The WEB Book experiments in electronic textbook design

This paper describes a series of three evaluations of electronic textbooks on the Web, which focused on assessing how appearance and design can affect users' sense of engagement and directness with the material. The EBONI Project's methodology for evaluating electronic textbooks is outlined and each experiment is described, together with an analysis of results. Finally, some recommendations for successful design are suggested, based on an analysis of all experimental data. These recommendations underline the main findings of the evaluations: that users want some features of paper books to be preserved in the electronic medium, while also preferring electronic text to be written in a scannable style

Digital Technology and Cultural Policy

This paper reviews how digital technology, and the devices and broadband networks associated with it (the Internet, for short), can be expected to a ect the ways in which books, music, the visual arts, libraries and archived cultural heritage (cultural goods, for short) are produced, distributed and consumed. The paper has four parts. First, I place the growth of the Internet in historical and comparative perspective. I argue that the United States is presently engaged in a regulatory e ort similar in intent to those imposed on earlier communications revolutions. In this context, I outline the ways that the Internet can be expected to change how people produce and consume cultural goods. I distinguish between practices the technology makes possible and practices likely to become established as typical for the majority of people. Second, I discuss some of the new arenas for cultural policy thrown up by the Internet. I argue that, just as it has bound many kinds of cultural content into a single medium, the Internet has tied together a variety of regulatory issues and brought cultural policy into contact with areas of policy-making not normally associated with culture. Third, I focus on the relationship between creativity, consumption and copyright law. Fourth, I describe a number of key conflicts over the Internet's architecture and content. How these are resolved through policy choices will have important consequences for how we consume and experience cultural goods of all kinds in the future.

Folders: A Visual Organization System for MIT App Inventor

In blocks programming languages, such as MIT App Inventor, programs are built by composing puzzle-shaped fragments on a 2D workspace. Their visual nature makes programming more accessible to novices, but it also has numerous drawbacks. Users must decide where to place blocks on the workspace, and these placements may require the reorganization of other blocks. Block representations are less space efficient than their textual equivalents. Finally, the fundamental 2D nature of the blocks workspace makes it more challenging to search and navigate than the traditional linear workflow. Because of these barriers, users have difficulty creating and navigating complex programs. In order to address these drawbacks, I have developed Folders, a visual organization system, for App Inventor. Folders, which are modeled after the hierarchical desktop metaphor folders, allow users to nest blocks within them, and solve many of the aforementioned problems. First, users can use Folders, rather than spatial closeness, to place and organize blocks, thereby explicitly indicating a relationship between them. Second, Folders allow users to selectively hide and show particular groups of blocks and address the issue of limited visible space. Lastly, users are already familiar with the folder metaphor from other applications, so their introduction does not complicate App Inventor. Unfortunately, Folders also introduce new obstacles. Users might expect that putting blocks into Folders removes them from the main workspace semantically. However, Folders are only for organizing blocks and decluttering the workspace, and their contained blocks are still considered part of the main workspace. Furthermore, Folders exacerbate the search and navigation problem. Since blocks can now be hidden in collapsed Folders, finding a usage or declaration of a variable, procedure, or component can be more difficult. I have received preliminary feedback on my initial implementation of Folders and am designing a user study to evaluate my Folders system

CTRL SHIFT

CTRL SHIFT makes a case for design under contemporary computation. The abstractions of reading, writing, metaphors, mythology, code, cryptography, interfaces, and other such symbolic languages are leveraged as tools for understanding. Alternative modes of knowledge become access points through which users can subvert the control structures of software. By challenging the singular expertise of programmers, the work presented within advocates for the examination of internalized beliefs, the redistribution of networked power, and the collective sabotage of computational authority

Digital Existence - the Modern Way to Be

This is an interpretative viewpoint blending perspectives to form a composite view of digital existence. The paper uses philosophy, sociology and linguistics within an ethnographic framework of contrasting cultural and cultural artefact views. Digital being and the relationship between physical and virtual are discussed. Evidence suggests acceptance of the virtual world as a location of coexistence. How technology has merged with humans so that humans have become more than their organic selves is examined. In a virtual world, digital existence is achieved through Daseinian avatars and so the concept of self is explored. There then follows a broader discussion about the online world which leads into how these new technologies become accepted by individuals and society. The influence of mass media is considered in this context. This is followed by a short analysis of the vocabulary used to describe the online world. The paper ends with a call to rethink how to view and react to the online world. Existing positions are challenged as being inappropriate given the analysis undertaken

Exoskeleton for the Mind: Exploring Strategies Against Misinformation with a Metacognitive Agent

Misinformation is a global problem in modern social media platforms with few solutions known to be effective. Social media platforms have offered tools to raise awareness of information, but these are closed systems that have not been empirically evaluated. Others have developed novel tools and strategies, but most have been studied out of context using static stimuli, researcher prompts, or low fidelity prototypes. We offer a new anti-misinformation agent grounded in theories of metacognition that was evaluated within Twitter. We report on a pilot study (n=17) and multi-part experimental study (n=57, n=49) where participants experienced three versions of the agent, each deploying a different strategy. We found that no single strategy was superior over the control. We also confirmed the necessity of transparency and clarity about the agent's underlying logic, as well as concerns about repeated exposure to misinformation and lack of user engagement.Comment: Pages 209-22