Sharing, privacy and trust issues for photo collections

Digital libraries are quickly being adopted by the masses. Technological developments now allow community groups, clubs, and even ordinary individuals to create their own, publicly accessible collections. However, users may not be fully aware of the potential privacy implications of submitting their documents to a digital library, and may hold misconceptions of the technological support for preserving their privacy. We present results from 18 autoethnographic investigations and 19 observations / interviews into privacy issues that arise when people make their personal photo collections available online. The Adams' privacy model is used to discuss the findings according to information receiver, information sensitivity, and information usage. Further issues of trust and ad hoc poorly supported protection strategies are presented. Ultimately while photographic data is potentially highly sensitive, the privacy risks are often hidden and the protection mechanisms are limited

Reconsidering online reputation systems

Social and socioeconomic interactions and transactions often require trust. In digital spaces, the main approach to facilitating trust has effectively been to try to reduce or even remove the need for it through the implementation of reputation systems. These generate metrics based on digital data such as ratings and reviews submitted by users, interaction histories, and so on, that are intended to label individuals as more or less reliable or trustworthy in a particular interaction context. We suggest that conventional approaches to the design of such systems are rooted in a capitalist, competitive paradigm, relying on methodological individualism, and that the reputation technologies themselves thus embody and enact this paradigm in whatever space they operate in. We question whether the politics, ethics and philosophy that contribute to this paradigm align with those of some of the contexts in which reputation systems are now being used, and suggest that alternative approaches to the establishment of trust and reputation in digital spaces need to be considered for alternative contexts

Learners reconceptualising education: Widening participation through creative engagement?

This paper argues that engaging imaginatively with ways in which statutory and further education is provided and expanding the repertoire of possible transitions into higher education, is necessary for providers both in higher education and in the contexts and phases which precede study at this level. Fostering dispositions for creativity in dynamic engagement with educational technology together with the consideration of pedagogy, learning objects, inclusion, policy and the management of change, requires innovative provision to span the spaces between school, home, work and higher education learning. Reporting on The Aspire Pilot, a NESTA-funded initiative at The Open University, the paper offers the beginning of a theoretical frame for considering learning, learners and learning systems in the information age prioritizing learner agency. It will report emergent empirical findings from this inter-disciplinary project, with a significant e-dimension, which seeks to foster the creativity of 13-19 year olds in considering future learning systems, developing provocations for others to explore creative but grounded possibilities. It explores implications arising from this project for approaches that may facilitate widening participation in higher education

Ideation as an intellectual information acquisition and use context: Investigating game designers’ information-based ideation behavior

Human Information Behavior (HIB) research commonly examines behavior in the context of why information is acquired and how it will be used, but usually at the level of the work or everyday-life tasks the information will support. HIB has not been examined in detail at the broader contextual level of intellectual purpose (i.e. the higher-order conceptual tasks the information was acquired to support). Examination at this level can enhance holistic understanding of HIB as a ‘means to an intellectual end’ and inform the design of digital information environments that support information interaction for specific intellectual purposes. We investigate information-based ideation (IBI) as a specific intellectual information acquisition and use context by conducting Critical Incident-style interviews with ten game designers, focusing on how they interact with information to generate and develop creative design ideas. Our findings give rise to a framework of their ideation-focused HIB, which systems designers can leverage to reason about how best to support certain behaviors to drive design ideation. These findings emphasize the importance of intellectual purpose as a driver for acquisition and desired outcome of use

Texts of female desire and of community

This study investigated narratives obtained from 45 participants about their watching of EastEnders. The first aim was to understand why people watch this program. The second aim was to identify the kinds of social object dominating their accounts as a way of revealing the forms of cultural debate catalyzed by the show. Material was generated via an open-ended e-mail questionnaire and analyzed qualitatively using grounded theory. Two major themes constituting social objects were identified; female desire and community. These themes were made-up of seven categories each of which helped explain why our participants watched EastEnders; reduced troubles, gender, relaxation, social activity, community, realism, and Britishness. We discuss these results in relation to past research but also argue that, as our findings suggest some participants gained a therapeutic effect from watching EastEnders, there is a fruitful and little explored link between such comfort viewing and research on psychotherapy

Enhancing the Conventional Information Security Management Maturity Model (ISM3) in Resolving Human Factors in Organization Information Sharing

Information sharing in organization has been considered as an important approach in increasing organizational efficiency, performance and decision making. With the present and advances in information and communication technology, sharing information and exchanging of data across organizations has become more feasible in organization. However, information sharing has been a complex task over the years and identifying factors that influence information sharing across organization has becomes crucial and critical. Researchers have taken several methods and approaches to resolve problems in information sharing at all levels without a lasting solution, as sharing is best understood as a practice that reflects behavior, social, economic, legal and technological influences. Due to the limitation of the conventional ISM3 standards to address culture, social, legislation and human behavior, the findings in this paper suggest that, a centralized information structure without human practice, distribution of information and coordination is not effective. This paper reviews the previous information sharing research, outlines the factors affecting information sharing and the different practices needed to improve the management of information security by recommending several combinations of information security and coordination mechanism for reducing uncertainty during sharing of information .This thesis proposes information security management protocol (ISMP) as an enhancement towards ISM3 to resolve the above problems. This protocol provides a means for practitioners to identify key factors involved in successful information sharing....

Researching Across Two Cultures: Shifting Positionality

Embodied and creative research methods provoke honesty, emotion, and vulnerability in participants, which add to the richness of the stories they tell and are willing to share. The positionality of the researcher is less of “interviewer” and more “co-producer” or participant in a dialogue. Visual and creative approaches invite participants to share in ways in which they are not able or willing through words alone. The data and outputs they produce, with film, art, or objects, can in turn affect those who see it more than written text and need to be analysed and disseminated along with more traditional transcripts, articles, and presentations. In the context of investigating sensitive issues such as those around embodied identity, these methods, which use embodied methods to explore embodied research questions, may feel the most appropriate. These approaches lie along the boundary of therapy and research, asking much of researchers who are unlikely to have received therapeutic training or ongoing support. Due to this deficit, the researched may find that their experience is not held or contained in a way that the content would demand. Similarly, the data themselves lie on the boundary of art and research, in that they can be seen as more than a tool to facilitate reflection, but as artifacts in their own right. What are the implications in this scenario? Where should we position ourselves and our work along these boundaries? Who holds the space for the researcher and the researched if both are made vulnerable

Transfer Scenarios: Grounding Innovation with Marginal Practices

Transfer scenarios is a method developed to support the design of innovative interactive technology. Such a method should help the designer to come up with inventive ideas, and at the same time provide grounding in real human needs. In transfer scenarios, we use marginal practices to encourage a changed mindset throughout the design process. A marginal practice consists of individuals who share an activity that they find meaningful. We regard these individuals not as end-users, but as valuable input in the design process. We applied this method when designing novel applications for autonomous embodied agents, e.g. robots. Owners of unusual pets, such as snakes and spiders, were interviewed - not with the intention to design robot pets, but to determine underlying needs and interests of their practice. The results were then used to design a set of applications for more general users, including a dynamic living-room wall and a set of communicating hobby robots

Design principles for professionalizing primary school teachers on promoting reading motivation

Studies show that teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for educational quality, and moreover, when it comes to reading, key for students’ success in education and participation in our 21st century society. Most of the research investigating professional development programs on improving teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching reading and in particular on fostering students’ reading motivation, however, fails to include clear and detailed descriptions of the design principles underlying the programs. Therefore, the present study provides a comprehensive description and operationalization of the design principles of a CPD program for primary school teachers focusing on promoting students’ reading motivation combining Desimone’s (2009) framework for effective professional development with Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Consequently, the CPD program’s core features as distinguished by Desimone (i.e., content focus, coherence, active learning, collective participation and duration) and the need for autonomy, competence and relatedness as put central in SDT are analytically described and elaborated on. In view of reporting on the implementation check of the CPD, we further provide insight into whether these operationalized design principles were also perceived as such by the teachers participating in a first iteration of the CPD intervention. information

Cultural diversity and information and communication technology impacts on global virtual teams: An exploratory study.

Modern organizations face many significant challenges because of turbulent environments and a competitive global economy. Among these challenges are the use of information and communication technology (ICT), a multicultural workforce, and organizational designs that involve global virtual teams. Ad hoc teams create both opportunities and challenges for organizations and many organizations are trying to understand how the virtual environment affects team effectiveness. Our exploratory study focused on the effects of cultural diversity and ICT on team effectiveness. Interviews with 41 team members from nine countries employed by a Fortune 500 corporation were analyzed. Results suggested that cultural diversity had a positive influence on decision‐making and a negative influence on communication. ICT mitigated the negative impact on intercultural communication and supported the positive impact on decision making. Effective technologies for intercultural communication included e‐mail, teleconferencing combined with e‐Meetings, and team rooms. Cultural diversity influenced selection of the communication media