7,915 research outputs found

    English literature students' perspectives on digital resources in a Spanish university

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    Digital resources have been more widely used in the university classroom since the Spring semester of 2020, but the reality is that Covid-19 simply accelerated an already leading tendency in education. The pedagogical potential of teaching with digital resources, editions and collections remains largely unexplored in the Spanish university context, especially in relation to the study of literary and historical texts. This article reports on a case study at the University of Alicante. An online questionnaire was dispensed to 134 English Studies undergraduates at Alicante in order to elicit the students' responses to electronic resources, their knowledge, uses and attitudes towards them. We also attempted to gauge their engagement with the library services at Alicante and beyond. The results indicate a statistically significant preference for electronic over print resources. Nevertheless, they also suggest the students' low degree of awareness of digital resources and their inability to discriminate between digital resources and general Internet sources. A lack of familiarity with the full potential that libraries offer is also reported, which stresses the need for further training in what seems to be a neglected but crucial area of their studies.The present investigation was funded by the “Programa de Redes-I3CE de investigación en docencia universitaria del Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Alicante (convocatoria 2020-21)”. Ref.: 5114

    Sharing, privacy and trust issues for photo collections

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    Digital libraries are quickly being adopted by the masses. Technological developments now allow community groups, clubs, and even ordinary individuals to create their own, publicly accessible collections. However, users may not be fully aware of the potential privacy implications of submitting their documents to a digital library, and may hold misconceptions of the technological support for preserving their privacy. We present results from 18 autoethnographic investigations and 19 observations / interviews into privacy issues that arise when people make their personal photo collections available online. The Adams' privacy model is used to discuss the findings according to information receiver, information sensitivity, and information usage. Further issues of trust and ad hoc poorly supported protection strategies are presented. Ultimately while photographic data is potentially highly sensitive, the privacy risks are often hidden and the protection mechanisms are limited

    I SEE NO FUN IN ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE FIRST IMPRESSION USABILITY AND USER EXPERIENCE

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    Technology acceptance is crucial, if newly implemented enterprise systems (ES) in a company are to succeed. This is often addressed by end-user training during the implementation project. Perceived enjoyment and positive user experience (UX) have gained significant importance as technology acceptance factors. Yet, research on the design of such trainings is scarce, and literature with focus on perceived UX of ES even more so. This is in contrast to findings from other contexts which show that perceived UX may heavily impact user attitudes and learning motivation. As a first endavour in this direction, this paper presents an exploratory pre-study on first impressions of main operating ES with regard to expected usability and UX. Results show that ES are rated low, especially when compared to a universal UX benchmark. We discuss how more positive first impressions may positively impact motivation to learn the system, which will be investigated in a follow-up study

    Importance of Medical Informatics in Medical Students\u27 Curricula in Saudi Arabia

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    The main purpose of this research project is to determine the importance of Medical Informatics (MI) course inclusion in the curriculum studied by medical students in Saudi Arabia. The healthcare environment has changed dramatically since last few decades. It has become an information- intensive environment and has shifted its focus on technological applications. As a result of such a shift in focus, efforts should be made that future healthcare professionals be prepared for such an environment through MI. This research project aims to determine the acceptance of MI applications by medical students. The study will compare the acceptability of MI applications among medical students who take MI course with medical students who do not have such a MI course in their curriculum. In addition, the research project will assess MI knowledge among all the medical students

    Determinants of Brand Equity in E-Businesses: An Exploratory Study

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    Previous research suggests that brand equity is affected by marketing mix elements, such as store image or distribution intensity. However, because the Internet has no boundaries, some of these elements may not be applicable in building the brand equity of online companies. In this study, we identify factors pertaining to online contexts that may affect consumersí perception on quality and brand knowledge, both of which are found to be important determinants of brand equity. By performing confirmatory factor analyses on a set of survey data, we show that having a high quality Website and innovative products and technologies may help reinforce consumersí perceived quality. However, popular online marketing instruments, such as offering value-added services and features or advertising, may not contribute much to the formation of online firmsí brand equity

    The Impact of Webpage Visual Characteristics on Consumer\u27s Initial Trust In E-Vendors

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    In making decisions regarding transacting with web-based vendors, consumers typically consider the uncertainty about vendor behavior or the perceived risk of having personal information misused by vendors. To mitigate these concerns vendors convey cues to improve consumer trust at a very early stage. Initial trust plays a central role in helping consumers overcome perceptions of risk and insecurity and makes them feel comfortable about interacting and transacting with an e-vendor. Therefore, initial trust is critical to both researchers and practitioners. The present paper describes a research-in-progress study that concentrates on webpage visual complexity and order as central factors in the design of web pages to enhance consumers’ initial trust in an online e-vendor

    Privacy in Online Social Networking: Applying a Privacy Calculus Model

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    The penetration rate continues to grow for social networking sites where individuals join a virtual community to socialize, make connections, and share opinions with those who have similar interests, while revealing personal information. However, online social networking presents a unique context with distinct privacy challenges. To understand information disclosure behavior in this context, we apply the extended privacy calculus model, developed by Dinev and Hart (2006a), which addresses the trade-off between the expected costs of privacy risk beliefs and the benefits of confidence and placement beliefs on the willingness to provide personal information. We further extend this model to include specific types of personal information, based on our proposed taxonomy of information integral to social networking. To test our research model, a questionnaire will be administered to undergraduate students, drawn from the mid-Atlantic U.S. For hypothesis testing, structural equations modeling will be used. The completion of this research-in-progress study is expected to contribute to our understanding of the types of information revealed in online social networking

    Effects of Gendered Anthropomorphism and Image Appeal on Moral Norms in the Context of Charity Website Design

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    As the internet has developed, the barriers to online donations have decreased – in order to effectively differentiate, charities have adopted various interface design innovations to encourage donors. This study examines the efficacy of anthropomorphism and visual/image appeals in increasing willingness to donate to a charity website. This paper reports findings from the first in a series of experiments. Specifically, we test the effect of image type (negative affect vs positive affect) on the variables of image appeal, moral norms, and intentions to donate. Our future experiments will build on the findings presented here, by testing the influence of anthropomorphized vs non- anthropomorphized websites on the same variables. Once finalized, the results of this research will contribute to IS research through suggesting appropriate interface design and to charity donation research through the evaluation of alternative channels for donations

    Understanding student satisfaction and dissatisfaction : an interpretive study in the UK higher education context

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    This article represents a cross-sectional study of undergraduate students across two north-west university business schools in the UK. A purposefully designed questionnaire was collected from 350 students. The student experience was described in the form of hand-written narratives by first and final year students and had been identified by the respondents themselves as being satisfying or dissatisfying with the areas of teaching and learning and the supporting service environment. The study also assessed whether their experiences were likely to influence their loyalty behaviours with respect to remaining on their chosen course of study; recommending the university; and continuing at a higher level of study. The data were captured and analysed using the qualitative critical incident technique to capture the voice of the student and identified the critical determinants of quality within higher education, i.e. those areas that would influence loyalty behaviour, as being Access; Attentiveness; Availability; and Communication. A number of new determinants of quality have been identified out of the research by three independent judges, namely motivation, reward, social inclusion, usefulness, value for money and fellow student behaviour

    Eyes don\u27t lie: understanding users\u27 first impressions on website design using eye tracking

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    Websites are becoming more prevalent these days. They need to create a favorable first impression on the users during initial exposure. After allocating their attention to stimuli, users form a cognitive representation of the visual information leading to first impression. Hence, first impression is important to evaluate the effectiveness of a website. This research tries to examine the amount of exposure time needed to form first impression; identify the web design factors that influence the formation of users\u27 first impression; study the emotional responses of users on website design; and finally understand the relationship between first impression and eye movement. Eye movements on displays indicate spatial focus of attention. Eye tracking can provide fixation points where users focus their attention on stimuli. In this study eye tracking has been used to study users\u27 first impression on website design. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, participants were presented with the stimuli of twenty five university websites\u27 screen shots of home pages on the eye tracker with no time restrain and asked to move on to the next stimuli when they feel that they have formed their initial impression of the website. On viewing each homepage, participants were asked to rate the page on their first impressions and emotional response. In the second phase, users were shown their gaze plots from the eye tracker device for the previous stimuli viewed, followed by a short interview. Twenty students from a mid west university were recruited to participate in the experiment. Quantitative analysis was performed on the various fixation data extracted from the eye tracker as well as on the data collected from survey. Open coding was performed on the qualitative data obtained from the interview. The results show that first impressions are formed within 180ms after allocating their attention to stimuli. The qualitative analysis identified various issues with the website design and also revealed a number of ways in which the website design can be improved that affects impression --Abstract, page iii
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