82 research outputs found
The Evolution of Technology in Call Centers
Historical research was conducted through literature. The report traces the evolution of technology in call centers (CCs) from their early inception to 2018. CCs are integrated into many facets of multidisciplinary areas of business, industry, and public and private institutions of higher education. Three research questions were addressed: What technologies enabled the start of CCs? How did the communications between customers and CSRs take place? What was the content of the earlier communications? How did services and communications evolve as technology matured? What are the current state-of-the-art technologies that exist in CCs? Which industries appear to have the best solutions? What are these solutions?
Photograph Analysis Worksheets and Written Document Analysis Worksheets from the National Archives and Records Administration were used to analyze primary source materials. Also, used were Primary Source Analysis Tools from the Library of Congress.
The final report offers a comprehensive history of the technology evolution within the industry. Included are a discussion of state-of-the-art technologies, the range of their applications and suggestions for staff training
Representing Crowd Knowledge: Guidelines for Conceptual Modeling of User-generated Content
Organizations’ increasing reliance on externally produced information, such as online user-generated content (UGC) and crowdsourcing, challenges common assumptions about conceptual modeling in information systems (IS) development. We demonstrate UGC’s societal importance, analyze its distinguishing characteristics, identify specific conceptual modeling challenges in this setting, evaluate traditional and recently proposed approaches to modeling UGC, propose a set of conceptual modeling guidelines for developing IS that harness structured UGC, and demonstrate how to implement and evaluate the proposed guidelines using a case of development of a real crowdsourcing (citizen science) IS. We conclude by considering implications for conceptual modeling research and practice
Anchoring digital maps as rough guides : a practice-orientated digital sociology of map use
This thesis provides a theoretical contribution towards understanding how, and to what
extent, people’s engagements with digital maps feature in the constitution of their
social practices. Existing theory tends not to focus on people as active interpreters
that engage with digital maps across a variety of contexts, or on the influence of their
map use on wider sets of social practices. Addressing this, the thesis draws on practice
theory, media studies, and internet studies to develop a conceptual framework,
applying it to empirical findings to address three research questions: (1) How do
people engage with digital maps; (2) How do people engage with the web-based
affordances of digital maps, such as those for collaboration, sharing, and end-user
amendment/generation of content; and (3) What influence does people’s engagement
with digital maps have on the way they perform wider sets of social practices? The
research provides insights from three contexts, each operating at a different temporal
scale: home choice covers longer-term processes of selecting and viewing properties
before buying or renting; countryside leisure-walking covers mid-term processes of
route-planning and assessment; University orientation covers shorter-term processes
of navigation and gaining orientation around campus. Those insights are gathered
through: a scoping survey (N=260) to identify relevant contexts; 32 semi-structured
interviews to initiate data analysis; and 3 focus groups to gather participant feedback
(member validation) on the emerging analysis. The approach to data analysis borrows
heavily from constructivist grounded theory (albeit sensitised by practice theory
ontology) to generate seven concepts. Together, the concepts constitute a practicetheory oriented digital sociology of map use. Overall, this thesis argues that digital
maps are engaged with as mundane technologies that partially anchor people’s
senses of place and security (physical and ontological), their performance of practices
and social positions, and more broadly, the movement and distribution of bodies in
space
SEEKING A COMMON THEME: A STUDY OF CERAMIC EFFIGY ARTIFACTS IN THE PRE-HISPANIC AMERICAN SOUTHWEST AND NORTHERN MEXICO USING COMPUTER IMAGE PATTERN RECOGNITION AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS
Effigy artifacts are found throughout the Pre-Hispanic American Southwest and Northern Mexico (PHASNM), as well as in other cultures around the world, with many sharing the same forms and design features. The earliest figurines within the PHASNM were partial anthropomorphic figurines made from fired clay, dating to between A.D. 287 and A.D. 312 (Morss 1954:27). They were found in a pit house village of Bluff Ruin in the Forestdale Valley of eastern Arizona, and they appeared to be associated with the Mogollon culture. The temporal range of the samples examined in this study is from approximately 200 A.D. to 1650 A.D., and the geographical range includes the Southwestern United States (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and Utah) and the northcentral section of Mexico (Casas Grandes and the surrounding area).
This research looks at the similarities among the markings of ceramic effigy artifacts from the PHASNM, using computer image pattern recognition, design analysis, and phylogenetics, to determine whether their ceramic traditions share a common theme and whether the specific method of social learning responsible for the transmission of information relating to ceramic effigy decoration can be identified. Transmission is possible in one of three ways: vertical transmission, where parents/teachers distribute information by encouraging imitation and sharing learned traditions with children/students (Richerson and Boyd 2005; Shennan 2002); horizontal transmission, where information is transmitted among peers, either from within the individual’s group or from interaction with peers from neighboring populations (Borgerhoff Mulder et al. 2006), and where the individual comes into contact with a wide range of attributes related to the item of interest and then adopts those that allow for the fastest, most economical methods of production and distribution (Eerkens et al 2006; Rogers 1983); and oblique transmission, where information is transmitted by adults, masters, or institutions of elite or higher social status, either internally or externally to the adopting cultural Type (Jensen 2016; Jordan 2014), and where particular traits are adopted or left out in disproportionate ways, creating patterns in localized traditions that can be empirically identified. Horizontal transmission can be broken into two types: unlimited, where contact is not confined to a particular group; and limited, where contact is restricted to a particular set of contacts.
Using criteria for each of the categories as set forth by the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies Pottery Typology Project, the samples were classified in terms of cultural area (culture), branch, tradition, ware, and type. The research v group consisted of 360 photographic samples represented by 868 images that were resized to a 640x640 pixel format. The images were then examined through computer image pattern recognition (using YOLOv5) and through manual observation. This study resulted in a database representing 230 traits. These traits were assembled into groups by cultural area, branch, tradition, ware, and type, and phylogenetic analysis was applied to show how the different entities transfer information among each other
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Federal Register
Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii
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AI and blockchain adoption in corporate governance
This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonPurpose
The purpose of this doctoral thesis sets out to explore and elaborate on the impact of
artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain adoption in corporate governance from ethical
perspectives. Positioned within the corporate governance domain, this study adopts
an explicit business perspective to study corporate governance change with emerging
AI and blockchain technological tools in general and focuses on the ethical use of
technologies specifically. As such, this empirical investigation aims to help
organizations understand the ethical benefits and ethical dilemmas of using AI and
blockchain in businesses and draw plans on how to govern these technologies
ethically for the benefit of the business and society.
Design/Methodology/Approach:
This study adopts specific techniques and a pragmatic, step-by-step netnography
approach to investigate online traces from social media sites and extends these online
explorations with online semi-structured interviews. The research design of this
investigation follows step-by-step procedures that are methodologically sound to
ensure rigor in this investigation to enhance the trustworthiness of this study. In total,
this research collects an abundance of data: 34 LinkedIn Posts with Comments; 12
Webinars; 22 YouTube Videos; 19 Videos; 10 Podcasts, and 17 semi-structured
interview videos. The video, audio, and interview data have been transcribed into
textual data total of 453065 words for thematic analysis using NVivo software. Enough
time has been allocated to the iterative process of data collection and data analysis.
The analysis moves back and forth to the point when theoretical saturation is achieved.
The data structure extracts from data in this study illustrate the analytic claims that
match the analysis and data together, to ensure a good fit between described method
and reported analysis are consistent.
Findings:
This study develops a thematic framework that constitutes the corporate governance
transformation with the ethical use of AI and blockchain technology. This framework
provides a holistic understanding of why corporate governance needs to change,
especially with the emergence of blockchain and AI technologies, what changes will
corporate governance encounter, and how corporate governance can imperatively
respond to the ethical use of these technologies. Specifically, it explicitly provides
comprehensive understanding of the ethical benefits and ethical concerns of using AI
and blockchain technologies in corporate governance, and reveals how companies
can govern the use of these technologies ethically.
In general terms, the findings of this study support the notion of corporate governance
change to transform business models and processes to leverage the new capabilities
of AI and blockchain technologies, to priories creativity, speed, and accountability, to
replace the old business model, to foster agile or collaborative governance to deal with
uncertainty, agility, adaptiveness, and cooperation in the digital world, to foster a network and platform strategies to drive success. This study goes beyond the extant
corporate governance scholarship to assess the technological impact to capture
values for companies in ethical ways to sustain future growth.
Additionally, the notion of corporate governance is further specified and significantly
expanded by this study to assess the adoption of AI and blockchain as new corporate
governance tools or mechanisms, to enhance ethical benefits when used properly,
and mitigate ethical dilemmas with proper checks and balances, safeguards in place,
to help organizations stay relevant in this digital transformation and be ethical and
sustainable.
This study empirically corroborates that in theory, the use of blockchain and AI can
enhance ethical practice by detecting fraud and anomaly activities, due to the unique
capabilities of blockchain and AI technologies. Further, this research adds depth and
specificity by identifying the ethical concerns of using blockchain and AI in corporate
governance. The study empirically reveals the ethical concerns of privacy issues,
unethical use of data, job transformation and replacement, and algorithm bias that
companies will encounter when they use these technologies. In addition, the findings
of this study suggest how companies can ethically govern the use of these
technologies in socially responsible ways as they transform digitally.
Originality/Value:
The emergent thematic framework is constructed from the empirical and analytical
procedures specifically and purposely designed for this study. This study makes
theoretical contributions to knowledge and enriches the extant works of literature, and
also provides practical contributions to the ethical use of disruptive technologies, future
workforce, and regulations. However, the study was conducted within certain
theoretical, methodological, empirical, and pragmatic conditions, which might
constitute particular limitations and constraints. Therefore, the last section of this
thesis elucidates and suggests the directions for future research
Temporal meta-model framework for Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) development
This thesis has developed a Temporal Meta-Model Framework for semi-automated Enterprise System Development, which can help drastically reduce the time and cost to develop, deploy and maintain Enterprise Information Systems throughout their lifecycle. It proposes that the analysis and requirements gathering can also perform the bulk of the design phase, stored and available in a suitable model which would then be capable of automated execution with the availability of a set of specific runtime components
Social Engineering: How U.S. Businesses Strengthen the Weakest Link against Cybersecurity Threats
The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological qualitative study was to investigate how IS professionals working in U.S. businesses make sense of their lives and experiences as they address and prevent vulnerabilities to social engineering attacks. This larger problem was explored through an in-depth study of social engineering and its effect on IS professionals working in U.S. businesses operating within healthcare, financial services, and educational industries across the central and northwest regions of Louisiana. Through its use of a phenomenological research design, the study bridged a gap in the social engineering literature, which was primarily comprised of studies that utilized a quantitative methodology. The use of a qualitative approach allowed participants to give voice to their beliefs, thoughts, and motivations about the work they do. The findings, consisting of ten themes and two subthemes, present the essence of experience of six IS professionals addressing and preventing social engineering vulnerabilities in their workplace. The findings revealed that the lived experience of protecting an organization from social engineering attacks involves the unification of people across the enterprise to develop a strong security-minded culture. Additionally, participants shared two primary beliefs, (1) that social engineering attacks would never be eradicated and (2) that IS professionals depend on everyone in the organization to protect the organization from social engineering attacks. The study offers recommendations to IS professionals, business leadership, HR professionals, educators, consultants, vendors, and researchers
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