Gamification of Authoring Interactive E-Books for Children: The Q-Tales Ecosystem

The e-book industry is reshaping the norm of traditional book publishing and most publishing houses are concentrating their efforts in digital, in order to satisfy new market needs and capture significant market share. Currently, one of out of five e-books sold, are children-related and overall, the e-book industry is projected to be valued at $18.9 billion by 2018. Nevertheless, the increased market penetration of independent writers accompanied with continuous technological improvements leads to new challenges for the stakeholders involved, as a growing number of individuals with limited resources attempt to compete against traditional publishing houses. The Q-Tales ecosystem aims to support the community of creative professionals, experts and parents co-create new (or transform existing) children literature into high quality interactive e-books. At this new disruptive approach of self-publishing, the gamification paradigm was employed, creating game-like experiences, to motivate professionals participate in the process and adopt it. The present study focuses on the gamification aspect of Q-Tales as means to drive engagement with the entire ecosystem and promote its appropriate use, enhancing the overall goal of creating interactive children e- books. The gamification design of the Q-Tales distributed system for collaborative authoring of interactive e-books for children is presented and discussed as a case study of gamification of electronic services. More specifically, game elements, such as points, leaderboards, badges, missions and feedback were infused in the architectural units of the platform, in correspondence to the overall development of the Q-Tales Gamification Framework

TRADING GREEN BONDS USING DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY

The promising markets for voluntary carbon credits are faced with crippling challenges to the certification of carbon sequestration, and the lack of scalable market infrastructure in which institutions can invest in carbon offsetting. This amounts to a funding problem for the agricultural sector, as farmers are unable to access the liquidity needed to fund the transition to sustainable practices. We explore the feasibility of mitigating infrastructural challenges based on a DLT Trading and Settlement System, for ‘green bonds’. The artefact employs a multi-sharded architecture, in which the set of nodes retains carefully orchestrated responsibilities in the functioning of the network. We evaluate the artefact in the supranational context with an EU-based regulator as part of a regulatory sandbox program mandated by the new EU DLT Pilot regime. By conducting design-driven research with stakeholders from industrial and governmental bodies, we contribute to the IS literature on the practical implications of DLT

The Effect of Fake News on Nigeria's Democracy within The Premise of Freedom of Expression

The study was conducted to measure the effect of fake news on Nigeria’s democracy within the premise of freedom of expression. The study was anchored on four objectives to find out the rate of the spread of fake news among Nigerians on both social and conventional media; to examine the perception of media audience on fake news and abuse of freedom of expression; to find out the effect of fake news on Nigeria’s democracy; to determine measures that can be adopted in combating fake news The study selected purposive sampling and surveyed 60 social media user from Borno and Yobe (i.e, 30 from each of the two states) and administered questionnaire. The study found that majority of the respondents contributes in the information sharing system of media cycle. The study found that despite the awareness of fake news among the respondents, there is limited alertness with regard to sensitivity of verifying information before sharing. The study also found that politics and crisis suffer more fake news than any other nature. The study found that fake news is still crucial because there are rounds of perceptions that influence its nature and thus its spread. We also found that the respondents have negative perception about the extent to which fake news can affect democracy and democratic system of governance. The study recommends that awareness should be created so as to enlighten people who use the social media to avoid spreading unverified information and that other social media platform should copy from Twitter in restricting number of text user can post and identification of a verified account

STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT OF SALES ORGANIZATION USING FUZZY AHP: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF FMCG

A clear understanding of internal strength allows the company to innovate and adapt in a highly competitive Fast-moving consumer goods market. Therefore, the company's ability to oversee risk and opportunities determines the company's resilience. By employing homogeneous purposive sampling, which focused on the member population of 11 FMCG companies, the present study processed quantitative data from a questionnaire using a Likert scale and qualitative data through in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The data was collected through one-on-one in-depth interviews with 11 respondents online and offline in 12 major cities from August to November 2022. Later, questionnaires were processed using AHP Fuzzy to explain and take into account the role of decision-makers resembling FMCG leaders by defining interactive factors, actors, objectives, and strategies. Factor-actor analysis found that the sales director was the actor with the most influential role in the leadership factor, the sales manager was influential in the Organizational Citizenship Behavior factor, and the sales director was a prominent actor in sales management control. The main goal of the president director, IT/Digital director, supply chain director, and sales director in digital transformation is increasing effectiveness/efficiency in business processes. Besides, the sales manager and sales supervisor aspire to achieve sales targets or sales growth set by the company. In increasing effectiveness/efficiency and achieving sales targets/sales growth set by the company, prioritized strategy can be done through the development of leadership, capability, and human resource capacity. Besides, customer/business partner-oriented digitalization is vital for increasing customer/business partner satisfaction with the company's services/business processes. Furthermore, the present study found leadership models as critical for digital transformation with the realistic scenario (iterative improvement) in all likelihood. Sales organizations are expected to consistently and continuously conduct experiments to find new ways of working and produce digital initiatives that companies need to answer customer/consumer demands. Those strategies can be done by clearly identifying factors, actors, objectives, and strategies for better business execution in digital transformation

Innovative Development in Northern Russia Assessed by Triple Helix Model

This paper considers issues related to assessing the level of innovative development in the northern regions of Russia. A comparative assessment of the level of innovative development in seven regions of the Far North of Russia (FNR) for 2017 was carried out based on statistical data from the composite integrated index. A version of the Triple Helix (TH) econometric model served as the foundation for the assessment. This article presents the analytical results according to three elements of the TH model: the effectiveness of research and development (science), the effectiveness of innovation (industry), and budget expenditure on science and innovation (government). Regional innovative profiles were built during the analysis, which helped identify the strengths and weaknesses of the influence of science, business, and government on the development of innovative activities in the region. The results of such ratings make it possible to assess the comparative advantages and disadvantages of specific regions for further analysis. The data can be used in program documents on the region’s innovative development. The methodology proposed for an innovation activity rating can help predict the main development trends of the entire territory of the Far North. Finally, it can be applied to other regions and countries if relevant statistical information is available

Behavioral intention to use knowledge sharing tools: positive and negative affect on affective technology acceptance model

This study examines the affective aspect of the technology acceptance by extending TAM with positive and negative affect as external construct.This research attempts to study on the Knowledge workers that work in the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)-status organizations to understand their behavioral intention to use the knowledge sharing tools (KS tools) in their day-to-day tasks based on several motivators. KS tools in this research includes collaborative and communicative functions such as email, blog and Facebook. This research proposes Affective Technology Acceptance (A.T.A) Model that hypothesizes Positive and Negative Affect (PA and NA) have impact on Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Behavioral Intention to accept (BI) KS tools among knowledge workers in MSC organizations.Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) are defined as the perception of employees on KS tools that induce positive or negative affective states when they interact and evaluate these tools when execute their tasks

Personalized marketing - A qualitative study on tailored marketing online from a consumer's perspective

When consumers today navigate and shop online they meet different types of advertisements, both directly on the e-commerce website and through other channels. Many companies use personalized marketing as a way to create relationships with consumers. However, personalization today is a sensitive area and often twinned with privacy issues. Many consumers feel as they are being stalked. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how consumers perceive personalized marketing in purchasing situations online when it is used as a customer relationship management-tool. The result should be of great use for practitioners that deal with retailing online in order to maximize the effect of their marketing efforts. Through qualitative interviews we intend to investigate consumers’ sensitivity concerning e-retailers data gathering on the Internet. Our main findings concern the degree of personalization in marketing messages, when personalization strengthens the consumer-company relationship and when it is seen as an intrusion on privacy

Managing HIV/AIDS Outreach Strategies in the Black Church: A Case Study

The problem under investigation is that there is little research about how church leaders develop and design HIV/AIDS education and support programs in selected counties of New York State. The gap in the literature is that there is little known about how church leaders support the educational process for the HIV/AIDS Black community in New York state. The theory of normative decision making was the primary conceptual framework for this research. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multi-case study was to discover how church leaders managed their HIV/AIDS outreach program strategies. The overarching question asked what programs and education do church leaders use to support those with HIV/AIDS and how can church leaders within the selected counties, provide preventative education forums within their congregations. Data collection occurred through 6 semi structured face-to-face interviews with church leaders in the counties of New York State. Data analysis resulted in themes that included how managing HIV/AIDS outreach strategies increases participation, promotes understanding, and immobilizes the spread of HIV/AIDS. The themes that emerged suggested that democratic leadership style made for successful program leaders and existing program features built trust between the church and those in the surrounding communities impacted by HIV/AIDS. Recommendations for action include examining the structure of an active outreach ministry, synchronizing programs, and increasing resources to manage Faith-based organization strategies effectively. This study contributes to positive social change by religious leaders serving as peer educators and advocates within their church community for HIV/AIDS prevention education, igniting discussions, removing stigma, and increasing the number of individuals who voluntarily test for HIV/AIDS

Violence as a complex problem in education in emergencies: developing and testing the Transformative Resilience Framework

This thesis builds and tests a conceptual framework to study social change from adversity to wellbeing: The Transformative Resilience (T-RES) Framework. It is developed to guide the study of complex problems in the field of Education in Emergencies (EiE). Violence is used throughout this thesis as an example of a complex EiE problem. The EiE field is shifting from an initial focus on short-term humanitarian response to a concern with protracted social problems, such as violence. These problems are socially ingrained and require an understanding of social change. The development of the T-RES Framework was successfully applied and tested in a demonstrative case of school efforts to mitigate violence in El Salvador. The thesis aims to broaden the theoretical understanding of complex problems in the EiE field. It also adapts a research approach for explanatory causal analysis through qualitative methods. For EiE policy and practice, it shows the limitations of isolated interventions that do not consider the diverse, interdependent, and sometimes hidden drivers of social adversity. In Part A, the thesis shows that the study of violence solely with methods from a positivist paradigm, such as survey-based and Randomized Control Trials (RCTs), leaves complex causality questions unanswered. These include ignoring the causal relations of diverse social entities (agents and structures) and not explaining process, context and underlying mechanisms. The thesis argues that development agencies entering the EiE field adhere to standards for causal analysis that are not compatible with the inherent complexity of protracted EiE problems. To help close the complex causality gaps, Part B develops the T-RES Framework. It is grounded in more than 50 years of resilience studies and in the philosophy of science tenets on social change (from adversity to wellbeing) of Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism. The T-RES Framework proposes seven constructs to understand social transformation: (i) understanding the interdependence across diverse social entities (agents and structures); (ii) uncovering the hidden forces that sustain adversity; (iii) recognizing assets (strengths and opportunities) for change; (iv) seeking collective awareness and commitment; and contributing to (v) personal change and empowerment, (vi) collective change and community betterment, and (vii) institutional change and scaffolding. Part C tested the T-RES Framework and found it useful to guide substantive empirical research on social change in contexts of adversity. It helped to identify causal mechanisms explaining how and why youth violence was mitigated in the three schools studied. First, findings noted the school-level outcomes related to students’ non-violent behaviors, including protection, psychosocial wellbeing, and positive educational experiences. Then, the T-RES Framework helped to trace the causal process linking personal empowerment of principals and teachers to their efforts to form alliances with community and gang leaders. This created a collective commitment to mitigate violence in schools, and for community betterment. Teachers’ own experiences of recovery from adversity, as well as hope, strategic vision, and resourcefulness, were also underlying contributors to change. However, given limited services from central government and a growing normalization of violence, there was no evidence of structural scaffolding (long-term support) of school efforts for violence prevention. The T-RES constructs aligned well with the empirical data collected. Also, surprising new empirical evidence pointed to new areas of analysis such as assessing school activities that simultaneously mitigate and reproduce violence. Also, the case data showed different ways to interpret “collective commitment” between school-community, among teachers, and between a teacher and his/her students. This research closes with recommendations to further operationalize the T-RES Framework to better inform EiE policies, program design and funding of EiE research. This includes linking evidence of causal mechanisms to theories of transformative change that can guide designs of interventions

Secure portable execution and storage environments: A capability to improve security for remote working

Remote working is a practice that provides economic benefits to both the employing organisation and the individual. However, evidence suggests that organisations implementing remote working have limited appreciation of the security risks, particularly those impacting upon the confidentiality and integrity of information and also on the integrity and availability of the remote worker’s computing environment. Other research suggests that an organisation that does appreciate these risks may veto remote working, resulting in a loss of economic benefits. With the implementation of high speed broadband, remote working is forecast to grow and therefore it is appropriate that improved approaches to managing security risks are researched. This research explores the use of secure portable execution and storage environments (secure PESEs) to improve information security for the remote work categories of telework, and mobile and deployed working. This thesis with publication makes an original contribution to improving remote work information security through the development of a body of knowledge (consisting of design models and design instantiations) and the assertion of a nascent design theory. The research was conducted using design science research (DSR), a paradigm where the research philosophies are grounded in design and construction. Following an assessment of both the remote work information security issues and threats, and preparation of a set of functional requirements, a secure PESE concept was defined. The concept is represented by a set of attributes that encompass the security properties of preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the computing environment and data. A computing environment that conforms to the concept is considered to be a secure PESE, the implementation of which consists of a highly portable device utilising secure storage and an up-loadable (on to a PC) secure execution environment. The secure storage and execution environment combine to address the information security risks in the remote work location. A research gap was identified as no existing ‘secure PESE like’ device fully conformed to the concept, enabling a research problem and objectives to be defined. Novel secure storage and execution environments were developed and used to construct a secure PESE suitable for commercial remote work and a high assurance secure PESE suitable for security critical remote work. The commercial secure PESE was trialled with an existing telework team looking to improve security and the high assurance secure PESE was trialled within an organisation that had previously vetoed remote working due to the sensitivity of the data it processed. An evaluation of the research findings found that the objectives had been satisfied. Using DSR evaluation frameworks it was determined that the body of knowledge had improved an area of study with sufficient evidence generated to assert a nascent design theory for secure PESEs. The thesis highlights the limitations of the research while opportunities for future work are also identified. This thesis presents ten published papers coupled with additional doctoral research (that was not published) which postulates the research argument that ‘secure PESEs can be used to manage information security risks within the remote work environment’