Layering community media in place

Abstract

This paper presents a community-based use of location-sensitive media technology, drawing on it to discuss: relationships between personal and community experience and place; participation and ownership of community-based location-sensitive media projects; the potential of this technology for rich and diverse self-representations; and the kind of context that might enable ongoing community-based use.     

Individual characteristics influencing the sharing of knowledge on social networking services: online identity,self-efficacy,and knowledge sharing intentions

ABSTRACT

Social media have become an important place for individuals with similar interests to exchange opinions and share resources. Ubiquitous collaborative learning environments in SNS have great educational and organisational potential and offer a platform for sharing knowledge. Rising interest in personal factors in knowledge management research calls for a better understanding of how knowledge is shared in SNS-based collaborative learning. Grounded on the theories of planned behaviour and social identity, this study investigates individual characteristics that affect the sharing of knowledge in SNS learning communities. The study also examines whether intent to share knowledge mediates those personal characteristics and sharing of knowledge. Eighty individuals from five active Facebook groups participated in this study. The findings indicate that individual characteristics, such as online personal identity, web-specific self-efficacy, and knowledge-creation self-efficacy significantly predict sharing of knowledge. In addition, intent to share knowledge mediates between the sharing of knowledge and online identity, web-specific self-efficacy, or knowledge-creation self-efficacy. The results reveal a need for customised support and environmental design focusing on online personal identity, web-specific self-efficacy, knowledge-creation self-efficacy, and intent to share knowledge in a knowledge-sharing community on SNS. Implications for the SNS communities and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Social movement documentary practices: digital storytelling,social media and organizing

ABSTRACT

Scholars and activists have studied social movement media for its potential to challenge dominant narratives, build community relationships and create social change. This paper presents a case study of two short-form documentary projects with Black Lives Matter 5280 and the Service Employees International Union, Local 105 in Denver, Colorado to explore how collaborative media-making projects assist in building local grassroots campaigns of racial and economic justice. The communication strategies as well as the distribution efforts via online social networks and community screenings are discussed in order to analyse how documentaries rely upon personal narratives to animate members and allies’ feelings and then connect them with traditional forms of organizing like community meetings and public demonstrations. The participatory aspects of filmmaking are viewed through democratic theory, which emphasizes the social relations of citizenship and shared communal values over material and cultural resources, rather than visual aesthetics or technical processes.     

Who to follow recommendation in large-scale online development communities

ContextOpen source development allows a large number of people to reuse and contribute source code to the community. Social networking features open opportunities for information discovery, social collaborations, and improved recommendations of potential collaborators.ObjectiveOnline community and development platforms rely on social network features to increase awareness and attention among community members for improved collaborations. The objective of this work is to introduce an approach for recommending relevant users to follow. Follower networks provide means for informal information propagation. The efficiency and effectiveness of such information flows is impacted by the network structure. Here, we aim to understand the resilience of networks against random or strategic node removal.MethodSocial network features of online software development communities present a new opportunity to enhance online collaboration. Our approach is based on the automatic analysis of user behavior and network structure. The proposed ‘who to follow’ recommendation algorithm can be parametrized for specific contexts. Link-analysis techniques such as PageRank/HITS provide the basis for a novel ‘who to follow’ recommendation model.ResultsWe tested the approach using a GitHub-based dataset. Currently, users follow popular community members to get updates regarding their activities instead of maintaining personal relations. Thus, social network features require further improvements to increase reciprocity. The application of our ‘who to follow’ recommendation model using the GitHub dataset shows excellent results with respect to context-sensitive following recommendations. The sensitivity of GitHub’s follower network to random node removal is comparable with other social networks but more sensitive to follower authority based node removal.ConclusionLink-based algorithm can be used for context-sensitive ‘who to follow’ recommendations. GitHub is highly sensitive to authority based node removal. Information flow established through follower relations will be strongly impacted if many authorities are removed from the network. This underpins the importance of ‘central’ users and the validity of focusing the ‘who to follow’ recommendations on those users.     

The role of a location-based city exploration game in digital placemaking

ABSTRACT

Many digital technologies, such as social media, community systems, and public displays, have been studied to explore how people engage with each other in their community. Yet little is known about how one form of technology, location-based games (LBGs), can support urban residents in community awareness, city exploration, and placemaking as they navigate spaces and places in their cities. To explore this topic, we investigated the challenges urban residents faced in finding information about their community along a transit network. We then designed, developed, and evaluated an LBG called City Explorer that supports city exploration using gamification and the viewing and sharing of community information. We found that residents valued the fun, competition, and rewards afforded through play in public spaces, creating opportunities for placemaking through location services and knowledge sharing. Players also wanted additional knowledge about their transit commutes, including data about the frequency and routines of their transit rides. Collectively, such ridership data offers potential for smart city initiatives and illustrates that careful design considerations are required to balance people’s needs for play, personal data, privacy, and community information acquisition.     

What makes a space invader? Passenger perceptions of personal space invasion in aircraft travel

Abstract

The invasion of personal space is often a contributory factor to the experience of discomfort in aircraft passengers. This paper presents a questionnaire study which investigated how air travellers are affected by invasions of personal space and how they attempt to adapt to, or counter, these invasions. In support of recent findings on the factors influencing air passenger comfort, the results of this study indicate that the invasion of personal space is not only caused by physical factors (e.g. physical contact with humans or objects), but also other sensory factors such as noise, smells or unwanted eye contact. The findings of this study have implications for the design of shared spaces.

Practitioner Summary: This paper presents a questionnaire study which investigated personal space in an aircraft environment. The results highlight the factors which affect the perception of personal space invasion in aircraft and can therefore inform the design of aircraft cabin environments to enhance the passenger experience.     

The impact of work-related and personal resources on older workers’ fatigue,work enjoyment and retirement intentions over time

Abstract

This study aims to examine the impact of work-related and personal resources on older workers’ retirement intentions by studying the pathways (fatigue and work enjoyment) from resources to retirement intentions, the buffering role of resources for psychological job demands, in a cross-sectional and longitudinal timeframe. Longitudinal results on a subsample of full-time, older workers (n = 1642) from the Maastricht Cohort Study suggest that over four years of follow-up personal resources like personal mastery and perceived health related to less (prolonged) fatigue and more work enjoyment. Personal mastery also related to later retirement intentions. A work-related resource like decision authority related to less prolonged fatigue. (Prolonged) fatigue related to earlier retirement intentions, suggesting that fatigue may be a pathway to early retirement. Finally, little evidence was found for effect modification by resources. This prospective study indicates that work-related and personal resources may be useful for prolonging working careers.

Practitioner Summary: To date, the impact of work-related and personal resources on older workers’ retirement intentions is rarely studied. As this prospective study shows that resources may impact older workers’ (prolonged) fatigue, work enjoyment and retirement intentions, the monitoring and fostering of resources is of importance for prolonging their working careers.     

Trailfinders—curating an interactive city promenade experience with mobile phones

Abstract

With a growing number of embedded digital experiences in arts and heritage settings, creating a broad global field, this article focuses on the use of mobile phones in the engagement of humans with the cultural heritage of public spaces, specifically those that require a promenade from one outdoor space to another. This article discusses findings from a recent promenade initiative, commissioned for a UK arts festival, along with a review of literature, to critically engage with growing evidence of the diverse ways in which technology is integrated at direct user level. Concepts of ‘hybrid spaces’ and ‘user agency’ are discussed, along with the ‘performativity’ of spaces. Central to the discussion is the function of narrative in engaging the participant to construct new perspectives, which are facilitated by the mediating role of personal media devices between subject, narrative, space and community.     

Visualizing Multidimensional Lifelogging Data: A Case Study on MyMovieHistory Project

ABSTRACT

A large amount of time-series data has been frequently used to extract the useful patterns and trends and to visualize them for better understanding. This work is focusing on visualizing personal lifelogging data for tracking back to personal histories. Thereby, we present several similarity measures between multidimensional data at two different time points. For human evaluation, the method has been applied to MyMovieHistory (which a social recommendation system by storing personal movie logs) and tested with many users. Experimental results shown that the proposed visualization method and interfaces can help to understand user history.     

Google and Privacy

Abstract

Google has emerged as the preeminent Internet search engine, but more important, it has achieved an iconic status. It is solidly entrenched in our language and popular culture. But there is a darker side to Google. Google collects personal information about its users, and it aggregates third party information more effectively than many third world governments. While there has been no abuse (that we know of) by Google of personal information, that potential exists, and there are numerous instances of third parties using Google to aggregate personal information for dubious purposes.     

Examining teacher growth in professional learning groups for in‐service teachers of mathematics

Abstract

Teachers may face important challenges when encouraged to improve their mathematics teaching. Their personal beliefs, knowledge, confidence and personal intentions towards growth and change are all complex factors which may influence teachers’ capacity, and their decisions about personal change in their teaching. In this study, intermediate teachers and the conversations that took place during their monthly Professional Learning Group meetings over a one‐year period were examined in order to better understand issues teachers face in their growth and development as teachers of mathematics. We critically examine the notion and meaning of success to different stakeholders.     

Empirical assessment of individuals' 'personal information management systems'

Abstract

A simple pilot study has been undertaken to investigate the use of 'personal information management technologies' (including both traditional and emerging electronic technologies) via a combination of nominal questionnaire and semi-structured interview schedules. The pilot study suggested that the number of users adopting computer-based personal information management technologies is low, as is the combination of computer-based technologies with traditional paper-based technologies in users' 'personal information management systems'.     

Data Protection and the Commerce Clause

Abstract

Congress and the courts have had to address an inevitable result of the new technology — the erosion of personal privacy. While our economy depends on the free flow of information, the individual's right to maintain privacy, personal dignity, and anonymity must be maintained. Courts have long recognized that the law must protect private matters and personal data against governmental and business intrusion.     

Discovering how end-user programmers and their communities use public repositories: A study on Yahoo! Pipes

ContextEnd-user programmers are numerous, write software that matters to an increasingly large number of users, and face software engineering challenges that are similar to their professionals counterparts. Yet, we know little about how these end-user programmers create and share artifacts in repositories as part of a community.ObjectiveThis work aims to gain a better understanding of end-user programmer communities, the characteristics of artifacts in community repositories, and how authors evolve over time.MethodAn artifact-based analysis of 32,000 mashups from the Yahoo! Pipes repository was performed. The popularity, configurability, complexity, and diversity of the artifacts were measured. Additionally, for the most prolific authors, we explore their submission trends over time.ResultsSimilar to other online communities, there is great deal of attrition but authors who persevere tend to improve over time, creating pipes that are more configurable, diverse, complex, and popular. We also discovered, however, that end-user programmers do not effectively reuse existing programs, submit pipes that are highly similar to others already in the repository, and in most cases do not have an awareness of the community or the richness of artifacts that exist in repositories.ConclusionThere is a need for better end-user programmer support in several stages of the software lifecycle, including development, maintenance, search, and program understanding. Without such support, the community repositories will continue to be cluttered with highly-similar artifacts and authors may not be able to take full advantage of the community resources.     

From the Archives: Codebreaking (or not) in Shanghai

Abstract

A United States OSS document gives a personal view of the failure of German codebreaking activies in occupied China during World War II.     

Agent mediated retailing in the connected local community

This paper reports on and discusses recent research into software agent mediated retailing and considers how it may act as a catalyst to the formation of local electronic retail communities. Each member of the e-retail community has their own software agent that acts on their behalf. Their software agent acts as an electronic personal sales assistant (ePSA), interacting with the person and assisting with the selection and purchase of products. We consider issues that arise when each person can express their likes and dislikes for various aspects of the product range to their software agent, both in terms of the software agent's ability to serve them better, and how such preferences may be shared with others in the larger community to help them—and others in the community—make better and more informed choices. The investigations reported use the multimedia access through personal persistent agents (MAPPA) system, an experimental kiosk based e-retail system. MAPPA integrates a software agent based architecture, a novel form of product display and the use of an animated character agent to enhance the user's sense of personalisation.We report on user evaluation studies of the MAPPA system to investigate the effectiveness of the character agent as an interface to the e-retail system using both conventional usability evaluation techniques and eye-tracking technology. We also describe a simulation program that allows us to investigate the dynamics of e-retail community cohesion when a number of different parameters are considered, including the characteristics of the individual community members and the algorithms employed by the software agents to share information. Lastly, we develop and discuss notions of loyalty, trust, reputation and preference, four issues critical to the development and maintenance of the relationships between individual people, their personal software agents, businesses and the larger e-retail connected community. We propose these issues as ‘supra-functional’ criteria for human–computer interaction design in this area.     

The development of personal conditioning in military aviation

Abstract

This paper describes the development of personal conditioning systems in UK military aviation from the air-ventilated suit systems in the Second World War to the modern liquid-cooled garments supplied by thermoelectric cooling devices. It describes the decreasing need for personal cooling brought about by the reduction in environmental operating temperatures as the RAF became based almost entirely in Europe. It goes on to describe how this reduction in thermal stress from environmental sources has been more than offset by increasing stresses attributable to aircraft performance, avionic equipment and complicated air-crew clothing assemblies.     

The Telegraph and Personal Privacy: A Historical and Legal Perspective

Abstract

After its development in the 1840s, the telegraph allowed individuals to communicate virtually anywhere in a matter of minutes. This article examines the development of the technology and its effect on personal privacy, both from a historical and legal perspective. It discusses how business, the courts, government and individuals responded to the threat of eavesdropping and free transfer of personal information to unknown parties brought on by the telegraph. Comparisons are made between the issues brought up by the telegraph and more modern issues related to the Internet.