Twittermania: Understanding How Social Media Technologies Impact Engagement and Academic Performance of a New Generation of Learners

Twitter, a popular micro-blogging service, is increasingly evolving from being a mere chatting platform to a tool that is instrumental in affecting a desired learning and social change among individuals and organizations. Although using Twitter for learning while socializing represents a significant departure from its intended initial function, information systems (IS) researchers should further explore the impact and implications of social media technologies such as Twitter in the educational context. We draws on engagement theory and social impact theory to assess how social media technologies tools can support learning and improve students’ academic outcomes. We present an experiment in which we compared Twitter and a traditional discussion board to academically engage students over a 14-week period. The results show that actively using both Twitter and traditional discussion boards for engagement is related to student performance in the course. Social network analysis suggests that, by using Twitter, the students possibly created shared mental models that led them to engage with the class more, and therefore, better their performance

AMCIS 2006 Tutorial Paper: A Review of Methods to Assess National Knowledge in the Knowledge Economy

The evolving role of knowledge in modern societies has spurred an interest in better evaluating knowledge creation capabilities of a variety of business, non-profit, national or multinational actors. Our field has extensively focused on reviewing knowledge management evaluation and implementation programs at the organizational level. In this paper, which stems from a tutorial presented at AMICS 2006 in Acapulco, we focus on the efforts undertaken by International Development Institutions (IDIs) to assess the role of knowledge as a driver of national wealth and economic development. This paper describes methodological frameworks - such as the knowledge assessments - used to evaluate a country\u27s potential to generate new knowledge. Knowledge assessments comprise of qualitative and quantitative exercises to collect benchmarking data on relative national standing in knowledge endowment (the knowledge indexes). The review suggests some open issues and solicits enhancing the predictive capabilities of current models

Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Management Minitrack

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Community by Design: Prioritizing the Factors that Drive Knowledge Use in Online Question & Answers Platforms

The question of how knowledge assets are utilized in the context of online communities is the primary impetus of this research. Using a multilevel approach, this paper investigates factors that influence the use of knowledge in an online question and answer platform (OQA). It focuses on three levels including informational, individual, and community, and reviews interactions across each level. The study tests the multilevel model with data from StackOverflow.com, a renowned online community for programmers to exchange knowledge assets, especially questions and answers about coding issues. Traditional hierarchical regression analysis proved insufficient to explicate the complexity associated with human decision-making processes with respect to asset utilization. However, a machine learning technique with a Chi-square automatic interaction detection algorithm provided a richer understanding of the relative importance of factors and their thresholds for influencing knowledge asset use

Testing Multimedia for Ecological Sustainability

The research in progress reviews the interaction of interactive technology with learning theories and applies it to environmental education. The intended goal is raising attention to environmental damage cause by mass tourism. It suggests an educational strategy that incorporates various technologies to increase motivation and achieve longer-term attitudinal change. Although the use of multimedia is limited by the lack of investment for producing software applications for environmental use, expansion of virtual reality and multimedia software may be the closest, and most sustainable, answer to eco-tourism problems. Effectiveness of the use of multimedia applications on potential travelers is tested through pretest and posttest research design

Giving and Taking in Online Communities of Practice: The Role of Geography and Culture in Knowledge Sharing and Innovation

Researchers have long been fascinated with the phenomenon of lurking and free riding in knowledge sharing. This interest has led to the investigation of which factors drive decisions to contribute to a knowledge exchange as opposed to only exploiting the information in such exchange. Many studies have specifically focused on identifying the extrinsic and intrinsic motivational drivers for knowledge sharing in communities of practice by administering user surveys on behavioral intention, expectations, and satisfaction with the community. Our analysis is different from prior studies in that it does not look at expectations of reciprocity and other individual characteristics. Rather, it extracts and analyzes interaction data and, then, it groups such data based on factors like geographical location and related cultural background. This study adopts known models of national culture and relates them to social interactions using a large dataset mined from an online community of practice. The results show interesting deviations from the literature, which may be limited to the specific community of practice (programmers sharing coding knowledge) or may guide the design of open innovation systems that support knowledge sharing. This paper presents the first step on why and how to conduct such studies and suggests open questions for future study