UTeM's Undergraduate Experience on Facebook: Preliminary Findings

Social network sites are becoming more popular and are being used by different groups of people. A market study conducted by Nickburcher (2009) on facebook usage reported that there are now 27 countries with over 1 million people using facebook. Malaysia was reported to have 1,069,260 million of people log on to facebook by March 2009. Among the popular social networking sites are facebook, MySpace and Twitter. However, in Malaysia little is known about how much, why and how users use Facebook. In this study, 100 engineering undergraduates comprises of 50 males and 50 females of Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka completed their reflecting journaling method across five days and supplemented by survey were completed, reporting the prevalence and time spent, why and how they use the facebook. Preliminary findings of the study indicated that females participants spent more often for social interaction with whom they have built offline relationship. Implications of facebook use for the development of identity and peer relationships are discussed

Best Website of Practices by Malaysian Environmental NGOs: A Comparative Study

This research is the first attempt to cover best practices for environmental websites in Malaysia. We choose five environmental NGOs in Malaysia (ENGOMs) for a case study and evaluated website practices they used to communicate their missions and goals. A quantitative data was collected and analyzed via content analysis of the five ENGOM websites. The content analysis of the websites sought to determine, identify and assess the best practices of the environmental issues and potentially mobilize government or public action on these issues. How do the ENGOMs effectively use the website to communicate their organizations' missions goals? We conducted an extensive literature review to identify features of websites such as the usefulness of information, interactivity, navigability and design that have been evaluated as important by previous researchers. Then we used these features as a basis for assessing the effectiveness of the practices of environmental websites in Malaysia. The web content analysis demonstrates that all the five ENGOMs had relatively small websites, providing useful information such as mission, goals and organization background. Most of the global issues advocated by them were meant to mobilise support and action. This is considered a rather ineffective use of OC. Interactivity features available across their websites were categorized as a 'low' level of utilization. The ENGOMs did not fully utilize them for the purpose of conducting online campaigns and encouraging dialogue. The navigability of the five ENGOMs websites was categorized at a 'good' level, given that the majority of them provided good and easy navigation. The majority of the websites also met the 'well designed' requirements. Overall, the five ENGOMs have delivered most of the best practice features expected in effective environmental websites; Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) was ranked as the best websites, while Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) is at the opposite end of the spectrum. ENGOMs in their endeavor to develop their websites. However, a key finding is that the websites with more resources did not use them as effectively as websites with fewer resources. Thus, one or two conscientious and well trained employees could be successful with limited resources

Microstructural properties of glass composite material made from incinerated scheduled waste slag and soda lime silicate (SLS) waste glass

Glass composite material (GCM) was produced from incinerated scheduled waste bottom slag (BS) and soda lime silicate (SLS) waste glass. The effect of BS waste loading on the GCM and the microstructural properties was studied. Batches of powder mixture is formulated with 30 wt.% to 70 wt.% of BS powder and SLS waste glass powder for GCM sintering. The powder mixtures of BS and SLS waste glass were compacted by uniaxial pressing method and sintered at 800 °C with heating rate of 2 °C/min and one hour soaking time. The phases identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) method in all sintered samples are anorthite sodian, quartz, hematite and diopside. It was observed that higher BS waste loading results in higher porosity, higher water absorption and lower bulk density according to ASTM C373. In contrast, the Vickers microhardness value determined according to ASTM C1327, decreases with higher BS waste loading. This similar trend is observed for modulus of rupture (MOR) analysis which was performed according to ISO 10545-4. This physical and mechanical properties can be related to the microstructure observed during scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis. More open pores and less dense surface are observed for higher BS waste loading samples. On the other hand, samples with lower BS waste loading consists of higher dense surface and no open pores. GCM with batch formulation of 30 wt.% BS and 70 wt.% SLS waste glass has shown the lowest water absorption percentage of 1.17%, the lowest porosity percentage of 2.2% and the highest bulk density value of 1.88 g/cm3. It also shows the highest MOR of 70.57 MPa and 5.6 GPa for Vickers microhardness with congruent microstructure features

Relationship between Technological Frames and Technology Transfer

This paper discusses a proposal to study the complex relationship of technological frames and the role it may plays in technology transfer. Using Communication Based Model, the study tries to seek answers for the following research questions. What is the relationship between similar technological frames and technology transfer among Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the line operators at an interpersonal communication level of analysis. Findings of this study may offer contributions for researcher as well as organizational development and communication specialists and manufacturing company managers