Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Enterprise Information Technology Organizational Flexibility : Managing Uncertainty And Change, Karen Prast Patten

Dissertations

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) lead enterprise information technology organizations (EITOs) in today's dynamic competitive business environment. CIOs deal with external and internal environmental changes, changing internal customer needs, and rapidly changing technology. New models for the organization include flexibility and suggest that CIOs should create and manage an enterprise IT organization that is more flexible in order to manage change and prepare for uncertainty, but they do not define what is meant by flexibility.

The first objective of this exploratory and ethnographic research study was to understand how uncertainty and unexpected change are currently managed by CIOs. The second was …

Leadership In Partially Distributed Teams, Linda Plotnick

Dissertations

Inter-organizational collaboration is becoming more common. When organizations collaborate they often do so in partially distributed teams (PDTs). A PDT is a hybrid team that has at least one collocated subteam and at least two subteams that are geographically distributed and communicate primarily through electronic media. While PDTs share many characteristics with both traditionally collocated and fully distributed teams, they also have unique characteristics and issues.

This dissertation reports on a field study of PDTs conducted over two semesters with student participants, This research was conducted as part of a larger series of studies investigating PDTs, In these studies, participants …

The Influence Of Organizational And Information Systems Factors On The Effectiveness Of Post-Merger Technology Integration, Gianilda A. Morsell

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how ten specific organizational and information systems factors influence post-merger IS integration success, and the role that degree of IS integration plays in moderating the influence these factors may have on IS integration success. Data were gathered, using a self-administered survey instrument, from senior IS executives at firms that experienced a U.S. public merger greater than $25 million between 2004 and 2007. Support is found for the study's Conceptual Model, indicating that all ten factors in unison influence post-merger IS integration success. The data support the hypotheses that quality of merger planning, quality of communication of merger …

Voting In Group Support Systems : Theory, Implementation, And Results From An Exploratory Study, Kung-E Cheng

Dissertations

Group decision making is essential in organizations. Group Support Systems (GSS) can aide groups in making decisions by providing tools and process support. GSS is especially useful for geographically or temporally distributed groups. Researchers of GSS have pointed out that convergence processes are hard to accomplish in GSS. Voting tools in GSS can be a valuable asset in alleviating the difficulty of convergence processes because voting is a concise communication of individual preferences with a well defined procedure that is accepted by group members. In addition, voting results can serve as a group memory of the convergence processes. Field observations …

Collaborative Learning Utilizing A Domain-Based Shared Data Repository To Enhance Learning Outcomes, David J. Lubliner

Dissertations

A number of learning paradigms have postulated that knowledge formation is a dynamic process where learners actively construct a representation of concepts integrating information from multiple sources. Current teaching strategies utilize a compartmentalized approach where individual courses contain a small subset of the knowledge required for a discipline. The intent of this research is to provide a framework to integrate the components of a discipline into a cohesive whole and accelerate the integration of concepts enhancing the learning process. The components utilized to accomplish these goals include two new knowledge integration models; a Knowledge Weighting Model (KWM) and the Aggregate-Integrate-Master …

Appropriation Of Privacy Management Within Social Networking Sites, Catherine Dwyer

Dissertations

Social networking sites have emerged as one of the most widely used types of interactive systems, with memberships numbering in the hundreds of millions around the globe. By providing tools for their members to manage an ever-changing set of relationships, social networking sites push a constant expansion of social boundaries. These sites place less emphasis on tools that limit social boundaries to enable privacy.

The rapid expansion of online social boundaries has caused privacy shockwaves. Privacy offline is enabled by constraints of time and space. Online, powerful search engines and long term digital storage means private data have no expiration …

The Impact Of Cultural Differences In Temporal Perception On Global Software Development Teams, Richard William Egan

Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the impact of cultural differences in temporal perception on globally dispersed software development teams. Literature and anecdotal evidence suggest that these temporal differences affect individual communication quality, which in turn will affect individual satisfaction and trust within global teams. Additionally, the temporal dispersion of the team was expected to affect an individual's sense of temporal disruption which, in turn, was expected to affect individual satisfaction and trust. Differences in temporal perception were expected to moderate this impact on perceived temporal disruption. A Fortune 100 Company that carried out software testing in Ireland, the United States, China and …

Dynamics Of Online Chat, Mihai Moldovan

Dissertations

Millions of people use online synchronous chat networks on a daily basis for work, play and education. Despite their widespread use, little is known about their user dynamics. For example, one does not know how many users are typically co-present and actively engaged in public interaction in the individual chat rooms of any of the numerous public Internet Relay Chat (IRC) networks found on the Internet; or what are the factors that constrain the boundaries of user activity inside those chat rooms. Failure to collect and present such data means there is a lack of a good understanding of the …

Perception Gaps And The Adoption Of Information Technology In The Clinical Healthcare Environment, Karen Hare

Dissertations

Implementation of information systems has lagged in many areas of clinical healthcare for a variety of reasons. Economics, data complexity and resistance are among the often quoted roadblocks. Research suggests that physicians play a major part in the adoption, use and diffusion of information technology (IT) in clinical settings. There are also other healthcare professionals, clinical and non-clinical, who play important roles in making decisions about the acquisition of information technology. In addition to these groups there are information technology professionals providing the services required within the healthcare field. Finally within this group are those IT professionals who have sufficient …

The Development And Evaluation Of Software To Foster Professional Development In Educational Assessment, Morgan C. Benton

Dissertations

This dissertation sought to answer the question: Is it possible to build a software tool that will allow teachers to write better multiple-choice questions? The thesis proceeded from the finding that the quality of teaching is very influential in the amount that students learn. A basic premise of this research, then, is that improving teachers will improve learning. With this foundation, the next question became what area of teaching to improve. The literature on educational assessment indicated that teachers lack competence at effective assessment, particularly in the area of multiple-choice question generation. It is likely that improvement in this area …

Taux : A System For Evaluating Sound Feedback In Navigational Tasks, Robert J. Lutz

Dissertations

This thesis presents the design and development of an evaluation system for generating audio displays that provide feedback to persons performing navigation tasks. It first develops the need for such a system by describing existing wayfinding solutions, investigating new electronic location-based methods that have the potential of changing these solutions and examining research conducted on relevant audio information representation techniques. An evaluation system that supports the manipulation of two basic classes of audio display is then described. Based on prior work on wayfinding with audio display, research questions are developed that investigate the viability of different audio displays. These are …

User Evaluation Of The Performance Of Information Systems, Edward Mahinda

Dissertations

Information technologies (IT) are considered the primary survival factor for many organizations and the most critical success factor in businesses today. To justify the necessary investment in IT, user evaluation of information systems' performance in organizations is a key consideration. This research investigated a comprehensive and convenient means for end users to assess this performance.

Among the existing theories and models on the evaluation of information system performance based on intrinsic technological properties, the Web of System Performance (WOSP) model provides the most comprehensive basis for information system evaluation, and therefore merited further investigation. The research question was how well …

Complex Adaptive Systems Based Data Integration : Theory And Applications, Eliahu Rohn

Dissertations

Data Definition Languages (DDLs) have been created and used to represent data in programming languages and in database dictionaries. This representation includes descriptions in the form of data fields and relations in the form of a hierarchy, with the common exception of relational databases where relations are flat. Network computing created an environment that enables relatively easy and inexpensive exchange of data. What followed was the creation of new DDLs claiming better support for automatic data integration. It is uncertain from the literature if any real progress has been made toward achieving an ideal state or limit condition of automatic …

Leader Delegation And Trust In Global Software Teams, Suling Zhang

Dissertations

Virtual teams are an important work structure in global software development. The distributed team structure enables access to a diverse set of expertise which is often not available in one location, to a cheaper labor force, and to a potentially accelerated development process that uses a twenty-four hour work structure.

Many software teams are partially distributed, that is, part of the team is colocated. Such partially distributed global software teams are an important work structure in software development projects. However, little is known about what affects or improves team members’ motivation and job satisfaction in the partially distributed environment. This …

Mobile Information Communication Technology For Crisis Management : Understanding User Behavior, Response And Training, Elizabeth Avery Gomez

Dissertations

SMS text-messaging is an interoperable communication vehicle known to be dependable for mass media alert notifications in crisis management. SMS text-messaging also offers potential as one viable two-way communication alternative for field responders in crisis response. Both continuously changing mobile information communication technologies and the importance of precise information exchange constitute a need for communication protocol training and practice. This study introduces a technology-mediated training technique based on speech act and communicative action theories. These theories are used to inform the design of a baseline measure for task performance improvement and to suggest a model to predict communication readiness. Because …

Designing Multimodal Interaction For The Visually Impaired, Xiaoyu Chen

Dissertations

Although multimodal computer input is believed to have advantages over unimodal input, little has been done to understand how to design a multimodal input mechanism to facilitate visually impaired users' information access.

This research investigates sighted and visually impaired users' multimodal interaction choices when given an interaction grammar that supports speech and touch input modalities. It investigates whether task type, working memory load, or prevalence of errors in a given modality impact a user's choice. Theories in human memory and attention are used to explain the users' speech and touch input coordination.

Among the abundant findings from this research, the …

People-Search : Searching For People Sharing Similar Interests From The Web, Quanzhi Li

Dissertations

On the Web, there are limited ways of finding people sharing similar interests or background with a given person. The current methods, such as using regular search engines, are either ineffective or time consuming. In this work, a new approach for searching people sharing similar interests from the Web, called People-Search, is presented. Given a person, to find similar people from the Web, there are two major research issues: person representation and matching persons. In this study, a person representation method which uses a person's website to represent this person's interest and background is proposed. The design of matching process …

Sifting Customers From The Clickstream : Behavior Pattern Discovery In A Virtual Shopping Environment, Peishih Chang

Dissertations

While shopping online, customers' needs and goals may change dynamically, based on a variety of factors such as product information and characteristics, time pressure and perceived risk. While these changes create emergent information needs, decisions about what information to present to customers are typically made before customers have visited a web site, using data such as purchase histories and logs of web pages visited. Better understanding of customer cognition and behavior as a function of various factors is needed in order to enable the right information to be presented at the right time. One approach to achieving this understanding is …

A Collaborative, Hierarchical, Incremental, And Problem Solving Information Systems Development Model, Timothy Joseph Burns

Dissertations

The "software crisis" has been a much discussed and debated topic in Information Systems research. A core cause of the crisis is often identified as the methodologies and approaches used to develop information systems. Thus, over the years a multitude of methodologies have emerged in support of quality software. While many of these methodologies have been effective, research has shown that system development is a highly circumstantial process, and that no one methodology can be optimal in every context of every project. It is also a fact that system development practitioners have employed ad hoc approaches to modify formal methodologies …

The Viability Of Is Enhanced Knowledge Sharing In Mission-Critical Command And Control Centers, Sameh A. Sabet

Dissertations

Engineering processes such as the maintenance of mission-critical infrastructures are highly unpredictable processes that are vital for everyday life, as well as for national security goals. These processes are categorized as Emergent Knowledge Processes (EKP), organizational processes that are characterized by a changing set of actors, distributed knowledge bases, and emergent knowledge sharing activities where the process itself has no predetermined structure. The research described here utilizes the telecommunications network fault diagnosis process as a specific example of an EKP. The field site chosen for this research is a global undersea telecommunication network where nodes are staffed by trained personnel …

Text Mining With Exploitation Of User's Background Knowledge : Discovering Novel Association Rules From Text, Xin Chen

Dissertations

The goal of text mining is to find interesting and non-trivial patterns or knowledge from unstructured documents. Both objective and subjective measures have been proposed in the literature to evaluate the interestingness of discovered patterns. However, objective measures alone are insufficient because such measures do not consider knowledge and interests of the users. Subjective measures require explicit input of user expectations which is difficult or even impossible to obtain in text mining environments.

This study proposes a user-oriented text-mining framework and applies it to the problem of discovering novel association rules from documents. The developed system, uMining, consists of two …

Dynamic Measuring Tools For Online Discourse, Jeffrey S. Saltz

Dissertations

When evaluating participation within an Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN), current best practices include counting messages and reviewing participant surveys. To understand the impact of more advanced dynamic measurement tools for use within an ALN, a web-based tool, known as iPET (the integrated Participation Evaluation Tool), was created. iPET, which leverages Social Network Analysis and Information Visualization techniques, was then evaluated via an empirical study. This research demonstrates that using a tool such as iPET increases participation within an ALN without increasing facilitator workload. Due to the fact that active online discussion is a key factor in the success of an …

Using Content And Process Scaffolds For Collaborative Discourse In Asynchronous Learning Networks, Irene Wong-Bushby

Dissertations

Discourse, a form of collaborative learning, is one of the most widely used methods of teaching and learning in the online environment. Particularly, in large courses, discourse needs to be 'structured' to be effective. Historically, technology-mediated learning (TML) research has been inconclusive with often conflicting results. To address this issue, TML research needs greater breadth and depth in pedagogical grounding. The purpose of this research is to build and test an original, technology-mediated, discourse-centered model called the Asynchronous Learning Network Cognitive Discourse Model (ALNCDM) grounded in pedagogy. Cognitive discourse is defined as discourse on conceptual subject matter. The model is …

Supporting Individual Time Management Through The Capture And Display Of Temporal Structures, Dezhi Wu

Dissertations

This thesis work examines the time management strategies of individuals in an academic institution and gathers information on the complex temporal structures they experience and manage. Its focus is on understanding the relationship between the quality of individual time management and an individual's understanding and use of temporal structures. This work consists of an exploratory field study to gather data on how people use temporal structures with electronic tools. It is followed by a survey that is given to a larger group of respondents in the same subject population examined with the field study. The survey examines the hypotheses developed …

Electronic Capture And Analysis Of Fraudulent Behavioral Patterns : An Application To Identity Fraud, Benjamin Ngugi

Dissertations

The objective of this research was to find a transparent and secure solution for mitigating identity fraud and to find the critical factors that determine the solution's acceptance. Identity fraud is identified as a key problem with total losses exceeding fifty two billion dollars (Javelin Strategy and Research 2005). A common denominator in most identity-fraud-prone transactions is the use of a keypad; hence this research focuses on keypad data entry and proposes a biometric solution. Three studies develop, evaluate and investigate the feasibility of this solution.

The first study was done in three stages. Stage one investigated the technical feasibility …

The Effects Of Digital Audio On Social Presence, Motivation And Perceived Learning In Asynchronous Learning Networks, Eunhee Kim

Dissertations

This study explores the possibilities of applying digital audio to the ALN environment, so that students can speak and listen rather than type and read. Two sets of 1x2 field experiments (text vs. digital audio) were conducted with two formats of digital audio -recorded voice messages and narrated Microsoft PowerPoint presentation - used in several NJIT courses conducted via ALN. The perceptions of communication media were measured from two different user perspectives: active use when the subjects created their assignments using prescribed communication media (audio or text) and passive use when the subjects viewed/listened to other students' work.

The perceptions …

Collaborative Examinations In Asyncronous Learning Networks : Field Experiments On Collaborative Learning Through Online Assessments, Jia Shen

Dissertations

With the proliferation of computer networks and the emergence of virtual teams, learning and knowledge sharing in the online environment has become an increasingly important topic. Applying constructivism and collaborative learning theories to assessment, the collaborative online exam is designed featuring students' active participation in various phases of the exam process through small group activities online. A participatory online exam process is designed featuring similar procedures except that students' involvement in each phase of the exam is individual. The collaborative online exam and the participatory online exam are investigated regarding student exam study strategies, group process, exam outcomes, faculty satisfaction, …

Improving Document Representation By Accumulating Relevance Feedback : The Relevance Feedback Accumulation (Rfa) Algorithm, Razvan Stefan Bot

Dissertations

Document representation (indexing) techniques are dominated by variants of the term-frequency analysis approach, based on the assumption that the more occurrences a term has throughout a document the more important the term is in that document. Inherent drawbacks associated with this approach include: poor index quality, high document representation size and the word mismatch problem. To tackle these drawbacks, a document representation improvement method called the Relevance Feedback Accumulation (RFA) algorithm is presented. The algorithm provides a mechanism to continuously accumulate relevance assessments over time and across users. It also provides a document representation modification function, or document representation learning …

Negotiation Of Software Requirements In An Asynchronous Collaborative Environment, Catherine Lowry Campbell

Dissertations

The effect of task structure and negotiation sequence on collaborative software requirements negotiation is investigated. This work began with an extensive literature review that focused on current research in collaborative software engineering and, in particular, on the negotiation of software requirements and the requisite collaboration for the development of such requirements. A formal detailed experiment was then conducted to evaluate the effects of negotiation sequence and task structure in an asynchronous group meeting environment. The experiment tested the impact of these structures on groups negotiating the requirements for an emergency response information system. The results reported here show that these …

Live, Virtual, And Constructive Environments For Performance Support, John Michael Lacontora

Dissertations

As military systems become more complex, the operation and support of these systems becomes intrinsically more difficult. The U.S. Army's current procurement process relies on industry to provide embedded training and performance support tools for the systems they produce. These tools are relatively new and in the early stages of development. As yet, they have failed to meet the needs of the technicians that are required to support these complex systems. Current efforts to provide enabling technologies that enhance the capabilities of automotive maintenance technicians are concentrated in three professional communities. First is the Performance Improvement community where work is …