Computer Sciences Commons^™

Developing A Framework For Evaluation Of Corporate Non-Transactional Business-To-Consumer Web Sites: A Descriptive Study, Karen Denise Pate

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

During the soaring information economy of the last decade, organizations spent large sums of money on the development of Web sites without much knowledge of their performance value. In time, organizations realized that measuring Web site performance to determine value was fundamental. For transactional, e-commerce Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Web sites, this effort is straightforward because value is attached to sales. Measuring performance to determine the value of non-transactional B2C Web sites (i.e., sites that provide information, not sales) is more complex.

This study examined the underexplored subject of evaluating non-transactional Web sites. Performance was defined as outcomes ranging from site visitor …

Ascertaining The Relationship Between Security Awareness And The Security Behavior Of Individuals, Gordon J. Grant

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Security threats caused by the inappropriate actions of the user continue to be a significant security problem within any organization. The purpose of this study was to continue the efforts of Katz by assessing the security behavior and practices of working professionals. Katz conducted a study that assessed whether the faculty and staff at Armstrong Atlantic State University had been performing the simple everyday practices and behavior necessary to avert insider threats to information security. Critical in understanding human behavior is in knowing how behavior varies across different groups or demographics. Because a user's behavior can be influenced by demographic …

Judges' Awareness, Understanding, And Application Of Digital Evidence, Gary Craig Kessler

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

As digital evidence grows in both volume and importance in criminal and civil courts, judges need to fairly and justly evaluate the merits of the offered evidence. To do so, judges need a general understanding of the underlying technologies and applications from which digital evidence is derived. Due to the relative newness of the computer forensics field, there have been few studies on the use of digital forensic evidence and none about judges' relationship with digital evidence.

This study addressed judges' awareness, knowledge, and perceptions of digital evidence, using grounded theory methods. The interaction of judges with digital evidence has …

An Investigation Of Multiple Integration Techniques For Information Systems: A Model For Integrating Data Warehousing, Erp, And Soa In Practice, Jessie Burns

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed issues associated with implementing multiple data integrators. The process included implementing the same data integrator multiple times or implementing multiple different data integrators. It was shown that single data integrators implementations were failing at high rates. Environments were complicated because there were more acquisitions and mergers now than in the past, companies were required to be competitive while implementations were taking place, and possibly had short implementation time frames.

The main goal of this study was to develop an agile, sturdy, and rigorous model that addressed the needs of companies that found themselves in situations where they …

Early Detection Of Online Auction Opportunistic Sellers Through The Use Of Negative-Positive Feedback, Gregory J. Reinert

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Apparently fraud is a growth industry. The monetary losses from Internet fraud have increased every year since first officially reported by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2000. Prior research studies and third-party reports of fraud show rates substantially higher than eBay’s reported negative feedback rate of less than 1%. The conclusion is most buyers are withholding reports of negative feedback.

Researchers Nikitov and Stone in a forensic case study of a single opportunistic eBay seller found buyers sometimes embedded negative comments in positive feedback as a means of avoiding retaliation from sellers and damage to their reputation. This …

A Comparison Of The Rule And Case-Based Reasoning Approaches For The Automation Of Help-Desk Operations At The Tier-Two Level, Michael Forrester Bryant

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study investigates the hypothesis that case-based reasoning (CBR) systems have advantages over rule-based reasoning (RBR) systems in providing automated support for Tier-2 help desk operations. The literature suggests that rule-based systems are best suited for problem solving when the system being analyzed is a single-purpose, specialized system and the rules for solving the problems are clear and do not change with high frequency. Case-based systems, because of their ability to offer alternative solutions for a given problem, give help-desk technicians more flexibility. Specifically, this dissertation aims to answer the following questions:

1. Which paradigm, rule-based or case-based reasoning, …

An Online Community For Computer Technology Support And Training For College Office Support Staff, Mava F. Wilson

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Educational institutions strive to stay on the edge of technological advances in response to stakeholders' desire to receive value for their investment. Rapid changes in computer technology present a dilemma to colleges and universities in the support and training arena. An important segment of the institutional population, office support staff are vital to the everyday running of departments with extremely diverse responsibilities critical to the institutional mission. Office support staff seem to be left out when support and training programs for new technology are being planned. With technology changing so quickly it is vital that organizations have support and training …

An Investigation Of Training In Creative Problem Solving And Its Relationship To Affective And Effective Idea Generation Of Entrepreneurial Learners, Charles Edward Leach

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

A significant proportion of the population engages in entrepreneurial behavior but many ventures do not survive beyond startup thus decreasing the pool of entrepreneurs available to contribute to the economy. Opportunity recognition is central to entrepreneurial success and the improper delineation of opportunities is cited as a leading cause of venture failure. There is a logical link between creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. The goal of the researcher in this study was to explore the relationships between CPS training and the generation of entrepreneurial ideas.

The investigation studied the relationship of training in creative problem solving (CPS) to the opportunity identification …

Design, Development, And Implementation Of A Wireless Local Area Network (Wlan): The Hartford Job Corps Academy Case Study, Tracey Kershner Cooley

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) offer flexibility, mobility, and scalability to educational institutions. Students are increasingly expecting anywhere, anytime access to online resources. Secondary school administrators, who serve a similar population as the National Job Corps Program (NJCP), realize that student success in the 21st century workplace depends upon the student's ability to use new and emerging technologies, including wireless technology. Computer access anytime and anywhere is crucial to the success of students today.

Wireless technology has been broadly deployed at educational institutions, such as the Hartford Job Corps Academy (HJCA), but little is known about how these networks are …

A Methodology For Design And Development Of An Electronic Learning (E-Learning) Network At The Regis University School For Professional Studies, Samuel Steven Conn

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

E-learning networks are used by academic institutions such as Regis University to support synchronous and asynchronous delivery of online courses and programs. An e-learning network supports a wide range of applications and services and facilitates access to diverse e-learning implementations including virtual laboratory (V-lab) environments, knowledge repositories, storage area networks (SANs), and content delivery networks (CDNs), as well as metropolitan, regional, and international research and education configurations. As demonstrated in this dissertation, an e-learning network eliminates campus boundaries by providing infrastructure for information flows regionally, nationally, and internationally.

A systems development life cycle (SDLC) methodology enables academic institutions to design …

A Model For Using Managed Services In Designing And Supporting A Wireless Local Area Network For The Navy Marine Corps Intranet, Joseph L. Roth

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The purpose and content of this work are to explore the proper strategy on how to deploy multi-service mobile net centric warfare, or FORCEnet, the Navy's concept for Net Centric Warfare. In this research, the author examined where the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) fits into this vision and how it is mobile and multi-service compatible. It also explored how low-cost commercial approaches such as IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network technologies can be implemented as a joint notion of Net Centric Warfare in terms of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The problem investigated in this study was to evaluate …

Section 508 Adherence By Industry Professionals: Improving Universal Design Through Training, Antonio Rincon

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 took effect in 2001 and provides encouragement for universal design and compliance requirements to the federal sector for purchases that are accessible by people with disabilities. A division of General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (GDAIS) is located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and provides electronic and information technology solutions to federal customers in the defense, intelligence, and homeland security communities.

The general lack of training is a major factor for low compliance to Section 508. Improving awareness is important at GDAIS in order to increase its federal sales market share, develop new products …

A Model For The Evaluation Of Is/It Investments, Paul M. Tuten

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Evaluation is a vital--yet challenging--part of IS/IT management and governance. The benefits (or lack therefore) associated with IS/IT investments have been widely debated within academic and industrial communities alike. Investments in information technology may or may not result in desirable outcomes. Yet, organizations must rely on information systems to remain competitive. Effective evaluation serves as one pathway to ensuring success. However, despite a growing multitude of measures and methods, practitioners continue to struggle with this intractable problem.

Responding to the limited success of existing methods, scholars have argued that academicians should first develop a better understanding of the process of …

An Investigation Of The Contributions Of Gender, Shopping Orientation, Online Experience, And Website's Interactive Features To Consumers' Intentions To Engage In Apparel E-Commerce Shopping, Amanda Wynn

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

E-commerce has experienced exponential growth within the last few years. The rapid growth of e-commerce has created a need to improve consumer acceptance and the consumer's intention to engage in e-commerce. Female consumers have yet to embrace e-commerce as readily as male consumers. Differences between male and female consumer shopping behavior were examined.

This study developed and empirically tested a model to predict the consumer's intention to engage in apparel e-commerce shopping based on the constructs of gender, shopping orientation, online experience, and Website's interactive features. Male and female U.S. consumers age 18 and older were surveyed to determine their …

Responsibility Factors Of Reducing Inefficiencies In Information System Processes And Their Role On Intention To Acquire Six Sigma Certification, Sara Hejazi

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Organizations worldwide have been turning to Six Sigma program (SSP) to eliminate the defects in their products or drive out the variability in their processes to attain a competitive advantage in their marketplace. An effective certification program has been touted as a major contributor to successful implementation of SSP. An effective certification program provides the professionals involved with SSP projects a clear understanding of what their responsibilities should be in reducing the variability in their processes. Despite the benefits, a significant number of professionals who attend certification training fail to become certified.

This study aimed to develop a predictive model …

Parallel Mining Of Association Rules Using A Lattice Based Approach, Wessel Morant Thomas

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of interesting patterns from database transactions is one of the major problems in knowledge discovery in database. One such interesting pattern is the association rules extracted from these transactions. Parallel algorithms are required for the mining of association rules due to the very large databases used to store the transactions. In this paper we present a parallel algorithm for the mining of association rules. We implemented a parallel algorithm that used a lattice approach for mining association rules. The Dynamic Distributed Rule Mining (DDRM) is a lattice-based algorithm that partitions the lattice into sublattices to be assigned to …

A Study Of First- And Continuing-Generation College Students' Use Of Internet Communication Technologies In Social Capital And Its Contribution To Their Persistence In College, Gail Dianne (Hodge) Hayes

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Prior studies have shown that students who are the first in their families to attend college fail to persist in college more so than their continuing-generation (CG) counterparts do. Prior research on this phenomenon has helped to identify various factors that contribute to the lower college persistence of first-generation (FG) students. For example, social capital has been identified as a factor that improves student persistence in college. Prior studies have shown that FG students tend to enter college with lower social capital than their CG student counterparts do. Additionally, while in school, FG students tend not to engage in behaviors …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Information Security Policies On Computer Security Breach Incidents In Law Firms, Faith M. Heikkila

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Law firms maintain and store voluminous amounts of highly confidential and proprietary data, such as attorney-client privileged information, intellectual properties, financials, trade secrets, personal, and other sensitive information. There is an ethical obligation to protect law firm client data from unauthorized access. Security breaches jeopardize the reputation of the law firm and could have a substantial financial impact if these confidential data are compromised. Information security policies describe the security goals of a law firm and the acceptable actions and uses of law firm information resources.

In this dissertation investigation, the author examined the problem of whether information security policies …

Administrative Support For Online Teaching Faculty, John David Meyer

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

When administrators make decisions about the infrastructure support needs of a current or planned online teaching program, these decisions are often based on external expert advice rather than on the advice of experienced ground level faculty who are living with the dynamic nature of the technology and support needed to develop and maintain an effective online teaching program. Online teaching faculty are the best source of advice and information on what works and what does not.

Faculty at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) were surveyed to find out what elements are important to the development of an effective online …

A Formal Concept Analysis Approach To Association Rule Mining: The Quicl Algorithms, David T. Smith

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Association rule mining (ARM) is the task of identifying meaningful implication rules exhibited in a data set. Most research has focused on extracting frequent item (FI) sets and thus fallen short of the overall ARM objective. The FI miners fail to identify the upper covers that are needed to generate a set of association rules whose size can be exploited by an end user. An alternative to FI mining can be found in formal concept analysis (FCA), a branch of applied mathematics. FCA derives a concept lattice whose concepts identify closed FI sets and connections identify the upper covers. However, …

Application Of Computer Simulation Modeling To Evaluate Business Continuity Plans, Jose Francisco Molina Garcia Plaza

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Business continuity plans (BCP) help organizations plan for and withstand the occurrence of unexpected events that interrupt the normal operation of business. Managers typically develop several alternate plans to minimize the business impact of unexpected events. The problem for decision makers is that comparative evaluation of BCP is typically done using subjective judgments.

This research uses a case study approach focusing on a single organization and a single business continuity application to propose the use of computer simulation as a tool for managers to identify and evaluate different BCP prior to committing resources. In the context of an insurance firm, …

Use And Analysis Of Expected Similarity Of Semantic Web Ontological Annotations, Joe Lynn Look

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studied various means of calculating similarity in the annotations of web pages compared to the similarity of the document text. A software tool, named Semantic Web Analysis of Similarity (SW AS), was developed and utilized to perform the analysis of similarity in annotated documents published from the first three years of the International Semantic Web Conference. Rules concerning the ontological concepts of the documents were specified and these rules as well as other parameters were varied to determine the effect on overall similarity measures. Traditional measures of similarity as well as enhanced measures of similarity proposed for this …

Reducing Cognitive Load Using Hypervariate Display, William Garrabrants

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research examined the application of hypervariate display principles to human-computer interfaces with the intent of reducing the cognitive load placed on the operator during high-intensity activity. This research extended the existing body of knowledge relevant to reducing the cognitive load using human-computer interfaces. Existing research has explored the application of techniques that, when used in isolation, contribute to a computer operator's understanding of the data or efficiency in execution of tasks. This research studied the collaborative use of proven display techniques to improve a computer operator's ability to understand large amounts of data more rapidly and react to that …

Assessing Quality Indicators In Asynchronous Undergraduate Distance Education Courses, Donna J. Myers

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine quality indicators within asynchronous distance education undergraduate courses at an accredited institution. The definition of quality is in and of itself obscure. Therefore, the identification of indicators or characteristics of quality in courses was a primary focus. The identification of such characteristics was based on input from the primary stakeholders in distance education, namely, the students, the administrators, and the instructors. Collecting data from each stakeholder group allowed for a comparison of those characteristics of quality deemed most important by each group. Initially an expert panel meeting was conducted to help categorize …

Smart Classroom Technology: Instructional Effectiveness And Faculty And Student Satisfaction, Jon Preston Mckamey

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Numerous designs, practices, stakeholders, and technology options make it difficult for higher education institutions to find direction and established standards for classroom construction and remodeling projects. Different models of technology-enhanced classrooms are being adopted as various managers, integrators, and architects develop new classroom spaces. A planning process, standardized classroom model, and effective support structure will be valuable elements in meeting the needs of faculty and students.

The goal was to establish a best practices classroom model to meet the needs of community college faculty, students, and technology support personnel. Information collected from community colleges was used to determine the state …

Web 2.0 Tools Improve Teaching And Collaboration In High School English Language Classes, Mahmud Shihab

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Web 2.0 tools, namely blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS were introduced to change teaching practices of in-service high school teachers to improve the collaboration of today's students in the English language classroom. Two high school teachers of English language and their classes participated. The teachers were interviewed about their current teaching practices and provided with training to develop teaching units that use Web 2.0 to engage students as active collaborators in their learning. They integrated blogs, podcasts, wikis, and RSS into their teaching. Additional interviews were conducted during and after the implementation stage. Implementation strategies, changes in teaching practices, challenges …

Improving Knowledge Management Programs Using Marginal Utility In A Metric Space Generated By Conceptual Graphs, Jeffrey A. Schiffel

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge management has emerged as a field of endeavor that blends a systems approach with methods drawn from organizational management and learning. In contrast, knowledge representation, a branch of artificial intelligence, is grounded in formal methods. Research in the separate behavioral and the structural disciplines – knowledge management and knowledge engineering - has not traditionally cross-pollinated. This has prevented the development of many practical practices useful in organizations. Organization managers - line and senior - lack guidance in where to direct improvement efforts targeted at specific groups of company knowledge workers. Demonstrated here is Knowledge Improvement Measurement Space (KIMS), a …

An Event Monitor And Response Framework Based On The Wsloga Architecture, Todd Christopher Brett

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Web services provide organizations with a powerful infrastructure by which information and products may be distributed, but the task of supporting Web service systems can be difficult due to the complex nature of environment configuration and operation. Tools are needed to monitor and analyze such Enterprise environments so that appropriate engineering, quality control, or business activities can be pursued.

This investigation resulted in the development of a software development kit, the WSLogA Framework, which is inspired by the vision of Cruz et al. (2003, 2004). The WSLogA Framework provides distributed Enterprise systems with a platform for comprehensive information capture and …

An Analysis Of It/Is Offshore Outsourcing: Educator Perspectives, Martin H. Bagaya

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

IT/IS Offshore outsourcing is defined as a commercial arrangement of transferring local ITIIS functions, assets, activities, products and services to a foreign contractor therefore removing new employment positions, replacing or displacing U.S. domestic IT/IS workers with those from other countries for financial or competitive advantage of the outsourcing client. This process of offshore outsourcing to overseas locations was perceived to have consequences on IT/IS student enrolment at U.S. universities.

The objective of this study was to identify administrators' responses to reduced IT/IS student enrolments. The majority of ITIIS college administrators have concerns about offshore outsourcing, and is perceived to reduce …

Electronic Performance Support For E-Learning Analysis And Design, Thomas W. Jury

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Corporate instructional designers often follow an instructional systems design (ISD) process to plan, create, and implement training programs. Increased demand for elearning as a replacement or addition to classroom training means that, in the current corporate environment, instructional designers are called upon to produce a wide variety of instructional formats and have to make more decisions during the ISD process.

E-learning is evolving into a total performance improvement solution rather than simply as a means to delivering distance training and consequently, in an effort to achieve business goals, many corporations are turning to it as a cost effective way to …