A Technical Guide to Effective and Accessible Web Surveys

The Internet is becoming an increasingly prominent medium for the administration of surveys. Although individual findings vary, the majority of the literature agrees that the appropriateness and response rates of web surveys is expected to rise in the future as we enter a generation of digital natives and mail-based communication becomes increasingly antiquated. Just about every aspect and tenet of traditional survey methodology has received attention in academic literature, positioning it as one of the most mature data collection techniques and a mainstay in all areas of research. While much of this accumulated knowledge is applicable and relevant to web surveys, there are numerous issues that arise specifically when surveys are delivered online. Such issues concern the overall design, delivery and administration of web surveys and the accessibility, structure, presentation and layout of their questions. The decisions made in these areas can influence the efficacy of a web survey in a number of ways, including the rate, integrity and quality of responses. This paper discusses such issues, and makes a number of recommendations to assist researchers in manually developing an effective and accessible web survey and in evaluating survey creation products and services

A Technical Guide to Designing and Implementing Effective Web Surveys

: The Internet is becoming an increasingly prominent medium for the administration of surveys. Although individual findings vary, the major‐ ity of the literature agrees that the appropriateness and response rates of web surveys is expected to rise in the future as we enter a generation of “digital natives” and mail‐based communication becomes increasingly an‐ tiquated. Just about every aspect and tenet of traditional survey metho‐ dology has received attention in academic literature, positioning it as one of the most mature data collection techniques and a mainstay in all areas of research. While much of this accumulated knowledge is applicable and relevant to web surveys, there are numerous issues that arise specifically when surveys are delivered online. Such issues concern the overall design, delivery and administration of web surveys and the structure, presentation and layout of their questions. The decisions made in these areas can influ‐ ence the efficacy of a web survey in a number of ways, including the rate, integrity and quality of responses. This paper discusses such issues, and makes a number of recommendations to assist researchers in manually developing an effective web survey and in evaluating survey creation products and services

GeoIntelligence: Data Mining Locational Social Media Content for Profiling and Information Gathering

The current social media landscape has resulted in a situation where people are encouraged to share a greater amount of information about their day-to-day lives than ever before. In this environment a large amount of personal data is disclosed in a public forum with little to no regard for the potential privacy impacts. This paper focuses on the presence of geographic data within images, metadata and individual postings. The GeoIntelligence project aims to aggregate this information to educate users on the possible implications of the utilisation of these services as well as providing service to law enforcement and business. This paper demonstrates the ability to profile users on an individual and group basis from data posted openly to social networking services

The 2011 IDN Homograph Attack Mitigation Survey

The advent of internationalized domain names (IDNs) has introduced a new threat, with the non-English character sets allowing for visual mimicry of domain names. Whilst this potential for this form of attack has been well recognized, many applications such as Internet browsers and e-mail clients have been slow to adopt successful mitigation strategies and countermeasures. This research examines those strategies and countermeasures, identifying areas of weakness that allow for homograph attacks. As well as examining the presentation of IDNs in e-mail clients and Internet browser URL bars, this year’s study examines the presentation of IDNs in browser-based security certificates and requests for locational data access

Online Course Content Auditing: Templates and Practices

This paper introduces and discusses the Blackboard Content Audit tool developed by a CS school within an Australian university. Based upon the key sections of a unit’s site in the Blackboard LMS, the tool establishes sets of basic, intermediate and advanced criteria and a rating scale upon which to assess the criteria. By specifying the basic criteria as a minimum standard, the consistency of unit sites can be improved. This helps to close the perceived quality gap between the schools online unit offerings, where in the past some staff had engaged more than others with the features of Blackboard. The audit process involves a semester based self-assessment by teaching staff for their units, followed by a review of the self-assessment by a member of the schools teaching and learning committee. This institutes an ongoing cycle of review, encouraging staff to continuously improve their online unit offerings. The auditing tool itself will also undergo regular review and refinement to ensure it remains relevant to the school’s ongoing T & L needs. Such a tool could be adapted for any LCMS and institution in order to meet their specific needs and context