Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

Job Seeking And Job Application In Social Networking Sites : Predicting Job Seekers' Behavioral Intentions, Maria Marcella Plummer

Dissertations

Social networking sites (SNSs) are revolutionizing the way in which employers and job seekers connect and interact with each other. Despite the reported benefits of SNSs with respect to finding a job, there are issues such as privacy concerns that might be deterring job seekers from using these sites in their attempts to secure a job. It is therefore important to understand the factors that are salient in predicting job seekers' use of SNSs in applying for jobs.

In this research, a theoretical model was developed to explicate job seekers' intentions to use SNSs to apply for jobs. Two aspects …

Virtual World Commerce Adoption (Vwca) : A Case Study Of Second Life Investigating The Impacts Of Perceived Affordances, Trust, And Need Satisfaction, Kamolbhan Olapiriyakul

Dissertations

Virtual worlds are computer-simulated worlds in which multi-players can simultaneously interact in a rich graphical environment. The development of virtual worlds, along with the massive growth of users, creates opportunities for business organizations. This dissertation involves many studies regarding virtual world adoption in business by virtual consumers.

Most of the research in Information Systems (IS) was conducted investigating factors influencing technology adoption, such as ease of use and usefulness, subjective norms and behavioral controls, self-efficacy, performance and effort expectancy, flow, etc. However, most of these research studies focused neither on design aspects related to affordances nor users' goal-oriented behaviors, such …

Applying Soft Cluster Analysis Techniques To Customer Interaction Information, Randall E. Duran, Li Zhang, Tom Hayhurst

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The number of channels available for companies and customers to communicate with one another has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Although some market segmentation efforts utilize high-level customer interaction statistics, in-depth information regarding customers’ use of different communication channels is often ignored. Detailed customer interaction information can help companies improve the way that they market to customers by taking into consideration customers’ behaviour patterns and preferences. However, a key challenge of interpreting customer contact information is that many channels have only been in existence for a relatively short period of time, and thus, there is limited understanding and …

Database Security: What Students Need To Know, Meg C. Murray

Faculty Articles

Database security is a growing concern evidenced by an increase in the number of reported incidents of loss of or unauthorized exposure to sensitive data. As the amount of data collected, retained and shared electronically expands, so does the need to understand database security. The Defense Information Systems Agency of the US Department of Defense (2004), in its Database Security Technical Implementation Guide, states that database security should provide controlled, protected access to the contents of a database as well as preserve the integrity, consistency, and overall quality of the data. Students in the computing disciplines must develop an …

In-Group / Out-Group Dynamics And Effectiveness In Partially Distributed Teams, Faina Privman

Dissertations

When organizations collaborate they often do so using partially distributed teams (PDTs). In a Partially Distributed Team there exist at least two distinct sub-groups. In addition, at least one of the sub-groups has two or more members that are geographically co-located. Co-located members can meet face to face; chat in the hallway; have lunch together; and otherwise socialize with one another. On the other hand, remote members must rely on technology to communicate and work together. This distinct characteristic of partially distributed teams makes them especially susceptible to the In-Group / Out Group dynamic (Huang and Ocker, 2006). This dynamic …

Design Development And Evaluation Of Collario, A Group Support System For Collaborative Scenario Creation, Xiang Yao

Dissertations

In the fields of Emergency Management and Business Continuity Planning, scenarios are a widely used tool for planning, training and knowledge sharing purposes. The ability to create and discuss emergency scenarios in virtual teams can lead to many potential applications, such as discussing emergency scenarios by world-wide experts, conducting on-line exercises, and creating Communities of Practices. Existing scenario creation systems, like NxMsel provided by FEMA, allow distributed groups to create scenarios together. However, collaborative support in these systems is generally limited.

This dissertation explores an innovative solution to provide various types of collaboration support around a knowledge structure and uses …

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 …

A Life Cycle Perspective On Online Community Success, Alicia Iriberri '06, Gondy Leroy

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Using the information systems lifecycle as a unifying framework, we review online communities research and propose a sequence for incorporating success conditions during initiation and development to increase their chances of becoming a successful community, one in which members participate actively and develop lasting relationships. Online communities evolve following distinctive lifecycle stages and recommendations for success are more or less relevant depending on the developmental stage of the online community. In addition, the goal of the online community under study determines the components to include in the development of a successful online community. Online community builders and researchers will benefit …

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 …

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 …

The Impact On Organizational Performance Of Contextual Factors, Strategy And Management Control Systems, Nazmi Saeb Jarrar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This dissertation examined antecedents of the use of contemporary management control systems (MCS) by testing the alignment of strategic and contextual variables with variables of contemporary systems of control in the organization. The study further explored the performance consequences of the implementation of these control systems, and the manner in which strategy can influence the organization’s control culture and management accounting practices. The impact of contextual factors, notably size and structural arrangements, such as decentralization and diversification, on management's choice of control systems were also examined. Hence, the study addressed the need for a better understanding of the association between …

Evaluating Online Health Information: Beyond Readability Formulas, Gondy Leroy, Stephen Helmreich, James Cowie, Trudi Miller '08, Wei Zheng '08

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Although understanding health information is important, the texts provided are often difficult to understand. There are formulas to measure readability levels, but there is little understanding of how linguistic structures contribute to these difficulties. We are developing a toolkit of linguistic metrics that are validated with representative users and can be measured automatically. In this study, we provide an overview of our corpus and how readability differs by topic and source. We compare two documents for three groups of linguistic metrics. We report on a user study evaluating one of the differentiating metrics: the percentage of function words in a …

Relative Importance, Specific Investment And Ownership In Interorganizational Systems., Kunsoo Han, Robert J. Kauffman, Barrie R. Nault

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Implementation and maintenance of interorganizational systems (IOS) require investments by all the participating firms. Compared with intraorganizational systems, however, there are additional uncertainties and risks. This is because the benefits of IOS investment depend not only on a firm's own decisions, but also on those of its business partners. Without appropriate levels of investment by all the firms participating in an IOS, they cannot reap the full benefits. Drawing upon the literature in institutional economics, we examine IOS ownership as a means to induce value-maximizing noncontractible investments. We model the impact of two factors derived from the theory of incomplete …

Developing A Virtual City For Emergency Preparedness Planning And Training, Jon K. Morgan

Theses

Existing techniques for emergency preparedness planning and training fail or lack the ability to convey training on a broad scale and timely fashion. Skill sets that are required for planning, mitigation, response and recovery issues are lost through information overload or failure to identify other channels in which to convey the information. In order to resolve some of the issues with currently existing methods such as tabletop training exercises (TTX), instructional video learning and full-scale exercises we can turn to virtual environments.

In a virtual environment teams can interact with their surroundings from the comfort of the office without having …

E-Transcript Web Services System Supporting Dynamic Conversion Between Xml And Edi, Myungjae Kwak '11, Woohyun Kang '14, Gondy Leroy, Samir Chatterjee

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

As XML becomes a standard for communications between distributed heterogeneous machines, many schools plan to implement Web Services systems using the XML e-transcript (electronic transcript) standard. We propose a framework that supports both XML e-transcript Web Services and existing EDI e-transcript systems. The framework uses the workflow engine to exploit the benefits of workflow management mechanisms. The workflow engine manages the e-transcript business process by enacting and completing the tasks and sub-processes within the main business process. We implemented the proposed framework by using various open source projects including Java, Eclipse, and Apache Software Foundation’s Web Services projects. Compared with …

The Motivators And Benefits Of Sharing Knowledge To A Kms Repository In An Omani Organization, Kamla Al-Busaidi '05, Lorne Olfman, Terry Ryan, Gondy Leroy

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Knowledge is a powerful resource that enables individuals and organizations to achieve several benefits such as improved learning and decisionmaking. Repository knowledge management system (KMS) assists organizations to efficiently capture their knowledge for later reuse. However, the breadth and depth of a knowledge management system depends on the magnitude of knowledge contributed to the system. This paper aimed to empirically investigate the motivators of knowledge sharing behavior and the individual benefits of such behavior in a culture where knowledge is perceived as power and private. Based on 104 employees in a major private petroleum organization in Oman and the partial …

Smartphones To Facilitate Communication And Improve Social Skills Of Children With Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder: Special Education Teachers As Proxies, Gondy Leroy, Gianluca De Leo

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

We present an overview of the approach we used and the challenges we encountered while designing software for smartphones to facilitate communication and improve social skills of children with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We employed participatory design, using special education teachers of children with ASD as proxies for our target population.

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 …

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 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 …

Mobile Communication And Data Gathering Software For Autistic Children And Their Caregivers, Gondy Leroy, Gianluca De Leo

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Positive design leads to positive change in our society. In most cases, discussions focus on those who receive the design. However, positive design may also have a positive, but often over-looked, effect on the designers themselves. Learning about difficulties others face and developing solutions is a benefit that can contribute to individual designers’ education and general sense of well-being. Having a broader understanding of alternative views and lifestyles makes one a better person. In addition, positive design may benefit the entire field of information science by improving its ability to renew itself and attract new, young talent.

Identification Of Command And Control Information Requirements For The Cyberspace Domain, Brian D. Aschenbrenner

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop an information requirements analysis method that would provide the Director of Cyberspace Forces with the information required to support effective command and control of cyberspace. This research investigates the role of information in command and control, information in the traditional war fighting domains, cyberspace as a war fighting domain, and various methods of determining information requirements of organizations. This research produced an information requirements analysis method that is suitable for identifying the command and control information requirements of the Director of Cyberspace Forces.

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 …

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 …

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 …