Search results for: Online Health Information

Authors: Messaouda Annab

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The rapid development of technology has led to an important context in which different languages and structures are used in the same conversations. This paper investigates the practice of language borrowing within social media platform, namely, Facebook among Algerian Vernacular Arabic (AVA) students. In other words, this study will explore how Algerian students have incorporated lexical English borrowing in their online conversations. This paper will examine the relationships between language, culture and identity among a multilingual group. The main objective is to determine the cultural and linguistic functions that borrowing fulfills in social media and to explain the possible factors underlying English borrowing. The nature of the study entails the use of an online research method that includes ten online Facebook conversations in the form of private messages collected from Bachelor and Masters Algerian students recruited from the English department at the University of Oum El-Bouaghi. The analysis of data revealed that social media platform provided the users with opportunities to shift from one language to another. This practice was noticed in students’ online conversations. English borrowing was the most relevant language performance in accordance with Arabic which is the mother tongue of the chosen sample. The analysis has assumed that participants are skilled in more than one language.

Keywords: Borrowing, language performance, linguistic background, social media.

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Authors: Danielle Morin, Jennifer D.E.Thomas, Raafat G. Saade

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While computers are known to facilitate lower levels of learning, such as rote memorization of facts, measurable through electronically administered and graded multiple-choice questions, yes/no, and true/false answers, the imparting and measurement of higher-level cognitive skills is more vexing. These require more open-ended delivery and answers, and may be more problematic in an entirely virtual environment, notwithstanding the advances in technologies such as wikis, blogs, discussion boards, etc. As with the integration of all technology, merit is based more on the instructional design of the course than on the technology employed in, and of, itself. With this in mind, this study examined the perceptions of online students in an introductory Computer Information Systems course regarding the fostering of various higher-order thinking and team-building skills as a result of the activities, resources and technologies (ART) used in the course.

Keywords: Critical thinking, deep learning, distance learning, elearning, online learning, virtual environments.

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Authors: Sameerchand Pudaruth, Nawsheen Bibi Jannnoo

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In this paper, we give an overview of an online elearning tool which has been developed for kids aged from nine to eleven years old in Mauritius for the self-study of Mathematics in order to prepare them for the CPE examination. The software does not intend to render obsolete the existing pedagogical approaches. Nowadays, the teaching-learning process is mainly focused towards the class-room model. Moreover, most of the e-learning platforms that exist are simply static ways of delivering resources using the internet. There is nearly no interaction between the learner and the tool. Our application will enable students to practice exercises online and also work out sample examination papers. Another interesting feature is that the kid will not have to wait for someone to correct the work as the correction will be done online and on the spot. Additional feedback is also provided for some exercises.

Keywords: CPE, e-learning, Mauritius, primary education

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Authors: Abduladheem A. Ali, Easa A. Abd

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The robot is a repeated task plant. The control of such a plant under parameter variations and load disturbances is one of the important problems. The aim of this work is to design Geno-Fuzzy controller suitable for online applications to control single link rigid robot arm plant. The genetic-fuzzy online controller (indirect controller) has two genetic-fuzzy blocks, the first as controller, the second as identifier. The identification method is based on inverse identification technique. The proposed controller it tested in normal and load disturbance conditions.

Keywords: Fuzzy network, genetic algorithm, robot control, online genetic control, parameter identification.

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Authors: Robin V. Cupido

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Online dispute resolution has been identified in many countries as a viable alternative for resolving conflicts which have arisen in the so-called digital age. This system of dispute resolution is developing alongside the Internet, and as new types of transactions are made possible by our increased connectivity, new ways of resolving disputes must be explored. Developed nations, such as the United States of America and the European Union, have been involved in creating these online dispute resolution mechanisms from the outset, and currently have sophisticated systems in place to deal with conflicts arising in a number of different fields, such as e-commerce, domain name disputes, labour disputes and conflicts arising from family law. Specifically, in the field of e-commerce, the Internet’s borderless nature has served as a way to promote cross-border trade, and has created a global marketplace. Participation in this marketplace boosts a country’s economy, as new markets are now available, and consumers can transact from anywhere in the world. It would be especially advantageous for developing nations to be a part of this global marketplace, as it could stimulate much-needed investment in these nations, and encourage international co-operation and trade. However, for these types of transactions to proliferate, an effective system for resolving the inevitable disputes arising from such an increase in e-commerce is needed. Online dispute resolution scholarship and practice is flourishing in developed nations, and it is clear that the gap is widening between developed and developing nations in this regard. The potential for implementing online dispute resolution in developing countries has been discussed, but there are a number of obstacles that have thus far prevented its continued development. This paper aims to evaluate the various political, infrastructural and socio-economic challenges faced in developing nations, and to question how these have impacted the acceptance and development of online dispute resolution, scholarship and training of online dispute resolution practitioners and, ultimately, developing nations’ readiness to participate in cross-border e-commerce.

Keywords: Developing countries, feasibility, online dispute resolution, progress.

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Authors: Melissa C. LaDuke

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The purpose of this targeted analysis was to identify the use of online communities of practice (CoP) within e-learning environments as a method to build social interaction and student-centered educational experiences. A literature review was conducted to survey and collect scholarly thoughts concerning CoPs from a variety of sources. Data collected included best practices, ties to educational theories, and examples of online CoPs. Social interaction has been identified as a critical piece of the learning infrastructure, specifically for adult learners. CoPs are an effective way to help students connect to each other and the material of interest. The use of CoPs falls in line with many educational theories, including situated learning theory, social constructivism, connectivism, adult learning theory, and motivation. New literacies such as social media and gamification can help increase social interaction in online environments and provide methods to host CoPs. Steps to build and sustain a CoP were discussed in addition to CoP considerations and best practices.

Keywords: Community of practice, knowledge sharing, social interaction, online course design, new literacies.

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Authors: Luis M. Villar, Olga M. Alegre

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Finding effective ways of improving university quality assurance requires, as well, a retraining of the staff. This article illustrates an Online Programme of Excellence Model (OPEM), based on the European quality assurance model, for improving participants- formative programme standards. The results of applying this OPEM indicate the necessity of quality policies that support the evaluators- competencies to improve formative programmes. The study concludes by outlining how faculty and agency staff can use OPEM for the internal and external quality assurance of formative programmes.

Keywords: Formative assessment, Online faculty excellence program, Teaching competencies, University quality assurance.

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Authors: Sasiphan Nitayaprapha

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A commercially-supported social network has become an emerging channel for an organization to communicate with and provide services to customers. The success of the commercially-supported social network depends on the ability of the organization to keep the customers in participating in the network. Drawing from the theories of information adoption, information systems continuance, and web usability, the author develops a model to explore how a commercially-supported social network can encourage customers to continue participating and using the information in the network. The theoretical model will be proved through an online survey of customers using the commercially-supported social networking sites of several high technology companies operating in the same sector. The result will be compared with previous studies to learn about the explanatory power of the research model, and to identify the main factors determining users’ intention to continue using a commercially-supported social network. Theoretical and practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Keywords: Social network, Information adoption, Information systems continuance, Web usability, User satisfaction.

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Authors: Lynette Drevin, Günther R. Drevin

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Numerous threats have been identified when using social networks. The question is whether young people are aware of these negative impacts of online and mobile technologies. Will they identify threats when needed? Will they know where to get help? Students and school children were part of a survey where their behavior and use of Facebook and an instant messaging application - MXit were studied. This paper presents some of the results. It can be concluded that awareness on security and privacy issues should be raised. The benefit of doing such a survey is that it may help to direct educational efforts from a young age. In this way children – with their parents – can strive towards more secure behavior. Educators can focus their lessons towards the areas that need attention resulting in safer cyber interaction and ultimately more responsible online use.

Keywords: Facebook, Instant messaging, MXit, Privacy, Social networks Information Security awareness education, Trust.

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Authors: N. Hammid, F. Bouarab-Dahmani, T. Berkane

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Since its appearance, the MOOC (massive open online course) is gaining more and more intention of the educational communities over the world. Apart from the current MOOCs design and purposes, the creators of MOOC focused on the importance of the connection and knowledge exchange between individuals in learning. In this paper, we present a conceptual model for massive open online blended courses where teachers over the world can collaborate and exchange their experience to get a common efficient content designed as a MOOC opened to their students to live a better learning experience. This model is based on disciplines’ concepts capitalization and the detection of the obstacles met by their students when faced with problem situations (exercises, projects, case studies, etc.). This detection is possible by analyzing the frequently of semantic errors committed by the students. The participation of teachers in the design of the course and the attendance by their students can guarantee an efficient and extensive participation (an important number of participants) in the course, the learners’ motivation and the evaluation issues, in the way that the teachers designing the course assess their students. Thus, the teachers review, together with their knowledge, offer a better assessment and efficient connections to their students.

Keywords: MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, Online learning, E-learning, Blended learning.

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Authors: Vivian Guo, Yan Qu

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Online marketplaces are not only digital places where consumers buy and sell merchandise, and they are also destinations for brands to connect with real consumers at the moment when customers are in the shopping mindset. For many marketplaces, brands have been important partners through advertising. There can be, however, a risk of advertising impacting a consumer’s shopping journey if it hurts the use experience or takes the user away from the site. Both could lead to the loss of transaction revenue for the marketplace. In this paper, we present user-based methods for cannibalization control by selectively turning off ads to users who are likely to be cannibalized by ads subject to business objectives. We present ways of measuring cannibalization of advertising in the context of an online marketplace and propose novel ways of measuring cannibalization through purchase propensity and uplift modeling. A/B testing has shown that our methods can significantly improve user purchase and engagement metrics while operating within business objectives. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that addresses cannibalization mitigation at the user-level in the context of advertising.

Keywords: Cannibalization, machine learning, online marketplace, revenue optimization, yield optimization.

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Authors: Harish Krishnamurthy, Anna Lafontant, Ren Yi

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Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been an interesting topic for most enthusiasts and hence people all over the United States report such findings online at the National UFO Report Center (NUFORC). Some of these reports are a hoax and among those that seem legitimate, our task is not to establish that these events confirm that they indeed are events related to flying objects from aliens in outer space. Rather, we intend to identify if the report was a hoax as was identified by the UFO database team with their existing curation criterion. However, the database provides a wealth of information that can be exploited to provide various analyses and insights such as social reporting, identifying real-time spatial events and much more. We perform analysis to localize these time-series geospatial events and correlate with known real-time events. This paper does not confirm any legitimacy of alien activity, but rather attempts to gather information from likely legitimate reports of UFOs by studying the online reports. These events happen in geospatial clusters and also are time-based. We look at cluster density and data visualization to search the space of various cluster realizations to decide best probable clusters that provide us information about the proximity of such activity. A random forest classifier is also presented that is used to identify true events and hoax events, using the best possible features available such as region, week, time-period and duration. Lastly, we show the performance of the scheme on various days and correlate with real-time events where one of the UFO reports strongly correlates to a missile test conducted in the United States.

Keywords: Time-series clustering, feature extraction, hoax prediction, geospatial events.

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Authors: Nikolina Ribarić

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E-learning is most commonly defined as a set of applications and processes, such as Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration, that enable access to instructional content through a variety of electronic media. The main goal of an e-learning system is learning, and the way to evaluate the impact of an e-learning system is by examining whether students learn effectively with the help of that system. Testmoz is a program for online preparation of knowledge evaluation assignments. The program provides teachers with computer support during the design of assignments and evaluating them. Students can review and solve assignments and also check the correctness of their solutions. Research into the increase of motivation by the practice of providing teaching content by applying online tests prepared in the Testmoz program, was carried out with students of the 8th grade of Ljubo Babić Primary School in Jastrebarsko. The students took the tests in their free time, from home, for an unlimited number of times. SPSS was used to process the data obtained by the research instruments. The results of the research showed that students preferred to practice teaching content, and achieved better educational results in chemistry, when they had access to online tests for repetition and practicing in relation to subject content which was checked after repetition and practicing in "the classical way" – i.e., solving assignments in a workbook or writing assignments in worksheets.

Keywords: Chemistry class, e-learning, online test, Testmoz.

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Authors: Mohd Zaimmudin Mohd Zain, Patsy Perry, Lee Quinn

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This study explores how fashion consumers are influenced by fashion bloggers towards pre-purchase decision for online fashion products in a non-Western context. Malaysians rank among the world’s most avid online shoppers, with apparel the third most popular purchase category. However, extant research on fashion blogging focuses on the developed Western market context. Numerous international fashion retailers have entered the Malaysian market from luxury to fast fashion segments of the market; however Malaysian fashion consumers must balance religious and social norms for modesty with their dress style and adoption of fashion trends. Consumers increasingly mix and match Islamic and Western elements of dress to create new styles enabling them to follow Western fashion trends whilst paying respect to social and religious norms. Social media have revolutionised the way that consumers can search for and find information about fashion products. For online fashion brands with no physical presence, social media provide a means of discovery for consumers. By allowing the creation and exchange of user-generated content (UGC) online, they provide a public forum that gives individual consumers their own voices, as well as access to product information that facilitates their purchase decisions. Social media empower consumers and brands have important roles in facilitating conversations among consumers and themselves, to help consumers connect with them and one another. Fashion blogs have become an important fashion information sources. By sharing their personal style and inspiring their followers with what they wear on popular social media platforms such as Instagram, fashion bloggers have become fashion opinion leaders. By creating UGC to spread useful information to their followers, they influence the pre-purchase decision. Hence, successful Western fashion bloggers such as Chiara Ferragni may earn millions of US dollars every year, and some have created their own fashion ranges and beauty products, become judges in fashion reality shows, won awards, and collaborated with high street and luxury brands. As fashion blogging has become more established worldwide, increasing numbers of fashion bloggers have emerged from non-Western backgrounds to promote Islamic fashion styles, such as Hassanah El-Yacoubi and Dian Pelangi. This study adopts a qualitative approach using netnographic content analysis of consumer comments on two famous Malaysian fashion bloggers’ Instagram accounts during January-March 2016 and qualitative interviews with 16 Malaysian Generation Y fashion consumers during September-October 2016. Netnography adapts ethnographic techniques to the study of online communities or computer-mediated communications. Template analysis of the data involved coding comments according to the theoretical framework, which was developed from the literature review. Initial data analysis shows the strong influence of Malaysian fashion bloggers on their followers in terms of lifestyle and morals as well as fashion style. Followers were guided towards the mix and match trend of dress with Western and Islamic elements, for example, showing how vivid colours or accessories could be worked into an outfit whilst still respecting social and religious norms. The blogger’s Instagram account is a form of online community where followers can communicate and gain guidance and support from other followers, as well as from the blogger.

Keywords: Fashion bloggers, Malaysia, qualitative, social media.

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Authors: Faheem Ahmed, Piers Campbell, Ahmad Jaffar, Luiz Capretz

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Free and open source software is gaining popularity at an unprecedented rate of growth. Organizations despite some concerns about the quality have been using them for various purposes. One of the biggest concerns about free and open source software is post release software defects and their fixing. Many believe that there is no appropriate support available to fix the bugs. On the contrary some believe that due to the active involvement of internet user in online forums, they become a major source of communicating the identification and fixing of defects in open source software. The research model of this empirical investigation establishes and studies the relationship between open source software defects and online public forums. The results of this empirical study provide evidence about the realities of software defects myths of open source software. We used a dataset consist of 616 open source software projects covering a broad range of categories to study the research model of this investigation. The results of this investigation show that online forums play a significant role identifying and fixing the defects in open source software.

Keywords: About Open source software, software engineering, software defect management, empirical software engineering.

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Authors: R. Ramli, S. Sameon

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There has been a strong link between computermediated education and constructivism learning and teaching theory.. Acknowledging how well the constructivism doctrine would work online, it has been established that constructivist views of learning would agreeably correlate with the philosophy of open and distance learning. Asynchronous and synchronous communications have placed online learning on the right track of a constructive learning path. This paper is written based on the social constructivist framework, where knowledge is constructed from social communication and interaction. The study explores the possibility of practicing this theory through incorporating online discussion in the syllabus and the ways it can be implemented to contribute to young people-s personality and social development by addressing some aspects that may contribute to the social problem such as prejudice, ignorance and intolerance.

Keywords: Educational Technology, Internet, Personal Development, Student Exchange

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Authors: Hanita Daud, Noorhana Yahya, Low Tan Jung, Azizuddin Abd Aziz, Rabibah Ahmad Samawe

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This paper presents an overview of the design and implementation of an online rule-based Expert Systems for Islamic medication. T his Online Islamic Medication Expert System (OIMES) focuses on physical illnesses only. Knowledge base of this Expert System contains exhaustively the types of illness together with their related cures or treatments/therapies, obtained exclusively from the Quran and Hadith. Extensive research and study are conducted to ensure that the Expert System is able to provide the most suitable treatment with reference to the relevant verses cited in Quran or Hadith. These verses come together with their related 'actions' (bodily actions/gestures or some acts) to be performed by the patient to treat a particular illness/sickness. These verses and the instructions for the 'actions' are to be displayed unambiguously on the computer screen. The online platform provides the advantage for patient getting treatment practically anytime and anywhere as long as the computer and Internet facility exist. Patient does not need to make appointment to see an expert for a therapy.

Keywords: Expert System, Quran and Hadith, Islamic Medication, Rule-Based.

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Authors: Shahrinaz Ismail, Mohd Sharifuddin Ahmad

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This paper presents an analytical framework for an effective online personal knowledge management (PKM) of knowledge workers. The development of this framework is prompted by our qualitative research on the PKM processes and cognitive enablers of knowledge workers in eight organisations selected from three main industries in Malaysia. This multiple-case research identifies the relationships between the effectiveness of four online PKM processes: get/retrieve, understand/analyse, share, and connect. It also establishes the importance of cognitive enablers that mediate this relationship, namely, method, identify, decide and drive. Qualitative analysis is presented as the findings, supported by the preceded quantitative analysis on an exploratory questionnaire survey.

Keywords: Bottom-up approach, knowledge organisation, organisational knowledge management, personal knowledge management, software agent technology.

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Authors: Subramaniam Chandran

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This paper presents an assessment study conducted among the distance learners in India. Open and distance learning systems have traveled a long way since its inception and its journey has witnessed the evolution and adoption of different generations of technology. This study focuses on the distant learners in India. Sampling for this study has been derived from the mass enrollment from Tamil Nadu area, a southern state of India. Learners were chosen from dual mode universities, private universities, Tamil Nadu Open University and IGNOU. The main focus of the study is to examine the coverage and appropriation of students support services and learning aids. It explores two aspects: the facilities available and the awareness and use of such services. It includes, self-learning materials, face-to-face counseling, multimedia learning materials, website, e-learning, radio and television services etc. While exploring the student-s perspective on these learning aspects, it is important to understand the perspectives of the teachers. Two different interests are visible among the teachers. Majority of the teachers support faceto- face counseling. However, the young teachers are in favour of online learning and multimedia supports in teaching. Through the awareness is somewhat high, the actual participation in online is very low. This is due to the inadequate infrastructure as well as the traditional attitudes of the teachers. Still the face-to-face sessions remain popular than online.

Keywords: Face-to-face session, online session, distance learning, multimedia

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Authors: García López

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The Government Departments of Health have the task of informing and educating citizens about public health issues. For this, they use channels like Twitter, key in the search for health information and the propagation of content. The tweets, important in the virality of the content, may contain emotions that influence the contagion and exchange of knowledge. The goal of this study is to perform an analysis of the emotional projection of health information shared on Twitter by official American accounts: the disease control account CDCgov, National Institutes of Health, NIH, the government agency HHSGov, and the professional organization PublicHealth. For this, we used Tone Analyzer, an International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) tool specialized in emotion detection in text, corresponding to the categorical model of emotion representation. For 15 days, all tweets from these accounts were analyzed with the emotional analysis tool in text. The results showed that their tweets contain an important emotional load, a determining factor in the success of their communications. This exposes that official accounts also use subjective language and contain emotions. The predominance of emotion joy over sadness and the strong presence of emotions in their tweets stimulate the virality of content, a key in the work of informing that government health departments have.

Keywords: Emotions in tweets emotion detection in text, health information on Twitter, American health official accounts, emotions on Twitter, emotions and content.

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Authors: K. Turhan, B. Kurt, E. Uzun

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This paper describes Clinical Document Architecture Release Two (CDA R2) standard and a client application for messaging with SAĞLIK-NET project developed by The Ministry of Health of Turkey. CDA R2 , developed by Health Level 7 (HL7) organization and approved by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 2004, to standardize medical information to be able to share semantically and syntactically. In this study, a client application compatible with HL7 V3 for a project named SAĞLIKNET, aimed to build a National Health Information System by Turkey. Moreover, CDA conformance of this application will also be evaluated.

Keywords: HL7 V3, CDA, Interoperability, Web Service.

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Authors: Hsiu-Hua Cheng, Chi-Wei Chen

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Lurking behavior is common in information-seeking oriented communities. Transferring users with lurking behavior to be contributors can assist virtual communities to obtain competitive advantages. Based on the ecological cognition framework, this study proposes a model to examine the antecedents of lurking behavior in information-seeking oriented virtual communities. This study argues desire for emotional support, desire for information support, desire for performance-approach, desire for performance -avoidance, desire for mastery-approach, desire for mastery-avoidance, desire for ability trust, desire for benevolence trust, and desire for integrity trust effect on lurking behavior. This study offers an approach to understanding the determinants of lurking behavior in online contexts.

Keywords: Lurking behavior, the ecological cognition framework, Information-seeking oriented virtual communities, Desire.

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Authors: Abigail Qian Zhou

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In today's China, the well-educated middle class, with stable jobs and above-average income, are the driving force behind its Internet society. Through the analysis of data from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey and 50 interviewees, this study investigates the current situation of this group’s specific internet usage. The findings of this study demonstrate that daily life among the members of this socioeconomic group is closely tied to the Internet. For Chinese middle class, the Internet is used to socialize and entertain self and others. It is also used to search for and share information as well as to build their identities. The empirical results of this study will provide a reference, supported by factual data, for enterprises seeking to target the Chinese middle class through online marketing efforts.

Keywords: China, internet use, middle class, network behavior, online marketing.

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Authors: A. Baloğlu, A. Çınar

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Different tools and technologies were implemented for Crisis Response and Management (CRM) which is generally using available network infrastructure for information exchange. Depending on type of disaster or crisis, network infrastructure could be affected and it could not be able to provide reliable connectivity. Thus any tool or technology that depends on the connectivity could not be able to fulfill its functionalities. As a solution, a new message exchange framework has been developed. Framework provides offline/online information exchange platform for CRM Information Systems (CRMIS) and it uses XML compression and packet prioritization algorithms and is based on open source web technologies. By introducing offline capabilities to the web technologies, framework will be able to perform message exchange on unreliable networks. The experiments done on the simulation environment provide promising results on low bandwidth networks (56kbps and 28.8 kbps) with up to 50% packet loss and the solution is to successfully transfer all the information on these low quality networks where the traditional 2 and 3 tier applications failed.

Keywords: Crisis Response and Management, XML Messaging, Web Services, XML compression, Mining.

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Authors: Sakulsri Srisaracam

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Social media has become an important source of information for the public and the media profession. Some social issues raised on social media are picked up by journalists to report on other platforms. This relationship between social media and mainstream media can sometimes drive public debate or stimulate social movements. The question to examine is in what situations can social media conversations raise awareness and stimulate change on public issues. This study addresses the communication patterns of social media conversations driving covert issues into mainstream media and leading to social advocacy movements. In methodological terms, the study findings are based on a content analysis of Facebook, Twitter, news websites and television media reports on three different case studies – saving Bryde’s whale, protests against a government proposal to downsize the Office of Knowledge Management and Development in Thailand, and a dengue fever campaign. These case studies were chosen because they represent issues that most members of the public do not pay much attention to but social media conversations stimulated public debate and calls to action. This study found: 1) Collective social media conversations can stimulate public debate and encourage change at three levels – awareness, public debate, and action of policy and social change. The level depends on the communication patterns of online users and media coverage. 2) Patterns of communication have to be designed to combine social media conversations, online opinion leaders, mainstream media coverage and call to both online and offline action to motivate social change. Thus, this result suggests that social media is a powerful platform for collective communication and setting the agenda on public issues for mainstream media. However, for social change to succeed, social media should be used to mobilize online movements to move offline too.

Keywords: Public issue, social media conversation, social media, social movement.

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Authors: Pornpapatsorn Princhankol, Kannika Udnunkarn

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This research was aimed to develop and determine the quality of online learning activities kit as well as to examine the learning achievement of students and their satisfaction towards the kit through authentic assessment. The tools in this research contained online learning activities kit on plant in Thai literature in compliance with the School Botanical Garden of Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the assessment form, the learning achievement test, the satisfaction form and the authentic assessment form. The population consisted of 40 students in the second range of primary years (Prathomsuksa 4 to 6) at Ban Khao Rak School, Suratthani Province, Thailand. The research results showed that the content quality of the developed online learning activities kit as assessed by the experts was 4.70 on average or at very high level. The pre-test and post-test comparison was made to examine the learning achievement and it revealed that the post-test score was higher than the pre-test score with statistical significance at the .01 level. The satisfaction of the sampling group towards the online learning activities kit was 4.74 or at the highest level. The authentic assessment showed an average of 1.69 or at good level. Therefore, the online learning activities kit on plant in Thai literature in compliance with the School Botanical Garden of Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn could be used in real classroom situations.

Keywords: Online learning activities kit, Plants in Thai literature, School Botanical garden

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Authors: Peerapong Uthansakul, Monthippa Uthansakul

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The rapid growth of e-Commerce services is significantly observed in the past decade. However, the method to verify the authenticated users still widely depends on numeric approaches. A new search on other verification methods suitable for online e-Commerce is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new online signature-verification method using angular transformation is presented. Delay shifts existing in online signatures are estimated by the estimation method relying on angle representation. In the proposed signature-verification algorithm, all components of input signature are extracted by considering the discontinuous break points on the stream of angular values. Then the estimated delay shift is captured by comparing with the selected reference signature and the error matching can be computed as a main feature used for verifying process. The threshold offsets are calculated by two types of error characteristics of the signature verification problem, False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The level of these two error rates depends on the decision threshold chosen whose value is such as to realize the Equal Error Rate (EER; FAR = FRR). The experimental results show that through the simple programming, employed on Internet for demonstrating e-Commerce services, the proposed method can provide 95.39% correct verifications and 7% better than DP matching based signature-verification method. In addition, the signature verification with extracting components provides more reliable results than using a whole decision making.

Keywords: Online signature verification, e-Commerce services, Angular transformation.

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Authors: Stella Ouma, M. E. Herselman

Abstract:

The Application of e-health solutions has brought superb advancements in the health care industry. E-health solutions have already been embraced in the industrialized countries. In an effort to catch up with the growth, the developing countries have strived to revolutionize the healthcare industry by use of Information technology in different ways. Based on a technology assessment carried out in Kenya – one of the developing countries – and using multiple case studies in Nyanza Province, this work focuses on an investigation on how five rural hospitals are adapting to the technology shift. The issues examined include the ICT infrastructure and e-health technologies in place, the knowledge of participants in terms of benefits gained through the use of ICT and the challenges posing barriers to the use of ICT technologies in these hospitals. The results reveal that the ICT infrastructure in place is inadequate for e-health implementations as a result to various challenges that exist. Consequently, suggestions on how to tackle the various challenges have been addressed in this paper.

Keywords: Challenges, e-health, healthcare, information communication technology, rural areas.

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Authors: Wee Hock Quik, Nevan Wright

Abstract:

Collaborative networked learning (hereafter CNL) was first proposed by Charles Findley in his work “Collaborative networked learning: online facilitation and software support" as part of instructional learning for the future of the knowledge worker. His premise was that through electronic dialogue learners and experts could interactively communicate within a contextual framework to resolve problems, and/or to improve product or process knowledge. Collaborative learning has always been the forefront of educational technology and pedagogical research, but not in the mainstream of operations management. As a result, there is a large disparity in the study of CNL, and little is known about the antecedents of network collaboration and sharing of information among diverse employees in the manufacturing environment. This paper presents a model to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The objective is that manufacturing organizations will be able to accelerate organizational learning and sharing of information through various collaborative

Keywords: Collaborative networked learning, Collaborative technologies, Organizational learning, Synchronous and asynchronous networked learning.

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Authors: Kim Nee Goh, Viknesh Kumar Naleyah

Abstract:

Online trading is an alternative to conventional shopping method. People trade goods which are new or pre-owned before. However, there are times when a user is not able to search the items wanted online. This is because the items may not be posted as yet, thus ending the search. Conventional search mechanism only works by searching and matching search criteria (requirement) with data available in a particular database. This research aims to match current search requirements with future postings. This would involve the time factor in the conventional search method. A Car Matching Alert System (CMAS) prototype was developed to test the matching algorithm. When a buyer-s search returns no result, the system saves the search and the buyer will be alerted if there is a match found based on future postings. The algorithm developed is useful and as it can be applied in other search context.

Keywords: Matching algorithm, online trading, search, future postings, car matching

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