Computer Literacy Challenges for Adult Returning Students, Lost in a Different Generation of Computer?

In recent years, many adult returning students go back to school for college degree and retooling. Many of them are struggling with computer literacy skills. In this study, we try to understand the computer related challenges that adult returning students are facing. We identify the difficulties they encounter through direct observations in classroom. We also use informal conversations with students to help us understand why they have the challenges. Next, we conduct critical analysis by taking the conceptual lens of empathetic thinking and disruptive information technology (IT) innovation. We discover several factors that may contribute to adult returning students’ struggles with computer literacy. Furthermore, we suggest several ways that may help adult returning students overcome the adversity. This research will contribute to our general understanding of the computer literacy challenges faced by adult returning students. The research findings also have important implications for Information Systems (IS) educators and college administrators

Text Classification with Imperfect Hierarchical Structure Knowledge

Many real world classification problems involve classes organized in a hierarchical tree-like structure. However in many cases the hierarchical structure is ignored and each class is treated in isolation or in other words the class structure is flattened (Dumais and Chen, 2000). In this paper, we propose a new approach of incorporating hierarchical structure knowledge by cascading it as an additional feature for Child level classifier. We posit that our cascading model will outperform the baseline “flat” model. Our empirical experiment provides strong evidences supporting our proposal. Interestingly, even imperfect hierarchical structure knowledge would also improve classification performance

STRESS FROM INTERNET FRAUD AND ONLINE SOCIAL SUPPORT

This exploratory research attempts to fill the literature gap by investigating ordinary user’s response to Internet transaction fraud and examining the types of online social support. We adapt the stress process model from the psychology literature and apply it to the context of Internet fraud. Moreover, we propose a conceptual online social support model for Internet fraud. We argue that there are two types of support mechanisms – factual information exchange and emotional support. In addition to proposing the above two conceptual models, we conduct two preliminary qualitative case studies. First, we report a case of eBay fraud and perform in-depth analysis of the victims’ belief, emotion and behavior response to a fraud in light of the stress process model. Second, we present a threaded discussion on eBay Community Answer Center, which is about money wire transfer fraud. We show that the reply sentences convey either information exchange or emotional support

Faculty Informal Self-learning and Ways to Engage Students

Many junior Information Systems (IS) faculty members are facing the challenge of how to find time to learn and bring in fresh subject content to classroom teaching beyond textbooks, given the tight constraint of time consumed by multiple teaching preparations, research activities, and various service commitments. We propose the idea of faculty informal self-learning and then sharing the newly acquired knowledge with students in classroom discussions. We describe the initiative of collaborating with our college IT services department for this purpose. More specifically, we invite college IT services staff to give students a campus network tour and a talk on network administration in our telecommunication class, and speak on cloud service and disaster recovery in our MIS club meetings. We also intentionally engage in informal conversations with the IT services staff to learn new practical knowledge with the aim to share with students and thus motivate their desire to learn

Novice User’s Trust of Data Mining Technology

Although data mining has been widely and successfully used in the domain of business operations, research into how novice end users might make an adoption decision is sparse and much needed. This paper employs a view that trust is generally assumed to be an important precondition for the adoption of any information technology and identifies the antecedents of trust in data mining systems synthesizing empirical studies on people’s trust in computer-mediated services as well as multiple anecdotal evidences documented in the literature

The Relationship Between IT Infastructure and Strategic Agility in Organizations

This article looks at the relationship between the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and organizations agility requirements. The concept of IT infrastructure agility has captured the attention of researchers and practitioners. Although the importance of IT infrastructure agility has been established, the development of a valid, reliable instrument to measure this construct has not been reported in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to better define the IT infrastructure agility construct and to develop a valid and reliable measurement instrument for this construct. We develop a unique survey scale to measure IT infrastructure agility and organizational agility requirements. The organizational agility requirement metrics were developed to measure customer agility, partnering agility and operational agility. IT infrastructure agility was measured on the basis of its connectivity, compatibility, modularity and capability characteristics. Based on these measures we will look at the “fit” between organizational agility requirements and the existing IT infrastructure

A Conceptual Model of Recommender System for Algorithm Selection

Classifier selection process implies mastering a lot of background information on the dataset, the model and the algorithms in question. We suggest that a recommender system can reduce this effort by registering background information and the knowledge of the expert. In this study we propose such a system and take a first look on how it can be done. We compare various classifiers against different datasets and then come up with the most appropriate classifier for a particular dataset based on its unique characteristic

Enterprise IT Application Systems Agility and Organizational Agility

Enterprise information technology (IT) application systems are conceived and implemented to help organizations to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, the continuously changing environment, competitive market, and emerging technology require IT application systems to be more agile to accommodate the changes. In this paper, we link the enterprise IT application technical agility (Byrd and turner, 2000) with organizational agility (Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj and Grover, 2003). We propose that IT application modularity, IT connectivity, and IT compatibility (IT application technical agility) affect customer agility, partnering agility and operational and decision making agility (organizational agility). Measurements for IT application technical agility and organizational agility, an empirical study design as well as data analysis method are discussed. This study extends our knowledge of agile enterprise IT applications and organizational agility. This study will also benefit practitioners by identifying how technical enterprise IT agility affects organizational agility

Consumer Acceptance of Online Digital Music Store

While the innovation of online digital music stores represents a revolution in the entertainment industry, there is little rigorous academic research that examines the IT aspects of the movement. In this study, we investigate the salient factors that will affect consumers’ acceptance of online digital music stores. Based on the Personal Trait theory, Technology Acceptance Model, and Psychology Flow theory, we propose an integrated conceptual model to explain the emerging phenomena. A simulated lab experiment design and PLS as data analysis method are discussed. The main contribution of this work is theoretical that we identify the factors that may inhibit and promote consumer acceptance of online digital music stores. We demonstrate a way to integrate multiple theories to address the issue. This research extends our understanding of the adoption of online digital music stores. Moreover, the test of the model may assist online digital music stores in improving consumer acceptance

MOTIVATING BUSINESS MAJOR STUDENTS TO LEARN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING – A CASE STUDY

Learning to program is viewed as difficult by many students. How to motivate and engage business major students to learn programming is challenging. In this paper, we report our attempt to teach business students programming. In our teaching method, first we orient students with the business and managerial aspect of programming by posing six original questions. By discussing these six questions, students gain appreciation of the high level responsibility of participating, contributing, assessing, and managing Information Systems (IS) as business professionals. Second, we adopt a Let Us Do It Together approach to deliver hands on labs to teach the technical aspect of programming. Inspired by the constructivism learning theory and the learning by doing and experimentation idea, our Let Us Do It Together approach mitigates students’ anxiety and fear of programming. Overall, our teaching approach seems to enhance students’ interest in programming