‘Talking Tools'

The study presented is part of a work-in-progress project of developing a mobile application for smartphones, Talking Tools (TT). The first context TT is developed for and tested in is sloyd education [Swedish: slöjd], a compulsory subject taught in Finnish schools. In sloyd learners design and manufacture unique artifacts in various materials (textiles, wood, metal, and electronics). The process-based work flow of sloyd lends itself well to this kind of educational tool, which aids multimodal documentation, communication, and instruction. The empirical study targets what student teachers (N=11) microblogged about and the character of the blog posts during a sloyd project. A sociocultural perspective of appropriating new tools for learning is used as a theoretical frame, as well as views on multimodality and transmedia. Their sloyd process is discussed in terms of transmedia storybuilding, as learners build their own story as a flow of content through their documentation and interactions.

Democratic Potentials of UN Climate Change Conference Host Government Websites

E-government discourse implicates state-produced Websites to enable opportunities and citizen spaces on policy issues, subject to demands to be inclusive, engaging, and free from commercial interests. Policy-making for a global issue like climate change takes place at the inter-governmental United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC). It becomes critical to examine if and how the governments hosting this restrictive global policy-making space may engage citizens through their online presence—host country conference outreach Websites. The chapter explores relational underpinnings between states and citizens in such Websites by examining the values privileged by designers using mixed methods. Among UNCCC Websites from 2007 to 2009, the Danish government Website's enhanced features may have contributed to potential inclusivity for the inter-governmental process online compared to previous government's efforts. However, findings have shown such interactive Website's inherent design aspects may potentially shape the manner that climate conversations are limited in an assumed democratized space online.

Sleep Disorder Diagnosis

Sleep disorders are a significant and growing problem, both for the economy of the nation and for the physical and psychological well-being of individual sufferers. Physicians are under pressure to find ways of dealing with the backlog of patients. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the operational, administrative, and medical environment within which sleep physicians diagnose patients with sleep disorders and develop an online support system that would efficiently gather patient history data and improve the effectiveness of patient-physician consultations, the diagnoses, and patients' self-management of any subsequent treatment plans. Investigations confirm that the physicians spend a large portion of the available consultation time on routine questions. In the new system, the patient information is captured by the patient completing an online questionnaire. Due to the reduction in time given for data collection, the physician can spend time with the patients discussing patient-specific symptoms and life-styles.

The Impact of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Value Perception

This study combines the dual-process theory (DPT) and the uncertainty reduction theory (URT) to examine how on-line consumer reviews affect consumer uncertainty reduction and value perceptions in order to understand whether consumer attitudes will be influenced by on-line consumer reviews and if relationships are built between consumers and companies as a result. The results indicated that argument quality, recommendation sidedness, source credibility, confirmation of prior beliefs, and recommendation ratings have a positive effect on the uncertainty reduction of consumers towards the businesses under consideration. Since uncertainty reduction has an effect on value perception, this study suggests that companies provide on-line consumer reviews on their websites to increase consumer uncertainty reduction and to improve consumer value perception of their companies.

What Makes Students to Participate in Online Collaborative Settings through Second Life?

Motivational factors that may affect adult participation in educational activities have attracted educators' interests and probably are one of the most discussed topics in the field of adult education. The current study seeks to investigate the students' participation in collaborative online activities based on the interpretive framework of adult participation theories stapling to interpret motivational factors, and recommended by McGivney (1993). A qualitative (comprehensive) research was conducted and a voluntary sample of Higher education by eighty students (n=80) who participated in online collaborative settings through the virtual world of Second Life and wanted to share experiences from their participation. The added value of this effort is to understand the educational community theoretically based on the utilization of adult theories that might motivate adult participation in different aspects and more practically to enunciate the key factors influencing their decisions to participate in team-based activities held in Second Life.

Creating a Community of Practice in Learning

Social media plays a huge part in Filipinos' lives. In the area of learning, the proponents observed the emergence of an online community of practice using Facebook groups that has over 350 members. The aim of the chapter is to answer the question: How do online communities of practice engage students to learn and build new knowledge? The objective is to propose a framework that will guide readers to build their own online community of practice based on its learning context. To achieve the objective, the proponents use the inductive approach of grounded theory using action research. Results show that community members used different Facebook features to support their ongoing community of practice. Further studies may also assess the applicability of the framework in other areas of development.

Information Architecture For IS Function

Today's complex, unstable and competitive society raises several difficulties to organisations. In this context, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and information itself have become resources of vital importance. The pressing need for Information Systems (IS) to meet several business requirements, in addition to the complexity involved in technology and business management, turns the IS Function one of the main areas of influence for success of modern organisations. Through its capacity of representing activities, management objects and corresponding relations, the Information Architecture of the Information Systems Function (IAISF), a technique derived from the well-known Information Architecture but exclusively focused on the Information Systems Function (ISF), allows not only the conceptualization and understanding of the ISF itself, but also of its interactions with other areas within organizations. This paper presents the main results of a case study related to the application of the IAISF technique in a computer service centre of a University.

Sacrificing Credibility for Sleaze

This chapter uses an experiment to analyze how mainstream journalists' use of sensationalized or tabloid-style writing techniques affect the credibility of online news. Participants read four news stories and rated their credibility using McCroskey's Source Credibility Scale. Participants found stories written with a tabloid style less credible than more traditional stories. Soft news stories written with a tabloidized style were rated more credible than hard news stories that also had a tabloidized style. Results suggest that online news media may damage their credibility by using tabloidized writing techniques to increase readership. Furthermore, participants were less likely to enjoy stories written in a tabloidized style. The authors conclude by utilizing act utilitarianism to argue that tabloidized writing is an unethical journalistic technique.

Business Process Design Meets Business Practices through Enterprise Patterns

Every day companies deal with internal problems in order to manage human resources during the execution of business processes. The ability to quickly identify and rapidly apply effective business practices to recurring problems becomes crucial in order to improve the efficiency of the organization. To seize the opportunity of adapting their business practices to emerging organizational forms (Extended Enterprise, Virtual Enterprise) and to reuse the expertise of knowledge workers – who are central to an organization's success – companies are required to face several challenges. This paper presents a set of business patterns useful in resolving emerging organizational issues to support the activities of knowledge workers, increase their productivity and their ability to find the information they need, and enable collaboration with colleagues without changing their habits. Also it describes a real case study and a software system that allows companies to introduce these business patterns in the workplace, adopting an Enterprise 2.0 approach.

Using the Internet to Make Local Music More Available to the South Wales Community

Wales is the “land of the poets so soothing to me,” according to its national anthem. The political and economic landscape does not on the whole provide for the many creative people that are in Welsh communities. Social media Websites like MySpace and YouTube as well as Websites like MTV.com, eJay, and PeopleSound, whilst providing space for artists to share their works, but do not usually consider the needs of local markets, such as in relation to Welsh language provision through to acknowledgement of Welsh place names and Wales's status as a country. The chapter finds that there are distinct issues in relation to presenting information via the Web- or Tablet-based devises and suggests some of the considerations needed when designing multi-platform environments.