E-government and Digital Divide in Hail City: a Quantitative, Older Adults Study

The subject of information and communication technologies adoption, Internet and e-government services in particular, have been widely investigated by researchers. It is an indication of the significant roles that can be brought to individuals and societies by such advanced technologies in which enhancing quality of life is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, many groups within societies are not gaining the advantages and benefits of the Internet and e-government because they are less receptive to ICTs. This has created a phenomenon known as the digital divide. Amongst these groups are the older adults. The rising attention towards the elderly is due to the increasing life expectancy. Thanks to health technological advancements and life style improvements, which are leading to better qualities of life, countries around the globe have older adults population rate larger than ever before. Saudi Arabia is no exception, as demographic characteristics have been changing in which life span is increasing and fertility is decreasing. However, literature of older adults and technology adoption, particularly adoption of Internet and e-government lacks the context of developing countries and the Arab world. Therefore, using this as a motivation, this study aims to identify, explain and understand the adoption, use and diffusion of e-government services within the older adults population (50+) of a vicinity in Saudi Arabia. The study uses a quantitative research method along with a positivist epistemology. The data collection technique involved distributing survey questionnaires to households’ residents (50+) in Hail city (area and simple random sampling). A small-scale pilot study was initially used (n=257) to validate and enhance the survey questions, followed by a wide-scale final study (n=937). Findings revealed that with regards to Internet adoption, age-based, gender-based, education-based and health-based digital divides do exist within the elderly population. It was also found by model analysis that elderlies’ intentions of whether to use or not use e-government services are considerably impacted by attitudinal, subjective norms, control and trustworthiness factors, excluding the two factors of image and trust in government, which showed insignificance. The study makes positive contributions to related literature, policy makers and industry. Finally, due to the restraints of time, finance and manpower, this study examined only a small portion of the whole population of Hail city; therefore, generalisations of findings cannot be claimed

El enfoque AICLE y los entornos de aprendizaje en línea: El papel de Google My Maps y la producción escrita de los estudiantes en Historia Antigua

Education in the 21 st century has moved towards digital learning to offer high quality programmes that meet the technological and communicative demands of today’s society. Well - known approaches such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) may benefit from this new reality by addressing linguistic and cognitive challenges in written discourse. This paper examines the written performance of forty first - year undergraduate students coursing a CLIL module in History of the Classical World at a Spanish university . By means of Google My Maps, participants were expected to create a custom map describing five Roman vestiges of their choice. The findings indicate that students’ L1 negative transfer may lead to grammatical and lexical inaccuracy. Google My Maps has pr oved to be a valid resource for the retention of History contents as well as for the acquisition of a foreign language in online learning environments.La educación en el siglo XXI ha introducido el aprendizaje digital en programas de alta calidad para satisfacer las demandas tecnológicas y comunicativas de la sociedad actual. Enfoques conocidos como el Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenido y Lenguaje (AICLE) y el Inglés como Medio de Instrucción (IME) pueden beneficiarse de esta nueva realidad al abordar los desafíos lingüísticos y cognitivos del discurso escrito. Este trabajo examina la producción escrita de cuarenta y dos estudiantes de primer año de grado que cursan un módulo de AICLE en Historia del Mundo Clásico en una universidad española. Por medio de Google My Maps se espera que los participantes creen un mapa personalizado que describa los cinco vestigios romanos según su elección. Los resultados indican que la transferencia negativa de la L1 puede llevar a inexactitudes gramaticales y léxicas en la L2. Google My Maps ha demostrado ser un recurso válido para la retención de contenidos en Historia, así como para la adquisición de un idioma extranjero en entornos de aprendizaje en línea

Evaluating the perception of SaaS adoption criteria with email permission-based marketing

This study aims to identify the main Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption criteria and apply them in permission-based email marketing campaign. Cloud computing and SaaS in precise is becoming a temping business sector for companies. While most of the attention is focus on the technological aspect, the business and marketing sides were less studied. The thesis present an empirical case study to investigate how respondents of small and medium enterprises' (SME), respond to different kind of stimulus from potential service providers, focusing on four distinctive adoption categories. The thesis is empirical and exploratory in nature. In the beginning, cloud computing and SaaS are reviewed to form the background of the study. Afterwards, special attention is dedicated to identifying and grouping the crucial SaaS adoption factors. The Technological-Organization-Environmental (TOE) and Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) frameworks had been used in the process of grouping the adoption factors into four categories. The second part of the literature review is dedicated to permission-based email marketing, examining the positive and negative sides and following how marketing has evolved and let to the adoption of permission-based email marketing. Quantitative data was gathered from a case company which is about to release new SaaS product and which wanted to study the perception of its potential clients towards the four SaaS adoption categories. The findings of the empirical part of this study are separated in four parts. Each part is dedicated to one of the four distinct adoption categories: Usability, Complexity, Security and Price. Usability and Complexity were the best perceived adoption categories while Security and Price didn't attract as much attention as initially anticipated. As a conclusion the study managed to shed some insight about how the SaaS adoption categories are perceived from SME's. The results can't be classified as expected or as absolutely innovative, since two of the categories behaved as it was expected while the other two - Complexity and Security showed some surprising results