Conceptual model of continuance intention to use of the Islamic blog / Mohd Nurul Hafiz Ibrahim, Mohd Sazili Mohd Shahibi and Mohamad Noorman Masrek.

The purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of content-related factor in the continuance used of the Islamic weblogs as the source of Islamic teachings and practices. Information System (IS) continuance intention Model is being employed as a conceptual tool to re-interpret the existing evidence of the continuance used of the weblogs. Additional elements including credibility, reliability and objectivity are being included to further clarify the role of content-related factor in determining the continued used of the weblogs. The analysis demonstrated that people tend to revisit the weblogs with reliable and credible information. The paper presents the importance of content in terms of credibility, objectivity, and reliability in encouraging people to continue use the Islamic weblogs in disseminating the Islamic information and knowledge significantly influences the people’s intention to revisit the weblogs in future

BlogForever: D3.1 Preservation Strategy Report

This report describes preservation planning approaches and strategies recommended by the BlogForever project as a core component of a weblog repository design. More specifically, we start by discussing why we would want to preserve weblogs in the first place and what it is exactly that we are trying to preserve. We further present a review of past and present work and highlight why current practices in web archiving do not address the needs of weblog preservation adequately. We make three distinctive contributions in this volume: a) we propose transferable practical workflows for applying a combination of established metadata and repository standards in developing a weblog repository, b) we provide an automated approach to identifying significant properties of weblog content that uses the notion of communities and how this affects previous strategies, c) we propose a sustainability plan that draws upon community knowledge through innovative repository design

Weblogs as instruments for reflection on action in teacher education

Wopereis, I. G. J. H., Sloep, P. B., & Poortman, S. H. (2010). Weblogs as instruments for reflection on action in teacher education. Interactive Learning Environments, 18, 245-261. doi:10.1080/10494820.2010.500530This study examined the use of weblogs as a means to promote student teachers’ reflective practice. The assumption that weblogs are suitable tools for supporting and stimulating reflection on action in teacher training and consequently for enhancing the students’ ability to reflect, was explored. Three groups of student teachers used weblogs during an eight-week internship for reflection on teaching practice. Students were asked (a) to reflect on their own teaching experiences and (b) to provide peer feedback. Analyses of the student contributions show that weblogs are useful for reflection on critical incidents in the classroom and that they can stimulate interconnectivity in groups of students. Unfortunately weblogs do no incite deep reflection or spiral reflection. This can only be the result of explicit reflection instruction. This exploratory study further shows that large-scale quantitative research is needed to back up the premise that weblogs are suitable tools for reflection

Implementing the measurement of modern service delivery mechanisms in a selected range of English councils.

This research provides the first thorough investigation into, and analysis of, the literature on e-government metrics and has opened up the topic and literature to the practitioner community. The research focuses on English local government, in response to what the researcher had experienced as haphazard implementation of e-government. Supplementary explorations included official and unofficial reasons for the adoption of e-government, along with the role of politics and Politics – local, national and international. Until this research, the main focus for e-government measurement had been on targets or large and complex analyses suitable only for central government. Instead, this research proposes parsimonious measurement. Such measurement, reliant upon collating citizen feedback across delivery channels, will assist improvement to services and assist channel migration. This had never been examined before. Since the subject of the research was electronic government, an action research methodology was employed, using electronic research instruments to deliver surveys, provide survey results and to house research models and background. The researcher is a practitioner within the field, so the instruments were designed to cross-fertilize the academic and practitioner thinking on the subject. It is expected that the research tool, in the form of the weblog, will continue (in the longer term) to assist professionals in debating the use of metrics. Ongoing research will continue to stretch across the academic and practitioner boundaries. This research makes original contributions to knowledge by revealing the most appropriate mechanism for the management and use of e-government, amongst other mechanisms for service delivery in the public sector, especially considering smaller authorities

Content quality assessment related frameworks for social media

The assessment of content quality (CQ) in social media adds a layer of complexity over traditional information quality assessment frameworks. Challenges arise in accurately evaluating the quality of content that has been created by users from different backgrounds, for different domains and consumed by users with different requirements. This paper presents a comprehensive review of 19 existing CQ assessment related frameworks for social media in addition to proposing directions for framework improvements

Creating Inclusive Space for Aboriginal Scholars and Scholarship in the Academy: Implications for Employment Equity Policy

Many Canadian universities report an under-representation of Aboriginal scholars in their professoriate. Employment equity policy seeks to redress the under-representation of marginalized groups in the Canadian workforce, including Aboriginal peoples. This article presents the findings of a case study which sought to examine, from the perspective of Aboriginal scholars, the under-representation of Aboriginal scholars in the Ontario professoriate, specifically, why Aboriginal scholars stay, or leave the academy. The study findings illustrate the need for employment equity policy to equitably promote the recruitment of Aboriginal scholars, and further, to support their retention through the valuation of Aboriginal scholarship. The study highlights the need for Canadian universities to embrace their role as societal agents of change, and as part of their social justice mission, to promote diversification in the professoriate by creating inclusive space for Aboriginal scholars and scholarship in the academy