The Quality of e-Village Budgeting Service : An Empirical Research in Banyuwangi, Indonesia

Electronic Village Budgeting (e-VB) is an information system of village budgeting owned by Banyuwangi District. But at the beginning of the implementation of e-VB, there were several errors and constraints experienced by users so that an evaluation is needed to measure the extent of the quality of e-VB services. To measure the quality of e-VB service, this research used 33 attributes from 6 dimensions of e-GovQual; ease of use, trust, functionality of the interaction environment, reliability, content and performance of information, and citizen support. While the Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) method is used to map the services performance based on the level of user importance. Respondents in this research were 44 respondents spread across 22 villages in Kabat and Licin subDistricts.  Based on the results of e-GovQual analysis was known that the quality of service performance is 3.16. This shows that the performance of the e-VB service is good according to the user's perception. However, based on the assessment of user importance of 3.45, it creates a gap value between performance and importance of -0.29, indicating that the quality of e-VB services is good, but has not fulfilled the user’s importance. Based on the results of the IPA quadrant analysis, it produces several attributes that need a special priority for improvement; providing informed consent, accessibility of site, and loading speed. The results of the research are expected to help the provider of e-VB to be able to provide services that are in accordance with the user’s importance

A Model for Mobile Learning Service Quality in University Environment

Owing to the rapid development in the field of technology, there is a growing interest in e-learning. However, there are many limitations to it which includes accessibility and mobility that makes educationalists and researchers think of m-learning as a potential alternative tool for providing easy and accessible educational service. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research that addresses the issue of mobile learning service quality in a university environment. Therefore, this study aims to propose a service quality model for m-learning in a university environment. In order to accomplish this, a study was carried out to identify students' perception about m-learning services, and the factors that lead to service quality of m-learning in a university environment. Consequently, the researcher developed and implemented an m-learning system prototype(MLS) in a university environment. This research was conducted in three phases. The first phase was to obtain information about students' perception on m-learning services by conducting a 25- item questionnaire on 97 university students that were randomly selected from different colleges in University Utara Malaysia (UUM). The questionnaire measured six parameters which include the availability of devices, the usage of devices, students' attitude towards technology, students' opinions about prices of hardware, usage and perception about e-learning, and usage and perception about m-learning. The findings revealed that mobile phone is the most acceptable technology device among the university students, and students who have a positive attitude toward e-learning are likely to have positive attitude toward m-learning. In addition, it was found that obtaining the educational content is the most important m-learning service. Furthermore, high prices of the mobile services and devices minimize the utilization of mobile learning services. The second phase was meant to identify the factors that lead to service quality of m-learning in a university environment. The researcher administered a 57-item-questionnaire on 258 students representing different colleges of UUM. The questionnaire measured ten dependent variables and three independent variables. The dependent variables were meant to measure service quality (interface design, reliability, responsiveness, trust, and personalization), information quality (content usefulness, content adequacy), and system quality (ease of use, accessibility, and interactivity).The dependent variables were meant to measure the causal relationship between overall learners ' perceived service quality, learner satisfaction, and learner behavioral intention to use the service in future. In order to analyze the obtained data, the researcher used structured equation modeling and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The findings revealed that the factors that lead to service quality of m-learning in a university environment were interface design, reliability; trust, content usefulness, content adequacy, ease of use, accessibility, and interactivity. The third phase was carried out to implement the findings of the above two phases and present a practical example that reflects the dimensions of mobile learning service quality in a university environment. To accomplish this, the researcher developed the m-learning system prototype (MLSP) using Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology and object-oriented (OO) approach. This prototype has been developed, tested and implemented at University Utara Malaysia (UUM). The MLSP was evaluated by employing usability testing method; the field experiments based on the standard tests followed by questionnaire. The findings of the whole study revealed that learners' overall perception about mobile learning service quality is strongly related to their service' satisfaction which positively affects their behavioral intentions in using mobile learning service in the future

Post-implementation analysis of a B2B e-marketplace

The advent of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Marketplaces gave the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) firms the opportunity to conduct more efficient and effective commercial interaction with their supply chain partners. Despite the large body of literature in generic Information Systems (IS) domain, there has been a very little work done to-date to investigate the B2B e-Marketplace systems implementation by AEC firms. By adopting a case study research method with a longitudinal approach to data collection, the study on which this paper is based explored the challenges in the adoption and on-going use of a large UK contractor firm’s eMarketplace systems from the perspective of end-users. Utilising a well-established theoretical model from the IS body of knowledge, the analysis revealed several important challenges related to system (functionality and usability), information (content quality) and service (training and support) dimensions of e-Marketplace systems implementation. Through incorporating the case study findings to the conceptual model, the study offers several suggestions for AEC firms to take on board during implementation of the B2B e-Marketplace systems

Developing a model to evaluate the quality of the services rendered by the South African Revenue Service

Tax revenue forms the backbone of the South African economy. Although the tax gap in South Africa has shrunk in recent years, there is still a large tax gap in South Africa. Hence, there is an urgent need to enhance taxpayer compliance. The South African Revenue Service’s (SARS’s) image in the community is a key driver of voluntary taxpayer compliance. The quality of the services provided by SARS is therefore crucial, as service quality directly affects SARS’s image in the community and thus voluntary tax compliance. The objective of the present research was therefore to establish the perceptions that tax practitioners hold with regard to the services rendered by SARS in order to develop a service quality model that can be used to measure SARS’s service quality continuously. The development of a service quality model for the assessment of the services provided by SARS is justified, because it is an essential means to improving the services that SARS provides and therefore also voluntary compliance. The present research defined services, quality, service quality and perceived service quality on the basis of a literature review. These definitions served as a theoretical underpinning for the development of the proposed service quality model. The literature review suggested that a user-based approach to quality was the most relevant approach to this study and that it is important to build the “lens of the customer”. In order to develop the specific “lens of the customer” needed to evaluate the services of SARS, an in-depth, qualitative approach was required to identify a comprehensive range of determinants that potentially drive service quality in the revenue service industry and setting. One such qualitative method is the critical incident technique, which was chosen as the method to be used for building the “lens of the customer” to measure tax practitioners’ evaluations of the quality of the services SARS provides. The critical incident technique relies on a set of procedures to collect comments on service experiences, to perform a content analysis and to classify the observations of service experiences. The critical incident data were collected by means of open-ended questionnaires which tax practitioners registered with SARS were asked to complete, first in a focus group and then individually, using an e-mailed questionnaire. The main data collection instrument was administered by SARS to all tax practitioners registered with SARS country-wide. The data analysis of the responses provided by the tax practitioners involved three processes. The first was the identification of usable critical incidents, the second was the development of a classification scheme for the content analysis and the third was a content analysis of the critical incidents that had been identified. After a content analysis process that involved the preparation of summaries of the frequencies of the responses in accordance with a relevant classification scheme, a process of natural language argument was used to convert the data analysis results and the relevant elements of the theory from the literature survey into two proposed models, one for the traditional services and one for the electronic services provided by SARS. These service quality models can be used as a basis for studies to establish the perceptions of tax practitioners with regard to the quality of SARS’s services. The conceptual models of service quality that were proposed should also enable SARS to identify quality problems and assist SARS in planning for the launch of a quality improvement programme, and thereby improving the efficiency and overall performance of SARS. CopyrightThesis (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Taxationunrestricte

The Impact of Voluntary Disclosures on Sell-Side Analyst Stock Recommendations: Australian Experience

This paper investigates the impact of voluntary disclosures on sell-side analyst stock recommendations. It uses content analysis method to measure quality of information disclosures and emphasis on particular themes. The focus of this study is on changes in analyst recommendations and the new information disclosures that have been made public since the previous revision of recommendation. The proxies for voluntary disclosures are information released by firms via company announcements and associated media reports. The characteristics of these disclosures are examined to explore their impact on the changes in analystsÌ stock recommendations. Based on a sample of over 200 recommendation revisions of 40 listed Australian companies, the results suggest that voluntary disclosures do contribute to analyst stock revisions. The findings reveal that the quantity of disclosures is positively associated with the number of recommendation revisions, and that disclosures with favourable signals or with price-sensitive contents are significantly related to the direction and type of analyst revisions. In addition, disclosure of specific themes (e.g., dividend and product) in company announcements and news are significantly associated with the recommendation change. This has implications for both the formulation of accounting policies and the regulation of financial disclosure. Acknowledgements: The authors acknowledge the support of Thomson Financial in the conduct of this research through their provision of data from the Institutional Brokers Estimate System (I/B/E/S) service. This data has been provided as part of a broad academic program to encourage earnings expectation research. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments from participants at the BAA Annual Conference (2004), University of York.Thai takeovers, bidding firms, control portfolios, bootstrapped t-tests

ANALISIS KONTEN ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH TAMU HOTEL BINTANG 5 KOTA BANDUNG: Studi analisis konten terhadap ulasan tamu hotel Padma, GH Universal dan Pullman Bandung Grand Central

E-wom menjadi salah satu strategi pemasaran yang cukup penting bagi hotel terutama melalui Tripadvisor. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui keluhan-keluhan yang dibicarakan berdasarkan indikator e-wom dan intentsitas ulasan positif dan negative di hotel Padma, GH Universal dan Pullman Bandung Grand Central. Metode yang digunakan pada penelitian ini yaitu analisis isi kualitatif dengan sumber data yaitu ulasan-ulasan pada tiga hotel tersebut di Tripadvisor melalui pengkodingan manual. Untuk menguji keabsahan data, penulis menggunakan trianguasi sumber data. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan keluhan yang paling banyak dibicarakan berdasarkan indikator e-wom ialah service quality. Total intensitas ulasan positif dari ketiga hotel tersebut yaitu 1.796 dan Padma hotel mendapatkan ulasan positif terbanyak yaitu sejumlah 776 ulasan. Sedangkan untuk total ulasan negatif dari ketiga hotel tersebut yaitu sejumlah 18 ulasan. Pada akhirnya penelitian ini mengungkapkan bahwa pentingnya service recovery bagi hotel untuk dapat mengatasi e-wom negatif yang dilakukan oleh wisatawan yang memberikan ulasan di Tripadvisor. E-WOM has become one of the most important marketing strategies for hotels, especially through Tripadvisor. This study aims to find out the complaints discussed based on e-wom indicators and the intensity of positive and negative reviews at the Padma, GH Universal and Pullman Bandung Grand Central hotels. The method used in this study is qualitative content analysis with data sources, namely reviews on the three hotels on Tripadvisor through manual coding. To test the validity of the data, the authors use data source triangulation. The results of the study show that the most widely discussed complaint based on the e-wom indicator is service quality. The total intensity of positive reviews from the three hotels is 1,796 and Padma hotel gets the most positive reviews, namely 776 reviews. As for the total negative reviews of the three hotels, there are 18 reviews. In the end, this research reveals that the importance of service recovery for hotels is to be able to deal with negative e-wom by tourists who leave reviews on Tripadvisor

Augmenting speech quality estimation in software-defined networking using machine learning algorithms

With the increased number of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) installations, the data centers of large service providers are becoming more and more agile in terms of network performance efficiency and flexibility. While SDN is an active and obvious trend in a modern data center design, the implications and possibilities it carries for effective and efficient network management are not yet fully explored and utilized. With most of the modern Internet traffic consisting of multimedia services and media-rich content sharing, the quality of multimedia communications is at the center of attention of many companies and research groups. Since SDN-enabled switches have an inherent feature of monitoring the flow statistics in terms of packets and bytes transmitted/lost, these devices can be utilized to monitor the essential statistics of the multimedia communications, allowing the provider to act in case of network failing to deliver the required service quality. The internal packet processing in the SDN switch enables the SDN controller to fetch the statistical information of the particular packet flow using the PacketIn and Multipart messages. This information, if preprocessed properly, can be used to estimate higher layer interpretation of the link quality and thus allowing to relate the provided quality of service (QoS) to the quality of user experience (QoE). This article discusses the experimental setup that can be used to estimate the quality of speech communication based on the information provided by the SDN controller. To achieve higher accuracy of the result, latency characteristics are added based on the exploiting of the dummy packet injection into the packet stream and/or RTCP packet analysis. The results of the experiment show that this innovative approach calculates the statistics of each individual RTP stream, and thus, we obtain a method for dynamic measurement of speech quality, where when quality decreases, it is possible to respond quickly by changing routing at the network level for each individual call. To improve the quality of call measurements, a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was also implemented. This model is based on two standard approaches to measuring the speech quality: PESQ and E-model. However, unlike PESQ/POLQA, the CNN-based model can take delay into account, and unlike the E-model, the resulting accuracy is much higher.Web of Science2110art. no. 347

Evaluation of e-learning web sites using fuzzy axiomatic design based approach

High quality web site has been generally recognized as a critical enabler to conduct online business. Numerous studies exist in the literature to measure the business performance in relation to web site quality. In this paper, an axiomatic design based approach for fuzzy group decision making is adopted to evaluate the quality of e-learning web sites. Another multi-criteria decision making technique, namely fuzzy TOPSIS, is applied in order to validate the outcome. The methodology proposed in this paper has the advantage of incorporating requirements and enabling reductions in the problem size, as compared to fuzzy TOPSIS. A case study focusing on Turkish e-learning websites is presented, and based on the empirical findings, managerial implications and recommendations for future research are offered