Enterprise Social Networks: The Case of CERN

Social networks are commonly seen as a global trend that allows users to search and contact others with similar interests, write a post, reply, like or share content, create groups and organize events. This said, there is much more that can be done to exploit the full potential of social media. In order to improve the business, providing employees, customers and partners the best tools to cooperate and gain value from the whole community, many organizations are taking the matter in their own hands, using Enterprise Social Networks. Close analysis of case studies and comprehensive statistics shows why it is important to pursue this path. At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the number of employees, students and volunteers that everyday work in partnership both on site and through the network reaches the thousands, a new kind of platform has been deployed, able to exploit the social knowledge of the personnel. The thesis will describe the case study of CERN to understand not only why it is essential to become a social organization but also how a social environment can be developed. The last chapters will focus on examining my work on the platform, considering a mobile responsive design, realized to make the environment adapt to any screen size, an integrated resource planning tool, which gives the scientists the mean to easily manage the everyday work on the particle accelerators, and the platform’s Application Programming Interface, which allows anyone with the right credentials to include content from the enterprise social network into a personal or departmental webpage, giving everyone an even easier way to participate

A characteristics framework for Semantic Information Systems Standards

Semantic Information Systems (IS) Standards play a critical role in the development of the networked economy. While their importance is undoubted by all stakeholders—such as businesses, policy makers, researchers, developers—the current state of research leaves a number of questions unaddressed. Terminological confusion exists around the notions of “business semantics”, “business-to-business interoperability”, and “interoperability standards” amongst others. And, moreover, a comprehensive understanding about the characteristics of Semantic IS Standards is missing. The paper addresses this gap in literature by developing a characteristics framework for Semantic IS Standards. Two case studies are used to check the applicability of the framework in a “real-life” context. The framework lays the foundation for future research in an important field of the IS discipline and supports practitioners in their efforts to analyze, compare, and evaluate Semantic IS Standard

Applying the interaction equivalency theorem to online courses in a large organization

Finding effective ways of designing online courses is a priority for corporate organizations. The interaction equivalency theorem states that meaningful learning can be achieved as long as courses are designed with at least a high level of one of three types of interactions (learner-content, learner-teacher or learner-learner). This study aimed to establish whether the interaction equivalency theorem applies to online learning in the corporate sector. The research was conducted in a large Mexican commercial organization, and involved 147 learners (sales supervisors), 30 teachers (sales managers and directors) and 3 academic assistants (course designers, or Education support staff). Three courses of an existing Leadership Program (Situational Leadership, Empowering Beliefs and Effective Performance) were redesigned and developed to test three course designs, each emphasizing a different type of interaction (learner-content, learner-teacher or learner-learner). Data were collected through surveys (for diagnostic and evaluation purposes) and exams. All courses yielded high levels of effectiveness, in terms of satisfaction, learning, perceived readiness for knowledge transfer and return on expectations. This suggests that the interaction equivalency theorem not only applies in a business setting but might also include other indicators of course effectiveness, such as satisfaction, learning transfer and return on expectations. Further research is needed to explore the possible expansion of the theorem

Users are not the enemy

Many system security departments treat users as a security risk to be controlled. The general consensus is that most users are careless and unmotivated when it comes to system security. In a recent study, we found that users may indeed compromise computer security mechanisms, such as password authentication, both knowing and unknowingly. A closer analysis, however, revealed that such behavior is often caused by the way in which security mechanisms are implemented, and users ’ lack of knowledge. We argue that to change this state of affairs, security departments need to communicate more with users, and adopt a user-centered design approach

Bridging the Innovation Divide: An Agenda for Disseminating Technology Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector

Examines technology practices -- such as neighborhood information systems, electronic advocacy, Internet-based micro enterprise support, and digital inclusion initiatives -- that strengthen the capacity of nonprofits and community organizations

The Hidden Side of Transparency among Government Agency Bloggers

This paper shows and discusses blogs as social action in a corporate context by investigating and seeking to understand organizational bloggers’ motivations and discursive behaviors in the contextual and cultural diversity of a\ud blog-setting. Providing empirical findings on the possibilities and limitations that are embedded in an organizational blog in a government agency context, traced\ud through focus group interviews of the organizational bloggers, the paper shows that culturally bound limitations exist and are exposed when implementing an open-source social technology like the weblog. People, even within the same organization, have different goals in relation to the same technology, and the transparency of the blog and the blog comments is managed differently by the internal bloggers. Through the discussion of the different cultural discourses at work in the blog, diverging roles and dilemmas that the blogging employees meet when engaging in corporate blogging are exposed and discussed. The aim of the paper is to discuss the social implications of these different cultural discourses in a corporate blog and how corporate cultural tensions emerge because of the blog. The paper pinpoints the problematic of transparency through pointing out conflicting goals, roles and the resulting self-censorship by bloggers as they operate in an environment that is increasingly transparent, and shows examples of\ud how the group of bloggers with the shared narrative tradition is able to mobilize its members and create subgroups for appropriate blog behaviors and changing\ud behavior due to self-censorship, as well as identification with the key actors in the group