68,369 research outputs found
Index to Library Trends Volume 33
published or submitted for publicatio
Examining client perceptions of partnership quality and its dimensions in an IT outsourcing relationship
This paper reports on an empirical study of the multidimensionality of partnership quality in IT outsourcing arrangements and the relationships between these dimensions of partnership quality. A two-phase national survey was conducted to collect empirical data to confirm the dimensions of partnership quality in an IT outsourcing arrangement from the client organisation perspective and to identify the significant relationships between these dimensions using a second generation multivariate analysis techniqueâpartial least squares
(PLS). The findings from results of the data analyses show that inter-organisational trust, shared business understanding and to a lesser extent, functional and dysfunctional conflict between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT outsourcing relationship
are the key determinants of partnership quality. The key outcome variable for high partnership quality between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT
outsourcing relationship is mutual beneficial sharing of risks and benefits. Commitment in an IT outsourcing relationship is confirmed as a multidimensional construct of behaviour commitment and temporal/continuance commitment and was found to be influenced by the other dimensions of partnership quality. The key findings of this study provide support for the notion that trust and shared business understanding are key drivers in the IT outsourcing
partnership style relationship ensuring that the sharing of risks and benefits are realised and conflict is minimised leading to a high quality and ultimately successful partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor. Furthermore our findings indicate that
behavioural commitment to the contractual obligations of an IT outsourcing relationship sustains an ongoing temporal commitment to the partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor
Ontology-based specific and exhaustive user profiles for constraint information fusion for multi-agents
Intelligent agents are an advanced technology utilized in Web Intelligence. When searching information from a distributed Web environment, information is retrieved by multi-agents on the client site and fused on the broker site. The current information fusion techniques rely on cooperation of agents to provide statistics. Such techniques are computationally expensive and unrealistic in the real world. In this paper, we introduce a model that uses a world ontology constructed from the Dewey Decimal Classification to acquire user profiles. By search using specific and exhaustive user profiles, information fusion techniques no longer rely on the statistics provided by agents. The model has been successfully evaluated using the large INEX data set simulating the distributed Web environment
Supporting Answerers with Feedback in Social Q&A
Prior research has examined the use of Social Question and Answer (Q&A)
websites for answer and help seeking. However, the potential for these websites
to support domain learning has not yet been realized. Helping users write
effective answers can be beneficial for subject area learning for both
answerers and the recipients of answers. In this study, we examine the utility
of crowdsourced, criteria-based feedback for answerers on a student-centered
Q&A website, Brainly.com. In an experiment with 55 users, we compared
perceptions of the current rating system against two feedback designs with
explicit criteria (Appropriate, Understandable, and Generalizable). Contrary to
our hypotheses, answerers disagreed with and rejected the criteria-based
feedback. Although the criteria aligned with answerers' goals, and crowdsourced
ratings were found to be objectively accurate, the norms and expectations for
answers on Brainly conflicted with our design. We conclude with implications
for the design of feedback in social Q&A.Comment: Published in Proceedings of the Fifth Annual ACM Conference on
Learning at Scale, Article No. 10, London, United Kingdom. June 26 - 28, 201
Visions and Challenges in Managing and Preserving Data to Measure Quality of Life
Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge,
disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent
of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices
(wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide
cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and
other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based
on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data
bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system
organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual,
community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position
paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage
data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol
for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a
self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life
(QoL) data.Comment: DSS 2018: Data-Driven Self-Regulating System
The Role of Social Capital in Economic Development
This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the causal nexus connecting social capital's diverse aspects to the "quality" of economic development in Italy. The analysis accounts for three main social capital dimensions (i.e. bonding, bridging and linking social capital) and measures them through synthetic indicators built by means of principal component analyses performed on a dataset including multiple variables. The quality of development is measured through human development and indicators of the state of health of urban ecosystems, public services, social protection, gender equality, and labour markets. The causal relationship between social capital's and development's different dimensions is then assessed through structural equations models. The analysis in this paper provides a proof of Putnam's claims on the positive role of civil society organizations in development processes.Social capital; Social networks; Civil Society; Economic development; Social quality; Labour precariousness; Structural Equations Modelling
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