Computer Sciences Commons^™

The State Of Mobile Learning Implementation In Government Cabinet-Level Agencies And Departments, Algernon B. Corbett

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

As mobile technologies have increasingly become a part of personal and work environments, mobile learning is emerging as a viable alternative for training and education needs. Faced with the need for innovative and cost-efficient ways for training government employees, agencies and departments are considering the use of mobile learning. The availability of a wide range of mobile technology provides many options. Other than the Department of Defense, little is known about implementing mobile learning in United States government cabinet level agencies and departments. A concurrent, mixed methods case study was used to examine how organizations decide to use, implement and …

The Construction And Validation Of An M-Learning Framework For Online And Blended Learning Environments, Dick T. Hamann

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

With the wide adoption of mobile technologies, new opportunities exist with regard to how these technologies can be used to support teaching and learning. However, there is limited empirical evidence on the use of mobile learning (m-learning) frameworks that support adult students in online and blended learning environments and consider ways to support administrators, faculty, and students in the adoption of mobile technologies for teaching and learning.

The goal was to develop and validate an m-learning framework capturing the administrative, communication, and instructional elements that must be considered when integrating m-learning technologies to support adult community college students. Using design …

Building Cloud-Based Information Systems Lab Architecture: Deriving Design Principles That Facilitate The Effective Construction And Evaluation Of A Cloud-Based Lab Environment, Thomas J. Trevethan

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The problem explored in this dissertation report was that at the time of this study, there were no design principles or methodologies based on design science research (DSR) available to use for artifact construction, implementation, and effective evaluation of cloud-based networking lab environments that can be used to foster hands-on technology skills in students. Primarily based on Hevner’s 7 guidelines of DSR, Peffer’s design science research methodology (DSRM), and Gregor’s IS design theory, this study forms the groundwork for the development of procedures and specifications derived from DSR literature to facilitate the construction, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive cloud-based …

Well-Being Technologies: Meditation Using Virtual Worlds, Laura Downey

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

In a technologically overloaded world, is it possible to use technology to support well-being activities and enhance human flourishing? Proponents of positive technology and positive computing are striving to answer yes to that question. However, the impact of technology on well-being remains unresolved. Positive technology combines technology and positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on well-being and the science of human flourishing. Positive computing includes an emphasis on designing with well-being in mind as a way to support human potential. User experience (UX) is critical to positive technology and positive computing. UX researchers and practitioners are advocating for experience-driven design and …

An Empirical Investigation Into The Role That Boredom, Relationships, Anxiety, And Gratification (Brag) Play In A Driver’S Decision To Text, Nathan White

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Texting while driving is a growing problem that has serious, and sometimes fatal, consequences. Despite laws enacted to curb this behavior, the problem continues to grow. Discovering factors that can reduce such risky behavior can significantly contribute to research, as well as save lives and reduce property damage. This study developed a model to explore the motivations that cause a driver to send messages. The model evaluates the effects that boredom, social relationships, social anxiety, and social gratification (BRAG) have upon a driver’s frequency of typing text messages. In addition, the perceived severity of the consequences and the presence of …

A Predictive Modeling System: Early Identification Of Students At-Risk Enrolled In Online Learning Programs, Mary L. Fonti

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Predictive statistical modeling shows promise in accurately predicting academic performance for students enrolled in online programs. This approach has proven effective in accurately identifying students who are at-risk enabling instructors to provide instructional intervention. While the potential benefits of statistical modeling is significant, implementations have proven to be complex, costly, and difficult to maintain. To address these issues, the purpose of this study is to develop a fully integrated, automated predictive modeling system (PMS) that is flexible, easy to use, and portable to identify students who are potentially at-risk for not succeeding in a course they are currently enrolled in. …

Alternative Approaches To Correction Of Malapropisms In Aiml Based Conversational Agents, Walter A. Brock

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The use of Conversational Agents (CAs) utilizing Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) has been studied in a number of disciplines. Previous research has shown a great deal of promise. It has also documented significant limitations in the abilities of these CAs. Many of these limitations are related specifically to the method employed by AIML to resolve ambiguities in the meaning and context of words. While methods exist to detect and correct common errors in spelling and grammar of sentences and queries submitted by a user, one class of input error that is particularly difficult to detect and correct is the …

Factors Impacting Information Security Noncompliance When Completing Job Tasks, Martha Nanette Harrell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Work systems are comprised of the technical and social systems that should harmoniously work together to ensure a successful attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Information security controls are often designed to protect the information system and seldom consider the work system design. Using a positivist case study, this research examines the user's perception of having to choose between completing job tasks or remaining compliant with information security controls. An understanding of this phenomenon can help mitigate the risk associated with an information system security user's choice. Most previous research fails to consider the work system perspective on this issue. …

Information System Security Commitment: A Study Of External Influences On Senior Management, Kevin Andrew Barton

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated how senior management is motivated to commit to information system security (ISS). Research shows senior management participation is critical to successful ISS, but has not explained how senior managers are motivated to participate in ISS. Information systems research shows pressures external to the organization have greater influence on senior managers than internal pressures. However, research has not fully examined how external pressures motivate senior management participation in ISS. This study addressed that gap by examining how external pressures motivate senior management participation in ISS through the lens of neo-institutional theory. The research design was survey research. Data …

Serving Military Families: Perceptions Of Educational Counseling In A Virtual Environment, Taryn Stevenson

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The advances in communication technology over the past 20 years have significant implications for the delivery of psycho-educational therapeutic services to populations that have been historically underserved due to remote locations lacking trained providers. One such population is military families, who also suffer from a negative stigma of asking for outside help or education for personal growth. This population also faces increasing mental health needs due to military deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). These operations have increased the number of returning service members who have been physically and mentally injured. The effect that these …

A Method To Reduce The Cost Of Resilience Benchmarking Of Selfadaptive Systems, Steve Hernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Ensuring the resilience of self-adaptive systems used in critical infrastructure systems is a concern as their failure has severe societal and financial consequences. The current trends in the growth of the scale and complexity of society's workload demands and the systems built to cope with these demands increases the anxiety surrounding service disruptions. Self-adaptive mechanisms instill dynamic behavior to systems in an effort to improve their resilience to runtime changes that would otherwise result in service disruption or failure, such as faults, errors, and attacks. Thus, the evaluation of a self-adaptive system's resilience is critical to ensure expected operational qualities …

Unsupervised Learning Trojan, Arturo Geigel

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a proof of concept of an Unsupervised Learning Trojan. The Unsupervised Learning Trojan presents new challenges over previous work on the Neural network Trojan, since the attacker does not control most of the environment. The current work will presented an analysis of how the attack can be successful by proposing new assumptions under which the attack can become a viable one. A general analysis of how the compromise can be theoretically supported is presented, providing enough background for practical implementation development. The analysis was carried out using 3 selected algorithms that can cover a wide variety of …

A Causal Model To Predict Organizational Knowledge Sharing Via Information And Communication Technologies, Simon Cleveland

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge management literature identifies numerous barriers that inhibit employees' knowledge seeking and knowledge contributing practices via information and communication technologies (ICTs). Presently, there is a significant gap in the literature that explains what factors promote common knowledge sharing barriers. To bridge this gap, this study examined two research questions: 1) What are the potential factors that contribute to the commonly accepted barriers to knowledge sharing?, and 2) How do these factors impact employees' use of ICTs for knowledge seeking and knowledge contributing? Literature review of 103 knowledge management articles identified three major barriers to knowledge sharing practices (lack of time, …

An Investigation Of The Dayton Regional Stem School Public-Private Partnerships, Kimberly S. Poole

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation study documents in-depth the exploration of the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) between the Dayton Regional STEM School (DRSS) and their industry partners as well as the establishment of a framework for evaluating and assessing PPPs. The public-private partnership agreements were studied in order to answer the over-arching research question: How is an effective public-private partnership established, assessed, and evaluated in education? A descriptive case study methodology was used to study DRSS' public-private partnership agreements to determine if goals and objectives were established and whether or not the partnerships met those goals and objectives. This case study also included …

Using Class Interfaces And Mock Objects To Unit Test Aspects, Michael Bryan Snider

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

In object oriented programming (OOP) class objects are individual units of code that encapsulate the desired functionality of each object. AOP is an attempt to handle the cross-cutting concerns that represent functionality needed by a class, but is not specific to that class. The cross-cutting functionality is implemented in AOP by using a class-like structure, the aspect. Aspects do not have their own context and as such are dependent upon other objects for their context. By not having their own context it is difficult to test the functionality of aspects. This study investigated the effectiveness of using class interfaces and …

Security Policies That Make Sense For Complex Systems: Comprehensible Formalism For The System Consumer, Rhonda R. Henning

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Systems today rarely are contained within a single user workstation, server, or networked environment. Data can be transparently accessed from any location, and maintained across various network infrastructures. Cloud computing paradigms commoditize the hardware and software environments and allow an enterprise to lease computing resources by the hour, minute, or number of instances required to complete a processing task. An access control policy mediates access requests between authorized users of an information system and the system's resources. Access control policies are defined at any given level of abstraction, such as the file, directory, system, or network, and can be …

Designing For Statistical Reasoning And Thinking In A Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment, Wendy Tu

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Difficulties in learning and understanding statistics in college education have led to a reform movement in statistics education in the early 1990s. Although much work has been done, there is more work that needs to be done in statistics education. The progress depends on how well the educators bring interesting real-life data into the classroom.

The goal was to understand how course design based on First Principles of Instruction could facilitate tertiary-level students' conceptual understanding when learning introductory statistics in a technology-enhanced learning environment. An embedded single descriptive case design was employed to investigate how integrating technology and real data …

Secure Mobile Deployment Of Nfl Training Materials, Alexander R. Corris

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed is the lack of empirical research describing the delivery of individualized learning material in a secure and mobile manner. The goal was to investigate the effectiveness of deploying training materials to National Football League (NFL) players during a recent NFL season. Over the past few seasons, NFL teams have started to deliver player training material to mobile devices. The training material is sensitive and includes planning documents for upcoming games. An effort was made to survey a representative at each of the 32 NFL teams in order to gain insight on effectiveness, security, and process. Nearly half …

Performance Comparison Of Projective Elliptic-Curve Point Multiplication In 64-Bit X86 Runtime Environment, Ninh Winson

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

For over two decades, mathematicians and cryptologists have evaluated and presented the theoretical performance of Elliptic-curve scalar point-multiplication in projective geometry. Because computation in projective domain is composed of a wide array of formulations and computing optimizations, there is not a comprehensive performance comparison of point-multiplication using projective transformation available to verify its realistic efficiency in 64-bit x86 computing platforms. Today, research on explicit mathematical formulations in projective domain continues to excel by seeking higher computational efficiency and ease of realization. An explicit performance evaluation will help implementers choose better implementation methods and improve Elliptic-curve scalar point-multiplication. This paper was …

Understanding Usability-Related Information Security Failures In A Healthcare Context, Edward D. Boyer

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research study explores how the nature and type of usability failures impact task performance in a healthcare organization. Healthcare organizations are composed of heterogeneous and disparate information systems intertwined with complex business processes that create many challenges for the users of the system. The manner in which Information Technology systems and products are implemented along with the overlapping intricate tasks the users have pose problems in the area of usability. Usability research primarily focuses on the user interface; therefore, designing a better interface often leaves security in question. When usability failures arise from the incongruence between healthcare task and …

Assistive Technologies Used By Students With Asperger’S Syndrome To Improve Performance In The General Education Classroom, Sara (Beth) Cardwell Foreman

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The No Child Left Behind Act requires all students; regardless of poverty level, learning disability, limited English proficiency, or racial/ethnic origins; to be in general education classrooms meeting high standards of proficiency in reading/language arts and mathematics by 2013-14. Meeting high standards of proficiency in a general education classroom is particularly challenging for students diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorders, such as Asperger's syndrome. Limited interests, inflexible language, and social skills deficits without a history of cognitive or language delays before the age of three characterize the disorder. Other symptoms, such as clumsiness, unusual sensory reactions, and talk in unusual ways …

An Investigation Of The Key Factors That Affect The Adoption Of Smartphones In Global Midmarket Professional Service Firms, Mark S. Kocour

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The evolution and proliferation of mobile devices (m-devices) in the workplace have been rapid. In comparison to conventional services provided by mobile phones (m-phones), smartphones feature sophisticated functionality, such as Internet access, video/audio streaming, and business productivity applications. As a consequence of increased demand for smartphones in the workplace, an understanding of the factors that determine the decision to adopt smartphones in business settings is necessary. The goal of this investigation was to identify the key factors that have an impact on the adoption of smartphones.

This dissertation investigation provided an understanding of the key factors that affect the adoption …

Investigating The Determinants Of Disaster Recovery Technology Investment Choice In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Faranak Afshar

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Due to the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as drivers of economic growth, it is essential to explore the security issues impacting SMEs' success and failure. One of the main security risks that could significantly impair the operability of the organizations is the permanent loss of data due to man-made and/or natural disasters and interruptions. Research has shown that SMEs are not taking disaster preparedness for their computer and networking systems as seriously as they should. This dissertation is an attempt to explain the process of a risky choice, specifically the decision maker's choice of not investing in …

Employee And Organization Security Value Alignment Through Value Sensitive Security Policy Design, Dianne Blitstein Solomon

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Every member of the organization must be involved in proactively and consistently preventing data loss. Implementing a culture of security has proven to be a reliable method of enfranchising employees to embrace security behavior. However, it takes more than education and awareness of policies and directives to effect a culture of security. Research into organizational culture has shown that programs to promote organizational culture - and thus security behavior - are most successful when the organization's values are congruent with employee values. What has not been clear is how to integrate the security values of the organization and its employees …

Improving The Selection Of Surrogates During The Cold-Start Phase Of A Cyber Foraging Application To Increase Application Performance, Brian Kowalczk

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Mobile devices are generally less powerful and more resource constrained than their desktop counterparts are, yet many of the applications that are of the most value to users of mobile devices are resource intensive and difficult to support on a mobile device. Applications such as games, video playback, image processing, voice recognition, and facial recognition are resource intensive and often exceed the limits of mobile devices.

Cyber foraging is an approach that allows a mobile device to discover and utilize surrogate devices present in the local environment to augment the capabilities of the mobile device. Cyber foraging has been shown …

Dynamic Pricing In Heterogeneous Wireless Cellular Networks, David Shrader

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Smart communications devices are giving users instant access to applications that consume large amounts of data. These applications have different requirements on the network for delivery of data. In order to support these different applications, operators are required to support multiple service classes.

Given the regulatory and technology constraints and the relatively high cost associated with wireless spectrum licensing and utilization, demand will exceed supply leading to congestion and overload conditions. In addition to new broadband radio technologies offering higher data rates, operators are looking at deploying alternate heterogeneous technologies, such as WLAN, to provide additional bandwidth for serving customers. …

A Cognitive Apprenticeship Approach For Teaching Abstract And Complex Skills In An Online Learning Environment, Reinaldo Fernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Undergraduate courses such as mathematics, science, and computer programming require high levels of decision making, concentration, and cognitive demand. Researchers in the field of instructional design are interested in effective instructional strategies that can aid practitioners in teaching such abstract and complex skills.

One example of an instructional strategy that has proven effective in teaching these skills is cognitive apprenticeship (CA). While CA has been applied to courses such as mathematics and computer programming in face-to-face and blended learning environments, there is little evidence of the advantages of applying CA in a fully online computer programming course. Specifically, the introductory …

Helping Children With Autism Learn With Mathematics Software, Michelle Hansen

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are conditions where a person may exhibit developmental disabilities, significant social, communication and behavioral challenges, and process information differently than people without ASD. The Federal Government guidelines mandate inclusion of all students into the public school facilities. All school age children in the United States are afforded the same opportunities for public education.

The goal of this investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness of Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) as a treatment for teaching mathematics to a group of autistic pupils in an elementary school environment. The public later elementary school is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan and had …

Application Of Cellular Automata To Detection Of Malicious Network Packets, Robert L. Brown

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

A problem in computer security is identification of attack signatures in network packets. An attack signature is a pattern of bits that characterizes a particular attack. Because there are many kinds of attacks, there are potentially many attack signatures. Furthermore, attackers may seek to avoid detection by altering the attack mechanism so that the bit pattern presented differs from the known signature. Thus, recognizing attack signatures is a problem in approximate string matching. The time to perform an approximate string match depends upon the length of the string and the number of patterns. For constant string length, the time to …

The Impact Of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems On Small And Medium Enterprises, Miguel Buleje

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are considered the price of entry in today's business environment, and the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) retiring legacy systems in favor of ERP systems is increasing exponentially.

However, there is a lack of knowledge and awareness of ERP systems and their potential benefit and effect on performance, and overall value to SMEs. While ERP adoption costs and potential benefits are high, it is not apparent whether the end result will translate into higher productivity for SMEs.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the benefits that accrue to a firm on …