IADIS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WWW/INTERNET

1-22

Authors: Maria Faust

This article explains the way people in Chinese and German cultural context deal with time and plan accordingly. First, a theoretical framework is developed of the social notion of time in German and Chinese cultural context. It considers Confucian notions in order to take an emic approach for Chinese cultural context, as it is mainly based on Western theories. Second, it will be identified how internet-mediated communication can change temporal behavior. Through the development of habits and eventually through institutionalization, objectification and legitimizing, cultural change is explained. Therefore, this process crosses the individual level and becomes a cultural one. In an outlook, it is asked how quantitative empirical research can cover these issues.

38-57

Authors: Matthias Moi, Nikolai Rodehutskors and Rainer Koch

As social media services are on the rise, people increasingly share information about emergencies on social media. Sometimes information about disasters even finds its way faster to social media websites than it reaches regular news companies and emergency services. Yet emergency services still have not found a way to put this potential to an effective use. Within our project “EmerGent”, we are developing a system for emergency services to process and analyse information from social media. The goal is to collect the vast amount of data generated in social networks during a crisis, evaluate the quality of this information and to transform the high volume of noisy data into a low volume of rich content that can be presented to emergency personnel in a useful manner. In this paper, we describe the steps taken during the development process of an ontology that covers the fields of social media and emergency management (SMEM) and the structure of this ontology itself. Also a solution for the measurement and description of information quality in form of a graph is explained, where an overall information quality value is calculated based on several criteria and indicators.

72-90

Authors: Georgios Dafoulas, Noha Saleeb and Martin Loomes

In this paper we provide a revised presentation of our investigation of how architectural digital design elements of virtual worlds affect learning experiences. The paper provides an initial reflection on learners’ requirements for 3D virtual worlds. Emphasis is given on determining a typology of learning requirements affecting the design of 3D Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). In particular, the research study focused on 3D virtual educational facilities and their impact on learning experience in comparison to real life in-class experiences, by introducing optimum 3D virtual world features in spaces, and turning them into learning places. Emphasis is given on how a range of learning objectives affect design efforts in virtual worlds intended for supporting learning activities. Examples of how virtual worlds may transform learning experiences include information retention, participation and enjoyment. The paper considers design elements that have a causal effect to such learning objectives and considers what design recommendations could be used to enhance the student’s overall learning experience in 3D VLEs. The paper investigates the impact of architectural design guidelines in relation to several features including space shape, size dimensions and height, interior lighting and open walls, colours, textures, floor, wall and ceiling design, architecture style, window design, seating arrangements, and building entrance.

1-14

Authors: Jonathan S. Prates, Sandro J. Rigo, Cristiano A. Costa and Jorge. L. V. Barbosa

Researchers, in Multimodal Interaction Systems, devote substantial effort to the integration of external stimulus and signal, to the internal representation of this information and to the response generation. Nevertheless, they focus less effort on how to integrate studies in Cognitive Psychology regarding the human interaction subject. Therefore, it becomes interesting to evaluate the assumption that a dialog model based on known human factors should outcome better perception of the interaction process by the users. This paper presents an experimental approach to implement multimodal interaction systems where the main innovative aspect is related to the dialogue managing, that is based on the working memory model proposed by Baddeley and Hitch. A computational model was proposed and two different prototypes were built. The obtained results were found to be positive and it indicates relevant flexibility aspects together with anencouraging feedback from users.

28-38

Authors: Refad Bader and Kyeong Kang

The main focus of this article is the economic value creation within social media enterprises. This article will examine different models within this domain. The work has not only identified the main strengths and weaknesses of each model, but also highlighted the differences and similarities between them.

57-69

Authors: Dirk Frosch-Wilke and Sina Tuchtenhagen

In today’s business the optimization of the alignment between Business and IT can be assessed as a critical success factor for enterprises. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is used by enterprises for providing an integrated environment in order to support this Business-IT-Alignment. But establishing EA practice still remains a challenging endeavor with low success rates. Mayor reasons for that are the high complexity of the enterprise models and the resultant necessity for stakeholder specific visualization of the enterprise model, the different information requirements of different stakeholder groups, and the not sufficient integration of EA in the management processes and IT management tools used by a company. For this reason we argue that the business management of an enterprise and the Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) of the company should be integrated in a more consistent way to minimize application proliferation and to avoid information system silos. One possibility for achieving this is to provide and to visualize all necessary management information in only one IT-tool which is well integrated in the management processes of a company. In the business management context Business Intelligence (BI) systems are information integrators which allow stakeholder specific visualization and analyses of high quality and integrated business data. Also EAM systems have to collect, to manage and to visualize information from one or various sources. In this paper we demonstrate how information needed by EAM can also be modelled, stored, and business friendly visualized within a BI system. Thus, we demonstrate how Enterprise Architecture Visualization can be managed by a BI system.

86-100

Authors: Gustavo de Oliveira Almeida and Deborah Moraes Zouain

E-government refers to the delivery of government information and services online through the Internet or other digital means (West, 2004), and well-implemented e-government platforms can help to improve the business environment and the creation of new businesses. The present article has as its main goal to measure the impact of change of the index of e-readiness of e-Government (and its sub-indices) on ease of doing business, in the new business rate and the perception of corruption in countries of high, medium and low income, in order to test whether the effects depend on the income level. The study used a panel data (repeated measures), with four points (years 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014), with three periods of change (2008/2010, 2010/2012 and 2012/2014), with data the following databases: Doing Business Report of the World Bank, the United Nations Survey on e-Government, Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International and World Bank’s Survey on Entrepreneurship. Data were analyzed using Mixed Linear Models procedures with fixed and random effects. The findings indicate that different models should be employed to understand e-government impact depending on the income level of the countries, since they have a very diverse technological and service delivery capacity and different population profiles when compared on digital and Internet use, and even cultural traits. Thus, the findings support the hypothesis that the effects are diverse and depend on the income level. Indications for future research are discussed.

1-16

Authors: Helia Marreiros, Richard Gomer, Michael Vlassopoulos, Mirco Tonin and M.C. schraefel

Online service providers offer “free” services in exchange for the personal data of its users. In the last few years there has been an increase of online industry regulations requiring service providers, such as websites and app developers, to disclosure the ways in which they collect, process and use the personal data of service users. These “privacy disclosures,” such as the privacy policy, the cookie notice and, on smart phones, the app permission request, are designed with the purpose of informing users and empowering them to control their privacy. The interaction problems with these different types of disclosure are relatively well understood – habituation, inattention and cognitive biases undermine the extent to which user consent is truly informed. Users understanding of the actual content of these disclosures, and their feelings toward it, are less well understood, though. In this paper we report the results of a mixed-method exploratory study of the privacy disclosures and compare their relative merits as a starting point for the development of more meaningful consent interactions. First, we conducted a focus group study, with 21 students from the University of Southampton, to understand behavior and privacy concerns of Millenials (those born between 1982 and 2004) in response to the these three most common types of privacy disclosure. Second, we conducted an online survey, with 100 students from the University of Southampton, to study perception and feelings towards the content of the privacy disclosures. We identify three key findings. Firstly, we find heterogeneity of user perceptions and attitudes to privacy disclosures in both studies. The results of the focus groups suggests three types of users: the scared and worried about their online privacy, who think there is an option out; the naïve, who do not understand how their personal data is collected and processed by the online service providers; and the meh, who understand the tradeoff but are not worried about their privacy. Secondly, we find limited ability of users to infer data processing outputs and risks based on technical explanations of particular practices, suggestions of a naïve model of “cost justification” rather cost-benefit analysis by users. Finally, we show evidence of the possibility that consent interactions are valuable in themselves as a mean to improve user perceptions of a service.

34-51

Authors: Petar Jandric and Ana Kuzmanic

This paper explores theoretical and practical opportunities for describing human expansion into the digital worlds – the so-called ‘information revolution’ – using the wide body of theories and approaches under the common name of postcolonial science and technology studies (PSTC). In order to employ digital postcolonialism as a feasible research methodology, it explores three dialectically related themes: opportunities for creating a new geography of the digital and creating conceptual bridges between geospatial migrations of the past and digital migrations of the present, the relationships between the digital territories and the digital settlers, and situating the current stage of (post)colonialist developments into a wider historical context. On that basis, it shows that digital postcolonialism might provide a fresh insight into human relationships with information and communication technologies, and explores the main methodological challenges. Finally, it warns that the material base of digital postcolonialism is much more elusive than material base of geographical migration, and points towards further research directions.

69-82

Authors: Hind Talafha and Emad Abu-Shanab

Internet banking is becoming a commodity rather than a strategic choice for banks in the 21st century. This study aimed at exploring the influence of the factors adopted from the SERVQUAL model and extended with trust and security to predict customer satisfaction with IB. The second objective is to see if education, gender, and age have significant influence on the constructs proposed by the research model. The study utilized a questionnaire to measure the research model utilizing a structural equation modeling technique. Results emphasized the role of security concerns, reliability and responsiveness in predicting the level of trust in IB. Also, trust was a significant predictor of satisfaction in IB services. The level of prediction yielded 22% of the variance in satisfaction. Finally, nearly no influence was estimated by all three demographic factors in determining the level of all model variables.

98-114

Authors: Omar Almutiry, Gary Wills and Richard Crowder

The provision of high quality data is of considerable importance to health sector. Healthcare is a domain in which the timely provision of accurate, current and complete patient data is one of most important objectives. The quality of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data concerns health professionals and researchers for secondary use. To ensure high quality data in health sector, health-related organisations need to have appropriate methodologies and measurement processes to assess and analyse the quality of their data. Yet, no adequate attention has been paid to the existing data quality problems (dirty data) in health-related research. In practice, anomalies detection and cleansing is time-consuming and labour-intensive which makes it unrealistic to most health-related organisations. This paper proposes a dimension-oriented taxonomy of data quality problems. The mechanism of the data quality assessment relates the business impacts into data quality dimensions. As a case study, the new taxonomy-based data quality assessment was used to assess the quality of data populating an EHR system in a large Saudi Arabian hospital. The assessment results were discussed and reviewed with the top management of the hospital as well as the assessment team who participated in the data quality assessment process. Then, the assessment team evaluated this new approach.

1-16

Authors: Anna Ståhlbröst, Ali Padyab, Annika Sällström and Danilo Hollosi

All around the globe the concept of smart cities is growing at fast pace meaning that an increasingly amount of people are moving to cities, which causes problems for cities with energy supply, waste management, transportation, environmental issues and security to mention a few. To answer to these challenges, the concept of smart cities emerges referring to cities that invest in human and social capital, and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure that will fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance. Hence, for cities to be smart they cannot only install technologies, but they also need to invest in human capital and sustain a high quality of life. It is therefore important that solutions being implemented in smart cities answer to the needs and expectations citizens have as well as protect them from being exposed or forced into unwanted situations. In earlier studies it has become clear that people often are worried about their privacy due to our life being so easy to track and technologies becoming increasingly ubiquitous and pervasive. In this paper we will report on a study carried out with focus on understanding citizens view on information privacy concerns related to an intelligent acoustic smart city solution for audio monitoring. By means of this technology it was possible to detect events such as sirens, recognise speech commands and detects presence in public buildings. Audio monitoring is a relatively new and under research phenomena. Hence, in this paper an analysis of a survey on information privacy concerns, carried out with 1000 respondents around Europe, is presented and discussed. The basic findings from this study indicate that people have information privacy concerns related to this type of solution on a general level. However, when being more thoroughly introduced to the solution and its usage area, the citizens also became more positive towards the solution. The study also identified design principles that aims to support the design and implementation of smart city solutions that take not only users, but also affectees perspectives into consideration.

30-42

Authors: Gustavo de Oliveira Almeida and Deborah Moraes Zouain

The level of e-government readiness or development is widely unequal between countries. One of the main variables that explain this difference is the income level of the country. This paper aims to measure the impact of change of e-government index (and its composing sub-indexes) in the ease of doing business and the rate creation of new business in different groups of countries, categorized into high, middle and low income countries. The study used a panel data design, with four points (years 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014), in three change periods (2008/2010, 2010/2012 and 2012/2014), collecting data from various databases: Doing Business Report by World Bank, United Nations E-Government Survey, Corruption Perception Index by Transparence International and World Bank Entrepreneurship Survey. The data was joined and analyzed with non-parametric correlation and stepwise regression. The models had good predictive power for upper and middle income countries, but not for low income, indicating that different models should be applied to understand e-government relationship with outcome variables, according to the income level and e-government development level. Suggestions for future research are also presented.

57-71

Authors: Sunil Chaudhary, Yan Zhao, Eleni Berki, Juri Valtanen, Linfeng Li, Marko Helenius and Stylianos Mystakidis

Preparing students adequately against online-attacks is a constant teaching and learning challenge, no matter how many advanced security-related courses have been developed for higher education curricula worldwide. Recently emphasis has also been put on online identity theft and social awareness in general. The authors research the knowledge, skills and attitudes of future IT professionals, from a cross-cultural and gender perspective. The available data were collected from international students in Software Engineering and other IT related disciplines via a questionnaire. The processed data revealed that (i) students are not free of security misconceptions, which security education is called upon to address and (ii) courses about online security can be part of a strategy for increasing social awareness on privacy protection. This pilot survey also revealed that the following issues are crucial: (a) the cultural and gender dimensions, (b) personality traits and (c) teaching methodology and learning environment used for security education. The researchers specify strategic guidelines in higher education for timely privacy protection and citizens’ security. The information provided in this study will be practical and useful for curricula design and formal/informal learning practices. Hence, courses on security can be thought-provoking, interesting throughout the learning process and effective regarding the learning outcomes.

1-15

Authors: Andrew Wodehouse and Marion Sheridan

With recent technological developments in motion capture there is an opportunity to redefine the physical interactions we have with products, considering human needs in movement at the forefront rather than subservient to the machine. This paper reports on the exploration of emotional reaction to gestural interface design using Laban’s Movement Analysis from the field of dance and drama. After outlining the current status of Gesture Controlled User Interfaces and why the use of Laban is appropriate to help understand the effects of movement, the results of a workshop on new interface design are presented. Teams were asked to re-imagine a number of product experiences that utilised appropriate Laban effort actions and to prototype and present these to the group. Several categories of devices, including direct manipulation, remote control and gesture recognition were identified. In aligning appropriate movements to device functionality, utilising culture and analogy and where necessary increasing complexity, the interfaces embody a number of concepts relating to gestural interface concepts.

34-50

Authors: André Sabino, João Gouveia and Armanda Rodrigues

Recommending new connections to users is an important tool for productive networks, but users are not always clear about how they are connected to the recommended contacts in the network graph. Providing insight about the arguments used to build a recommendation increases the chances of its acceptance by users. This work is focused on recommendations that rely on an information model that enables recommendation systems, using only the relationships between users, items and keywords. These elements define the productive network graph, which this work represents in a visualization and interaction platform whose goal is twofold: to provide a discovery tool for productive networks, through which users can navigate the graph using different visualization contexts; and to provide insight about indirect relationships, representing which direct relationships are relevant for a particular recommendation. The platform is designed to work with any data that complies with this model. The visualization elements and interaction operations have been evaluated through the implementation of a case study, based on a sample of the Flickr network, producing positive results.

68-84

Authors: Hilda Tellioğlu, Alexander von Franqué, Christian Kletzander and Alexander Kögler

Many educational institutions use Learning Management Systems to provide e-learning content to their students. This often includes quizzes that can help students to prepare for exams. However, the content is usually web-optimized and not very usable on mobile devices. In this work a native mobile application (UML-Quiz) that imports quiz content from Moodle and adapts it for a mobile environment has been developed. The result is highly usable and promising. The existing teaching content can be easily used in the new system by offering advantages of mobile applications. In this paper, the design decisions for UML-Quiz and the usability optimizations to the content and to the interaction mechanisms are presented. Within an evolutionary design process we could improve the first version of the quiz and learn about several interaction and user interface design issues. In a second version of the quiz, we managed to integrate users’ feedback to the system and improve its acceptance by the users. We present our evaluation process and the results before concluding the paper.

102-114

Authors: Akihide Bessho, Takayuki Yumoto, Manabu Nii and Kunihiro Sato

Customer reviews are helpful information to decide what to buy in EC sites. However, some customer reviews are not helpful. Therefore, users must choose helpful ones. This is difficult especially for users who do not have enough knowledge about the products. In this paper, we propose methods to classify customer reviews into helpful and unhelpful. To classify them, we focus on content coverage and writing style of reviews. Coverage expresses how many important words are contained by the reviews. Writing style is expressed as “formal” or “informal”, and it is classified by a machine learning technique. We made test data from user votes in Amazon.co.jp, and evaluated our methods. The accuracy of our rule-based method was 0.69. However, the method using coverage does not work well when many reviews have not been written yet. We analyzed the effects of the number of reviews, and confirmed that our rule-based method is less affected and achieves better accuracy than the method using only coverage.

131-148

Authors: Sotiris P. Christodoulou and Andreas B. Gizas

Many JavaScript libraries (JL) have become available in order to facilitate programming of rich client-side interactions in web applications. In some cases these interactions may cause non-negligible overhead on the response time of web applications, esp. on average mobile devices, that negatively influence user experience. An important fraction of this overhead is caused by some JL’s selectors on DOM elements. The aim of this work is to thoroughly study and evaluate the performance of JL’s selectors and categorize them in various performance classes. Towards this purpose, we produced a test-suite of 263 selectors to cover all possible kinds of selectors found in real world cases and evaluate the performance of these selectors on 6 popular JLs, with an enhanced version of slickspeed suite and a large set of jsperf tests. The main result of this work is to introduce a framework (methodology and a set of tools), that can be used by developers to estimate the performance overhead caused by JL DOM selectors in a given web page, discover bad performing selectors and optimize them.