Technology Mediated Dispute Resolution (TMDR): A New Paradigm for ADR

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

GAUGING PUBLIC INTEREST FROM SERVER LOGS, SURVEYS AND INLINKS

As the World Wide Web (the Web) has turned into a full-fledged medium to disseminate news, it is very important for journalism and information science researchers to investigate how Web users access online news reports and how to interpret such usage patterns. This doctoral thesis collected and analyzed Web server log statistics, online surveys results, online reprints of the top 50 news reports, as well as external inlinks data of a leading comprehensive online newspaper (the People’s Daily Online) in China, one of the biggest Web/information markets in today’s world. The aim of the thesis was to explore various methods to gauge the public interest from a Webometrics perspective. A total of 129 days of Web server log statistics, including the top 50 Chinese and English news stories with the highest daily pageview numbers, the comments attracted by these news items and the emailed frequencies of the same stories were collected from October 2007 to September 2008. These top 50 news items’positions on the Chinese and English homepages and the top 50 queries submitted to the website search engine of the People’s Daily Online were also retrieved. Results of the two online surveys launched in March 2008 and March 2009 were collected after their respective closing dates. The external inlinks to the People’s Daily Online were retrieved by Yahoo! (Chinese and English versions), and the online reprints were retrieved by Google. Besides the general usage patterns identified from the top 50 news stories, this study, by conducting statistical tests on the data sets, also reveals the following findings. First, the editors’ choices and the readers’ favorites do not always match each other; thus content of news title is more important than its homepage position in attracting online visits. Second, the Chinese and English readers’ interests in the same events are different. Third, the pageview numbers and comments posted to the news items reflect the unfavorable attitudes of the Chinese people toward the United States and Japan, which might offer us a method to investigate the public interest in some other issues or nations after necessary modifications. More importantly, some publicly available data, such as the comments posted to the news stories and online survey results, further show that the pageview measure does reflect readers’ interests/needs truthfully, as proved by the strong correlations between the top news reports and relevant top queries. The external ininks to the news websites and the online reprints of the top news items help us examine readers\u27 interests from other perspectives, as well as establish online profiles of the news websites. Such publicly accessible information could be an alternative data source for researchers to study readers\u27 interests when the Web server log data are not available. This doctoral thesis not only shows the usefulness of Web server log statistics, survey results, and other publicly accessible data in studying Web user’s information needs, but also offers practical suggestions for online news sites to improve their contents and homepage designs. However, no single method can draw a complete picture of the online news readers’ interests. The above mentioned research methodologies should be employed together, in order to make more comprehensive conclusions. Future research is especially needed to investigate the continuously rapid growth of the “Mobile News Readers,” which poses both challenges and opportunities to the press industry in the 21st century

Technology Mediated Dispute Resolution (TMDR): A New Paradigm for ADR

Technology is changing the way that children are communicating (particularly elementary and pre-school aged children), and these changes have significant implications for alternative dispute resolution processes and practices. Although ADR practitioners and theorists are not ignoring technology, we have focused almost exclusively on the question of how we can use technology to enhance our existing practices. We are not paying sufficient attention to the fact that young children are communicating differently than we communicate. Insufficient energy is being dedicated to the question of how those differences in communication inevitably influence the way that those children resolve disputes. The article analyzes social science research that describes and documents how technology is changing the ways in which children are communicating. The successes of software and hardware developers are coming so quickly that it is difficult for those of us outside the technology fields to stay informed. Dispute resolvers are not asking how new technologies, technologies of which we may not even be aware (or at least not fully understand), are changing the way that our children are communicating. We also are not asking how those changes affect alternative dispute resolution. The article suggests ways in which ADR will change as a result of the ways children are communicating. It also discusses the future of current theories and approaches to ADR, such as mindfulness meditation (frequently discussed by Professor Leonard Riskin, among others)

GAUGING PUBLIC INTEREST FROM SERVER LOGS, SURVEYS AND INLINKS A Multi-Method Approach to Analyze News Websites

As the World Wide Web (the Web) has turned into a full-fledged medium to disseminate news, it is very important for journalism and information science researchers to investigate how Web users access online news reports and how to interpret such usage patterns. This doctoral thesis collected and analyzed Web server log statistics, online surveys results, online reprints of the top 50 news reports, as well as external inlinks data of a leading comprehensive online newspaper (the People\u27s Daily Online) in China, one of the biggest Web/information markets in today\u27s world. The aim of the thesis was to explore various methods to gauge the public interest from a Webometrics perspective. A total of 129 days of Web server log statistics, including the top 50 Chinese and English news stories with the highest daily pageview numbers, the comments attracted by these news items and the emailed frequencies of the same stories were collected from October 2007 to September 2008. These top 50 news items’positions on the Chinese and English homepages and the top 50 queries submitted to the website search engine of the People’s Daily Online were also retrieved. Results of the two online surveys launched in March 2008 and March 2009 were collected after their respective closing dates. The external inlinks to the People’s Daily Online were retrieved by Yahoo! (Chinese and English versions), and the online reprints were retrieved by Google. Besides the general usage patterns identified from the top 50 news stories, this study, by conducting statistical tests on the data sets, also reveals the following findings. First, the editors’ choices and the readers’ favorites do not always match each other; thus content of news title is more important than its homepage position in attracting online visits. Second, the Chinese and English readers’ interests in the same events are different. Third, the pageview numbers and comments posted to the news items reflect the unfavorable attitudes of the Chinese people toward the United States and Japan, which might offer us a method to investigate the public interest in some other issues or nations after necessary modifications. More importantly, some publicly available data, such as the comments posted to the news stories and online survey results, further show that the pageview measure does reflect readers’ interests/needs truthfully, as proved by the strong correlations between the top news reports and relevant top queries. The external ininks to the news websites and the online reprints of the top news items help us examine readers\u27 interests from other perspectives, as well as establish online profiles of the news websites. Such publicly accessible information could be an alternative data source for researchers to study readers\u27 interests when the Web server log data are not available. This doctoral thesis not only shows the usefulness of Web server log statistics, survey results, and other publicly accessible data in studying Web user’s information needs, but also offers practical suggestions for online news sites to improve their contents and homepage designs. However, no single method can draw a complete picture of the online news readers’ interests. The above mentioned research methodologies should be employed together, in order to make more comprehensive conclusions. Future research is especially needed to investigate the continuously rapid growth of the “Mobile News Readers,” which poses both challenges and opportunities to the press industry in the 21st century

A collection of narrative practices on cultural heritage with innovative technologies and creative strategies

[Abstract] The H2020 project rurAllure, “Promotion of rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of European pilgrimage routes” (2021-2023) aims to enrich pilgrims’ experiences with the creation of meaningful cultural products focused on the lesser-known heritage sites of rural areas that are not found on pilgrimage routes, but in their surroundings. One of the project goals is to create contents and narratives to be offered to pilgrims over successive days with the integration of state-of-the-art technology. This way, hidden rural heritage will be discoverable and pilgrims will have the opportunity to actively engage with rural places nearby, their local communities, identity, and culture. The latter will no longer be passive witnesses, but active participants in transnational networks of shared history and living heritage. The rurAllure project aims to develop a new concept of mobile guide for pilgrims that will present rural heritage sites and activities of interest along with information of transportation and accommodation to help movement from and back to pilgrimage routes, as well as cohesive narratives to be consumed along the way, focused on four pilots: literary heritage on the ways to Santiago de Compostela, thermal heritage and others on the ways to Rome, ethnographic heritage on the ways to Trondheim, and natural heritage on the ways to Csíksomlyó. To facilitate the pilots’ brainstorming in the creation of multimedia contents, we developed a review of narrative models on cultural heritage storytelling. In this paper, we present the results, a collection of 22 case studies we analyzed with a common structure, from which six distinctive groups of narrative practices emerge: sound-walks, wearable guides, context-aware games, simulations, digital exhibitions, and cultural wayfinding. All cases studies disrupt traditional notions of storytelling consumption and foster new relationships between people and places of interest that may lead to advancements in the pilgrimage context. The present review provides a collection of best practices and actions that utilize the latest digital technologies and innovative strategies for producing meaningful narratives, mainly about cultural heritage sites. All of them are focused on the active engagement of users with particular locations of interest, landmarks, structures, objects, or intangible expressions. By doing so, their creators try to enhance tourists’ experiences while they explore or travel to places with cultural, natural, or historical significance. This state-of-the-art collection was developed within the H2020 project rurAllure, “Promotion of rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of European pilgrimage routes” (2021-2023). The project is focused on attracting en-route pilgrims to hidden or lesser-known rural museums and heritage sites located near four European pilgrimage routes: Santiago de Compostela, Rome, Trondheim, and Csíksomlyó. With this collection, our aim is to develop the project in the creation of multimedia contents and multimodal narratives for people that make their way to these pilgrimage destinations based on an initial, precise approach to the latest actions in the field

Incorporating Critical Thinking Skills Into the Language Arts Curriculum, Particularly in the Field of Detective Fiction

In this age of accelerated change and continuing complexity, there is a widely-recognized need to incorporate critical thinking skills into all aspects of everyday life and not simply as an optional philosophy class at the post-secondary level of American education. Chapter One of this culminating project investigates the historical roots of critical thinking, with a brief investigation into the history of bow education in America (with slight digressions such as Alcott/Emerson\u27s Temple School and John Dewey\u27s Chicago experiments) has historically failed to foster the development of critical thinking skills in America\u27s students by its centuries old tradition of emphasizing rote memorization, passive learning, and social indoctrination. Chapter Two discusses how the realization of the importance of critical thinking skills has affected teacher education programs and has rekindled debates regarding the content versus process approach to including critical thinking skills in the curriculum. This chapter also investigates the current renaissance regarding wait-time and the importance of cooperative learning in the classroom. Echoing Ralph Waldo Emerson\u27s :sentiments regarding education, Chapter Three discusses techniques to foster creative and critical reading skills in the high school student as well as critical thinking skills. Included in this chapter are lateral thinking puzzles, word games, and exercises to stimulate critical thinking. Chapter Four investigates the application of critical thinking exercises into a discussion of one of the most popular literary genres, detective fiction. This chapter also provides a transcript of the actual implementation of this approach in a Detective Fiction class at Saint Francis Borgia Regional High School in Washington, Missouri. Chapter Five reiterates the guiding principles of the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique and how they apply to the inclusion of critical thinking skills into the language arts curriculum, specifically in the field of detective fiction

Technology Mediated Dispute Resolution (TMDR): A New Paradigm for ADR

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Business intelligence in the electrical power industry

Nowadays, the electrical power industry has gained tremendous interest from both entrepreneurs and researchers due to its essential roles in everyday life. However, the current sources for generating electricity are astonishing decreasing, which leads to more challenges for the power industry. Based on the viewpoint of sustainable development, the solution should maintain three layers of economically, ecologically, and society; simultaneously, support business decision-making, increases organizational productivity and operational energy efficiency. In the smart and innovative technology context, business intelligence solution is considered as a potential option in the data-rich environment, which is still witnessed disjointed theoretical progress. Therefore, this study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review and build a body of knowledge related to business intelligence in the electrical power sector. The author also built an integrative framework displaying linkages between antecedents and outcomes of business intelligence in the electrical power industry. Finally, the paper depicted the underexplored areas of the literature and shed light on the research objectives in terms of theoretical and practical implications

How does web 2.0 influence marketing

Currently people have been developing ways to “block” attempts of contact by companies, in order to market their products and services. In the recent decades many techniques have been refined and used to exhaustion, such as call centers, direct sales, promotions and events, among others. All off these attempts to approach the client have resulted in the saturation of the traditional marketing techniques, even existing controversial laws such as “Do Not Call” for telemarketing, anti-spam, web and satellite radio and TiVO in the United States of America; it basically records and removes TV ads from the persons favorite programs. It is then necessary to find new ways of approaching the client, who is also becoming more selective and increasingly concerned with effective management of his time. The exponential development of information technologies has given rise to innovative channels of communication between businesses and customers, and a recent phenomenon that is the case of Web 2.0, which is revolutionizing the dynamic world of business and social relationships. The purpose of the thesis is to explain the concept of Web 2.0, and explain how it is an effective way to communicate with customers, especially in companies that do not have a large advertisement budget. In order to better understand the use of Web 2.0 and its tools, it will be elaborated a case study based on a small and emerging company that portraits this situation, and how it took advantage of Web 2.0 tools to better understand the consumers needs and how should it operate in its own market.Actualmente as pessoas têm vindo a desenvolver maneiras de bloquear as tentativas de contacto por parte das empresas, na tentativa de comercializar seus produtos e serviços. Nas ultimas décadas muitas técnicas foram criadas, aperfeiçoadas e utilizadas até à exaustão, como é o caso de: Call centers, vendas directas, promoções e eventos, entre outros. Todas estas tentativas de aproximação do cliente resultou na saturação das técnicas tradicionais de marketing, tendo mesmo sido criadas controversas leis como o “Do Not Call” para telemarketing, anti-spam, rádio por satélite e Internet, livres de publicidade, e o TiVo nos Estados Unidos da América que grava e remove os anúncios de TV das pessoas programas favoritos. Dada a actual situação é necessário encontrar novas formas de abordar o cliente, que também está se tornando mais selectivo em como despende a sua atenção, e cada vez mais preocupados com a gestão eficaz do seu tempo. O desenvolvimento exponencial das tecnologias da informação deu origem a canais inovadores de comunicação entre empresas e clientes, e um fenómeno recente, que é o caso da Web 2.0, que está a revolucionar de forma dinâmica o mundo de negócios e as relações sociais. O objectivo deste estudo é de explicar o conceito de Web 2.0, e como pode ser uma forma eficaz das empresas comunicarem com os clientes, principalmente com um baixo orçamento para marketing. A fim de melhor compreender o uso da Web 2.0 e suas ferramentas, será elaborado um estudo de caso baseado empresa que retrata esta mesma situação e como utilizou a Web 2.0 para entender melhor as necessidades dos consumidores e como deve operar no mercado