Student user preferences for features of next-generation OPACs: a case study of University of Sheffield international students

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to identity the features that international student users prefer for next generation OPACs. Design/ methodology/ approach. 16 international students of the University of Sheffield were interviewed in July 2008 to explore their preferences among potential features in next generation OPACs. A semi-structured interview schedule with images of mock-up screens was used. Findings. The results of the interviews were broadly consistent with previous studies. In general, students expect features in next generation OPACs should be save their time, easy to use and relevant to their search. This study found that recommender features and features that can provide better navigation of search results are desired by users. However, Web 2.0 features, such as RSS feeds and those features which involved user participation were among the most popular. Practical implications. This paper produces findings of relevance to any academic library seeking to implement a next-generation OPAC. Originality/value. There have been no previous published research studies of users’ preferences among possible features of next-generation OPACs

Digital Member Network Implementation and Coproduction: An Investigation of an Alumni Association Network

Digital Member Network Implementation and Coproduction: An Investigation of an Alumni Association Network by Derrick Vance Warren August 2019 Chair: Dr. Lars Mathiassen Major Academic Unit: Executive Doctorate in Business Given the rapid rate of technological change, IT professionals need continuous guidance to implement digital member networks (DMNs) successfully. Moreover, because key stakeholders can drive initial participation and ongoing engagement in these networks, ensuring that stakeholders have positive implementation experiences is particularly important. Against that backdrop, this study focuses on understanding the enablers and barriers to implementing DMNs and identifies ways to accelerate continuous engagement by involving key members in coproduction of the network. A literature review synthesizes key challenges in digitally enabled social network implementation and coproduction in general and provides background for the study, while Implementation Theory and Coproduction Theory offer the analytical framing. From this foundation, the researcher empirically investigates the enablers and barriers to implementing and coproducing a DMN for a university’s alumni association. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on DMNs, insights on the implementation of digitally enabled social networks, and interventions that may drive coproduction and positive member engagement. INDEX WORDS: Digital Member Networks, Implementation, Coproduction, Enablers and Barriers, Alumni Associatio

Internet Surveillance after Snowden: A Critical Empirical Study of Computer Experts' Attitudes on Commercial and State Surveillance of the Internet and Social Media post-Edward Snowden

Acknowledgement: The research presented in this paper was conducted as part of the EU FP7 research project PACT (http://www.projectpact.eu), grant agreement number 285635

The ability of surveillance capitalist technology firms to resist U.S. government surveillance

This thesis reviewed and measured the methods employed by multinational U.S.-based technology firms to resist U.S. government surveillance. A political science adaptation of Affordance Theory was used to separate methods used to resist surveillance into four affordances: legal, political, technical, and market. Review of each firms’ actions provided a more granular evaluation of the motivations and impact of their choices than has been explored in existing literature. The results showed that firms had varying levels of success across all four affordances, and certainly less success than was assumed in existing literature given their resources and influence. The legal and political affordances were both constrained and enabled in part by the firms’ reliance on the U.S. government to compromise. The technical affordance was hampered by protection of data exploitative business models. The market affordance casted doubt on the ability of users to influence change via market pressures. The actions firms chose were heavily influenced by their surveillance capitalist business models predicated on mass collection and exploitation of user data. This reliance on personal data assets to drive revenue inhibited the firms’ capacity as surrogate defenders of individual privacy. When firms resisted surveillance, they were often motivated by conflict of law risks or protection of international markets. To effectively resist surveillance, current firms should begin to transition business models into new revenue streams and redirect public discontent to surveillance reform rather than surveillance resistance. New firms are at a disadvantaged position, with every option to resist surveillance being either cost prohibitive or with significant inherent risk.Informatio

Collecting and Visualizing Real-Time Urban Data through City Dashboards

Dashboards which collect and display real-time streamed data from a variety of rudimentary sensors positioned in the built environment provide an immediate portal for decision-makers to get some sense of their city and environment. These devices are linked to previous renditions of control and management of real-time services in cities, particularly transport, in control-room like settings but they are more flexible and do not require massive investment in hardware. At one level they are simply screens linked to some sort of computational device whose displays are focused in web page like formats. Here we catalogue the experience of building such dashboards for large cities in Great Britain. In particular, we link these to the emergence of open data, particularly reflecting the experience of the London Datastore. We then show how such dashboards can be configured in many different ways: as data tables which give some sort of physical presence to such data delivery, to purpose-built dashboards for schools, and to various moveable displays that have artistic as well as informative merit. To an extent as real-time streamed data become less of a novelty, we expect these dashboards to merge into more generic portals but for the moment they represent one very public face of the smart city and its big data