Understanding user perceptions on usefulness and usability of an integrated Wiki-G-Portal

This paper describes briefly the design rationale and philosophy of our implementation of a Wiki-G-Portal project, integrating Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, into G-Portal, a Web-based digital library, of geography resources. Initial findings from pilot study seemed to suggest positive perceptions on usefulness and usability of Wiki-G-Portal, as well as subjects’ attitude and intention to use Wiki-G-Portal. The paper concludes with recommendations for further work.Accepted versio

Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Government to citizens E-Service Co-Design

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University Londone-Government services are typically developed by internal service providers, often neglecting the service end user. Subsequent delivery of services can be jeopardised without due consideration of the service user, lacking in consideration of their needs and expectations in the design process. However, the service provider when designing e-services for varied users, find it is hard to meet the prospective users’ expectations and needs and involve them in an iterative design processes. To address this issue; a Co-design approach has been applied and focuses on Jordanian Government to Citizens (G2C) e-services. Co-design tools/methods maximize opportunities and provide new possibilities for communicating and collaborating with varied and diverse users. The main aim of this research is to improve the quality and efficiency of G2C e-services by adopting the Co-design approach including its tools/methods to support user participation throughout design process, and how these tools/methods pretend the features of user participation. A novel G2C e-Service Co-Design Framework (G2C-SCOF) is constructed with mechanisms for understanding the stakeholders’ requirements, and granting them an active role throughout design process of G2C e-service design. A wiki-based Co-design prototype (WCP) is developed and introduced as a response to and evaluation of the developed G2C-SCOF. This research also presents results from the case study in Jordan and used to evaluate WCP effectiveness regarding users’ participation role(s) throughout the Co-design process based on standard service design phases. Interestingly, involvement throughout design process as such can be an enriching experience for the users. Offering a channel to uncover their own creativity and provide enjoyment for them as they see their contributions evolve into a viable service. A robust method for uncovering domain concepts is derived that bridges the requirements’ gap between service provider and service user within a G2C e-service design context. A first iteration evaluates the adoption and acceptance of Jordan Government Portal (JGP) based on a model titled Methodology for e-Government Service Adoption and Acceptance Measurement (MEGA-M). MEGA-M is then used to design a survey and subsequently investigate how citizens perceive the quality of the JGP. RepGrid methodology with semi-structured interviews are deployed in the second iteration – with 24 participants from diverse backgrounds contributing to a synthesised cognitive model titled Stakeholder’s requirements map for G2C Service Design’ (SRM-G2C). Finally, a prototype WCP is developed as the third iteration for evaluation purposes. WCP is a platform for facilitating the sharing and expression of ideas and/or assumptions used to improve the effectiveness of G2C e-service design. The conclusions and contributions drawn from this research are expected to benefit researchers, providing insights for future research in the field of e-Government service design, and practitioners, providing a systematic framework for supporting the collaboration among stakeholders in designing G2C e-services

Open-distance Electronic Learning Environments: Supervisors’ Views on Usability

Students in the open-distance and electronic learning (ODeL) environment often work in isolation and face challenges in accessing knowledge resources, especially when conducting research. To support these students in succeeding with their studies, the learning management system (LMS) needs to be usable; this implies the attributes of effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to propose usability guidelines specifically focused on the requirements for a learning management system in the context of ODeL honours research projects. The study is novel in exploring the supervisors’ view of the usability requirements of the LMS. Based on a pragmatic worldview, this study is guided by the design science research (DSR) methodology. The initial set of usability requirements was abstracted from the literature and used as the basis for the LMS evaluation. Usability testing of the LMS was followed by heuristic evaluation, post-test questionnaire and interviews. All evaluations were done with the supervisors as participants. The contribution of the study is the refined usability guidelines based on the triangulation of the findings from the different usability evaluations conducted on the same ODeL LMS.School of Computin

Where can teens find health information? A survey of web portals designed for teen health information seekers

The Web is an important source for health information for most teens with access to the Web (Gray et al, 2005a; Kaiser, 2001). While teens are likely to turn to the Web for health information, research has indicated that their skills in locating, evaluating and using health information are weak (Hansen et al, 2003; Skinner et al, 2003, Gray et al, 2005b). This behaviour suggests that the targeted approach to finding health information that is offered by web portals would be useful to teens. A web portal is the entry point for information on the Web. It is the front end, and often the filter, that users must pass through in order to link to actual content. Unlike general search engines such as Google, content that is linked to a portal has usually been pre-selected and even created by the organization that hosts the portal, assuring some level of quality control. The underlying architecture of the portal is structured and thus offers an organized approach to exploring a specific health topic. This paper reports on an environmental scan of the Web, the purpose of which was to identify and describe portals to general health information, in English and French, designed specifically for teens. It answers two key questions. First of all, what portals exist? And secondly, what are their characteristics? The portals were analyzed through the lens of four attributes: Usability, interactivity, reliability and findability. Usability is a term that incorporates concepts of navigation, layout and design, clarity of concept and purpose, underlying architecture, in-site assistance and, for web content with text, readability. Interactivity relates to the type of interactions and level of engagement required by the user to access health information on a portal. Interaction can come in the form of a game, a quiz, a creative experience, or a communication tool such as an instant messaging board, a forum or blog. Reliability reflects the traditional values of accuracy, currency, credibility and bias, and in the web-based world, durabililty. Findability is simply the ease with which a portal can be discovered by a searcher using the search engine that is most commonly associated with the Web by young people - Google - and using terms related to teen health. Findability is an important consideration since the majority of teens begin their search for health information using search engines (CIBER, 2008; Hansen et al, 2003). The content linked to by the portals was not evaluated, nor was the portals’ efficacy as a health intervention. Teens looking for health information on the Web in English have a wide range of choices available but French-language portals are much rarer and harder to find. A majority of the portals found and reviewed originated from hospitals, associations specializing in a particular disease, and governmental agencies, suggesting that portals for teens on health related topics are generally reliable. However, only a handful of the portals reviewed were easy to find, suggesting that valuable resources for teens remain buried in the Web

Personal Learning Environments Acceptance Model: The Role of Need for Cognition, e-Learning Satisfaction and Students' Perceptions

As long as students use Web 2.0 tools extensively for social purposes, there is an opportunity to improve students' engagement in Higher Education by using these tools for academic purposes under a Personal Learning Environment approach (PLE 2.0). The success of these attempts depends upon the reactions and acceptance of users towards e-learning using Web 2.0. This paper aims to analyse the factors (e-learning satisfaction and students’ perceptions, among others) that determine the intention of use of a PLE 2.0 initiative. The study in addition analyses the moderating role of the Need for Cognition (NFC) in the model. The results indicate that the model proposed has a high explanatory power of the intention to use a PLE 2.0 and gives support to the moderating role of NFC. The study discusses how this analysis can help to improve course designs by teachers

LMS continuance among students and lectures in northern Malaysian public universities through expanded expectation confirmation theory (ECT) perspective

Learning Management System (LMS) is a system that especially developed and broadly applied for teaching and learning process. This thesis aims to investigate users’ expectation in using LMS for their teaching and learning process among higher education institutions. In detail, this thesis was conducted to determine students’ and lecturers’ expectations on using LMS and define their future need on LMS. For the purpose of this study, a survey which involved 727 students and lecturers from the northern region public university was carried out. This thesis used expanded Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT) to find users’ expectation in accepting LMS. In addition, six main variables include perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), confirmation (CON), perceived enjoyment (PE), satisfaction (SAT) and continuance intention (CI) on LMS usage were used to find the relationship between the selected variables that influence users’ intention to use LMS in their teaching and learning. A structured questionnaire was designed where data were analysed by SPSS 20.0 to determine the relationship between the selected variables. The findings show that PU, PEOU, CON, PE, SAT and CI were significantly important determinants to predict users’ intention to use LMS continuously