Identifying Strategies For Effective Virtual Education Delivery In Thailand

Increasingly, universities in Thailand are shifting towards virtual education delivery (VED) using information and communication technology to facilitate knowledge sharing and to gain competitive advantage. Little however is known about the way in which Thai society will adapt to the use of online instruction both from the teaching and learning communities. This study was designed to examine the critical success factors for implementing VEDs in Thailand, and to identify ways to facilitate such adoption and lead to effective outcomes. The study incorporated an analysis of three specific factors related to Thai culture: high power distance Bhun Khun , uncertainty avoidance Kreng Jai and, collectivism Kam Lang Jai . This paper reviews the development of the research model, describes the conceptual underpinning of the cultural model and presents the preliminary findings of the study

Marketing strategy for small application service providers in a new market

Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) including small application service providers (ASPs) are playing an increasingly important role in the development of global economies particularly in developing countries like China. This paper studies marketing strategies of small application service providers (ASP) with a focus on what the important factors are to establish a new ASP business in China. An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method is used to analyse critical factors of the ASP industry. The research surveyed CEOs or senior managers who are working in ASP firms, to identify how a marketing strategy can be developed for an ASP firm to start business in China. It is found that the localisation of middle level managers, the localisation of products and services, the protection of intellectual property (IP), and infrastructure and transportation system are the most important factors for small ASP firms to do business in China.<br /

Understanding problem solving in requirements engineering : debating creativity with IS practitioners

RE is well-recognised as a creative problem solving activity by the systems development community. However, while substantial research has been conducted and knowledge gained about creativity in the general psychology of problem solving, creativity as it applies to RE remains a relatively unexplored area - one that has neither been comprehensively studied, nor highly recognised, as a research topic of importance. This paper attempts to address the above mentioned gap by presenting findings from a recent focus group study of creativity in RE as perceived by a group of RE practitioners. We provide a conceptual framework for understanding creativity in RE, which may be of use to requirements engineers attempting to enable more creative approaches and results, as well as adding to the existing, limited body of research in this area.<br /

Characteristics of Australian B2B imarketplaces

Existing research on B2B iMarketplaces (and intermediaries operating them) focuses primarily on viewing US iMarketplace web sites or conducting case studies. This paper extends this work by presenting survey findings of the total identifiable population of Australian B2B iMarketplace intermediaries to describe the iMarketplace characteristics and to determine if the findings provide more generalisable support for the literature.<br /

Application of grounded theory to exploring multimedia design practices

This paper describes the application of Grounded Theory to an exploration of multimedia design practices. It discusses the opinions of multimedia developers, as elicited from interviews, on the selected design tasks and the processes employed in their completion. Our findings, which emerge from the analysis of the collected data, indicate that the currently available multimedia models do not address some of the important concerns of practitioners. We believe that closing the methodological gaps in these models would provide bettersupport for the multimedia development process.<br /

Web publishing revisited-a case study of literary websites in Russia

The concept of web publishing has been widely discussed in IS research literature since the WWW emerged. The discussion in various publications often revolves around the issues of business success and profitability, web design, and effective content presentation. This paper is a study of one of the &ldquo;unknown&rdquo; segments of the Internet - a family of websites publishing literary works in the Russian language. We demonstrate that the innovative model adopted by site owners in building the relationships with the site customers, and the information technology selected for the sites can play a crucial role in the success of a web-based venture. Our analysis is based on the concepts of virtual community and socio-technical interaction. We discuss the&nbsp; contribution of this case not only to the innovative use of the Web-based business models, but also to the new forms of literary life and national&nbsp; culture. Some of the concepts, principles and practices, adopted on those sites may be of interest to the Internet developers and communities worldwide.<br /