Appropriation of privacy management within social networking sites

Social networking sites have emerged as one of the most widely used types of interactive systems, with memberships numbering in the hundreds of millions around the globe. By providing tools for their members to manage an ever-changing set of relationships, social networking sites push a constant expansion of social boundaries. These sites place less emphasis on tools that limit social boundaries to enable privacy. The rapid expansion of online social boundaries has caused privacy shockwaves. Privacy offline is enabled by constraints of time and space. Online, powerful search engines and long term digital storage means private data have no expiration date. Within an online culture of anonymity and fluid self-presentation of identity, social networking sites can be turned into places of perceived safety but with privacy risks that actually extend indefinitely. While these sites do deploy privacy management features, it is not understood how people use social networking sites, how they use privacy management features, and how these two are related. In order to create better privacy mechanisms for social software, designers must first understand how members manage their privacy in the current environment. This dissertation introduces The Social Software Performance Model, which describes relevant factors and their interaction in order to explain patterns of privacy management. The Model is a synthesis of Adaptive Structuration Theory, the Fit Appropriation Model and socio-technical systems theory. Adaptive Structuration Theory attempts to explain appropriation, defined as the process by which people integrate technology into their daily tasks and activities. A central premise of this research is that the appropriation perspective is a valuable lens for teasing apart how members of these sites adopt and adapt privacy management features. Using Adaptive Structuration Theory, this dissertation developed and validated new measures that capture appropriation patterns related to privacy management within social networking sites. The research introduces three independent constructs that measure privacy management appropriation. They are the Use appropriation move, which measures actual use of privacy management features; the Familiarity appropriation move, which measure knowledge of privacy management features; and the Restricted Scope appropriation move, which measures the extent to which members independently limit the scope of their online social network to protect their privacy. Survey data was collected from subjects in two different social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace, and used to evaluate hypotheses developed from The Social Software Performance Model. Using a partial least squares analysis, the research model explained 28.5% of the variance with respect to appropriation of privacy management features. This is a strong result for exploratory research. This research makes a contribution by extending theories to a new context, by applying both the Adaptive Structuration Theory and the Fit Appropriation Model to the use of privacy management in social networking sites. Using types and sub-types of appropriation moves from Adaptive Structuration Theory, new measures were developed and validated. These new measures, with further efforts to establish validity and reliability, can be adapted to understand appropriations for other forms of social software. The main finding of the research is a method to evaluate the effectiveness of different implementations of privacy management within social networking sites. While information system theory has been primarily concerned with systems used in an organizational context, the results of this research shows these theories are relevant to new systems based on social interaction. These new types of social software, generically labeled as Web 2.0, are among the most popular on the Internet. Besides Facebook and MySpace, examples of Web 2.0 include the video sharing site YouTube.com, and the photo sharing site Flickr.com. These sites thrive on intensive social interaction, and are growing in scope and importance. There has been little consensus among researchers as to how to measure the effectiveness of Web 2.0 systems. This lack of consensus presents a strategic opportunity for information systems theory, which has made determinations of effectiveness an important focus. This research has adapted information systems theory to study the effectiveness of privacy management. The development of privacy management has proven to be a difficult problem, and a deeper understanding of its effectiveness is expected to improve the overall design of these systems. By adapting information systems theory to the use of privacy management within social networking sites, this research shows that information systems theory can also be used applied to Web 2.0 applications. This provides a foundation for the further development of methods to measure the effectiveness of additional components within social software

Changing tack : defining a strategic direction for innovation in the United Kingdom shipping industry

In the early 1980s technology presented the shipping community with an opportunity to offload its moribund communications infrastructure in favour of a satellite based electronic umbilical that promised to revolutionise communications with ships at sea. The development received less than enthusiastic support.Towards the end of the last century, twenty years after satellite communications offered a viable alternative, the vast majority of ships were still using Morse code as their primary means of communication. Despite attempts to delay its mandatory introduction the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) was the catalyst that ultimately led to the demise of this antiquated system of communication. A similar scenario exists in the navigation arena, where shipping organisations invariably wait for legislation to compel them to change.This culture of innovation resistance is ubiquitous in the shipping industry and its origins seem to lie mainly in historical traditions and in the isolation that has for centuries been intrinsic to life at sea. Competitive challenges driven by shrinking innovation life-cycles, increasing globalisation, and growing demands for improved customer service creates new opportunities for flexible organisations but presents serious threats to traditionalists.Cultural change in the UK shipping industry is an essential precursor to creating a climate in which innovation can flourish. The route to cultural change however demands a holistic approach and necessitates a fundamental understanding of the iterative processes of change. After illustrating this concept in a model I draw on empirical evidence and relevant theories to support my argument that a culture of innovation in the shipping industry can best be achieved through the development and adoption of organisational structures based on a virtual learning organisation

Politics of development in the Barents region

Julkaistu versi

The education of undergraduate product designers in the principles and practice of sustainable design.

There is a growing recognition that product designers have a responsibility to ensure that their designs are intrinsically sustainable and do not add to the growing pressures on the environment. Developing sustainable products requires designers to be aware of the conflicting issues and constraints that need to be taken into account as part of the design process. Finding appropriate ways to provide the essential knowledge to support designers so that they can develop sustainable products has been the focus of the research reported in this thesis. A set of characteristics that can be used to classify levels of sustainability of products was established, which identified "tangible" and "intangible" considerations that would need to be understood and applied by product designers. Having established a framework for understanding and applying sustainable characteristics to new products, an educational strategy was developed and evaluated with groups of product design students in two institutes of higher education in Scotland. The strategy for providing the design students with the necessary understanding suggests that "tangible" characteristics should be introduced at an earlier stage in the students' education, followed by more "intangible" characteristics at a later stage. The literature review explores the definitions between green design, eco design and sustainable design, and explores how the concept of sustainable design has been communicated to designers through the design brief and as part of the educational process. The thesis examines pedagogical strategies which have been used in design education to provide students with insights into the issues surrounding sustainability. The methodology adopted for this research was based on an action research model, which involved the researcher undertaking a series of case studies with groups of design students and using her own design practice to gain insights into the design process. The case studies were used to develop a prototype educational strategy for introducing the characteristics into an undergraduate design curriculum

Déterminants génétiques du contrôle de la masse cardiaque et/ou de la taille des cardiomyocytes dans des croisements expérimentaux de rongeurs

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Inclusion in socio-educational frames : inclusive school cases in four European countries

publishedVersio