A Multi-level Technology Acceptance, Adoption and Implementation Model for Achieving Government-Citizen Dialogue: An Omani Case Study

The number of commercial applications that exploit Web 2.0 social media is increasing rapidly. However, little is known about the challenges that public sector organizations face when they decide to adopt Web or other technology-based applications, and offer them to consumers; particularly when governmental and civil service organizations are involved. This is particularly true in developing non-Western regions, such as the Middle East, where 'Arab Spring' developments in 2011 stimulated interest in the ability of social networking to mobilize citizens against ruling elites. Consequently, this study investigated Oman's public sector to gain a deeper understanding of the adoption and use of information technology innovation and its potential to engage governments more closely with citizens. In essence, it aimed to develop a comprehensive model of ‘organizational adoption’ and ‘citizen use’ of technology for achieving meaningful online dialogue. The focus of this study is not social media applications per se, but rather it concerns any Web or other technology-based application that is suited to improving dialogue between government organizations and citizens. The final model was derived over three distinct phases of research using a mixed method approach. In Phase I, an initial literature review developed understanding of global trends in e-Government adoption and clarified the study aims, scope, and primary research question. A more extensive literature review was then undertaken to derive a tentative 'first-cut model' theoretical framework. This contains factors considered critical to both achieving successful organizational adoption of IT innovations and a meaningful dialogue between governments and citizens. These are presented from three distinct perspectives or levels; the National level, Organization level, and Management level. In Phase II of the research, case studies involving three Omani civil services organizations helped to refine the tentative model. Policymakers and citizens were interviewed to confirm issues and identify additional adoption and use factors. Finally, in Phase III a participatory action research approach was used to test completeness of the refined model, which culminated in the final model. This study has shown that meaningful online dialogue can be used for different purposes: for facilitating access to decision-makers (mainly), for responding to citizens' enquiries and for addressing rumours. At the National level, government support—meaning political, economic and technical aspects—plus social changes has driven the acceptance of technology for improving government-citizen interactions and for sharing of information. In contrast, the major National level inhibitors are: limited availability of broadband services, other digital divide barriers, national culture barriers and political barriers. At the Organization level, having an IT strategy and top management support, adequate human, financial and technical resources, and a strong citizen-centric orientation are all factors that drive the adoption. Conversely, lack of capability, inappropriate internal culture, and resistance to change can all inhibit adoption. At the Management level, good preparation, proficiency with technical issues, accessibility and marketing issues, appropriate consideration of operational issues and end user needs are critical for implementation of Web or other technology-based applications needed to create meaningful online dialogue. Conversely, major implementation challenges concern inadequate IT infrastructure, resistance to change, and inability to recruit a suitable management team. The research also found that creating a management team, recruiting qualified moderators, controlling the discussion, responding to citizens, and defining the interaction characteristics (objectives, target citizens, participation policies and rules, etc.) are all critical for achieving a meaningful dialogue. The developed model has added to the knowledge of how to encourage technology innovations in governmental organizations, in particular through online dialogue that motivates citizens and other stakeholders to engage in meaningful discussions. For non-Omani governmental organizations having similar operational characteristics, the developed model offers lessons for policymakers and others who wish to enhance citizens' interactions; or who wish to improve the reputation of the organization; or bring about citizen-acceptable policies and decisions. Future work should be aimed at testing the developed social networking adoption model in other industries, sectors and national settings

Women as social entrepreneurs in the hospitality and tourism industry: Does empowerment play a role?

This paper which is a work in progress presents a qualitative study exploring the nature, motivations and extent to which female entrepreneurs use their H&T businesses as platforms for engagement in various forms of social entrepreneurship (SE) leading to value creation, economic and community development. Although SE is seen as a key contributor to the creation and diversification of entrepreneurial activity, women empowerment and local economic development, there is limited research on the role of female H&T entrepreneurs in emerging non -western destinations. We focus on the following research questions: a) Can female entrepreneurs in H&T be considered as social entrepreneurs? b) How does the structure and organization of society shape the nature of female participation in SE? c) What are the challenges involved in mobilizing female entrepreneurs to effectively engage in SE? d) How does SE maximise value creation and higher levels of satisfaction for all participants? Concepts from women-owned H&T enterprises, SE and women empowerment are drawn upon. We argue that women are embedded in male dominated traditions/customs, community associations and government bureaucracies that may either empowered or dis-empower them. Using the case of Cameroon, we examine how embeddedness enhances the capacity of women to engage in SE in the H&T industry, thereby contributing to local economic development. Empirically we adopt a mixed methods approach using multiple case studies: a survey questionnaire, five focus groups meetings (two women -only, one male-only, and two mix of male and female entrepreneurs) and twenty-five in-depth interviews with selected female entrepreneurs (18), (non)governmental organisations (03) and beneficiaries (04) of social enterprise ventures between May 2014 and February 2015. The findings clarify the role of women in SE in H&T and policy implications for maximising social value creation through the participation of women in SE

Cybersecurity and safety analysis in online social networks

The research work deal with the security and safety issues related to the use of online social networks and it successfully presented AI-based solutions to address these issues in online social networks

Applying contextual integrity to the study of social network sites

Social network sites (SNSs) have become very popular, with more than 1.39 billion people using Facebook alone. The ability to share large amounts of personal information with these services, such as location traces, photos, and messages, has raised a number of privacy concerns. The popularity of these services has enabled new research directions, allowing researchers to collect large amounts of data from SNSs to gain insight into how people share information, and to identify and resolve issues with such services. There are challenges to conducting such research responsibly, ensuring studies are ethical and protect the privacy of participants, while ensuring research outputs are sustainable and can be reproduced in the future. These challenges motivate the application of a theoretical framework that can be used to understand, identify, and mitigate the privacy impacts of emerging SNSs, and the conduct of ethical SNS studies. In this thesis, we apply Nissenbaum's model of contextual integrity to the study of SNSs. We develop an architecture for conducting privacy-preserving and reproducible SNS studies that upholds the contextual integrity of participants. We apply the architecture to the study of informed consent to show that contextual integrity can be leveraged to improve the acquisition of consent in such studies. We then use contextual integrity to diagnose potential privacy violations in an emerging form of SNS

Using an Internet Learning Profile to create customized plans

The purpose of this research was to develop an Internet Learning Profile for eighth grade students based upon Gardner\u27s Multiple Intelligences and to use the results to develop customized lesson plan activities for each profile that can be incorporated into existing curriculum. Another purpose of this study was to discover if students who are considered more literate (via NJ ASK language arts literacy scores) are immersed in the use of online social networking, role play/interactive gaming online, blogs, discussion boards, online classes, video websites, search engines, paint or animation applications, etc. I used a Multiple Intelligences Scale (Chislett & Chapman, 2005) in order to determine the Internet Learning Profiles of each eighth-grader involved in a general study. I then conducted an experiment using a treatment group and a control group (quasi-experimental nonequivalent control groups design) made up of Cusp Kids to determine if a treatment of internet-based literacy activities (independent variable) geared toward their Internet Learning Profiles had any effect on their achievement (dependent variable). I used an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and a comparison of the means to analyze the data and found that the only possible achievement increases could be attributed to the Online Social Network group. However, I also gained insight into the work habits of the Gamers and Producers as a result of this study and will present recommendations based upon the findings

Designing and Evaluating Next-Generation Thermographic Systems to Support Residential Energy Audits

Buildings account for 41% of primary energy consumption in the United States—more than any other sector—and contribute to an increasing portion of carbon dioxide emissions (33% in 1980 vs. 40% in 2009). To help address this problem, the U.S. Department of Energy recommends conducting energy audits to identify sources of inefficiencies that contribute to rising energy use. One effective technique used during energy audits is thermography. Thermographic-based energy auditing activities involve the use of thermal cameras to identify, diagnose, and document energy efficiency issues in the built environment that are visible as anomalous patterns of electromagnetic radiation. These patterns may indicate locations of air leakages, areas of missing insulation, or moisture issues in the built environment. Sensor improvements and falling costs have increased the popularity of this auditing technique, but its effectiveness is often mediated by the training and experience of the auditor. Moreover, given the increasing availability of commodity thermal cameras and the potential for pervasive thermographic scanning in the built environment, there is a surprising lack of understanding about people’s perceptions of this sensing technology and the challenges encountered by an increasingly diverse population of end-users. Finally, there are few specialized tools and methods to support the auditing activities of end-users. To help address these issues, my work focuses on three areas: (i) formative studies to understand and characterize current building thermography practices, benefits, and challenges, (ii) human-centered explorations into the role of automation and the potential of pervasive thermographic scanning in the built environment, and (iii) evaluations of novel, interactive building thermography systems. This dissertation presents a set of studies that qualitatively characterizes building thermography practitioners, explores prototypes of novel thermographic systems at varying fidelity, and synthesizes findings from several field deployments. This dissertation contributes to the fields of sustainability, computer science, and HCI through: (i) characterizations of the end-users of thermography, (ii) critical feedback on proposed automated thermographic solutions, (iii) the design and evaluation of a novel longitudinal thermography system designed to augment the data collection and analysis activities of end-users, and (iv) design recommendations for future thermographic systems

Exploring the Use of Online Social Network Activity and Smartphone Photography as an Intervention to Track and Influence Emotional Well-Being

The proliferation of internet and mobile technologies has expanded the means of detecting and influencing mental health, with this thesis focusing on the affective phenomena associated with emotional well-being including mood, affect and emotion. Traditional detection techniques including surveys and self-reports are grounded in the psychological literature; however, they introduce an inhibiting burden on the participants. The ability to passively detect psychological state using technologies including online behavioural tracking and mobile sensors is a prevalent focus of the current literature. Traditional positive psychology interventions commonly involve emotionally expressive writing tasks which can also be tedious for participants. Augmenting traditional intervention techniques with technologies such as smartphone applications can be one method to modernise interventions. The first research study in this thesis aimed to utilise online social network (OSN) activity to detect mood changes. The study involved collecting the participants' behavioural activities such as likes, comments and tweets from their Facebook and Twitter profiles. Machine learning was used to create an algorithm to classify participants according to their online activity and their self-reported mood as ground truth. The findings indicated that participants can be grouped into those who displayed positive, negative or weak correlations with their online activity. Following the classification, the system used a sliding window of 7 days to track the participant's mood changes for those in the positive and negative groups. The second research study introduced a positive psychology intervention in the form of a smartphone application called SnapAppy which promotes positive thinking by integrating momentary smartphone photography with traditional intervention methodologies. Participants were required to take photos and write about positive moments, past events, acts of kindness and gratuitous situations, encouraging them to think more positively. The results indicated that features such as the number of photos taken, the effort applied to annotating the photos, the number of photos revisited and the photos containing people were positively correlated with an improvement in mood and affect. The product of this thesis is a novel method of passively tracking mood changes using online social network activity and an innovative smartphone intervention utilising photography to influence emotional well-being

Inattentive, imprudent and inapt: discovering inadequacies of ICT during life-changing events through the lens of non-users

Life-changing events (or LCEs) can alter a person’s status quo and threaten well-being. Previous research investigated distinct LCEs, where participants already used technology routinely. This paper reports the results of two field studies through which we compared supports people refer to when experiencing different LCEs. Together with users of technology, our sampling included participants who specifically did not refer to online services and tools to seek help during their LCE. We found that popular services people refer to are inattentive to the needs of people experiencing an LCE as they do not allow forms of progressive engagement and disclosure within the service. We also found that popular services are imprudent as their design might expose users experiencing an LCE to more sources of stress. Finally, we found that these services are inapt to support these users as they do not provide direct forms of interactions with experts