The impact of skills and demographics on end-user developers’ use of support

There are many end-user developers but they are quite often left to their own devices when it comes to finding support for development tasks, particularly those who belong to small organisations. With less access to formal support sources we would expect them to turn to more informal as well as on-line sources. However, the use of on-line sources requires skill and confidence in using computers and the Internet. In this paper, we look at a group of small organisations and what impact the skill and demographic factors have on the use of different support sources among existing and potential end-user developers. The analysis was performed using the self-organizing map. It suggests that personal contacts form a default source for people and that increased skills leads to less reliance on these. Computer and Internet skill are the most important factors influencing support use, enabling some end-user developers to “self-help”

On-line support - a virtual treasure trove for end-user developers in small organisations?

End-user development of spreadsheet applications or models is both a problem and opportunity for small organisations. In an educational programme aimed at small-business owners, we have observed the problems end-user developers in small organisations are facing. They lack essential basic computer skills, yet when they have been taught these they will soon find that their ideas for further development outstrip their actual skills. The problems are similar to those that other end-user developers face with one additional factor: in small organisations access to the traditional sources of support are limited or even nonexistent. In an explorative study we try to pinpoint what, if anything, the participants feel about on-line support and if they use it to solve problems. It seems that in this case while Internet is recognized as a source of information for work related problems this does not extend to computer related problems

Looking beyond the veil – what makes the micro organisation end-user developers tick?

Information and communication technology offers the opportunity to make current work more effective and enable new developments. This is in particular needed in micro-organisations, who have to cope with very limited resources. End-user development could be a solution for these problems. However, supporting the heterogeneous user population is problematic. On-line sources could possibly bridge this gap, but are they suitable for all end-user developers? What, if any, are the characteristics of potential end-user developers and how are they connected to the current use of support. What can we say about the future

What Are the Roles of Information, Participation and Cooperation Overload in End-User Development Support?

Abstract. This paper discusses the concept of information, participation and collaboration overload in relation to end-user development support. The concept of information, participation and collaboration overload are very interesting and relevant points of view for analysing support in the context of end-user development. The end-user developer, working in an unfamiliar domain, is very likely to suffer from information overload. Solving this overload problem by contacting other people can lead to collaboration and participation overload issues. The initial lens used is a knowledge transfer and socio-technical viewpoint. An existing collaborative environment, a virtual community in the form of an on-line support forum is used as an example case. How the various overload issues are potentially interacting in this setting can give ideas for understanding the concept of cultures of participation and guide future research and practice

Virtual communities : a virtual treasure trove for end-user developers

End-user development is a very common but often largely overlooked phenomenon in information systems research and practice. End-user development means that regular people, the end-users of software, and not professional developers are doing software development. A large number of people are directly or indirectly impacted by the results of these non-professional development activities. The numbers of users performing end-user development activities are difficult to ascertain precisely. But it is very large, and still growing. Computer adoption is growing towards 100% and many new types of computational devices are continually introduced. In addition, other devices not previously programmable are becoming so. This means that, at this very moment, hundreds of millions of people are likely struggling with development problems. Furthermore, software itself is continually being adapted for more flexibility, enabling users to change the behaviour of their software themselves. New software and services are helping to transform users from consumers to producers. Much of this is now found on-line. The problem for the end-user developer is that little of this development is supported by anyone. Often organisations do not notice end-user development and consequently neither provide support for it, nor are equipped to be able to do so. Many end-user developers do not belong to any organisation at all. Also, the end-user development process may be aggravating the problem. End-users are usually not really committed to the development process, which tends to be more iterative and ad hoc. This means support becomes a distant third behind getting the job done and figuring out the development issues to get the job done. Sometimes the software itself may exacerbate the issue by simplifying the development process, deemphasising the difficulty of the task being undertaken. On-line support could be the lifeline the end-user developer needs. Going online one can find all the knowledge one could ever need. However, that does still not help the end-user apply this information or knowledge in practice. A virtual community, through its ability to adopt the end-user’s specific context, could surmount this final obstacle. This thesis explores the concept of end-user development and how it could be supported through on-line sources, in particular virtual communities, which it is argued here, seem to fit the end-user developer’s needs very well. The experiences of real end-user developers and prior literature were used in this process. Emphasis has been on those end-user developers, e.g. small business owners, who may have literally nowhere to turn to for support. Adopting the viewpoint of the end-user developer, the thesis examines the question of how an end-user could use a virtual community effectively, improving the results of the support process. Assuming the common situation where the demand for support outstrips the supply

Plz Urgent Help Needed!1!! – Aspects of On-line Knowledge Sharing in End-user Development Support

In this paper the knowledge sharing and contributing in on-line communities, specifically one for providing end-user development support is examined. The focus is on the knowledge seeker/contributor interactions and how the seeker can impact on the quality of support. Knowledge seekers post threads asking questions and contributors answer them. Knowledge contributors were asked their attitude towards the support interaction, e.g. the impact of the topic, the importance of presentation and content and knowledge seeker actions. From the answers a set of guidelines for best practice knowledge seeker actions is constructed that outlines what a knowledge seeker can do to improve the chance of getting help