2010年上海世博会 瑞士馆

人们可以把上海世博会瑞士馆理解成一个可持续发展的实验室,其建筑本身就是技术与艺术的完美结合,体现了城市与乡村间的平衡与互动.     

Behavioural intention in cloud-based VLE: An extension to Channel Expansion Theory

Cloud computing has been a phenomenon nowadays. The ability to access, store/retrieve and share information anytime, anywhere on the cloud has contributed to the birth of the cloud-based virtual learning environment (c-VLE). Though there are studies conducted on the grid-based VLEs, however due to the significant differences between the two computing technologies; the findings from prior studies may not be germane in the c-VLE context. Unlike the previous studies which studied TAM, UTAUT and their extensions from the perspective of undergraduates and university instructors, this study examined the role of Channel Expansion Theory (CET), VLE related attributes (i.e. interactivity, content design, trust-in-website), school support and knowledge sharing attitude from the perspective of school teachers. Educational level and teaching experience were introduced as the control variables. Data were gathered in two waves of nation-wide surveys with random sampling. The findings revealed significant effects of CET, all VLE related attributes (except content design), school support and attitude towards knowledge sharing on behavioural intention (BI). BI was found to have direct effect on instructional effectiveness (IE). The model explained 68.9%, 62.5% and 28.9% variances in CET, BI and IE. The study provides theoretical and practical implications to the scholars and practitioners.     

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.     

E-learning continuance: The impact of interactivity and the mediating role of imagery,presence and flow

This paper empirically examines the impact of the interactivity elicited by e-learning environments for higher education. By considering the underlying processes of imagery, spatial presence, copresence and flow, we analyse how interactivity affects users’ responses towards the learning environment, including their actual continuance behaviour. We validate our conceptual model by using survey and registrar data obtained from 2530 students of an open, distance university in the European Higher Education Area. The results suggest that the interactivity elicited by an e-learning environment unleashes imagery that in turn facilitates spatial presence and copresence as well as flow. Significant paths are also found from interactivity to flow and from flow to e-learner response variables (attitude, intention to continue and actual continuance behaviour). The paper provides a novel account of the presence and flow-enabling mechanisms in e-learning and offers novel knowledge on how higher education institutions can facilitate e-learners’ continuance behaviour.     

Serious games for emergency preparedness: Evaluation of an interactive vs. a non-interactive simulation of a terror attack

Emergency preparedness is a relevant emerging application of serious games. A general issue in exploiting such approach concerns the breadth of the population that can be reached by serious games. Indeed, serious games need to be actively played and this can restrict their user population, because there are people who have no experience with video games or do not like them or do not have the proper hardware to play them. Moreover, there are organizational contexts in which a non-interactive presentation is preferred because it can be given in a more convenient and less costly way with simple traditional media, i.e., printed materials, slides or videos. This paper deals with the possibility of generating and using a non-interactive version of the experience provided by serious games. First, we propose a serious game that simulates a mass emergency caused by a terror attack in a train station. To obtain design guidance, we explore psychological models that explain how people are motivated to protect themselves from danger. Then, we generate the non-interactive version of the terror attack simulation and we contrast it with the interactive version. Results of our study show that both versions of the simulation can provide positive outcomes in learning, risk severity perception and self-efficacy, but they differ in how much they affect user’s threat appraisal and emotional response.     

Real-time fingertip localization conditioned on hand gesture classification

A method to obtain accurate hand gesture classification and fingertip localization from depth images is proposed. The Oriented Radial Distribution feature is utilized, exploiting its ability to globally describe hand poses, but also to locally detect fingertip positions. Hence, hand gesture and fingertip locations are characterized with a single feature calculation. We propose to divide the difficult problem of locating fingertips into two more tractable problems, by taking advantage of hand gesture as an auxiliary variable. Along with the method we present the ColorTip dataset, a dataset for hand gesture recognition and fingertip classification using depth data. ColorTip contains sequences where actors wear a glove with colored fingertips, allowing automatic annotation. The proposed method is evaluated against recent works in several datasets, achieving promising results in both gesture classification and fingertip localization.     

The effects of interactive brand placements in online games on children’s cognitive,affective, and conative brand responses

This study investigated how persuasive messages integrated in an online game affects children’s cognitive, affective, and conative responses to the brand, as well as their attitude toward the game itself. An experiment conducted among 2453 girls between the ages of 11 and 17 demonstrated that confrontation with interactive brand placement in the game resulted in more positive attitudes toward the game, higher top of mind awareness of the brand, more positive brand images, and more favorable behavioral intentions. In addition, consistent with persuasion literature and theories on child development, this study showed that there was a three-way interaction effect between exposure to the brand placement, age, and prior brand use for behavioral intentions. The youngest girls who had no prior experience with the brand were more strongly influenced by the brand placement than the oldest girls who had no prior brand experience.     

Understanding the impact of social media usage among organizations

This study investigates the antecedents and impact of social media usage in organizations. This study uses the technology, organization, and environment framework and includes certain antecedent factors that are specific to social media usage in organizations. The items to measure different purposes of social media usage in organizations were developed, which contribute to the enhancement of social media usage measurement. This study develops and tests an integrated model that contributes to the scholarly research on social media and information systems. The study also helps organizations to understand the benefits of social media usage and provides a justification for investments in social media by organizations.     

A politics for interactivity: Progressivism and its limits in federal congressional deliberations of distance education policy

This article analyzes federal congressional discourse on distance education policy, describing progressive reformers’ use of the term, interactivity. Isolating congressional records of deliberations that treat interactivity, rhetorical analysis first traces progressive legislators’ and educators’ attempts to use the term to eliminate a restriction on financial aid funding for distance education students. Next, critical analysis describes how legislators and educators have advanced interactivity as a simple educational good. Contrasting legislators’ and educators’ views on interactivity with perspectives drawn from emerging computers and composition research, this article discusses what the field has to contribute to public deliberation of this issue. A conclusion notes opportunities for researchers’ participation in progressive reform efforts.