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.