical factors are more important in digital
content industries. Privacy protection and the increased benefits of social
networking can ensure better website services. Keywords: DeLone and McLean's model; Social networking; User satisfaction; Social interaction; Continuance usage; Digital content industries | |||
| Supporting Human Capital development with Serious Games: An analysis of three experiences | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 715-720 | |
| Jeffrey Earp; Michela Ott; Maria Popescu; Margarida Romero; Mireia Usart | |||
| Serious Games (SGs) are increasingly being used in formal educational
settings and it is almost universally acknowledged that they have strong
potential for bringing innovation to education and for enhancing learning, this
way also contributing to the development of Human Capital. This paper proposes
some reflections on the usefulness and effectiveness of SGs when used in formal
learning contexts. The considerations are derived from a set of SG-based
educational experiences carried out in three European countries: Italy, Spain
and Romania. The paper briefly summarizes the key aspects of the three research
experiences and, by referring to the main lessons learnt, it also draws some
general conclusions as to the potential of SGs to support the development of
Human Capital both from the cognitive and from the affective/behavioural
standpoint. Keywords: Human Capital; Serious Games; Formal education; Technology enhanced learning; Game-based learning; Learning scenarios | |||
| Knowledge management acquisition improvement by using software engineering elicitation techniques | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 721-730 | |
| Diana-Marcela Vásquez-Bravo; María-Isabel Sánchez-Segura; Fuensanta Medina-Domínguez; Antonio Amescua | |||
| The knowledge externalization phase involves acquiring and transferring the
knowledge of individuals to an abstract and effective representation, to
organize it, to model it and finally to express this knowledge in an
understandable and reusable format. This phase presents some difficulties at
the moment to choose the technique that best fit with the knowledge type to be
elicited, and sometimes the selected technique is not complete enough to
capture all the relevant knowledge for a specific domain. In sum, there are not
mechanisms that can be used as a discernment element at the moment to choose
the knowledge elicitation technique that better adjust to a particular
situation. This paper presents the results obtained from an empirical
validation developed to determine the efficiency of knowledge acquisition in
the externalization phase of Nonaka's model, using a set of software
engineering elicitation techniques. Efficiency compared with quality of the
knowledge acquired can provide a good mechanism to select the most suitable
technique to knowledge externalization for each situation. Keywords: Knowledge elicitation; Requirements elicitation techniques; Knowledge externalization; Knowledge acquisition efficiency | |||
| Developing a NFC-equipped smart classroom: Effects on attitudes toward computer science | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 731-738 | |
| Chien-wen Shen; Yen-Chun Jim Wu; Tsung-che Lee | |||
| This study describes a smart classroom system that integrates near field
communication (NFC) technology to automate attendance management, locate
students, and provide real-time student feedback. The proposed system's
attendance management feature can conserve time and reduce paper-work because
students use their NFC-enabled smartphones or NFC smart cards to register their
attendance automatically. Also, the system's student-positioning feature is
particularly useful for teaching large classes because teachers typically
experience difficulties in both recognizing students and familiarizing
themselves with their students' learning progress. In addition, the real-time
feedback function could be beneficial especially for Asian students because
they are usually reluctant to express their opinions during class. This study
also evaluates the proposed system's effect on students' attitude toward
science education by applying relevant theories. Our case study of a computer
science course shows that the attitudes of students toward computer science
generally improved following the implementation of the proposed system. Because
more than half of the measures from the aspects of learning computer science at
school and importance of computer science are positive and significant, this
indicates that students find computer science more interesting, expecting,
exciting, beneficial, helpful, and appealing after the using the proposed
system. Keywords: Learning technology; E-classroom; Near field communication; Science education | |||
| Using films to develop the critical thinking competence of the students at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC): Testing an audiovisual case methodology in a distance e-learning environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 739-744 | |
| Inés González-González; Eva Gallardo-Gallardo; Ana Isabel Jiménez-Zarco | |||
| The aim of this paper is to set out a teaching innovation project that seeks
to advance in the development and assessment one of the fundamental students'
competencies from any Business Administration Degree, such as: critical
thinking. We are going to adapt an audiovisual case methodology, developed and
already proved in traditional universities, in order to help the students
develop and boost one of the competencies required to improve the efficiency
and efficacy of their daily activity in organizations, and which previously has
been highlighted as fundamental by the academia when the European Higher
Education Area (EHEA) was designed.
This methodology uses short clips of films -- usually, true stories -- to help students to understand the practical implications of the theoretical concepts explained at class. We are going to evaluate the implementation of this methodology, and also its impact on the students' learning process in an Open University. Keywords: Audiovisual cases; Competencies; Critical thinking; E-learning; Open University | |||
| Establishing agent trust for contradictory evidence by means of fuzzy voting model: An ontology mapping case study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 745-752 | |
| Maria Vargas-Vera; Miklos Nagy | |||
| This paper introduces a novel trust assessment formalism for contradicting
evidence in the context of multi-agent ontology mapping. Evidence combination
using the Dempster rule tend to ignore contradictory evidence and the
contemporary approaches for managing these conflicts introduce additional
computation complexity i.e. increased response time of the system. On the
Semantic Web, ontology mapping systems that need to interact with end users in
real time cannot afford prolonged computation. In this work, we have made a
step towards the formalisation of eliminating contradicting evidence, to
utilise the original Dempster's combination rule without introducing additional
complexity. Our proposed solution incorporates the fuzzy voting model to the
Dempster-Shafer theory. Finally, we present a case study where we show how our
approach improves the ontology mapping problem. Keywords: Ontology mapping; Semantic Web; Multi-agent systems; Uncertain reasoning | |||
| Information management from social and documentary sources in organizations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 753-759 | |
| Étienne Deparis; Marie-Hélène Abel; Gaëlle Lortal; Juliette Mattioli | |||
| The wide adoption of social and connected tools in organizations leads them
to think again about their behavior regarding how they manage their resources.
They now consider the resources users can produce on various social media and
how correctly index them in the organization knowledge base. We present in this
paper the model of a digital ecosystem, which permits the indexing of either
documentary resources or those produced on a social platform with the help of
an ontology. Keywords: Ontology; Web 2.0; Social networks; Knowledge ecosystem | |||
| Music students' behavior on using learning objects closer to the domain characteristics and the social reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 760-770 | |
| Fernando Pinhati; Sean W. M. Siqueira | |||
| In this paper we analyze the behavior of music students on using learning
objects that are closer to the domain characteristics and to the learners'
digital social reality. A model for supporting the development of learning
objects with these characteristics is described and a case study was conducted
with high school students that performed a music activity that was created
using the proposed model in order to demonstrate the applicability and benefits
of our approach. Results show the importance of considering the proposed model
on guiding courseware development for education, especially on the music
education context. Moreover, we noticed through a qualitative analysis that the
students seemed to be more motivated when using social and sound manipulation
integrated resources because of their perception of learning opportunities,
social influence, ease of use, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions and
usage intention. Keywords: Students' behavior; Learning objects; C(L)A(S)P Model; Social networks; Usage Intention; Social networks; MEDS Methodology; Qualitative Research; Technology Acceptance Model | |||
| Social computing in travel, tourism and hospitality | | BIB | Full-Text | 771-772 | |
| Marianna Sigala; Evangelos Christou | |||
| Ambient affiliates in virtual cross-organizational tourism alliances: A case study of collaborative new product development | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 773-786 | |
| Demosthenes Akoumianakis | |||
| The paper presents intrinsic properties of cross-organizational
collaboration in shared information spaces and motivates the concept of ambient
communities with particular reference to the tourism sector. Our approach is
informed by an ethnographic analysis of assembling innovative information-based
products for tourists. Qualitative data collection methods combined with online
'tells' reveal that in cross-organizational settings togetherness stems from
ambient affiliates' recurrent co-engagement in computer-mediated distributed
collective practices. Intriguing aspects of such practices are its boundary
function, an underlying emergent knowledge process and its entanglement with
socio-material realities of partners. Keywords: Ambient communities; Practice environments; Distributed collective practice toolkits; Tourism alliances | |||
| The effects of perceived relevance of travel blogs' content on the behavioral intention to visit a tourist destination | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 787-799 | |
| Yu-Chen Chen; Rong-An Shang; Ming-Jin Li | |||
| The tourism industry is characterized by ever-increasing competition,
causing destinations to seek new methods to attract tourists. Traditionally, a
decision to visit a destination is interpreted, in part, as a rational
calculation of the costs/benefits of a set of alternative destinations, which
were derived from external information sources, including e-WOM (word-of-mouth)
or travelers' blogs. There are numerous travel blogs available for people to
share and learn about travel experiences. Evidence shows, however, that not
every blog exerts the same degree of influence on tourists. Therefore, which
characteristics of these travel blogs attract tourists' attention and influence
their decisions, becomes an interesting research question. Based on the concept
of information relevance, a model is proposed for interrelating various
attributes specific to blog's content and perceived enjoyment, an intrinsic
motivation of information systems usage, to mitigate the above-mentioned gap.
Results show that novelty, understandability, and interest of blogs' content
affect behavioral intention through blog usage enjoyment. Finally, theoretical
and practical implications are proposed. Keywords: Travelers' information search; Blog; Behavioral intention; Information relevance; Perceived enjoyment; Interesting content | |||
| Investigating the exploitation of web 2.0 for knowledge management in the Greek tourism industry: An utilisation-importance analysis | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 800-812 | |
| Marianna Sigala; Kalotina Chalkiti | |||
| The paper investigates the role of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) and specifically of the web 2.0 in supporting knowledge
management (KM) processes. A literature review analyses how the web 2.0
transforms the implementation of KM by supporting conversational and
collaborative KM processes that in turn divert KM from a technology-centric to
a people-centric approach. The discussion also reveals how different ways of
exploiting web 2.0 reflect different levels of technology supported KM
practices. The study also investigated the type and the level of web 2.0
exploitation for KM purposes in the Greek tourism industry by collecting
empirical data from tourism professionals. The data was analysed by performing
an utilisation-importance analysis that compared data measuring the actual
utilisation of web 2.0 with the perceived utilisation importance of web 2.0 for
KM purposes. The analysis identified several gaps and opportunities in relation
to web 2.0 exploitation for KM purposes. The paper concludes by providing
practical and theoretical implications for enhancing the exploitation of web
2.0 for KM purposes. Keywords: Knowledge management; Web 2.0; Greece; Tourism; Social media; Utilisation-importance matrix | |||
| The effect of searching and surfing on recognition of destination images on Facebook pages | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 813-823 | |
| Sung-Bum Kim; Dae-Young Kim; Kevin Wise | |||
| Social networking sites (SNSs) are playing an increasingly important role as
information sources for tourists. Among the various types of SNSs, Facebook has
become the leading site in terms of number of users and volume of content.
Despite the proliferation of Facebook, however, there has been little research
on its users' cognitive processes as they acquire visual images from photos.
Particularly in the context of tourism and hospitality, one largely ignored
area that warrants examination is individuals' recognition accuracy when
acquiring visual information via Facebook. Based on LC4MP, this study examines
users' ability to encode tourism information acquired from Facebook by
differentiating the two types of information-search processing conditions,
surfing and searching. After employing a visual-recognition test, the findings
of this study indicated that participants recognized the photos they acquired
from searching more accurately than the photos they acquired from surfing on
destination Facebook pages. Further discussion and implications are provided in
the text. Keywords: Facebook; LC4MP; Searching; Surfing; Visual-recognition test | |||
| When is a picture not worth a thousand words? The psychological effects of mediated exposure to a remote location | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 824-831 | |
| Jennifer Marlow; Laura Dabbish | |||
| The Internet has radically decreased the influence of physical distance by
allowing people to share images and information about distant places at the
click of a button. But we still do not understand how exposure to this
information influences our mental conception of places that are far away, and
how these effects may change our attitudes towards distant locations. This has
implications for both tourism marketers and travelers consulting social media
sites for information on destinations. We conducted an experiment to see if
exposing participants to one of four mediated representations of an unfamiliar
environment impacted their attitudes towards the location. We found that
mediated exposure to a distant place positively influenced desire to visit the
location through different routes: 3D panoramas heightened feelings of spatial
presence which translated into more positive attitudes towards the place, while
textual descriptions decreased psychological distance which in turn was
associated with more positive attitudes. Keywords: Immersion; Construal; Psychological distance; Social media; Travel destination | |||