Digital Commons Network^™

The Evolving Crime Of Sex Trafficking, Madison Krause

Senior Honors Theses

Human trafficking is a global crime that occurs in all countries regardless of status or rank. It victimizes both genders and all age groups. The two most common types of human trafficking are for the purposes of forced labor and commercialized sexual exploitation. The demand for commercialized sexual exploitation has increased throughout the United States. Technology and social media have enhanced and made the ability to commit sex trafficking easier and more efficient. The ties between pornography and sexual exploitation have also had an impact on sex trafficking recruiting and grooming.

Law Library Blog (February 2024): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

E-Commerce And The Digital Economy: The Place Of Nigerian Libraries, Rebecca Chidimma Ojobor Dr., Scholastica C. Ukwoma Dr., Victoria N. Okafor Prof.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

The paper takes a literature-based approach to examine the state of academic libraries in Nigeria in the implementation of e-commerce in the digital economy with the goal of identifying the barriers to e-commerce practices and proffering recommendations for better e-commerce applications in Nigerian libraries. E-commerce is becoming a fundamental mode of exchange as a result of the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), and is providing the digital economy with many exciting opportunities. The efficiency and productivity of many organizations, including the library, could be increased through e-commerce. It gives the library an outstanding opportunity to lessen the …

The Metaverse, Religious Practice And Wellbeing: A Narrative Review, Justin Thomas, Mohammad Amin Kuhail, Fahad Albeyahi

All Works

The metaverse is touted as the next phase in the evolution of the Internet. This emerging digital ecosystem is widely conceptualized as a persistent matrix of interconnected multiuser, massively scaled online environments optimally experienced through immersive digital technologies such as virtual reality (VR). Much of the prognostication about the social implications of the metaverse center on secular activities. For example, retail, entertainment (gaming/concerts), and social networking. Little attention has been given to how the metaverse might impact religion. This narrative review explores contemporary research into online religious practice and the use of immersive digital technologies for religious purposes. This focus …

Radicalisation And Extremism On Social Media: What Steps Can Be Taken?, Emeka Williams Etumnu, Oluchi I. Williams-Etumnu

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Unarguably, the social media has brought the world together in an online space and as a result of this, extremist groups utilise the social media to radicalise people especially the youths who are vulnerable and fancy their ideology towards their cause. The paper was underpinned on public sphere theory and the desk research method was employed in the course of the study. It was revealed that social media plays a tremendous role towards radicalisation and extremism. The need for digital literacy, where rules can be made to assist individuals of all ages in developing critical thinking skills and building resilience …

Local Competition, Multimarket Contact, And Product Quality: Evidence From Internet Service Provision, Kyle Wilson

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

I investigate the effect of competition on quality in the internet service provision industry: I examine both local competition within markets and multimarket contact among firms across markets. This industry offers an ideal setting, as quality is both objective and measurable. I use data from speedtest.net from 2008 to 2014 to estimate a reduced-form model of the effects of local competition and multimarket contact on realized consumer download speeds. I find that increased multimarket contact leads to decreased download speeds, which is consistent with the mutual forbearance hypothesis. I also find that duopolies lead to faster download speeds than do …

Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment In Nevada, Brad Wimmer

Policy Briefs and Reports

The $45.45 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program’s primary objective is to extend broadband service to all unserved and underserved locations in the U.S. and its territories. Several industry studies predict that the BEAD program can meet its goal of providing universal access to broadband service if eligible entities execute their grant programs well. My review of the BEAD program indicates that policy makers can enhance the likelihood of program success by designing competitive grant programs that give applicants the incentive to undercut the subsidies proposed by their rivals and provide applicants the flexibility to design networks that …

Being Present Without Being Present: An Internet-Based Approach To Providing Pastoral Counseling To An Always Online Generation, Stephen Lyon Woolverton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The increasing reliance that Millennials and Gen-Z Christians have on the internet for almost every question that comes up in their lives should be viewed by pastoral counselors as a cultural context that need to be understood as part of the counseling process and not an obstacle to the counseling process. The emergence of the internet, and the part that it has played in the culture of American Christians who have grown up with constant access to this avenue of communication, has only recently begun to be seen and utilized by pastoral counselors. This research uses the perspective of a …

All The News That’S Fit To Be Identified: Facilitating Access To High-Quality News Through Internet Platforms, Sonja R. West, Jonathan Peters, Lefteris Jason Anastasopolous

Scholarly Works

Roughly half of Americans get some of their news from social media, and nearly two-thirds get some of their news from search engines. As our modern information gatekeepers, these internet companies bear a special responsibility to consider the impact of their platform and site policies on users’ access to high-quality news sources. They should adopt policies that clear the digital pathway between the public and press by facilitating such access. To that end, the companies must first, address the threshold issue of how best to identify high-quality news sources. This article examines factors that would be useful, drawing from legal …

Computer Self- Efficacy, Computer Attitude And Internet Identification As Determinants Of Internet Use Among Librarians In Public Universities In Western Nigeria, Bruno I. Igbeneghu. Dr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

The study examined the extent to which computer self-efficacy, computer attitude and Internet identification determined the use of Internet among librarians in public universities in Western Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design of the ex-post facto type. The target population for the study were librarians in public universities in Western Nigeria. One hundred and seventeen librarians participated in the study. Computer self-efficacy inventory, Computer attitude inventory, Internet identification inventory and Internet use inventory were used to obtain data. Four hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation …

Chatgpt In Context, Allison Papini

Library Staff Publications, Presentations & Journal Articles

The rapidly changing nature of disruptive technologies like ChatGPT can cause confusion and even discomfort. This presentation addresses these concerns by evaluating the uses and capabilities of AI through the lens of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework.

A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Self-Guided Online Acceptance And Commitment Therapy As A Transdiagnostic Self-Help Intervention, Korena S. Klimczak, Guadalupe G. San Miguel, Miriam N. Mukasa, Michael P. Twohig, Michael E. Levin

Psychology Student Research

Online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) interventions use websites and smartphone apps to deliver ACT exercises and skills. The present meta-analysis provides a comprehensive review of online ACT self-help interventions, characterizing the programs that have been studied (e.g. platform, length, content) and analyzing their efficacy. A transdiagnostic approach was taken, including studies that addressed a range of targeted problems and populations. Multi-level meta-analyses were used to nest multiple measures of a single construct within their respective studies. A total of 53 randomized controlled trials were included (n = 10,730). Online ACT produced significantly greater outcomes than waitlist controls at …

Law Library Blog (February 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Protecting Low-Income Consumers In The Era Of Digital Grocery Shopping: Implications For Wic Online Ordering, Qi Zhang, Priyanka Patel, Caitlin M. Lowery

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is now expected to allow participants to redeem their food benefits online, i.e., via online ordering, rather than only in-store. However, it is unclear how this new benefit redemption model may impact participants’ welfare since vendors may have an asymmetric information advantage compared with WIC customers. The WIC online ordering environment may also change the landscape for WIC vendors, which will eventually affect WIC participants. To protect WIC consumers’ rights in the new online ordering model, policymakers need an appropriate legal and regulatory framework. This narrative review provides that …

Hashes Are Not Suitable To Verify Fixity Of The Public Archived Web, Mohamed Aturban, Martin Klein, Herbert Van De Sompel, Sawood Alam, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Web archives, such as the Internet Archive, preserve the web and allow access to prior states of web pages. We implicitly trust their versions of archived pages, but as their role moves from preserving curios of the past to facilitating present day adjudication, we are concerned with verifying the fixity of archived web pages, or mementos, to ensure they have always remained unaltered. A widely used technique in digital preservation to verify the fixity of an archived resource is to periodically compute a cryptographic hash value on a resource and then compare it with a previous hash value. If the …

Assessing Spurious Correlations In Big Search Data, Jesse T. Richman, Ryan J. Roberts

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Big search data offers the opportunity to identify new and potentially real-time measures and predictors of important political, geographic, social, cultural, economic, and epidemiological phenomena, measures that might serve an important role as leading indicators in forecasts and nowcasts. However, it also presents vast new risks that scientists or the public will identify meaningless and totally spurious ‘relationships’ between variables. This study is the first to quantify that risk in the context of search data. We find that spurious correlations arise at exceptionally high frequencies among probability distributions examined for random variables based upon gamma (1, 1) and Gaussian random …

A Phenomenological Study On Church Leaders' Perspective Of Internet Church As A Biblical Community, Jason Lavon Rankin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Current events and relatively recent technological developments have caused and significantly increased the use of digital technology in most aspects of life. The digital revolution, as some have termed it, has permeated all organizations, from businesses to institutions of higher learning, including religious institutions. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to determine Christian church leaders’ perspectives on whether the internet church fulfills the biblical and theological definitions of the church or biblical community. At this stage in the research internet church, also known as online church, e-church, virtual church, etc., is defined as a group of people with shared …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Exploring The Crisis Of Faith Process Of Former Members Of The Cjlds Within The United States, Kent Taylor Critchlow

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Christians are experiencing a crisis of religious faith throughout the United States at an alarming rate, especially among millennials. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there were 20 primary and secondary reasons that created a crisis of religious faith and there were 13 reasons that motivated each participant to eventually abandon their Church membership. Over 80% of the reasons why the participants left the Church were directly and indirectly tied to the Prophet Joseph Smith and to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The use of the Internet played a significant role in expediting …

College Students And Cyberbullying: How Social Media Use Affects Social Anxiety And Social Comparison, Travis N. Lam, D. Brayden Jensen, Joseph D. Hovey, Michelle E. Roley-Roberts

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cyberbullying is defined as aggression intending to inflict harm on others by electronic communication technologies. Cyberbullying has become more common as social media has grown and is accompanied by negative mental health consequences. Research on cyberbullying and mental health in adolescents suggests cyberbullying victimization moderates the relationship between social comparison and social anxiety, but little is known about this phenomenon in college students. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the relationship between cyberbullying, social anxiety, and social comparison amongst college students. A convenience sample of 486 undergraduate students from southern Texas and northern Ohio completed a PyschData …

Rural America Is Still Technologically Behind: Why It Matters Now More Than Ever, Paul Force-Emery Mackie

Social Work Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Use Of Online Databases By Nuclear Scientists Of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Ghana: A Review, Albert Paa Kojo Ebi Bilson Mr., Andy Tandoh Mr., Christabel Torshie Torto Ms.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

ICT has greatly changed how research, teaching and learning is done. In the past, these activities were aided mainly by manual databases consisting of paper or print material records. However, over the period of time this has dramatically changed to digital electronic formats such as portable document format (PDF). The goal of this paper was to examine the use of online databases by Nuclear Scientists of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and review the literature available. A systematic review of 20 articles from 1970 to 2021 was conducted. The review covered studies on both quantitative and qualitative research approaches both locally …

New And Transferable Digital Skills In The Era Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Mobilizing Social Support, Molly-Gloria Harper, Anabel Quan-Haase, William Hollingshead

Sociology Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global crisis that has had profound impacts on people’s lives. Under these circumstances, social support can buffer against pandemic-related stress. Yet, the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic with its stringent health guidelines have created unique challenges to the mobilization of social support. These challenges particularly affect vulnerable groups with limited digital life skills. Based on a qualitative study of 101 semi-structured interviews with East York residents in Toronto, Canada conducted in 2013–2014, we investigate what new and transferable digital life skills are needed in the pre- and post-pandemic era to mobilize social support. Our …

Twitter's Role In An Increasingly Polarized Political Climate; A Look Into The 2020 Us Elections, Leanne Kendall

Honors Projects in Data Science

Amidst politically strained times, one might wonder what has cause such an exaggerated gap between the views of democrats and republicans. For years, research has suggested the US’s voting population is becoming increasingly politically polarized, with one of the causes being social media. This study's purpose is to understand more about the role that social media plays in the polarization of parties in the US. The study is comprised of the analysis of over 3,000,000 tweets from 9/22/2020 through 11/10/2020 that mention or are written by senate and presidential candidates. Natural language processing, network graphing, and sentiment analyses were utilized …

Use Of Cyber Library: A Comparative Study Of Undergraduate And Postgraduate Students, Kritika Agarwal, Babita Jaiswal

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study attempts to find out the Internet usage pattern of the students of the Cyber Library at the University of Lucknow, Lucknow. The main objectives are to find out the awareness level, frequency of usage, satisfaction level and the problems faced while accessing the internet at the cyber library. To fulfil these objectives, a survey method was adopted and a structured questionnaire was used to collect data. A sample of 150 students was collected comprising 75 undergraduates and 75 postgraduates. The findings revealed that 114 (76.00%) students were aware of the cyber library services; most students who visit …

Free Speech On Social Media: Unrestricted Or Regulated?, Alessandra Garcia Guevara

Student Writing

Social media has evolved into an essential mode of communication in recent years, allowing people to express their thoughts with the audience of their choice by sending private messages, posting their thoughts, or sharing their opinions. Such audiences can come from all over the world because this online technology breaks down geographic, linguistic, and cultural barriers. As a result, social media has evolved into a powerful tool for self-expression, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to participate in global debates. However, its misuse has had disastrous consequences in the real world, such as the attack on the Capitol that occurred …

The Access And Use Of Library And Internet As Information Source By Agricultural Academics And Extension Workers Within King Cetshwayo District Municipality Of Kwazulu-Natal Province, South Africa, Kayode Fatokun, Abdulsalam Abiodun Salman, Eyitayo Francis Adanlawo

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Information plays a vital role in agricultural production, it is believed to be the foundation for improved agriculture. To improve agriculture, access and use of information is required. This study investigated the access to and use of library and internet by agricultural extension workers and academics as information source. Shannon and Weaver model theory was used to underpin the study. Purposive sampling was used to select three local municipalities within King Cetshwayo District of KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. Quantitative technique was adopted with self-administered structured questionnaire. Convenience sampling technique was adopted to select 60 extension workers in three offices …

Role Of The Internet In Narrowing The Digital Divide Between The Members Of The Jordanian Society During The Coronavirus Crisis, Othman Obeidat, Othman Obeidat

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The goal of this research was to see how the internet helped to bridge the digital divide between Jordanians during the Coronavirus outbreak. A quantitative approach is adopted. 210 questionnaire forms were distributed randomly to the members of the sample through using: (https://docs.google.com). They were distributed using email and WhatsApp. 200 forms were analyzed. They represent 95% of the distributed forms. The questionnaire consists of 20 statements. It was found that there is a digital divide between the members of Jordanian society. It was found that the availability of smart devices and the internet enables the members of …

Analysis Of Information Communication Technology Competencies Among Distance Learning Students Of Kuvempu University: A Study, Veena Naik G, Shivalingaiah D Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Information Communication Technology competencies among distance learners. Structured questionnaire was prepared and administered to the various disciplines, namely the Social Sciences, Science/Technology, and Commerce/Management. 1650 questionnaires were distributed and 1435 completely filled questionnaires were received obtaining a response rate of 87.0 %.It was found that, 1377 majority (95.9%) of the respondents use the Smart Phone,because it has maximum mobility and convenience, 1244(86.7%) of them opined ICT facilitate Communicating with many simultaneously, Quick Response with 1090(76.0%) response, Time saving with 1064 (74.1%) response, Learning from others contribution with 960(66.9%) response. majority 1086(75.7%)users …

Social Media Engagement With Transgender Fertility Content, Kajal Verma, Benette K. Sagun, Melody Rasouli, Cindy M. Duke

Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Objective: To identify transgender fertility content with the highest online engagement on social media, determine its accuracy and quality, and see how this has changed over a 2-year period. Design: BuzzSumo, a content research tool, was used to identify the top 10 article links related to transgender fertility most interacted with on the social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit. We compared article links from June 2019 to June 2020 and from June 2020 to June 2021. The articles were categorized as accurate or misleading based on the references cited and current research. A qualitative analysis was performed …

Law Library Blog (January 2022): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.