Search results

The aim of this paper is to present case study findings that explore the implementation and use of a low-cost digital technology platform to collect, process and disseminate information in business-to-consumer practices.

The research is interdisciplinary, drawing from a range of backgrounds, the epistemological approach is that of mixed methods, combining both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. Insights are drawn from what emerges from observations arising from the data, rather than starting with a hypothesis and designing the research to test this. The over arching research approach was “action research”. Action research has at its basis the premise of conducting research “in practice”. The “practice” on this occasion was a business practice, implemented in high street estate agents.

This approach to accessing information aids important decision-making in the buying and selling of homes. It allows for mobile augmentation technologies to facilitate a person's presence in the imagined spaces of the advertised properties “for sale”. This has the potential to enable faster, more efficient means of searching for the “right” home to purchase.

This research makes a contribution to the literature by providing empirical evidence regarding the implementation and impact that quick read code digital technologies have on a high street SME. The research showed that statistically more properties were viewed than would have normally been the case, thus whilst not guaranteeing new business, the codes certainly attracted increased attention.

To construct web visibility profiles of news web sites by examining hyperlinks pointing to the sites.

National newspapers from USA (USA Today), Canada (The Globe and Mail), China (People's Daily) as well as Hong Kong (Sing Tao Daily) were selected for the study. A total of 1,859 links pointing to the four news sites were manually classified into the four aspects of language, country, types of sites, and reasons or purposes for linking.

A comparison of the four news sites provided useful information on their web visibility. The Globe and Mail seemed to have a larger international reach than USA Today. Neither newspaper web site attracted links from China or from pages in the Chinese language. Outside China, People's Daily, an official Chinese Government newspaper, is not as visible as Hong Kong based Sing Tao Daily. USA Today and The Globe and Mail were used more for news citing or reprinting purposes while People's Daily seemed to be used more as a research resource.

Link analysis like this provides us with only an indirect view of the online readership and the methodology has limitations. Not all readers create links to the newspaper sites that they visit. Readers could be led to a news site through other venues including “social bookmarking” services.

The study shows that link analysis is a novel and useful method that journalists and information professionals can use to gauge online readership and potential impact of news sites.

Presented a novel method that complements but not replaces other web user studies such as web server log analysis.

To report on initial work carried out on a Metadata Options Appraisal undertaken for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in the context of plans to create and manage complex digital objects called Interpretive Journeys, PDA‐based multimedia guides to Park tours. Design/methodology/approach – After some initial work, a phased approach was adopted. In Phase I (reported here), metadata schema for managing structurally complex digital objects were researched to provide a range of appropriate options. Their characteristics were then matched against the Park's general requirements as determined through discussions with staff and an examination of relevant documentation. Findings – It was determined that the METS metadata schema met Park requirements for managing Interpretive Journeys at a general level and could be used both, to inform the development of the planned Digital Asset Management System (an early priority), and to act as the main basis of a framework for determining a detailed metadata solution for the Park. Research limitations/implications – Further work is required in Phase II to determine the detailed metadata requirement for the Park. Practical implications – A useful guide to dealing with a range of management and metadata issues associated with managing complex digital objects, and to managing projects where guidance on metadata requirements is needed before the objects to be described are available. Originality/value – This paper offers an introduction to the management and metadata issues raised by Interpretive Journeys and digital composites of similar complexity, and an indication of how METS addresses these at a general level.

The purpose of this study is to explore design issues hampering the accessibility of digital libraries (DLs) for first-time blind users.

A combination of questionnaire, pre-interview, think-aloud and post-interview methods was used to collect data on non-visual interaction experiences with American Memory Digital Collection (AMDC) from 15 blind participants. Qualitative analysis via open coding revealed recurring themes on design problems and consequent difficulties for blind users in accessing DLs.

It was found that AMDC is not blind-friendly. Five categories of design problems were identified. Participants faced difficulty perceiving, operating and understanding content and controls needed for information retrieval.

This paper does not offer a comprehensive set of design issues prevalent across DL design models, instead it focuses on design problems observed in a publicly available DL.

This paper raises awareness of design choices that can unintentionally bar blind information seekers from DL access, and further suggests solutions to reduce these design problems for blind users.

The paper’s originality is its identification of unique design problems that prevent blind users from effectively interacting with DLs.

This paper describes existing knowledge management (KM) tools and technologies in a historical context: where they have been, where they are now, and where they are going. It examines KM technologies in relation to early work done by Douglas Engelbart, subsequent developments in business and management, and recent technological advances. Finally, from this historical vantage point, the authors address the future of KM.

The purpose of this paper is to describe Saraswati, a cross‐lingual Sanskrit Digital Library hosted at Banaras Hindu University. The system aims to assist those who know Sanskrit and at least one Indic script out of Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu and Bengali.

The system is developed with the Unicode standard using PHP as the programming language. The system follows three levels of architecture for search, display, and storage of Sanskrit documents. The system uses the UTF‐8 character representation system and generates on‐the‐fly transliteration from one Indic language script to another.

The system successfully demonstrates transliteration of Sanskrit text from one language to another. Saraswati is also capable of searching a given keyword across different languages and produces the result in the desired language script.

Some languages such as Tamil (not chosen for study) use context dependent consonants, and with the present algorithm they require further refinement.

With Saraswati, people can read Sanskrit documents and also perform a search for documents available in other scripts. The present system is useful for reading cross‐lingual literature. The present study demonstrates successful implementation of Saraswati over the University Intranet.

It is very common among scholars both in India and abroad that they learn Sanskrit with only one Indic script. The present system is helpful for such kind of scholars.

The system is the first of its kind anywhere and will be highly beneficial for scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments in educational informatics relating to the provision by information systems of pedagogical support to web‐based learners, and to propose further investigation of the feasibility and potential value of web‐based “conversational” information systems to complement adaptive hypermedia and information retrieval systems.

The potential of Pask's conversation theory is considered as a potentially useful framework for the development of information systems capable of providing pedagogical support for web‐based learners, complementary to that provided by existing computer‐assisted learning and adaptive hypermedia systems. The potential role and application of entailment meshes are reviewed in relation to other forms of knowledge representation including classifications, semantic networks, ontologies and representations based on knowledge space theory.

Concludes that conversation theory could be a useful framework to support the development of web‐based “conversational” information that would complement aspects of computer‐assisted learning, adaptive hypermedia and information retrieval systems. The entailment mesh knowledge representation associated with conversation theory provides the potential for providing particularly rich pedagogical support by virtue of its properties of cyclicity, consistency and connectivity, designed to support deep and enduring levels of understanding.

Although based on a considerable body of theoretical and empirical work relating to conversation theory, the paper remains speculative in that the gap is still great between, on the one hand, what has so far been achieved and, on the other, the practical realisation of its potential to enhance web‐based learning. Much work remains to be done in terms of exploring the extent to which procedures developed and benefits found in relatively small‐scale experimental contexts can effectively be scaled to yield enhanced support for “real world” learning‐related information behaviour.

The ideas of Pask, discussed in this paper, are capable of guiding the structuring of information according to parameters designed to facilitate deep and enduring understanding via interactive “conversational” engagement between the conceptual structures of information source authors and learners. If one can scale Pask's work to “real world” learning‐related information behaviour, one can increase the range of web‐based information systems and services capable of providing pedagogical support to web‐based learners.

The aim of this paper is to present an architecture and prototypical implementation of a context‐sensitive software system which combines the tangible user interface approach with a mobile augmented reality (AR) application.

The work which is described within this paper is based on a creational approach, which means that a prototypical implementation is used to gather further research results. The prototypical approach allows performing ongoing tests concerning the accuracy and different context‐sensitive threshold functions.

Within this paper, the implementation and practical use of tangible user interfaces for outdoor selection of geographical objects is reported and discussed in detail.

Further research is necessary within the area of context‐sensitive dynamically changing threshold functions, which would allow improving the accuracy of the selected tangible user interface approach.

The practical implication of using tangible user interfaces within outdoor applications should improve the usability of AR applications.

Despite the fact that there exist a multitude of research results within the area of gesture recognition and AR applications, this research work focuses on the pointing gesture to select outdoor geographical objects.