Linking consumer trust perception in constructing an e-commerce trust model

Trust issues is still considered as a main obstacle in the implementation of eCommerce Due to the increasing numbers of cyber crimes committed today, consumers are faced with doubt to engage in online shopping. As a safety precaution, consumers will take certain measures to protect their information by evaluating and assessing these websites trustworthiness before an actual purchase occurs. This paper describes a model that examines the elements related to online consumer behavior and to investigate this behavior towards building and increasing trust. The applicability of the model was tested in attempt to view consumers' acceptance towards the model and its component. The fmdings indicate the respondents are aware of the trust issue surrounding e-Commerce implementation as they accept and agreed with the model and its components

The Foundation Center 2002 Annual Report

Nonprofit organizations faced new challenges in 2002 as a result of the effects of September 11, 2001, and a weakened economy. To identify sources of support to sustain their organizations, and often to respond to increased demand for their services, growing numbers of grantseekers turned to the Foundation Center for authoritative information on grantmakers and their giving. This increased need for information coincided with the Center's efforts to expand our grantmaker and grant information and to increase the currency of the data we provide to grantseekers and other researchers through our print and electronic resources

Assessing library web page usability: how benchmarking can help

This article looks at how the ‘Mystery Shopper’ methodology used by a consortium of universities was adapted to assess the usability of the library web pages of all four universities. Using a methodology refined from a previous web usability exercise, the various elements in the process are described. The outcomes of the project are briefly discussed, along with lessons learnt from the process

An architecture for certification-aware service discovery

Service-orientation is an emerging paradigm for building complex systems based on loosely coupled components, deployed and consumed over the network. Despite the original intent of the paradigm, its current instantiations are limited to a single trust domain (e.g., a single organization). Also, some of the key promises of service-orientation - such as the dynamic orchestration of externally provided software services, using runtime service discovery and deployment - are still unachieved. One of the main reasons for this is the trust gap that normally arises when software services, offered by previously unknown providers, are to be selected at run-time, without any human intervention. To close this gap, the concept of machine-readable security certificates (called asserts) has been recently introduced, which paves the way to automated processing about security properties of services. Similarly to current security certification schemes, the assessment of the security properties of a service is delegated to an independent third party (certification authority), who issues a corresponding assert, bound to the service. In this paper, we propose an architecture, which exploits the assert concept to realise a certification-aware service discovery framework. The architecture supports the discovery of single services based on certified security properties (in additional to the usual functional properties), as well as the dynamic synthesis of service compositions, that satisfy the given security properties. The architecture is extensible, thus allowing for a range of domain specific matchmaking components, to cover dimensions related to, e.g., performance, cost and other non-functional characteristics

Accessing library web page usability: how benchmarking can help

This article looks at how the ‘Mystery Shopper’ methodology used by a consortium of universities was adapted to assess the usability of the library web pages of all four universities. Using a methodology refined from a previous web usability exercise, the various elements in the process are described. The outcomes of the project are briefly discussed, along with lessons learnt from the process

Unlocking the potential of community composting: Full project report

Community based composting schemes can make valuable contributions to the development of local infrastructure and amenities by improving soils and green spaces in addition to diverting waste from landfill. Furthermore, well managed community activities have potential for providing work and volunteering opportunities, as well as bringing people together and improving skills, knowledge and self-confidence. Considered collectively these factors may contribute to local sustainability more effectively than focusing on meeting particular waste related targets. Although there is some anecdotal and financial evidence for the growth in, and diversity of, community composting, there is very little comprehensive data that draws together the activity of the sector as a whole. This research set out to understand and assess the current and potential role of the community composting sector in achieving Defra’s waste related targets and Government’s other wider environmental and social objectives. Thus this research is timely both in terms of establishing what has been achieved in the community composting sector to-date and in terms of possibilities for future achievements