Knowledge contribution in virtual communities: accounting for multiple dimensions of social presence through social identity

Integrating social presence theory and social identity theory, this study brings system design and social influence aspects together to explain their joint effects on knowledge contribution in virtual communities (VCs). Different from most prior information systems (IS) research that adopts a uni-dimensional approach and restricts social presence to be the subjective nature of media, we developed and empirically tested a model explaining the effects of multi-dimensional social presence on social identification processes and knowledge contribution. An online survey was conducted with four different VCs of interest. The results showed the difference in relative contribution of social presence dimensions on social identity as well as knowledge contribution. Both practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Exploring 3‐D virtual reality technology for spatial ability and chemistry achievement

We investigated the potential of Second Life^® (SL), a three‐dimensional (3‐D) virtual world, to enhance undergraduate students’ learning of a vital chemistry concept. A quasi‐experimental pre‐posttest control group design was used to conduct the study. A total of 387 participants completed three assignment activities either in SL or using two‐dimensional (2‐D) images. Students were administered an 11‐question chemistry achievement test and two measures of spatial ability (Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test, Card Rotations Test). Although analyses of covariance revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups as a whole for any of the outcome measures, a subgroup analyses was conducted to decompose the relative impact of 3‐D virtual reality instruction within SL. We found that students classified as having poor spatial ability showed significantly greater improvement in understanding the 3‐D nature of molecules if they did relevant activities in a 3‐D virtual world than those students who only worked with 2‐D images.     

Creating convivial affordances: A study of virtual world social movements

The study of technology and societal challenges is a growing area in information systems research. This paper explores how social movements can use virtual worlds to raise awareness or create safe spaces for their members. As social movements move into virtual worlds, the technical environment becomes more important. This paper presents an interpretive field study using netnographic research and empirical data from a study of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movement in World of Warcraft. This paper takes the position that an understanding of affordances is required for users to be able to create convivial outcomes to shape the use of virtual worlds for their own goals and intentions. The paper presents the concept of convivial affordances, which brings together the theories of affordances and conviviality, and suggests that social users can shape IT artefacts through a creative combination of affordances for their specific goals, and with community involvement.     

Social virtual world continuance among teens: uncovering the moderating role of perceived aggregate network exposure

Engagement in virtual worlds has become pervasive, particularly among the young. At the same time, the number of virtual environments has increased rapidly. Due to intensifying competition, promoting sustained usage, i.e. continuance, has become a top priority for virtual world operators. Prior research has shown that network externalities play a key role in the adoption of communication technologies. However, a small amount of research has examined the role of network externalities in continued IT usage in general or with respect to the virtual world participation in particular. To fill in this gap, we examine how perceived network externalities affect the continuance of social virtual worlds. To this end, we introduce the concept of perceived aggregate network exposure (PANE). We extend the original information systems (IS) continuance model with perceived enjoyment and position PANE as a moderator. We test the model with data collected from 2134 Finnish Habbo Hotel users and employ structural equation modelling in the analysis. The results demonstrate that PANE moderates the influence of motivational factors on continued use intention and satisfaction.     

Discursive Equality and Everyday Talk Online: The Impact of “Superparticipants”

Empirical studies of online debate almost universally observe a “dominant” minority of posters. Informed by theories of deliberative democracy, these are typically framed negatively—yet research into their impact on debate is scant. To address this, a typology of what we call super‐participation (super‐posters, agenda‐setters and facilitators) is developed and applied to the http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ forum. Focusing on the first of these, we found 2,052 superposters (0.4%) contributing 47% of 25m+ posts. While superposters were quantitatively dominant, qualitative content analysis of the discursive practices of 25 superposters (n=40,044) found that most did not attempt to stop other users from posting (curbing) or attack them (flaming). In fact, in contradiction to the received wisdom, super‐posters discursively performed a range of positive roles.     

Effects of culture,social presence,and group composition on trust in technology‐supported decision‐making groups

This study examines trust in technology‐supported groups from the perspectives of culture, social presence and group composition. Our results demonstrate that, in culturally homogeneous groups, individualism has a negative impact on the level of interpersonal trust; however, in culturally heterogeneous groups consisting of Chinese and U.S. participants, individualism has a positive impact on interpersonal trust among members. There were also significant differences in the level of trust between homogeneous Chinese groups and heterogeneous groups consisting of Chinese and U.S. participants. In addition, the mediating role of communication quality was identified to explain the effect for trust‐of social presence on trust. These findings have important implications on building and communication in global technology‐supported decision‐making groups.     

Serendipity: “Expect also the Unexpected”

Serendipity is defined as the art of discovering an unsought finding. Over a thousand examples have been collected and examined, including material from unpublished work by the American sociologist, Robert Merton. It is suggested that serendipity play a supporting but essential role in discoveries in science, technology, the arts and daily life. The phenomenon deserves more serious attention as it may offer prospects of unsought benefits in all these fields of endeavour.     

Towards the interactive filmic narrative—“Transparency”: An experimental approach

Nowadays, the cinematographic language claims for a specific type of interpretation and understanding. The emergence of the digital image and the innovative immersive reception devices provide new and diverse possibilities of reading and interacting within the filmic narrative. That is to say, cinema is constantly reinvented and explores potential renewals within the new interactive medias. This article reflects not only on the mutations of the filmic narrative, but also on its adaptation to interactivity. It proposes, also, new models of implementation, from traditional filmic narrative towards an interactive one. The experimental project Transparency illustrates it—it is a cinematographic project, which has the main goal of studying the interactive filmic narrative. An original plot has been created and adapted to an interactive narrative structure. The project is presented under the form of an installation allowing the spectators to choose the narrative sequences of the story.     

Risky Social Networking Practices Among “Underage” Users: Lessons for Evidence‐Based Policy

European self‐regulation to ensure children's safety on social networking sites requires that providers ensure children are old enough to use the sites, aware of safety messages, empowered by privacy settings, discouraged from disclosing personal information, and supported by easy to use reporting mechanisms. This article assesses the regulatory framework with findings from a survey of over 25000 9‐ to 16‐year‐olds from 25 European countries. These reveal many underage children users, and many who lack the digital skills to use social networking sites safely. Despite concerns that children defy parental mediation, many comply with parental rules regarding social networking. The implications of the findings are related to policy decisions on lower age limits and self‐regulation of social networking sites.     

Provision and maintenance of presence and immersion in hand‐held virtual reality through motion based interaction

Hand‐held devices are also becoming computationally more powerful and being equipped with special sensors and non‐traditional displays for diverse applications aside from just making phone calls. As such, it raises the question of whether realizing virtual reality, providing a minimum level of immersion and presence, might be possible on a hand‐held device capable of only relatively “small” display. In this paper, we propose that motion based interaction can widen the perceived field of view (FOV) more than the actual physical FOV, and in turn, increase the sense of presence and immersion up to a level comparable to that of a desktop or projection display based VR systems. We have implemented a prototype hand‐held VR platform and conducted two experiments to verify our hypothesis. Our experimental study has revealed that when a motion based interaction was used, the FOV perceived by the user for the small hand held device was significantly greater than (around 50%) the actual. Other larger display platforms using the conventional button or mouse/keyboard interface did not exhibit such a phenomenon. In addition, the level of user felt presence in the hand‐held platform was higher than or comparable to those in VR platforms with larger displays. We hypothesize that this phenomenon is related to and analogous to the way the human vision system compensates for differences in acuity resolution in the eye/retina through the saccadic activity. The paper demonstrates the distinct possibility of realizing reasonable virtual reality even with devices with a small visual FOV and limited processing power. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Knowledge exchange in the shrines of knowledge: The “how’s” and “where’s” of knowledge sharing processes

Academic conferences are places of situated learning dedicated to the exchange of knowledge. Knowledge is exchanged between colleagues who are looking to enhance their future research by taking part in several formal and informal settings (lectures, discussions and social events). We studied the processes of knowledge sharing and the influence of the use of IT at the International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS2007) held in Montréal. We describe the categories of knowledge content shared at the conference. Two forms of knowledge sharing were analyzed: formal, guided, planned knowledge sharing in lectures or discussions, and informal knowledge exchange during social events. Data were collected from 274 participants at the conference. The intensity of knowledge sharing in the formal settings was higher compared to the informal settings and was perceived as contributing to future research and to the creation of social relationships. In contrast, informal knowledge sharing contributed mainly to job enhancement and to the initiation of meetings. The discussion centers on planning and evaluating conferences in terms of seeking, creating and sustaining knowledge sharing.     

The stress and workload of virtual reality training: the effects of presence,immersion and flow

The present investigation evaluated the effects of virtual reality (VR) training on the performance, perceived workload and stress response to a live training exercise in a sample of Soldiers. We also examined the relationship between the perceptions of that same VR as measured by engagement, immersion, presence, flow, perceived utility and ease of use with the performance, workload and stress reported on the live training task. To a degree, these latter relationships were moderated by task performance, as measured by binary (Go/No-Go) ratings. Participants who reported positive VR experiences also tended to experience lower stress and lower workload when performing the live version of the task. Thus, VR training regimens may be efficacious for mitigating the stress and workload associated with criterion tasks, thereby reducing the ultimate likelihood of real-world performance failure.

Practitioner Summary: VR provides opportunities for training in artificial worlds comprised of highly realistic features. Our virtual room clearing scenario facilitated the integration of Training and Readiness objectives and satisfied training doctrine obligations in a compelling engaging experience for both novice and experienced trainees.     

An addendum on “Robust control of robots by the computed torque method”

We reinterprete and improve recent results on robust control of robots by the computed method. The methods and ideas used are inspired by ‘passivity based’ control methods for robot manipulators and lead to a significant increase in freedom of controller implementation, thereby providing more flexibility to the designer of robot control systems.     

Broadening the understanding of social presence: Implications and contributions to the mediated communication and online education

Social presence is a concept found to facilitate effective learning experiences in online education. However, there is limited understanding of the theoretical notion in the literature. In an attempt to broaden the understanding of social presence, the current investigation examined two issues: a) distinction between social presence and interactivity, and b) multidimensional nature of social presence and its predictive validity for online learning experiences. Data were collected from 210 undergraduate students using an online survey. Findings indicate that social presence and interactivity are related but distinct constructs. Both psychological involvement and co-presence appear to be under the concept of social presence. The data indicate strong predictive validity of social presence for online learning experiences when it is measured with both dimensions of psychological involvement and co-presence.     

An investigation of the impact of media capabilities and extraversion on social presence and user satisfaction

A significant body of research examines media use and user satisfaction, and these studies are mostly focused on the choice of a specific media. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of media capabilities and individual characteristics on social presence, and the subsequent impact on user satisfaction. Drawing on Media Synchronicity Theory, we propose a research model that identifies five physical media capabilities as the determinants of social presence (i.e. the degree to which individuals feel connected to others in online communities), and we then assess the effect of social presence on user satisfaction. Our results suggest that (1) certain media capabilities and (2) extraversion have a positive impact on whether individuals feel connected to others in online communities (i.e. computer-mediated communications). In addition, our moderation analysis shows that extraversion affects social presence differently across communication tasks, suggesting that social presence is a result of the dynamic interaction between media capabilities, the individual, and the task. These results should be of interest to organisations that rely upon virtual meetings to accomplish tasks, as well as to media developers who seek media capabilities that promote a feeling of connected communication between individuals in virtual space.     

“ExTherm 2 ”: An interactive support package of experimental and computational thermodynamics

“ExTherm 2” shows clear advances over ExTHERM as presented in [J. Tomiska, CALPHAD 26 (2002) 143–154]: All three parts have been improved in powerfulness, comfort, and interactive work. Especially the module cM3_ is now designed for interactive evaluation by means of an overall best fit technique applicable on experimental data from calorimetric and vapor pressure measurements as well as from measurements on the electromotive force (emf) on all types of metal alloy. The new data bank module cM1_(ETD/ ExP/ PhD) is an easy-to-handle tool for interactive work in many applications in physical chemistry. The data bank ETD has been enlarged by a series of new molar mixing properties of all types of metal alloy systems, and two sub-modules are added: The first tool, ExP, makes extrapolating binary data to a high number of ternary systems of all types of metal alloy possible. And the second tool, PhD, is designed for simple interactive computations on binary phase diagrams, especially for education items.     

Adoption of travel information in user-generated content on social media: the moderating effect of social presence

Travel patterns have gradually changed from group travel to individual travel. An increasing number of people acquire travel information through various types of media. One of the alternative information sources is social media, which enables users to exchange information among members. However, one of the characteristics of social media is information sharing, not information search, which involves both giving (i.e. posting) and taking (i.e. selective reading, forwarding, replying, linking, and liking) information. Compared to the ‘giving’ side of information-sharing research, less effort has been spent on the ‘taking’ side of information research. Therefore, we investigate travel information adoption in social media as well as how individuals communicate with each other. We use the elaboration likelihood model, which measures the impact of central (e.g. argument quality) and peripheral (e.g. credibility) cues on traveller information-sharing behaviour corresponding with social presence on social media. The results of an empirical analysis of 527 respondents, who were experienced in travel information adoption via social media, were examined. Our findings revealed that argument quality had a positive effect on perceived usefulness and source credibility positively affected perceived usefulness and social relationships. Perceived usefulness had a significant positive effect on social relationships. Both perceived usefulness and social relationships affected travel information adoption. Lastly, the levels of argument quality and source credibility perceived by social media members were found to differ according to the level of social presence.     

Numerical studies of “side-by-side” and other modes for the Taylor problem in a finite annulus

A numerical scheme for solving the Navier-Stokes equations for axisymmetric flow in a Couette apparatus is presented. It is time-dependent, and uses primitive variables with finite-differencing on a stretched, staggered grid. The model gives good agreement with the experiments. Anomalous modes have been found and are initially established by a technique in which Schaeffer's [1] end-wall boundary conditions are used to set up a steady state, and then the boundary conditions are gradually changed to those of the finite-length, Taylor apparatus. When both the inner and outer walls of the annulus rotate, a new class of “side-by-side” modes is predicted.