Recent studies show that, in the process of becoming part of our lives, technological innovations, such as computers and the Internet, have produced important psychological transformations. Little is known, however, about the psychological impacts of another new technology: mobile telecommunication. The results of an exploratory investigation into the use of cell phones by young inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro suggest that mobile telephony is also generating psychological changes. In addition, they indicate that such changes are consistent with the new subjective organization - fluid and ever-changing - described by several analysts of the present era. In the case of these youngsters, the most important changes detected are related to: their increased autonomy, freedom and privacy; the increased intimacy that characterizes many of their relationships; the emergence of new forms of interpersonal control; their increased sense of security and the feeling of never being alone.
Doc 102 : Affect and digital learning at the university level
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the efficiency of SMS based cell‐phone vocabulary learning as compared to email vocabulary delivery and snail mail vocabulary delivery at the university level.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 241 first year university students studied English vocabulary in their mandatory English foundation course. Students were divided into three groups: study via cell‐phone based SMS messages, via email messages and via snail mail delivery. Vocabulary lists were delivered weekly to students via the three delivery strategies during course. Students in the three groups were tested on English vocabulary and responded to a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward flexibility of the learning strategy; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy.Findings – Results of the study indicate that there were no significant differences for achievement attained by the three groups on the …
Doc 103 : Free software and the political philosophy of the cyborg world
Our freedoms in cyberspace are those granted by code and the protocols it implements. When man and machine interact, co-exist, and intermingle, cyberspace comes to interpenetrate the real world fully. In this cyborg world, software retains its regulatory role, becoming a language of interaction with our extended cyborg selves. The mediation of our extended selves by closed software threatens individual autonomy. We define a notion of freedom for software that does justice to our conception of it as language, sketching the outlines of a social and political philosophy for a cyborg world. In a cyberspace underwritten by free software, political structures become contingent and flexible: the polity can choose to change the extent and character of its participation. The rejection of opaque power is an old anarchist ideal: free software, by making power transparent, carries the potential to place substantive restrictions on the regulatory power of cyborg government.
Doc 104 : Tapping into students’ digital literacy and designing negotiated learning to promote learner autonomy
Abstract Students of today are digital natives. They acquire their digital literacy autonomously and are adept at using various Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to enrich their daily leisure life. Although prior research has addressed such phenomenon and its relation to school learning, the focus was mostly on students’ adoption of ICT tools to facilitate their learning. This study takes a further step by relating students’ digital literacy to their school curriculum and using the pedagogy of negotiated learning to improve their learning autonomy. The proposed negotiated learning design is to scaffold students along the authenticity–generalizability continuum; from operation-oriented knowledge and experience of ICT tools to the theory and technique of tools development and operation. It is expected that, by relating the school learning to students’ digital literacy, the way of students’ autonomously acquiring their digital literacy outside school may help them develop autonomy in school learning. For validating the proposal, an experiment with 36 university students studying the engineering course of multimedia technology has been implemented and evaluated. The qualitative results showed that participants developed their autonomy to exercise their digital literacy to resolve the difficulties they faced during Web exploration and data collection for their school learning. The quantitative data also evidenced their improvement of learning autonomy. The findings and the way how the learning practice is designed and implemented should offer teachers a different perspective of connecting school learning with students’ digital literacy acquired outside schools. Moreover, under the trend of youngsters’ digital literacy development, the findings provide a positive perspective on students’ digital literacy.
Doc 105 : New Media, Old Criticism: Bloggers’ Press Criticism and the Journalistic Field
Bourdieu’s field theory suggests that the rise of the internet and blogs could generate a shift in the journalistic field – the realm where actors struggle for autonomy – as new agents gain access. This textual analysis of 282 items of media criticism appearing on highly trafficked blogs reveals an emphasis on traditional journalistic norms, suggesting a stable field. Occasional criticisms of the practicability of traditional norms and calls for greater transparency, however, may suggest an emerging paradigm shift.
Doc 106 : Teachers’ Perceptions of Using Technology in Teaching EFL
No longer are students’ experiences with new languages limited to their textbooks or immediate environment. With the pervasiveness of the internet and the increased awareness of the importance of having technology in a classroom, both teachers and students all over the world are being provided with technological tools that will further accelerate their ability to acquire or teach a second or foreign language. Technology integration in the classroom has become an important aspect of successful teaching. It has triggered many researchers to investigate different aspects of such integration. In addition, it could be an effective teaching tool when used to engage all students in the learning process. The results of the study show that teachers have positive attitudes toward the use of technology, particularly computer. The focal point of the project was to promote students’ communicative competence and autonomy via the implementation of technological tools. This study aimed at investigating the perceptions of EFL teachers about the use of technology in their classes and factors affecting technology implementation in Iranian Language Institutes. Descriptive statistics and sample t-test were used to analyze the questionnaire data. Results obtained from both the quantitative and qualitative data revealed teachers’ perceptions about integrating technology in their classes, incentives for teachers who use technology, types of technology used, facilitating and inhibiting factors affecting technology implementation, and the different attitudes of male and female teachers toward using technology. According to the results, teachers had positive attitudes regarding the use of technology, in particular computer, in their classrooms.
Doc 107 : A cybernetic theory of morality and moral autonomy.
Human morality may be thought of as a negative feedback cotrol system in which moral rules are reference values, and moral disapproval, blame, and punishment are forms of negative feedback given for violations of the moral rules. In such a system, if moral agents held each other accountable, moral norms would be enforced effectively. However, even a properly functioning social negative feedback system could not explain acts in which individual agents uphold moral rules in the face of contrary social pressure. Dr. Frances Kelsey, who withheld FDA approval for thalidomide against intense social pressure, is an example of the degree of individual moral autonomy possible in a hostile environment. Such extreme moral autonomy is possible only if there is internal, psychological negative feedback, in addition to external, social feedback. Such a cybernetic model of morality and moral autonomy is consistent with certain aspects of classical ethical theories.
Doc 108 : The regional transnationalization of Latin American nursing.
As a knowledge generator, the university has always worked towards the internationalization of its research function, based on the researchers’ autonomy. As from the 1990’s, as a consequence of the globalization process, this assertion is no longer restricted to the research function, but also includes the teaching function. Nowadays, the university should work to produce pluriversity knowledge, that is, contextual knowledge to the extent that the principle organizing its production is its possible application. As the knowledge is applied beyond the university walls, the initiative to formulate the problems one intends to solve and to determine criteria for their relevance is the result of sharing between researchers and users. In pluriversity knowledge production, unilaterality is replaced by interactivity, which has gained enormous power by the revolution in information and communication technologies. Technological development is considered one of the most important tools for internationalization and for the use of the web to strengthen distance education and build collaborative research networks. As a result of globalization, the university increasingly needs to find regional synergies and intensify networks so as to stimulate and expand existing forms of transnational cooperation and multiply them in the framework of bilateral or multilateral agreements, in line with principles of mutual benefit. In this sense, Latin American Nursing has made efforts to transnationalize teaching and research institutions and establish regional collaborative networks. Initiatives in this sense include welcoming foreign students, mainly in graduate programs; international associations involving consulting services to foreign universities; collaborative research projects, distance education, virtual learning, faculty mobility, on-line libraries, research funding for students and faculty, among others. Some regional actions are just beginning, such as student exchange at undergraduate level and curriculum adaptations, while others are flourishing, such as the Collaborative Networks coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (nursing in patient safety, mental health nursing, child health nursing, nursing researchers and HIV, care management, nurse migration, nurses in elderly health, nursing journal editors etc.); the offering of distance education, such as the courses offered to health professionals from Latin American countries with a view to skills development in drugs abuse control and the Electronic journal portal in the Virtual Health Library-Nursing, currently joining 18 Nursing journals published in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Spain. Thus, transnational research centers need to be created, addressing themes and problems of specific interest to this region, and the dissemination of their research results needs to expand. In this context, the Latin American Journal of Nursing invites researchers from Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela to submit manuscripts about regional problems, with a view to encouraging new regional partnerships and contributing to the transnationalization of Nursing knowledge dissemination in Latin American nursing.
Doc 109 : Towards logic models for the analysis and evaluation of the criticalities in chronic patients’ care paths
Purpose – The aim of the present paper is to examine how the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) can have positive implications in a territorial context, where healthcare organizations are characterized by limited organizational independence and lack of individual statutory autonomy, with limited level of integration between the involved parties (healthcare operators, managers, and patients) and an uneven management of data and of information‐sharing.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken was an investigation based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods for information‐gathering and data‐analysis in the context of diabetes care. A case study approach was adopted with the aim of enhancing general practitioners’ (GPs’) performance levels through an evaluation monitoring and by controlling care paths dynamics.Findings – The realization of the target care path for chronic–degenerative pathologies in the Local Health Trust “Naples 4” in Campania Region …
Doc 110 : Study on validity verification of Korean version of DELES and its relationship with perceived learning achievement and cyber education satisfaction
This study it to verify the validity of Korean version of DELES (distance education learning environment survey) and analyze its relationship with learning achievement and distance education satisfaction. The target population of this study is students of K cyber university and a total of 254 cases are used for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is applied to verify 6 factors of DELES and structural equation analysis is applied to examine the relationship between distance education learning environment and learning achievement and distance education satisfaction. The study result shows that DELES is composed of six factors such as instructor support, student interaction & collaboration, personal relevance, authentic learning, active learning and student autonomy and its model fits are appropriate. The result of structural equation analysis shows distance education learning environment significantly influences distance education satisfaction directly as well as indirectly mediated by learning achievement. Learning achievement also significantly influences distance education satisfaction. Conclusions and implications are followed.
Doc 111 : Technological change, globalization and the Europeanization of rights
In contrast to civil and political rights, and to economic and social rights, which have been constructed and guaranteed within the framework of the nation-state, the new rights that aim to respond to opportunities and risks arising from new information and communication technologies, biotechnologies or, more generally, technology-based industrial development, are emerging in a context characterized by the strengthening of trans-national forces and dynamics (so-called ‘globalization’) and the erosion of state sovereignty. The state’s loss of power and autonomy to regulate economic and social activity, as well as to protect individual rights, has been accentuated in the European Community (EC) as a result of a process that to a certain degree anticipated contemporary global tendencies. The EC appears, therefore, as a privileged observatory of the possible impact of globalization on the contents of rights, whether ‘classical’ rights or new rights, such as the rights of access to information, new forms of in…
Doc 112 : Multimedia in the Business English Classroom: The Learners’ Point of View
Besides the internet and the various opportunities it provides for language learning, the multimedia CD-ROM, with its potential for integrating and offering different media in one storage medium, has created quite a stir amongst language teaching professionals in the 90s. The benefits of multiple modalities, online support tools, and instant feedback are believed to have the potential of increasing learner control, motivation, and autonomy. However, a closer look at what is actually available on the market, in this instance the sub-market of Business English multimedia programmes, reveals that many such learning tools fall short of the claims that have been made for them, at least in the eyes of pedagogues. As teachers and students do not always see eye-to-eye as far as the usefulness of particular learning tools and activities is concerned, it seems paramount to let the final user and ultimate target group have their say, as well. The present study focuses on the reactions and comments of 30 students of …
Doc 113 : An activity-theoretical approach to investigate learners’ factors toward e-learning systems
The Internet and World Wide Web have provided opportunities of developing e-learning systems. The development of e-learning systems has started a revolution for instructional content delivering, learning activities, and social communication. Based on activity theory, the purpose of this research is to investigate learners’ attitude factors toward e-learning systems. A total 168 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire. After factor analysis, learners’ attitudes can be grouped four different factors - e-learning as a learner autonomy environment, e-learning as a problem-solving environment, e-learning as a multimedia learning environment, and teachers as assisted tutors in e-learning. In addition, this research approves that activity theory is an appropriate theory for understanding e-learning systems. Furthermore, this study also provides evidence that e-learning as a problem-solving environment can be positively influenced by three other factors.
Doc 114 : Creating an educational context for Open Source Intelligence: The development of Internet self-efficacy through a blogcentric course
This paper examined the effects of a blogging centered curriculum on the development of Internet self-efficacy of students taking a general education class. The class used a hybrid model (in class and online) that both integrated and strongly encouraged blogging on a community style, open source blog. The curriculum was designed to both create a more distributed educational structure and to develop greater autonomy and participation in student activity. It was hypothesized that as students engaged in increasingly complex Internet activities they would develop greater strength in Internet self-efficacy in organization and differentiation of information and reaction to and generation of information. 367 undergraduate students participated in the current study. A pre-, post-test format was used to measure whether there were significant changes in strength of Internet self-efficacy, with the inclusion of a control group of a more traditionally-structured class. The results showed that a blogcentric course has impacts on the increases in students’ Internet self-efficacy, particularly for reactive/generative self-efficacy. The findings are discussed in light of potential implications on the future direction of education.
Doc 115 : Theatrocracy Unwired: Legal Performance in the Modern Mediasphere
AbstractWriting in the middle of the 4th century BC, in an age of mass trials and dramatically trained rhetoricians, Plato worried that Athens was becoming a “theatrocracy” – a state ruled by theatre – in which audience applause or catcalls determined verdicts and established laws. In the 21st century – with legal news, television trials, reality police shows, YouTube execution videos (etc.) shouting at us from our many screens – Plato might think his theatrocratic nightmare had come true with a vengeance. In our theatrocracy, where the media and its ever-online TV spectators can determine guilt or innocence, are the boundaries of the legal system beginning to dissolve? Does theatrocracy threaten law’s “stability,” “legitimacy,” “autonomy,” and “authority,” as some have argued? Is theatrocracy a threat to nomocracy, to the very existence of law? “Theatrocracy Unwired” looks at the nature of our legal theatrocracy (from the age of television to the age of the Internet), theoretical discussions of law and m…
Doc 116 : Strategies of control: workers’ use of ICTs to shape knowledge and service work
This paper examines the way that different types of workers deploy strategies of control in concert with and in resistance to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Existing research on the effects of ICTs for knowledge workers has illustrated the ways they can lead to practices of overwork and work–life spillover. However, the dearth of studies on service workers and ICT means that we have a limited understanding of their role across different segments of the workforce. Drawing on interviews with service workers and knowledge workers, I examine how they use ICTs to shape their experiences of work. The study finds the two groups deployed ICTs in different ways, and employed different ICT-centric strategies to control the temporal and emotional demands of their labor. The service workers deployed strategies of everyday resistance in concert with their ICTs to gain a feeling of autonomy within the power structures of their workplaces. The knowledge workers deployed strategies of inaccessibility …
Doc 117 : Commercial websites: Consumer protection and power shifts
Internet forms a popular forum for information exchange between consumers, while online marketing has opened a range of new facilities for companies to promote and sell their products. This article aims to find out if consumer power has increased as a result of comparison websites and access to more information, or whether it has decreased because of unreliable companies and websites that misuse identity concealing features of the Internet. Main question is whether the autonomy of consumers, and therewith the position of power against producers, is restricted by advertisement techniques from producers who are using the Internet, and if there are causes for concern. Attention will be paid to current legislation on consumer protection and on unfair commercial practices, and implications of online shopping are discussed. Methods such as ‘markufacturing’ and comparison websites are discussed explicitly. Some focus points are provided as a first onset to further regulation in order to retain fair power positions between producers and consumers.
Doc 118 : Becoming Individual in Education and Cyberspace
This article traces key competences that are necessary to master as teachers are increasingly obliged to orchestrate learning as initiation into individual autonomy. The context is one that acknowledges that learning increasingly dissipates out into cyberspace.Inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, the article explores preconditions for professionalizing the teacher using project work as a generalized case. Project work claims to anticipate initiation into autonomy and reflects new power relations between professionals and clients as well. It is assumed that project work illustrates the transition from traditional school forms to a more individualized society where Information and Communication Technologies media (ICT) are increasingly integrated in learning. It is likewise assumed that the procedures and rules governing project work—as a way of shaping the image of oneself as an individual—correspond in ambivalent ways to competences that one must master in order to navigate as an up‐to‐date emp…
Doc 119 : Antecedents of relational inertia and information sharing in SNS usage: The moderating role of structural autonomy ☆
This research looks at how the structural characteristics of network affect pressure of relational inertia and the behavior to share information through SNS. Also, we tested the moderating effect of the structural autonomy in network, the extent to which a user feels that ties of relationship can be managed in terms of holding important hubs in social network. The data were collected through online survey from 320 members of four online communities of two popular SNS, Facebook and KakaoStory. The findings show that first of all, three out of four constructs we studied as a structural characteristic, cohesiveness, multiplexity, and syncopated complexity had positive impact on relational inertia, and also relational inertia was positively associated with the decrease of information sharing on SNS. Second, the users’ structural autonomy on SNS made the decrease of information sharing weaker and also moderated the relationship between relational inertia and decrease of information sharing. This study suggests that even SNS, which enables the relationship building and information sharing through social networking, could bring negative effect depending on the structural characteristics of a user’s social network. In this study, we also confirmed the value of structural autonomy on SNS. Actors can benefit from being linked to only the important ties on social network to obtain effective information and social capital from relationships.
Doc 120 : Edging out of the nest: emerging adults’ use of smartphones in maintaining and transforming family relationships
AbstractThe transition to adulthood, often accompanied by an emptying of the family nest, has implications for family relationships, identities and consumption practices. Despite this, the voices and experiences of emerging adults are largely missing from literature on family consumption. Emerging adult families typically combine digital natives and digital immigrants, but little is known about how their interactions around digital communications technology relate to emerging adult preoccupations with affiliation and autonomy. This interpretive study explores how emerging adults’ smartphones are bound up with a complex network of family communication and consumption practices, often across household, geographic and generational boundaries. Affiliation and autonomy emerged as intertwined rather than competing dimensions of participants’ smartphone use, contributing to the distribution and development of family as the nest empties.
In Portugal, as in other countries, questions regarding social mediation for promoting personal development and autonomy, citizenship and cohesion and as a methodology of communication, facilitation and interaction between people and groups, have developed in various areas of social organisations. Mediation practices have been strengthening their conceptual and empirical grounding for the following reasons: an increased recognition of their social and educational potential, and as a result of the high level of fragility regarding the stability, convenience, and social cohesion of current society. Mediation, as a qualification and empowerment of individuals, is centred on people, social groups, and communication skills for coping with multiple problems. Mediation is, therefore, recognised as a potential practice that increases the development of a desire in individuals and groups to construct the dynamics of non-violent and participatory interactions. Bearing in mind the relevance of mediation practices an…
Doc 122 : Architecture as a verb: cybernetics and design processes for the social divide
Purpose – This paper aims to draw on current research in public policy, and more specifically about a collaborative design process for a poor suburban community in Sao Paulo, Brazil and its relation to social cybernetics as the “science of effective organization.” The research project in public policy, online‐communities, has been financed by the state‐sponsored agency FAPESP since 2003, and involves four research groups from the Architecture and Computer Science Departments at the University of Sao Paulo, and various public and non‐governmental organizations under the coordination of Nomads.usp Research Center (Center for Studies on Interactive Living, www.eesc.usp.br/nomads).Design/methodology/approach – The design methodology includes three premises: an organization of the team which considers multidisciplinary and multicultural aspects; the involvement of potential users as creators of the virtual community and of its concrete space; and the concern that the process will be organized so that autonomy …
Both corporate and global governance seem to demand increasingly sophisticated means for identification. Supposedly justified by an appeal to security threats, fraud and abuse, citizens are screened, located, detected and their data stored, aggregated and analysed. At the same time potential customers are profiled to detect their habits and preferences in order to provide for targeted services. Both industry and the European Commission are investing huge sums of money into what they call Ambient Intelligence and the creation of an ‘Internet of Things’. Such intelligent networked environments will entirely depend on real time monitoring and real time profiling, resulting in real time adaptation of the environment. In this contribution the author will assess the threats and opportunities of such autonomic profiling in terms of its impact on individual autonomy and refined discrimination and indicate the extent to which traditional data protection is effective as regards profiling.
Doc 124 : Facilitating the Development of the Autonomous Language Learner Using Online Virtual Learning Environments
This paper argues that if used correctly, computer-mediated courseware (CMC), in the form of an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) such as Blackboard or Moodle, has the potential to offer adult learners in university settings an optimal autonomy-supportive environment for learning English as a second language at a distance. The paper firstly considers how to promote learner autonomy through offering participants choices during the initial stages of a course through a negotiated syllabus. It then divides the language learning process into metacognitive and cognitive linguistic capacities and provides examples of strategies to increase autonomy in these spheres. Autonomy with regard to metacognitive linguistic capacities can be developed first by the multimodal aspect of CMC, in particular, the unprecedented access to resources, second, through the array of mediums to select in the creation and submission of assignments and third, through the notion of ‘dissemination’ (Mayes, 2002), which allows for ‘vicarious learning’ (Bandura, 1986). Autonomy with regard to cognitive linguistic capacities can be promoted through goal-oriented participant interaction on spoken and written forums on the platform, followed by consciousness-raising language activities guiding students to notice patterns in the language. In conclusion, it is suggested that a VLE might lead to optimum learning through the facilitation of a state of ‘flow’ or ‘autotelic’ activity, a concept closely related to autonomy and intrinsic motivation.
If we are flexible, hybrid and unfinished creatures that tend to incorporate or at least employ technological artefacts in our cognitive lives, then the sort of technological regime we live under should shape the kinds of minds we possess and the sorts of beings we are. E-Memory consists in digital systems and services we use to record, store and access digital memory traces to augment, re-use or replace organismic systems of memory. I consider the various advantages of extended and embedded approaches to cognition in making sense of E-Memory and some of the problems that debate can engender. I also explore how the different approaches imply different answers to questions such as: does our use of internet technology imply the diminishment of ourselves and our cognitive abilities? Whether or not our technologies can become actual parts of our minds, they may still influence our cognitive profile. I suggest E-Memory systems have four factors: totality, practical cognitive incorporability, autonomy and entanglement which conjointly have a novel incorporation profile and hence afford some novel cognitive possibilities. I find that thanks to the properties of totality and incorporability we can expect an increasing reliance on E-Memory. Yet the potentially highly entangled and autonomous nature of these technologie pose questions about whether they should really be counted as proper parts of our minds.
Doc 126 : How Do We Know What Students Are Actually Doing? Monitoring Students’ Behavior in CALL.
This article presents a survey of computer-based tracking in CALL and the uses to which the analysis of tracking data can be put to address questions in CALL in particular and second language acquisition (SLA) in general. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods, researchers have found that students often use software in unexpected ways, a finding which has consequences for the notion of learner autonomy and underscores the need for learner training. In addition, researchers, especially those in computer-mediated communication (CMC), have demonstrated the operation of fundamental SLA principles and also extended our understanding of those principles. Finally, comparison of students’ actual use of software and their self-reported use of software reveals the danger of over reliance on self-report data. Although logistically challenging and potentially time-consuming, analysis of tracking data goes a long way in putting CALL on solid empirical footing.
Doc 127 : Internet Use Frequency and Patient-Centered Care: Measuring Patient Preferences for Participation Using the Health Information Wants Questionnaire
The Internet is bringing fundamental changes to medical practice through improved access to health information and participation in decision making. However, patient preferences for participation in health care vary greatly. Promoting patient-centered health care requires an understanding of the relationship between Internet use and a broader range of preferences for participation than previously measured.To explore (1) whether there is a significant relationship between Internet use frequency and patients’ overall preferences for obtaining health information and decision-making autonomy, and (2) whether the relationships between Internet use frequency and information and decision-making preferences differ with respect to different aspects of health conditions.The Health Information Wants Questionnaire (HIWQ) was administered to gather data about patients’ preferences for the (1) amount of information desired about different aspects of a health condition, and (2) level of decision-making autonomy desired across those same aspects.The study sample included 438 individuals: 226 undergraduates (mean age 20; SD 2.15) and 212 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 72; SD 9.00). A significant difference was found between the younger and older age groups’ Internet use frequencies, with the younger age group having significantly more frequent Internet use than the older age group (younger age group mean 5.98, SD 0.33; older age group mean 3.50, SD 2.00; t436=17.42, P<.01). Internet use frequency was positively related to the overall preference rating (γ=.15, P<.05), suggesting that frequent Internet users preferred significantly more information and decision making than infrequent Internet users. The relationships between Internet use frequency and different types of preferences varied: compared with infrequent Internet users, frequent Internet users preferred more information but less decision making for diagnosis (γ=.57, P<.01); more information and more decision-making autonomy for laboratory test (γ=.15, P<.05), complementary and alternative medicine (γ=.32, P<.01), and self-care (γ=.15, P<.05); and less information but more decision-making autonomy for the psychosocial (γ=-.51, P<.01) and health care provider (γ=-.27, P<.05) aspects. No significant difference was found between frequent and infrequent Internet users in their preferences for treatment information and decision making.Internet use frequency has a positive relationship with the overall preferences for obtaining health information and decision-making autonomy, but its relationship with different types of preferences varies. These findings have important implications for medical practice.
Doc 128 : Catholicism, Choice and Consciousness:: A Feminist Theological Perspective on Abortion
Despite the apparently irreconcilable conflict between ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ activists in the abortion debate, many feminists and Catholic theologians agree that questions of consciousness, relationality and foetal development are of greater ethical significance than theological claims about the personhood of the embryo or feminist claims about women’s autonomy. This article argues that absolutist positions based on the embryo’s right to life or the woman’s right to choose fail to represent the reality of abortion and the dilemmas it poses. It suggests an approach in which maternal consciousness and foetal development are together recognized as intrinsic to the process of humanization, and argues for a gradual shift in emphasis from the primacy of the woman’s right to choose in the first trimester, to the right to life of the foetus in the third semester. It concludes with a reflection on Mary and Eve, as symbols of women’s eschatological hope and existential reality with regard to childbearing.
Doc 129 : The history and culture of the newsroom in Germany
Today journalistic production takes place within “editorial offices” or “newsrooms”. But such newsrooms did not exist when newspapers first emerged. This paper describes, based primarily on the evidence of building structure and architectural floor plans, when and why special newsrooms were created in Germany and how they developed. At first these rooms were small, and journalists often resided there too. From the late nineteenth century editorial offices became differentiated and, in the German case typically became separate rooms reflecting newspapers’ different editorial subjects and sections, thereby fostering their journalistic autonomy. Only recently can changes towards alternative structures and open-plan offices be observed. Meanwhile the production of internet news returns to an organization that does not require a newsroom. This paper argues that newsroom structure has influenced journalism in Germany, which did not change its production routines much after World War II when the American journal…
This article proposes a multiliteracies-based pedagogical framework for the analysis of computer-mediated discourse (CMD) in order to give students increased access to expanded discourse options that are available in online communication environments and communities (i.e., beyond the classroom). Through the analysis of excerpts and a corpus of French and Spanish electronic discourse, we illustrate how this framework can promote autonomous, lifelong participation and learning emphasized by the Communities component of the National Standards. Such an analysis allows students and instructors to explore similarities and divergences within and among different types of CMD and, by extension, more traditional types of discourse that are all shaped by technical and social affordances and constraints.
Doc 131 : Visible moves and invisible bodies: the case of teleworking in an Italian call centre
Popular images of teleworkers’ autonomy, such as ‘the electronic cottage’, give unrealistic pictures of the control exercised over teleworkers, particularly when these are call centre operators and highly integrated information and communication technology systems facilitate pervasive forms of control. However, this study of Italian home-located call centre operators demonstrates that extensive and multifaceted monitoring practices cannot ‘solve’ the controversial issue of control.
Doc 132 : Teacher autonomy in multiple-user domains: supporting language teaching in collaborative virtual environments
Abstract The concepts of teacher and learner autonomy have played an important role in the context of language teaching and the Internet over the past few years. The full potential of Internet resources, even authentic information resources, has largely remained unused for language learning and teaching. Organisational and affective factors have discouraged many teachers from using the Internet for language teaching. The Internet-enhanced object-oriented multiple-user domain(MOO) can serve as a tool to select and enhance Internet resources, while at the same time expanding the possibilities of the traditional classroom. Its text-based, synchronous and asynchronous communications resources are integrated within a common interface. Its support mechanisms are good for language teachers, who are only too often left alone with the new technology. The author argues for an intricate interdependence of pedagogy and technology, and sees teacher autonomy and the MOO as a promising combination for language teaching …
Doc 133 : “I am a Techno-Rebel!” Malaysian Academics & their Personal Experiences of Progressing into e-Learning
Abstract As we delve deeper into the world of online learning in our attempts to evaluate our Computer-Aided Self-Access Language Learning (CASA-LL) framework ( Adnan & Zamari, 2011 ), we began working closely with e-course developers and online learning managers in different countries and educational institutions to elicit their personal experiences regarding e-learning as a whole. Moving from a macro to micro point-of-view, we noticed three components in our framework that were very relevant to course instructors and classroom tutors namely needs, design and learner autonomy - as they move their teaching from real life to the virtual universe. More interestingly, we also noticed that these three components are not just relevant to language instructors but they are relevant to all educators who wish to embrace e-learning wholeheartedly. On the downside, given that many educational institutions (in Malaysia at least) are not yet ready for e-learning or are just beginning to develop an e-learning infrastructure without clear directions, very few Malaysian academics can be seen as “true” e-learning developers and/or instructors. To collect empirical data on this critical phenomenon, we identified and personally approached two highly experienced Malaysian academics who have attempted to embrace e-learning as part of their academic existence. This research paper shares their personal drive, feelings, failures and successes given the fact that both of them had chosen to work outside of the system as it were - to prove to their peers the virtues of e-driven learning and to show others that e- learning is the path to the future. Using excerpts from unstructured narrative interviews and snippets of informal online communication with our two participants, we found that although they come from different academic backgrounds, they somehow shared common goals and faced nearly the same challenges and difficulties in their ongoing efforts to encourage, promote and support e-learning deployment.
Assistive robotics aims at developing solutions (mechatronic devices, systems and technologies) to assist and interact with individuals with reduced motor or cognitive abilities in order to increase their autonomy in a personal environment. Rehabilitation robotics proposes similar solutions for assisted therapy and objective functional assessment of these patients usually in a clinical context [1].
Doc 135 : On the Front Lines: Educating Teachers about Bullying and Prevention Methods
Problem statement: Bullying is a serious problem in American schools a nd is characterized by aggressive behavior distinguished by unequal power and the intention to cause physical, social, or emotional harm to others Bullying is evolving from the classic image of a big schoolyard bully picking on smaller kids to a more technologically, sophisti cated model of kids using cyber technology to electronically tease, bully and harass their peers with texting, voicemails, emails and posts on publi c websites, like Facebook, that are popular with youn g students. While parents are and should be encouraged and trained to recognize understand the insidious nature of techno bullying, it is not enou gh. The schools should take an active stance against bu llying and this includes training teachers and othe r personnel to be trained to recognize the signs and to intervene in bullying. Approach: This article discussed a research project undertaken to get asse ss the following: how educators recognize bullying, what they can do and actually do to intervene as we ll as their need for more training and autonomy to intervene. Results: There were 145 completed surveys, with 51 partiall y completed surveys. The results were reported for the completed surveys onl y. Conclusion: This study examined how well a subset of teachers recognize the signs of cyber/tec hno bullying as well as their feelings of preparedn ess to intervene with the bullies and the bullied.
Doc 136 : Surveillance in ubiquitous network societies: normative conflicts related to the consumer in-store supermarket experience in the context of the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging global infrastructure that employs wireless sensors to collect, store, and exchange data. Increasingly, applications for marketing and advertising have been articulated as a means to enhance the consumer shopping experience, in addition to improving efficiency. However, privacy advocates have challenged the mass aggregation of personally-identifiable information in databases and geotracking, the use of location-based services to identify one’s precise location over time. This paper employs the framework of contextual integrity related to privacy developed by Nissenbaum (Privacy in context: technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2010) as a tool to understand citizen response to implementation IoT-related technology in the supermarket. The purpose of the study was to identify and understand specific changes in information practices brought about by the IoT that may be perceived as privacy violations. Citizens were interviewed, read a scenario of near-term IoT implementation, and were asked to reflect on changes in the key actors involved, information attributes, and principles of transmission. Areas where new practices may occur with the IoT were then highlighted as potential problems (privacy violations). Issues identified included the mining of medical data, invasive targeted advertising, and loss of autonomy through marketing profiles or personal affect monitoring. While there were numerous aspects deemed desirable by the participants, some developments appeared to tip the balance between consumer benefit and corporate gain. This surveillance power creates an imbalance between the consumer and the corporation that may also impact individual autonomy. The ethical dimensions of this problem are discussed.
Doc 137 : Moving from social networks to social internetworking scenarios: The crawling perspective
In new generation social networks, we expect that the paradigm of Social Internetworking Systems (SISs) will become progressively more important. Indeed, the possibility of interconnecting users and resources of different social networks enables a lot of strategic applications whose main strength is the integration of different communities that nevertheless preserves their diversity and autonomy. In this new scenario, the role of Social Network Analysis is crucial in studying the evolution of structures, individuals, interactions, and so on, and in extracting powerful knowledge from them. But the preliminary step to do is designing a good way to crawl the underlying graph. Although this aspect has been deeply investigated in the field of social networks, it is an open issue when moving towards SISs. Indeed, we cannot expect that a crawling strategy, specifically designed for social networks, is still valid in a Social Internetworking Scenario, due to its specific topological features. In this paper, we confirm the above claim, giving a strong motivation for our second contribution, which is the definition of a new crawling strategy. This strategy, specifically conceived for SISs, is shown to fully overcome the drawbacks of the state-of-the-art crawling strategies.
Doc 138 : Needs, affect, and interactive products - Facets of user experience
Subsumed under the umbrella of User Experience (UX), practitioners and academics of Human-Computer Interaction look for ways to broaden their understanding of what constitutes ‘’pleasurable experiences’’ with technology. The present study considered the fulfilment of universal psychological needs, such as competence, relatedness, popularity, stimulation, meaning, security, or autonomy, to be the major source of positive experience with interactive technologies. To explore this, we collected over 500 positive experiences with interactive products (e.g., mobile phones, computers). As expected, we found a clear relationship between need fulfilment and positive affect, with stimulation, relatedness, competence and popularity being especially salient needs. Experiences could be further categorized by the primary need they fulfil, with apparent qualitative differences among some of the categories in terms of the emotions involved. Need fulfilment was clearly linked to hedonic quality perceptions, but not as strongly to pragmatic quality (i.e., perceived usability), which supports the notion of hedonic quality as ‘’motivator’’ and pragmatic quality as ‘’hygiene factor.’’ Whether hedonic quality ratings reflected need fulfilment depended on the belief that the product was responsible for the experience (i.e., attribution).
Doc 139 : The Development of Learner Autonomy Through Internet Resources and Its Impact on English Language Attainment
Abstract Since the arrival of the Internet and its tools, computer technology has become of considerable significance to both teachers and students, and it is an obvious resource for foreign language teaching and learning. The paper presents the results of a study which aimed to determine the effect of the application of Internet resources on the development of learner autonomy as well as the impact of greater learner independence on attainment in English as a foreign language. The participants were 46 Polish senior high school students divided into the experimental group (N = 28) and the control (N = 18) group. The students in the experimental group were subjected to innovative instruction with the use of the Internet and the learners in the control group were taught in a traditional way with the help of the coursebook. The data were obtained by means questionnaires, interviews, learners’ logs, an Internet forum, observations as well as language tests, and they were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the experimental students manifested greater independence after the intervention and they also outperformed the controls on language tests.
Doc 140 : Temporal Flexibility and its Limits: The Personal Use of ICTs at Work:
Employee temporal flexibility is a common strategy aimed at assisting workers to reduce conflict between work and family life. Information and communication technologies can facilitate this by enabling employees to attend to various personal life matters during the workday. Critical to utilising such flexibility is a degree of autonomy over how work time can be used. However, in organisational settings, such autonomy is tempered by structural and normative constraints. This article examines how environments of constrained autonomy affect employees’ ability to use time flexibly. Case study data of engineers and managers working in the telecommunications industry is presented. This reveals two findings. Firstly, environments of constrained autonomy limit when during the workday employees can engage in personal mediated communications. Secondly, when personal time is inserted into such contexts, the quantitative and qualitative character of this time is affected.
Doc 141 : Loose Coupling Based Reference Scheme for Shop Floor-Control System/Production-Equipment Integration
Coupling shop floor software system (SFS) with the set of production equipment (SPE) becomes a complex task. Itinvolves open and proprietary standards, information and communication technologies among other tools andtechniques. Due to market turbulence, either custom solutions or standards based solutions eventually require aconsiderable effort of adaptation. Loose coupling concept has been identified in the organizational design communityas a compensator for organization survival. Its presence reduces organization reaction to environment changes. Inthis paper the results obtained by the organizational design community are identified, translated and organized tosupport the SFS-SPE integration problem solution. A classical loose coupling model developed by organizationalstudies community is abstracted and translated to the area of interest. Key aspects are identified to be used aspromoters of SFS-SPE loose coupling and presented in a form of a reference scheme. Furthermore, this referencescheme is proposed here as a basis for the design and implementation of a generic coupling solution or couplingframework, that is included as a loose coupling stage between SFS and SPE. A validation example with various setsof manufacturing equipment, using different physical communication media, controller commands, programminglanguages and wire protocols is presented, showing an acceptable level of autonomy gained by the SFS.
Doc 142 : Facilitating Autonomy and Creativity in Second Language Learning through Cyber-Tasks, Hyperlinks and Net-Surfing.
The digitalization of academic interactions and collaborations in this present technologically conscious world is making collaborations between technology and pedagogy in the teaching and learning processes to display logical and systematic reasoning rather than the usual stereotyped informed decisions. This simply means, pedagogically, learning is being revolutionized with visible transformation from quantity to higher quality. Through independent, self-paced learning; students interact with technologies to review, construct, analyze, and make submissions. It is to be noted that the inclusion of information and communication technology (ICT) into Language education gives vent to new learning paradigms in language education and this in a way concomitantly redefines the role of the teacher as well as repositions the cognition level of the learners. This paper therefore intents to beam searchlight on possible strategy for achieving autonomy in second language learning through digitalization. It is to be noted that the challenges of second language learners may not be resolved totally in the language classroom, hence there is the need for the teacher to become a facilitator thereby paving way for students’ self- discovery through different cyber-tasks and navigating system inherent in this computer infested world. This paper therefore displays a phase of digitalized pedagogy in the language classroom.
Doc 143 : How Do People Participate in Social Network Sites After Crises? A Self-Determination Perspective
People increasingly rely on social network sites (SNSs) to find out timely information about crises. Thus, emergency managers are interested in how people participate and how to promote their participation in SNSs after crises. Based on self-determination theory, this study develops a theoretical model to examine the mechanisms through which different types of motivation contribute to various participating behaviors in SNSs after crises. Survey data were collected after the Ya’an earthquake, which occurred in China on April 20, 2013. Our results show that while autonomous motivation is positively related to posting new content about the earthquake, controlled motivation is positively related to commenting on others’ content about the earthquake. Furthermore, perceived autonomy and perceived relatedness are positively related to autonomous motivation. We suggest that emergency managers may want to promote different types of motivations, depending on the specific participating behavior preferred after crises.
Doc 144 : Queer School-Based Self-Assessment, Inspiraction Research, and Second-Order Cybernetics as Thinking Tool
This is about queer school-based self-assessment and deauthorized, self-reflexive, and robust knowledge-creation processes and/as products in schools. It is about professional development and knowledge autonomy in a reform perspective, hence moving to the bricolage and inspiraction research. It is about cybernetics and circularity, so read again.
Doc 145 : Second Order Cybernetics and Enactive Perception
Purpose – To present an account of cognition integrating second‐order cybernetics (SOC) together with enactive perception and dynamic systems theory.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a brief critique of classical models of cognition then outlines how integration of SOC, enactive perception and dynamic systems theory can overcome some weaknesses of the classical paradigm.Findings – Presents the critique of evolutionary robotics showing how the issues of teleology and autonomy are left unresolved by this paradigm although their solution fits within the proposed framework.Research limitations/implications – The paper highlights the importance of genuine autonomy in the development of artificial cognitive systems. It sets out a framework within which the robotic research of cognitive systems could succeed.Practical implications – There are no immediate practical implications but see research implications.Originality/value – It joins the discussion on the fundamental nature of cognitive systems …
Doc 146 : The transformation of the human dimension in the cyberspace
In the very interdisciplinary tradition of AI & Society, this issue covers a diversity of topics ranging from mindloading, ‘moral subject’ and human dignity and autonomy, organisation as a cognitive machine, the dilemma of boundaries between femininity and masculinity in the cyberspace, knowledge sharing for sustainable development, the emerging robotisation of the organisation, to cultural acceptance of robots in richly complex regions of the world. Other issues covered in this issue include dialogical framework of skill training, wealth adjustment in an artificial society and speech recognition. On mind-uploading, the argument is that ‘mind-uploading is a futuristic process that involves scanning brains and recording relevant information which is then transferred into a computer’, in the sense of ‘transfers of both human minds and identities from biological brains into computers’. The world of ubiquitous technology brings about a new challenge of what is to be human, for example, what we understand by ‘moral subject’, in other words the subject’s unique metaphysical qualities of dignity and autonomy. The argument posited in this issue is that concept of ‘human dignity underlies the foundation of many democratic systems, particularly in Europe as well as of international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Digital agents, artificial organisms as well as new capabilities of the human agents related to their embeddedness in digital and biotechnological environments bring about an important transformation of the human self appraisal’, especially from an ethical perspective. It is interesting to note how technological culture is beginning to subscribe to the transformation of the human organisation into a cognitive machine. In the human-centred tradition of AI & Society, it can be seen as a transformation of the human dimension from wisdom to calculation and then to being a cognitive machine. The argument put forward in this issue is that ‘cognitive machines contribute to improving cognitive abilities in the organisation by extending people’s rationally and decisionmaking capacity, and by reducing intra-individual and group dysfunctional conflict’. The increasing acceptance of the organisation in terms of a cognitive machine leads to robotisation of the organisation, raising issues of the cultural acceptance of the cognitive machine in diverse cultural regions of the world. As we live in a culture of ubiquitous technology where ‘everything can be commodified, measured and calculated and can be put in the competitive market for sale, detached from its roots and purpose’, we face a dilemma and challenge of what is meant to be human. The world of cyberspace poses a further dilemma as to where the boundaries may lie ‘between femininity and masculinity both in terms of lifestyle and thought style’. The issue could be posed as how to ‘redefine our humanness in terms of the changing nature of science, technology and their deeper impact on human life’. This means also to take note how ‘on the one hand our being in the cyberspace opens up new and exciting horizons before us, on the other hand how we ourselves are changed and transformed in the process’. This reorientation of the human dimension also raises issues of how societies use symbols and signs to communicate information in the technological world we live in, and in what ways the communication media conveys a broad range of different kinds of messages within diverse cultural contexts. In the globalising world, knowledge sharing is increasingly seen as a crucial factor in cultivating sustainable K. S. Gill (&) Professor Emeritus, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK e-mail: kgillbton@yahoo.co.uk
Doc 147 : Being a Sibiriak in Contemporary Siberia: Imagined Geography and Vocabularies of Identity in Regional Writing Culture
This article examines the articulation of sibiriak identity in the early 21st century. This time is particularly important because the current Russian government has made a point of curtailing the regional autonomy of the Yeltsin years. Drawing on regional news sources, Internet blogs, and writings by prominent Siberian public intellectuals, this article delineates a number of specifically Siberian voices and the concerns they discuss in the public sphere. It argues that contemporary Siberian identity differs significantly from stereotypical European Russian constructions of Siberian identity that equate simple goodness and honesty with the broad Siberian terrain. This material shows a diverse range of opinions and attitudes, a concerted effort to keep the Siberian heritage before the public eye, and a sustained discussion about the usable past. Focusing particularly on Evgenii Grishkovets’s autobiographical novella, Rivers (Reki, 2005), this article examines the emergence of a post-Soviet discourse that reaches beyond Siberian stereotypes and openly expresses social and cultural problems encountered by Siberians.
Doc 148 : What can be expected of information and communication technologies in terms of patient empowerment in health
Purpose – Implementing information and communication technologies (ICT) is often mentioned as a strategy that can foster public involvement and responsibility in health. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the possibilities and issues afforded by the social uses of ICT for personal empowerment in health.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses evidence from four case studies that characterize current computerization and networking processes in health. The studies shared a global framework comprising four interpretative paradigms of personal empowerment: the professional, technocratic, consumerist and democratic paradigms.Findings – The results show the coexistence of four empowerment logics in ICT use. Two trends proved dominant: a strengthening of the control and standardization processes tied to the typical power relationships in health, and a reinforcement of personal autonomy and self‐assertion processes, either through commercial relationships or through the soc…
Doc 149 : Just the Two of us? The “¿Qué tal?” E-tandem Project for Translation Students
Abstract Within the academic year 2012-2013, “?Que tal?” email tandem project was implemented amongst the students of the first course of Translation at Pablo de Olavide University and students from several North American universities. The primary aim of the project was to promote the autonomous practice of literacy in L2, while reflecting upon the linguistic codes and pragmatics of L1 and L2 through the correction of errors. Alongside previous work ( Appel, 1999 , Appel and Mullen, 2000 & 2002; Appel and Gilabert, 2002 , Braun, 2006 , Munoz Vicente, 2013 , Schenker, 2012 , Ushioda, 2000 ), the present study is based on the axiomatic principles of autonomy and reciprocity in order to detect weak points in the project. The varying levels of motivation within the tandem pairs and an insufficient command of the native language are identified as the main pitfalls.
Doc 150 : Moving beyond conspicuous leisure consumption: Adolescent women, mobile phones and public space
Abstract In this paper we explore mobile phones as a form of fashion accessory for young women in contemporary culture and the possible value of such fashionable items as a source of identity and self‐worth. Despite reliance on the usual stultifying stereotypes produced by marketeers to promote mobile phones, we explore the possibility that increased access to public space generates for adolescent girls alternative choices of leisure experiences and possibilities of multiple enriching identities. The findings suggest that mobile phone use can impart a sense of self‐confidence, sexuality and autonomy which defies the male gaze in public spaces and may allow adolescent women to reject traditional images of femininity at a formative stage in the life course and take steps to a further array of leisure choices. It may only be a temporary image that assists a sense of self at a vulnerable time in life, or it may infiltrate other aspects of subjectivity and assist an ongoing sense of self‐confidence. However, t…
Doc 151 : Introducing Email Portfolio as a Means of Developing EFL Learner’s Autonomy
Abstract Second language teaching and learning within a communicative framework posits the learner in a more central role. This article looks at the possibility of developing EFL learner’s autonomy through application of email as an electronic portfolio. For this purpose, an experiment was set up with two randomly selected groups. The experimental group (N=42) was instructed through email portfolio process and the control group (N=42) was taught by typical ways of teaching English. The data were collected using observation and questionnaire. Comparing and analysing the outcomes showed a significant improvement in the autonomy of the first group of learners. Email portfolio had positive influence on the encouragement of learner’s autonomy and their classroom interaction. This research provides enhance for the role of electronic portfolio as a way of on-going assessment of one’s own work and the role of technology as a useful tool for give the conventional methods of language teaching to a new way.
Doc 152 : On Cyberslacking: Workplace Status and Personal Internet Use at Work
ABSTRACT Is personal Internet use at work primarily the domain of lower-status employees, or do individuals higher up the organizational hierarchy engage in this activity at equal or even greater levels? We posit that higher workplace status is associated with significant incentives and greater opportunities for personal Internet use. We test this hypothesis using data collected via a recent national telephone survey (n = 1,024). Regression analyses demonstrate that, contrary to conventional wisdom, higher-status employees, as measured by occupation status, job autonomy, income, education, and gender, engage in significantly more frequent personal Internet use at work.
Doc 153 : Critical Theory of Communication Technology: Introduction to the Special Section
The debate over the contribution of new communication technology to democracy is far from settled. Some point to the empowering effects of online discussion and fund-raising on recent electoral campaigns in the United States to argue that the Internet will restore the public sphere. Others claim that the Internet is just a virtual mall, a final extension of capitalist rationalization into every corner of our lives, a trend supported by an ever denser web of surveillance technologies threatening individual autonomy in the advanced societies of the West. This introduction to the special section on critical theory of communication technology argues for the democratic thesis with some qualifications. The most important contribution of new technology to democracy is not necessarily its effects on the conventional political process but rather its ability to assemble a public around technical networks that enroll individuals scattered over wide geographical areas. Communities of medical patients, video game players, musical performers, and many other groups have emerged on the Internet with surprising consequences. New forms of resistance correlate with the rationalizing tendencies of a technologized society.
Doc 154 : An Empirical Investigation into the Perceived Usefulness of Socio-technical Exchange in India: Social Identity, Social Exchange, and Social Vicinity
Socio-technical networks are based on knowledge building and information sharing. The power and alternative to control over self-representation on social networking Web sites brings certain autonomy to an individual and, as a result, has an impact on the style of the exchange. Some of the specific objectives of the study are to study the emerging style of socio-technical exchange and to identify the characteristics of an emerging socio-technical society. This study found that social identity, social exchange, and social vicinity are the key characteristics of the emerging socio-technical exchange. A gradual paradigm shift from traditional societies to knowledge-based societies was observed. While, on one hand, a high dependency and usage of social networking Web sites was observed, on the other hand, the level of trust and dependency between the community members was found to be diminishing.
Doc 155 : Explaining Biological Functionality: Is Control Theory Enough?
It is generally agreed that organisms are Complex Adaptive Systems. Since the rise of Cybernetics in the middle of the last century ideas from information theory and control theory have been applied to the adaptations of biological organisms in order to explain how they work. This does not, however, explain functionality, which is widely but not universally attributed to biological systems. There are two approaches to functionality, one based on etiology (what a trait was selected for), and the other based in autonomy. I argue that the etiological approach, as understood in terms of control theory, suffers from a problem of symmetry, by which function can equally well be placed in the environment as in the organism. Focusing on the autonomy view, I note that it can be understood to some degree in terms of control theory in its version called second order cybernetics. I present an approach to second order cybernetics that seems plausible for organisms with limited computational power, due to Hooker, Penfold and Evans. They hold that this approach gives something like concepts, certainly abstractions from specific situations, a trait required for functionality in its system adaptive form (i.e., control of the system by itself). Using this cue, I argue that biosemiotics provides the methodology to incorporate these quasi concepts into an account of functionality.
Doc 156 : M4M chat rooms: individual socialization and sexual autonomy.
This paper uses data from twenty-one online and in-person qualitative interviews to examine the meaning and use of chat rooms located on men for men (M4M) websites from the perspectives of men seeking men on the Internet. This research is inspired by recent public health and social sciences literature on gay websites and chat rooms. The data indicate that these online sites help expedite learning about sex and sexuality and, for men who are shy or geographically isolated, to interact with metropolitan gay communities. There is, however, a measure of stigma associated with use of these chat rooms, particularly by men who are older or in coupled relationships. Using these data, the paper argues that M4M chat rooms play a vital role in fostering the sexual autonomy of many men who frequent these venues and that sociologists should devote more study to the complexity of online social interaction.
Doc 157 : Home‐based internet businesses as drivers of variety
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the way home‐based internet businesses (HBIBs) are operated and the reasons for which they are started enable HBIBs to bring about variety, and to argue that this variety has a broader impact on the industry and the economy.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a multiple case study approach, studying the best practices of eight HBIBs.Findings – The study finds that HBIBs generate variety because of the unique way in which they operate, and because of the reasons why they are started. How HBIBs operate can be captured in the acronym SMILES: Speed, Multiple income, Inexpensive, LEan, and Smart. They are founded (amongst other motives) for reasons of autonomy, freedom and independence. Both aspects – the how and why – of HBIBs are conducive to the creation of variety as they facilitate trial‐and‐error commercialisation of authentic ideas.Research limitations/implications – Five theoretical perspectives posit that variety is important for the indus…
Doc 158 : Mobile Intimacies in the Usa Among Refugee and Recent Immigrant Teens and Their Parents
Drawing upon semi-structured interviews and open-ended surveys with adolescents who have moved to the USA in the past twelve years, this article explores the nuanced ways in which expectations of authority and autonomy structure mobile phone use in migrant and refugee families. It finds that contrary to reports of US parents who fear that mobile phone rules and restrictions undermine intimacy, refugee families may view restriction as an expression of intimacy because it is related to cultural expectations. Moreover, the article points out that whereas mobile communication almost always provides access to autonomy among white middle class families, these media only sometimes provide access to autonomy among refugee families.
Doc 159 : A Study of Internet Use in EFL Teaching and Learning in Northwest China
Internet has been researched and employed as an educational tool by teachers and researchers in many countries in recent years. This paper explores Internet use in EFL teaching and learning in universities in Northwest China. A quantitive research was conducted among college teachers and students. The result indicates that both teachers and students are not well prepared for the use of Internet in EFL teaching and learning. Based on the result, this paper presents three suggests: developing an EFL teaching and learning website; sharing the various English resources; cultivating teacher and learner autonomy.
Doc 160 : Learning to Learn Digitally: Getting Students on the Road to Autonomy
How can educators empower and encourage their students to be more proactive, and give them the tools necessary to learn on their own, utilizing digital language learning resources in a culturally sensitive way? Described below is a project that introduced students to how technology and the Internet can empower the independent language learner. The goal was for the students to develop knowledge of and confidence in self-instruction and learn how to use technology and the Internet to further their language education independently. This article first outlines research into autonomous language learning with computers, offers a list of key elements for autonomous language learning, gives a description of how an independent language learning project was implemented and reports on results of student surveys that measured student response to the project. These students lacked the skills, knowledge and confidence to study on their own. However, by learning autonomous language learning concepts, and with instruction on how technology and the Internet can support a digital language learner, they gained the understanding and confidence to set and accomplish language learning goals on their own.
Doc 161 : Ethics in the bank internet encounter: an explorative study
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss some ethical issues in the internet encounter between customer and bank. Empirical data related to the difficulties that customers have when they deal with the bank through internet technology and electronic banking. The authors discuss the difficulties that customers expressed from an ethical standpoint. Design/methodology/approach The key problem of the paper is “how does research handle the user’s lack of competence in a web‐based commercial environment?” The authors illustrate this ethical dilemma with data from a Danish Bank collected in 2002. The data have been structured by an advanced text analytic method, Pertex (by generation of intentionality of verbal actors from text). Findings The authors can conclude that the experience of lack of competency in internet banking implies a severe damage on the experience of the ethics of the good life and of the respect for the basic ethical principles of customer autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability. However, increased experience of competency may imply experience of increased feeling of ethical superiority and of the good life among customers. Research limitations/implications The important implication for managerial research of this study would be for banks to focus on customer competency with an ethical concern instead of only being concerned with technical solutions for effective internet operations. Practical implications Since more and more businesses are digitally based, the authors can foresee a potential generic problem of lack of competence for certain age groups and also of people from different social groups. Originality/value The paper provides an analysis of the ethics of on‐line banking on the basis of Pertex methodology and with the use of basic ethical principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability.
The purpose of this paper is to address some of the questions on the notion of agent and agency in relation to property and personhood. I argue that following the Kantian criticism of Aristotelian metaphysics, contemporary biotechnology and information and communication technologies bring about a new challenge—this time, with regard to the Kantian moral subject understood in the subject’s unique metaphysical qualities of dignity and autonomy. The concept of human dignity underlies the foundation of many democratic systems, particularly in Europe as well as of international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Digital agents, artificial organisms as well as new capabilities of the human agents related to their embeddedness in digital and biotechnological environments bring about an important transformation of the human self-appraisal. A critical comparative reflection of this transformation is important because of its ethical implications. I deal first with the concept of agent within the framework of Aristotelian philosophy, which is the basis for further theories in accordance with and/or in opposition to it, particularly since modernity. In the second part of this paper, I deal with the concept of personhood in Kantian philosophy, which supersedes the Aristotelian metaphysics of substance and builds the basis of a metaphysics of the moral human subject. In the third part, I discuss the question of artificial agents arising from modern biology and ICT. Blurring the difference between the human and the natural and/or artificial opens a “new space” for philosophical reflection as well as for debate in law and practical policy.
Despite the concern with oppressive systems and practices there have been few attempts to analyse the general concept of oppression. Recently, Iris Marion Young has argued that it is not possible to analyse oppression as a unitary moral category. Rather, the term ‘oppression’ refers to several distinct structures, namely, exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. This paper rejects Young’s claim and advances a general theory of oppression. Drawing insight from American chattel slavery and the situation of the German Jews during the 1930’s, I argue that to be oppressed is to be unjustly denied the opportunity for what I call ‘resilient autonomy’. I argue that all instances of oppression can usefully be analysed in these terms. I test my analysis against each of Young’s five structures of oppression, concluding that in each case they are captured by my analysis.
Doc 164 : Marital closeness, autonomy, mastery, and depressive symptoms in a U.S. Internet sample
This Internet survey tests a theory that meeting needs through marital closeness (naming spouse confidant and emotional support; perceiving oneself to be named both by the spouse; and sexual satisfaction), autonomy, and mastery protects against depressive symptoms. The U.S. sample includes 1,163 relatively wealthy and educated married respondents aged 19–84 years. The regression model, controlling for sociodemographic factors, social integration, self-rated health, and gender interactions, explained more than half the variability in respondents’ depressive symptoms. Regardless of age, wives who were closer to their husbands were less depressed than those who were less close. Older husbands were less depressed than younger ones. Marital closeness was protective for husbands at all ages with its absence particularly problematic at younger ages.
Doc 165 : Design and Development of an M-Commerce Environment: The E-CWE Project
We discuss the use of software agents in the design and development of an m-commerce environment. Software agents are considered because of their features, such as autonomy, sociability, and mobility. Users are currently struggling to complete their e-commerce transactions. For instance, they have to adapt their behaviors when they browse e-commerce sites. Conducting similar transactions from wireless devices (e.g., mobile phones) requires new approaches. Multiple issues, which vary from low bandwidth and high latency to screen sizes, are raised. The E-Commerce Through Wireless Devices project aims at investigating techniques and offering solutions to support users in undertaking m-commerce transactions.
Doc 166 : Building a Blog Cabin during a Financial Crisis Circuits of Struggle in the Digital Enclosure
In their studies of online media, political economists of communication have examined how firms like Google enclose users in a web of commercial surveillance, thus facilitating the commodification of their online labor. However, this focus on enclosure tends to overlook the political possibilities highlighted by autonomist Marxist theory—namely, that users, under certain circumstances, can appropriate these applications to contest conditions of exploitation. This article offers an analysis of Blog Cabin 2008, a cable home improvement show, in order to explore this tension between autonomy and enclosure. Our findings suggest that producers indeed used the show’s blog to exploit fans’ free labor. However, fans also used the blog to form social bonds, to press demands on the show’s producers, and to make connections between the show’s class politics and the wider financial crisis. A concluding section explores the theoretical and political significance of such unanticipated uses of the show’s blog.
Doc 167 : Satisfação e autonomia nas atividades de lazer entre universitários
Abstract: Leisure activities are defined individually and influenced by the culture and social issues. They are also directed for satisfying personal needs and the attainment of pleasure. Describing leisure activities can help constructing and planning professional interventions that focus on healthy leisure activities and also help planning public policies. Data collection was conducted through the internet, with 273 students, who lived at many different Brazilian states. The concept of leisure is linked to the time free of obligations and the choice for leisure activities is related with variables such as gender, working status, if have children and socio-economic self-perception. The information is discussed considering how people interpret the leisure, their motivations and satisfaction with these choices. Keywords: leisure; college students; life quality; daily activities; leisure time.
Doc 168 : Free Speech Rights at Work: Resolving the Differences between Practice and Liberal Principle
ACAS reports increasing disciplinary action against employees over expression that employers dislike. Given the prominence of social media in contemporary life this is a significant current legal issue yet one which has attracted relatively little academic comment. This paper examines the compatibility of unfair dismissal doctrine in this context with traditional liberal principle. Arguably, doctrine provides only flimsy protection. Although the common law recognises the importance of individual autonomy generally when determining rights claims this well-established liberal value appears to have little influence on unfair dismissal doctrine. The dominant academic view on realising greater workplace human rights protection through greater application of the proportionality principle is unlikely to address this problem; reconceptualization of the substantive free speech right at stake is required. This paper offers a strategy on how this might be achieved – and so how differences between practice and principle might be reconciled – through a sympathetic reading of the Strasbourg and UK jurisprudence and potential policy-maker intervention.
Doc 169 : Ethical issues in the employment of user-generated content as experimental stimulus: Defining the interests of creators
Social experimental research commonly employs media to elicit responses from research subjects. This use of media is broadly protected under fair use exemptions to copyright, and creators of content used in experiments are generally not afforded any formal consideration or protections in existing research ethics frameworks. Online social networking sites are an emerging and important setting for social experiments, and in this context the material used to elicit responses is often content produced by other users. This article argues that users may have a reasonable interest in controlling the use of their content in experiments conducted in online social networks. Matters of risk and autonomy in research ethics are explored by analogy to active debates in law over adhesion contracts, moral rights, and the right to be forgotten. The article concludes by considering practical difficulties in identifying and protecting the interests of creators.
Doc 170 : E-commerce oriented software agents: Towards legal programming: a legal analysis of ecommerce and personal assistant agents using a process/IT view of the firm
Abstract Agent-based technologies and processing may answer some of the legal difficulties raised by traditional online commerce, introducing elements of compliance, control, flexibility and personalisation. However as they mediate commercial relationships with third parties, software agents in turn raise new legal difficulties, while potentially heightening user fears and mistrust. The autonomy, adaptivity and interactivity of agents, combined with the advent of ubiquitous computing, introduce a new set of legal dimensions including the liability of agent users, the automation of notification and consent or the attribution of responsibility, as well as new fears for users. This article presents a process oriented analysis of agent activities, within the context of augmented reality: the application of Internet technologies to the real world, specifically in this case to supermarket shopping. Specific areas of difficulty are contract and consumer protection law, as well as privacy. These topics are highlighted, together with trust issues raised in Multi-Agent Systems which will be discussed in a later article in this series.
Doc 171 : Ecological Assessments of Activities of Daily Living and Personal Experiences with Mobus, An Assistive Technology for Cognition: A Pilot Study in Schizophrenia
Mobus is a cognitive orthotic designed for people with difficulties managing Activities of Daily Living (ADL), as encountered in schizophrenia. It provides a schedule manager as well as the possibility to report occurrences of symptomatic experiences. Receiving this information by Internet, caregivers can assist the patient rehabilitation process. Our aim was to explore the use and satisfaction of Mobus by people with schizophrenia. Nine outpatients tested Mobus for 6 weeks. Indicators of cognitive functioning and autonomy were measured with the CAmbridge Neuropsychological Tests Automated Battery (CANTAB) and the Independant Living Skills Scale (ILSS). On average, 42.6% of the planned ADL were validated and more than 1 symptom per week were reported. Mainly because of technical breakdown, more than 50% of the outpatients evaluated the Mobus satisfaction below 1.7/5, nevertheless 3 participants appreciated it greatly. Some enhancements were found on subscales of CANTAB and ILSS and some participants reported that they acquired planning skills by using Mobus. To ensure ease of use, refinements are needed from rehabilitation and technical approaches, especially to personalize the device. Discussions on ethical and methodological issues lead to an improved version of Mobus that will be tested with a larger sample size.
Doc 172 : Making Alphabet Soup: Blending VSM, STS and TQM
Many opportunities exist to combine different models in the cybernetics and systems field to assist groups and organizations to be more effective. Brings together three models, the Viable System Model, Socio‐Technical Systems and Total Quality Management, to consider their potential usefulness in an integrated approach. It examines their common roots in the concepts of systems and environments, communications, the modelling process, variety, feedback and autonomy. Their differences of emphasis and some limitations are also noted. A suggestion is made regarding how they might be brought together in a single application using the Viable Systems Model as one of three possible frameworks. Other systems models and where they might fit within this framework are also noted. Finally, co‐operation and experiment among practitioners of different models is urged as having great potential benefit to client organizations.
Management control of professional employees such as engineers and scientists leads to a state of conflict in the business organization. To management, the control of human resources implies the limiting of individualistic behavior of subordinates in order to realize the objectives of the firm. In contrast, the industrial scientist, even as a subordinate in an organizational hierarchy, believes that control as applied to him should allow for autonomy and independence as attributes of professionalism in his work environment.
In this paper we examine various approaches to managerial control—traditional, bureaucratic, cybernetic, and behavioral—and their application to the engineer-scientist as the carrier of professional values in the work culture. A successful manager in this environment must create a work climate without emphasis on formal mechanisms of control and direction. Recent research indicates that to this effect optimum supervisory behavior involves neither excessive direction nor autonomy but frequent interaction with industrial scientists as participants in decision making.
We conclude that management of industrial scientists in relation to their professional values should take place within the networks of informal organizational relationships. It involves the application of normative managerial control based upon the exercise of self-imposed sanctions by the industrial scientists themselves, and of colleague authority by their managers relying on communication and information for compliance with organization’s objectives and goals.
Doc 174 : Trusted autonomic service cooperation model and application development framework
To achieve the dynamical on-requirement self-organization and self-evolution of virtual organizations (VOs) by autonomic service cooperation is an excellent approach for developing assembled service-oriented application software systems in the Internet computing environment. However, this approach, due to the fact that the autonomic individual behaviors are difficult to be predicted and controlled, encounters the “trust” crisis of cooperation effect. In order to solve the above crisis, this paper proposes a model of Norm-Governed and Policy-Driven autonomic service cooperation (NGPD). The key idea of NGPD is to constrain and govern the cooperation behaviors and their evolutions of autonomic individuals by formulating systematic standards of social structures and the coupling norms of cooperation behaviors, and thereby the cooperation behaviors (i.e. behaviors for providing and requiring services) of autonomic individuals and the cooperation effect can be controlled, predicted, and then become trusted. Furthermore, NGPD provides the “macro-micro” link mode to support the operation-level implementation of macro-government and creates the policy-driven self-management mechanism for individual behaviors to achieve the mapping from the macro-government to the micro-behaviors. Thus, the effect of the macro-government can be exerted to autonomic individuals so that they can exhibit the intellect for conforming to service contracts and cooperation behavior norms, but still keep high autonomy again. Along with the settlement of this “trust” crisis, NGPD can overcome the limitation introduced by non-autonomic service cooperation, and thus make the autonomy and change-response ability of service cooperation exhibit the advantages of robustness and intelligence which cannot be reached by traditional service cooperation techniques. Furthermore, NGPD also establishes the solid foundation for developing the norm-driven and contract-ensured self-organization of hierarchical cooperation and the cooperation self-adaptation and self-evolution driven by contract-performing circumstance. All of these make the service cooperation-based VOs possess high performance of dynamical on-requirement self-organization and self-evolution.
Doc 175 : Emerging in a Digital World A Decade Review of Media Use, Effects, and Gratifications in Emerging Adulthood
This article reviews the recent literature on uses, effects, and gratifications of media during emerging adulthood. We examine traditional media forms, including television, films, video games, music, and books, and also newer media, such as cell phones, social networking sites, and other Internet use. We find that emerging adults spend more time using the media than they spend doing any other activity, with the most time being spent on the Internet and listening to music. We also find that exposure to certain types of media content can influence both positive and negative outcomes in emerging adulthood, including, aggressive and prosocial behavior, body image, sexual behavior, friendship quality, and academic achievement. We also show that emerging adults use the media to gratify certain needs; key among these are for autonomy, identity, and intimacy needs. Finally, we discuss areas for future research involving media and emerging adulthood.
Doc 176 : Kids’ Life and Times: using an Internet survey to measure children’s health-related quality of life
To examine the psychometric properties of an Internet version of a children and young person’s quality of life measure originally designed as a paper questionnaire. Participants were 3,440 children aged 10 and 11 years in Northern Ireland who completed the KIDSCREEN-27 online as part of a general attitudinal survey. The questionnaire was animated using cartoon characters that are familiar to most children and the questions appeared on screen and were read aloud by actors. Exploratory principal component analysis of the online version of the questionnaire supported the existence of five components in line with the paper version. The items loaded on the components that would be expected based on previous findings with five domains—physical well-being, psychological well-being, autonomy and parents, social support and peers, and school environment. Internal consistency reliability of the five domains was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, and the results suggested that the scale scores were reliable. The domain scores were similar to those reported in the literature for the paper version. These results suggest that the factor structure and internal consistency reliability scores of the KIDSCREEN-27 embedded within an online survey are comparable to those reported in the literature for the paper version.
Doc 177 : COMMUNITY INFORMATICS AND THE LOCAL STATE IN THE UK: Facilitating or assimilating an agenda for change?
The emerging discipline of community informatics (CI) has begun to trace out a distinct agenda for change in the social uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Focusing upon the appropriation of ICTs by local communities who have been disenfranchised by technological development, this agenda foregrounds uses of the Internet in the pursuit of distinctly community-related objectives. However, the role that the local state ought to play within this agenda for change remains marked by a degree of controversy and ambiguity. Assertions of the need for community autonomy coexist uneasily with a recognition that the local state can help develop and sustain CI. Much current work therefore focuses upon exploring notions of ‘partnership’ between the local state and local groups in developing CI. Against this background, this paper draws on a case study of Birmingham City Council (BCC) in order to explore a series of significant organizational changes to local government, which have seen BCC adopt …
Doc 178 : The Personal and the Political: Women Using the Internet
ASHAMED AS I AM TO SAY IT, the Internet is at the hub of my life. My two daughters were breast-fed with one hand while I typed away on the other. My family is scattered across Europe, Australia, and the United States and communicates daily through the Internet. My most heated marital arguments are often solved on the Internet. My colleague and I, sitting in a room barely able to contain our two desks and mountains of books and papers, exchange emails rather than turn our heads to interrupt the other’s flow of thought. Professionally, my editing, writing, networking, sharing of information and ideas is now almost completely based on e-mail exchanges with women and men around the world. For someone who professes very little technical skills and relies heavily on the young men around her to assist when the inevitable crashes occur, this transformation of my life by the Internet is somewhat curious. It appears to have stretched my mode of personal, professional, and social communication and wrapped itself around my psyche as I devote much emotional and creative energy to e-mail conversations. From my own experience and those of my network, I see the Internet as providing a new medium for women to work across communities, link up to diasporas and to women from other cultures that share the same concerns about women’s struggle for autonomy and self determination. It is unique medium in that it seems to give expression both to the personal and to the political. All of the women who participated in the survey are friends and allies, largely because we can stay in touch across the miles through the Internet. We shared important life events—babies born, family deaths, achievements of our campaigns, our thoughts in progress—almost in real time. The Internet has certainly strengthened our work and as created another facet of our lives. It has, oddly enough, also pushed for many more face-toface meetings, invitations, and political opportunities as people meet in cyberspace and then seek to put a face to a personality only understood from the screen. We are yet to understand fully its impact politically and personally, but for me it has enriched and extended my life and given me the opportunity to learn and work closely with women whom I see as part of both my local and global political and personal space or “glocality” where women can truly shape their lives.
Doc 179 : Sağlık Bakanlığı Hastanelerinde Finansal Verilerin Konsolidasyonu
Ministry of Health Hospitals Financial Data Consolidation With changes around the world, the functions of the Ministry of Health are promoted to roles of regulatory, supervisory and delivery of primary health care. Delivery of second and tertiary level health services in general will be left to the Public Hospital Associations with administrative and financial autonomy. This research introduce a model shows how to form and consolidate financial data in the Public Hospital Associations. When Constituting this model, financial data from 816 hospitals and health centers except Oral and Dental Health Centers in the secondary and tertiary care under the Ministry of Health were used. The research was made of two phases to consolidate financial statement. First, fusion tables were created by merging the data from the four legally independent financial systems (the General Budget, the Revolving Fund, Chattel and Immovable Property Financial System). Then, based on international and national accounting standards, the fusion tables of 816 hospitals and health centers were consolidated as they were a single enterprise and explicit information on the methodology of consolidation was provided. For association managers, this model is thought of as a primary source of information as to how to consolidate financial data
Doc 180 : Citizen involvement in future drug R&D: a Danish Delphi study
This article adopts a prospective approach in an attempt to explore the potential benefit of citizen involvement in decision making concerning future drug R&D. This is one of the first Delphi studies to fully utilize internet technology to collect and process data. The results show an increasing individual autonomy among respondents, which also affects the drug R&D process in general. Human, liberal and ethical values are reported as crucial values to citizens. On this basis, respondents reported that patient organizations, representative citizen groups and ethical councils can contribute with important input to ensure these values in decision making concerning future drug R&D. Paying attention to citizen needs, demands and ideas may protect the research, development and eventual marketing of unacceptable drugs on a societal and ethical level.
Doc 181 : The Effects of Self-Determination Theory on Reality, Flow in Online Community
The purpose of this research is to explore the causality of autonomy, competence, and relatedness which are major variables in self-determination theory. This study examines factors affecting intrinsic motivation, which also influences reality, flow, trust, and loyalty. The results firstly indicates that competence and relatedness positively influence reality and autonomy positively influences flow. Secondly, competence significantly influences reality and doesnt significantly influences flow. Thirdly, relatedness significantly influences reality and doesnt significantly influenced flow. Fourthly, reality doesnt significantly influences trust. Fifthly, flow significantly influences trust. Also, above results show that reality influences flow, and reality doesnt directly influence trust and loyalty. However, loyalty significantly influences flow.
The aim of this paper is to propose a modeling of corporate knowledge in cyberworlds. An enterprise is considered in the framework of multiagent methodology as a distributed computational system. The Agent-Oriented Abstraction paradigm was proposed earlier to describe in a fully generic way agents and societies of agents. In this paper, we are investigating the application of this paradigm to the abstract modeling of corporate knowledge, extending the scope of traditional knowledge management approaches. We show that such an abstraction mechanism leads to very practical applications for cyberworlds whether on the web or on any other medium. Our approach covers the broader possible scope of corporate knowledge, emphasizing the distributivity and autonomy of agents within cyber systems. This approach can be further used to better simulate and support knowledge management processes.
Doc 183 : Rethinking research management in Colombia
https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920710747011 Roberto Zarama Alfonso Reyes Eduardo Aldana Jorge Villalobos Juan Camilo Bohorquez Juan Pablo Calderón Alonso Botero Nelson L. Lammoglia José-Luis Villaveces Luis A. Pinzón Ricardo Bonilla Andrés Mejía José David Bermeo Isaac Dyner Neil F. Johnson Juan Alejandro Valdivia
– This paper seeks to present a proposal to change the form in which knowledge is produced in Colombia., – Discusses the key issue – to transform the way in which the production of knowledge is currently taking place at the university level., – To be able to increase the production of knowledge in this country there is a need to create bonds among industrial, governmental, and academic institutions. It is believed that this can be done by the development of a system capable of continuously forming researchers at a doctoral level., – The paper puts forward a proposal for the construction of such a system based on the developments of organizational cybernetics. The proposal is based on the concept of autonomy which is crucial to solve this problem.
Doc 184 : Teachers of Teachers: Faculty Working Lives and Art Teacher Education in the United States
Introduction Dream job: Working where valued as a professional art educator; teaching professionally committed students; working with quality school personnel; having time and support to continue active research and writing interests; working in a supportive and collegial atmosphere. (Professor) There is a developing consensus that the preparation of teachers should become central to art education research (Davis, 1990; Day, 1997; Galbraith, 1995; Zimmerman, 1994; 1997). Research exists on specific art teacher preparation programs (Carroll, Jones, & Sandell, 1995; Day, 1997; Galbraith, 1997; Sevigny, 1987; Thompson & Hardiman, 1991; Willis-Fisher, 1993; Zimmerman, 1997), and there is a growing interest in examining art preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching art (Grauer 1998; Kowalchuk, 1999; Short, 1995). Yet there is a lack of research on college level faculty-the teachers of teachers-whose qualifications, expertise, beliefs, and practices, shape and define art education within over 600 diverse institutions that have some association with preparing art teachers today (Galbraith, 1997; Hutchens, 1997). This lack of attention to faculty issues is not surprising, given that the data on faculty members associated with teacher education, in general, is sparse (Ducharme & Ducharme, 1996; Howey & Zimpher, 1989; Murray, 1995). Ducharme (1993) suggested that faculty members who prepare teachers are formerly public school teachers who enter higher education to seek better rewards and to have more autonomy in their professional lives. Faculty work involves paying attention to issues affecting conditions of employment and institutional expectations (Boyer, 1990; Fullan, 1996). It also involves paying attention to decisions that affect job satisfaction, career patterns, as well as professional and personal happiness (Ducharme, 1993). As with teachers teaching in school settings (Goodson, 1992; Huberman, 1993), faculty work is intimately affected by daily interactions with students, colleagues, and administrators (Jordan, 1994). Who then are the art education college-level faculty members that prepare future art teachers? Where do they teach? What are their jobs like? What are their roles, responsibilities, and beliefs in relation to art teacher education? This article reports on data taken from an ongoing research project that aims to identify faculty who teach art education within the U.S., the institutions in which they teach, their specific faculty roles and responsibilities, and their practices and beliefs about art teacher education. Given the broad context of this research and its overall qualitative nature, my intention is to provide the reader with a sense of the issuesthe flavor-that part of this research has uncovered. To this end, I will report on where education faculty members teach, their qualifications, and what they teach, and on specific aspects of their job descriptions, especially those related to teaching and research. I will briefly discuss how selected faculty members view their jobs currently and in the best possible worlds. I will conclude with implications for developing a research agenda that studies art teacher education faculty. Data Sources The data for this article are taken from two sources: First, I sent an open-ended questionnaire to 500 faculty members who worked at a variety of institutions (e.g.; research, teaching, liberal arts, religious, professional art school, private, public, large, small, and so forth) within the U.S. Faculty names, addresses, and institutions were gathered from the NASA Higher Education Division membership list, intensive searches of institutional homepages on the Internet, annual NAEA Convention programs, and the Internet listserv associated with the NAEA Research Task Force on Teacher Education. Of the 500 questionnaires mailed, 167 were returned from 44 states, with a return rate of 33 percent. Of these, 19 questionnaires were unusable, because, for example, art education was no longer taught at that institution. …
Doc 185 : Telecare delivery of health and social care information
If the growing population of older people are to be effectively supported in their own homes, new ways of delivering care must be found. In addition, individual users of health and social services need greater empowerment and autonomy. These imperatives provide opportunities for the creative use of information and communication technology. One telecare approach that can be used to maintain or improve the quality of life for older people is the provision of health and social care information in electronic form.This paper identifies and discusses issues that contribute to the information agenda for older people. It describes the background to the present UK health strategy, most significantly the shift from institutional based care towards care at home, with the associated change of priorities within health and social care agencies. It suggests that different methods of information delivery are needed to meet the requirements of older people, and directs information providers towards the use of paper-based …
Doc 186 : Creativity Enhancement Programs in World Fashion Schools
This study examined the curricula of well-known fashion schools and educational programs through personal interviews with industry professionals. The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of fashion programs that are designed to improve the creativity of students. Six fashion schools in Western Europe and the United States were selected based on the number of graduates included in the Designer Handbook published by Fairchild Books. Two Korean professionals from each school were interviewed either by email or in person, resulting in a total of 12 interviews. The data were analyzed qualitatively. The results indicated that the management styles as well as the curricula of these schools include features that enhanced student creativity. The schools are located in major fashion cities and have a close relationship with industry that is maintained to provide hands-on opportunities to students. The schools have clear and solid educational goals with instructional styles that provide students significant autonomy and responsibility. The instructors work closely with individual students to guide them through their projects and help develop students` unique styles. The schools utilized the instructions and studios as well as the social and cultural environments to help students acquire creative thinking and creative behavioral patterns. The findings of this study have implications for educators who wish to develop effective educational programs that enhance student creativity.
Doc 187 : Backlash in Bolivia: Regional Autonomy as a Reaction against Indigenous Mobilization
This study examined type of continuing bonds (CB) expression in relation to risk factors for complicated grief and measures of bereavement-related adjustment. Externalized CB expressions involving illusions and hallucinations with the deceased were distinguished from internalized CB expressions involving use of the deceased as an autonomy promoting secure base. 502 bereaved participants completed over the internet a CB measure assessing externalized and internalized CB along with various known risk-factor measures that included cause of death (i.e., violent vs. non-violent death), responsibility for the death, and attachment style as well as measures of psychological adjustment that included complicated grief symptoms, perceived physical health, and personal growth. As predicted, externalized CB was positively associated with violent death and responsibility for the death, whereas internalized CB was negatively associated with these risk factors as well as uniquely positively linked to personal growth. The implications of the findings for the role of CB in adjustment are discussed.
Doc 189 : Efl learner collaborative interaction in second life
This paper reports on the task-based interaction of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in the 3D multiuser virtual environment (MUVE) Second Life. The discussion first explores research on the precursors of MUVEs, text-based 2D virtual worlds known as MOOs. This is followed by an examination of studies on the use of MUVEs in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). The discussion then focuses on an investigation of the Second Life-based text chat of learners located at a university in Japan. Data analysis reveals that the environment, and tasks, elicited types of collaborative interaction hypothesized as beneficial in the sociocultural account of language development. Collaborative interaction identified in the data involved peer-scaffolding focusing on lexis, and correction. The data further showed that the participants actively maintained a supportive atmosphere through the provision of utterances designed to signal interest, and the extensive use of positive politeness. These factors facilitated social cohesion, intersubjectivity, and the consistent production of coherent target language output focused on the tasks. Participant feedback was broadly positive, and indicates that specific features of Second Life such as individual avatars, coupled to the computer-based nature of the interaction, appeared to enhance discourse management, engagement, and participation. The findings suggest that Second Life provides an arena for learner centered social interaction that offers valuable opportunities for target language practice, and the development of autonomy. Areas of potential for future research are identified.
Doc 190 : Technology, work organisation and job quality in the service sector: an introduction’
This special issue volume is concerned with how technology is changing the nature of work and working conditions while generating new products and new forms of service delivery. The five articles included in this volume cover service work, from the routine and clerical through to highly credentialed and professional work. Although some of the established challenges concerning the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on work and workplaces are evident in the articles, it is also clear that new service delivery processes demand new skills and training to some extent. Overall findings indicate that while ICT competencies are important, they need to be supplemented by the soft skills that are crucial for effective customer interactions and more open work systems with greater autonomy and participation whereby flexible work teams can have a positive impact on job quality outcomes. This introductory article examines technology and the changing nature of work through three strands of interpre…
Doc 191 : The use of new technologies among in-service Colombian ELT teachers *
This study reports on the impact of the Masters in english language Teaching with an emphasis on Autonomous learning environments from the Universidad de la Sabana. The report highlights how graduates from 12 cities from 9 departments throughout Colombia are using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for english language learning in order to promote autonomy. The data that has been gathered thus far reveals that teachers are becoming much more comfortable in evaluating ICT tools in accordance with their teaching context, the strengths and opportunities of ICT tools and their consequent improvement on language teaching, while promoting the development of autonomous learners.
Doc 192 : Computer Ethics and Neoplatonic Virtue: A Reconsideration of Cyberethics in the Light of Plotinus’ Ethical Theory
In normative ethical theory, computer ethics belongs to the area of applied ethics dealing with practical and everyday moral problems arising from the use of computers and computer networks in the information society. Modern scholarship usually approves deontological and utilitarian ethics as appropriate to computer ethics, while classical theories of ethics, such as virtue ethics, are usually neglected as anachronistic and unsuitable to the information era and ICT industry. During past decades, an Aristotelian form of virtue ethics has been revived in modern philosophical enquiries with serious attempts for application to computer ethics and cyberethics. In this paper, the author argues that current trends and behaviours in online communication require an ethics of self-care found in Plotinus’ self-centred virtue ethics theory. The paper supports the position that Plotinus’ virtue ethics of intellectual autonomy and self-determination is relevant to cyberethics discussions involved in computer education and online communication.
Doc 193 : Citizenship and local development for the participation and digital governance of public administration : Innovative experiences in Southern EU Member States
Cyberspace has introduced new relationships into traditional forms of social intercourse and modern symbolic practices and representations. Information and communication technologies are presented as little explored tools of governance, for the construction of new models of participatory citizenship. Concepts like digital governance refer to new ways of interaction between citizens and governments. In this paper, several innovative experiences in Southern EU Member States are analysed, presenting the preliminary discussion about a new strategic vision for social movements that tries to explore new local forms of cultural autonomy for citizens through the appropriation of new ICTs.
Doc 194 : Scripting sexual passivity: A gender role perspective
In two studies, we demonstrate that attitudes toward traditional sexual roles are linked with increased sexual passivity for women but decreased passivity for men. For both genders, sexual passivity predicts poor sexual functioning and satisfaction. Study 1 showed that endorsement of traditional sexual roles of male dominance and female passivity relates to greater sexual passivity among college-aged heterosexual women but less passivity for college-aged heterosexual men. For both young men and women, greater sexual passivity predicts less overall sexual satisfaction. The findings for Study 2 replicate Study 1 among sexually experienced adults recruited over the Internet. Autonomy mediated these relationships, which persisted when controlling for multiple potential confounds.
Doc 195 : Recursive modeling of loss of control in human and organizational processes: A systemic model for accident analysis
A recursive model of accident investigation is proposed by exploiting earlier work in systems thinking. Safety analysts can understand better the underlying causes of decision or action flaws by probing into the patterns of breakdown in the organization of safety. For this deeper analysis, a cybernetic model of organizational factors and a control model of human processes have been integrated in this article (i.e., the viable system model and the extended control model). The joint VSM-ECOM framework has been applied to a case study to help safety practitioners with the analysis of patterns of breakdown with regard to how operators and organizations manage goal conflicts, monitor work progress, recognize weak signals, align goals across teams, and adapt plans on the fly. The recursive accident representation brings together several organizational issues (e.g., the dilemma of autonomy versus compliance, or the interaction between structure and strategy) and addresses how operators adapt to challenges in their environment by adjusting their modes of functioning and recovery. Finally, it facilitates the transfer of knowledge from diverse incidents and near misses within similar domains of practice.
Doc 196 : Mobile Phones in Romantic Relationships and the Dialectic of Autonomy Versus Connection
This study investigates cell phones in perceptions of autonomy and connection within the romantic relationships of college students. Self-report measures of rules for cell phone use, cell phone conflicts and their management, and perceptions of autonomy vs. connection were administered. Results revealed the use of cell phones was a source of autonomy-connection conflict, with higher levels of tension related to more conflict over quantity of calling and texting and over use with the opposite sex. Commonly reported rules pertained to timing of calls and texts, although many reported no rules. Selection and Neutralization were employed to address the dialectical tension.
Doc 197 : Teacher Leadership and Autonomous Student Learning: Adjusting to the New Realities.
Abstract This paper focuses on a most significant domain of inner power of teachers’ lives—their leadership of student learning. Traditional conceptions of teacher leadership owe much to the presumption of a classroom, or a formally designated site, where teacher instructed learning takes place. However, the rise of the Internet, with its ready availability of information has resulted in a shift towards much greater autonomy in student learning. The study reported here explores the perceptions of students, teachers, and parents about this shift to teacher-less learning, and the consequences it has for how we are to understand teacher leadership, especially where it concerns student engagement and participation in school. It also explores the efforts teachers themselves have made to understand their role amid these new realities.
Doc 198 : Conversations about the elections on Twitter: Towards a structural understanding of Twitter’s relation with the political and the media field
This study uses network analysis to examine Twitter’s level of autonomy from external influences, being the political and the media field. The conceptual framework builds upon Bourdieu’s field theory, appropriated on social media as mediated social spaces. The study investigates conversation patterns on Twitter between political, media and citizen agents during election times in Belgium. Through the comparison of conversational practices with the positions users hold as political, media or citizen agents, we understand how the former is related to the latter. The analysis of conversation patterns (based on replies and mentions) shows a decentralized and loosely knit network, in which primarily citizen agents are present. Nonetheless, the prominence of citizens in the debate, mentions or replies to political and media agents are significantly higher, placing them more centrally in the network. In addition, politicians and media actors are closely connected within the network, and reciprocal communication of these established agents is significantly lower compared to citizen agents. We understand different aspects of autonomy related to the presence, positions and practices of the agents on Twitter and their relative positions as politicians, media or citizens. To conclude, we discuss the promises of Bourdieu’s relational sociology and the limitations of our study. The approach proposed here is an attempt to integrate existing work and evolve towards a systematic understanding of the interrelations between political, media and citizen agents in a networked media environment.
Doc 199 : Direct-to-consumer genetic testing: access and marketing.
The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG), in their “Statement on Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing”1 (in this issue of Genetics in Medicine), argues for the involvement of appropriately qualified health care professionals in the ordering and interpretation of genetic tests, and the counseling of individuals and families regarding the meaning and significance of the test results. They point out the potential harms that may result if such health professionals are not involved, including misused tests, misinterpreted results, and misguided follow-up. We feel that this statement from the ACMG will not only educate the public and professionals about this issue, but will also lead to further discourse. In this commentary, we will provide a brief background for these discussions. One argument in favor of direct-to-consumer testing relies on respect for patient autonomy. Such reliance, however, ignores the need for information if autonomy and decisionmaking are to be meaningful. We acknowledge and cherish the autonomy of individuals to make decisions regarding their own health care. Geneticists show respect for and uphold autonomy through nondirective counseling. We agree with the ACMG, however, that decisions regarding whether and how an individual wishes to use a genetic test, and the information derived from it, should be informed by discussions with a knowledgeable health professional. Others argue that direct access to genetic testing reduces health care costs by eliminating the need for consultation with trained professionals. However, this argument fails to account for the costs likely to result from the uninformed and unnecessary uses of genetic tests and from the adverse consequences of inappropriate responses to test results, whether positive or negative, valid or invalid. Such consequences can include underuse and overuse of health care resources. Concerns regarding direct access to genetic testing are closely tied to concerns about direct-to-consumer advertising and marketing of genetic testing. Arguments have been made for direct-to-consumer marketing of genetic tests based on experience with direct-to-consumer advertisement of prescription drugs.2 Benefits cited by advocates include increased compliance and facilitation of patient-physician communication (based on the required “talk with your doctor” phrase). In the context of genetic tests, benefits of direct-to-consumer advertising may include an increased awareness of the importance of family history, the relation between risk and family history, the role of genetics in disease, and the value of genetic counseling. When advertisements for genetic tests are presented on the Internet or in the media by a commercial entity, however, significant clinical information may be missing. For example, there is frequently no information provided regarding the clinical validity and utility of the test. Consumers are not advised, for example, whether a test will provide the answers they are seeking regarding a particular disorder. An individual consumer is unlikely to know the positive predictive value (probability that a positive test result indicates the person will develop the disorder) or the negative predictive value (probability that a person will not develop a disorder if the test does not find a mutation) of the test. The consumer also is unlikely to know the performance characteristics of that test in the specific context in which they are requesting the test result; e.g., test performance may be very different in the presence or absence of a positive family history for the disease, or in the presence or absence of a known mutation. A consumer also may not be able to determine whether a particular genetic test is appropriate for them in the absence of consultation with a trained health professional.2 For example, a woman with a family history of breast cancer who is concerned about her risk for breast cancer (consultand) would do better to have a sample from an affected relative who meets the criteria for familial breast cancer (proband) tested for mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 than to have her own sample tested. If the proband did not have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, then the consultand would be at no different risk for breast cancer before or after she was tested. An appropriately trained health professional can help the consultand identify the best proband(s) for initial testing in order for the consultand to receive the best and most useful information from their genetic testing.2,3 Without this kind of health professional involvement and counseling, direct-to-consumer advertising may reinforce an erroneous deterministic interrelationship between genotype and phenotype.4 An appropriately trained health professional also would be able to advise the consultand regarding the actual information that may be available from the test, as well as its potential utility. The difficulties encountered in the interpretation of genetic test results are well-recognized.3 The public generally expects to receive a definitive, yes/no answer from a medical test. Results from genetic tests often inform only the estimation of the probability of developing a disease or the predictive risk of From the Departments of Human Genetics and Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; UCLA Center for Society, the Individual and Genetics; and Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles, California.
Doc 200 : ‘You can do it from your sofa’: The increasing popularity of the internet as a working site among male sex workers in Melbourne:
Drawing on qualitative interview data, this article observes the current structure of the Melbourne-based male sex industry, taking into account the unpopularity of traditional sex work ‘venues’ such as the street, print advertising, brothels and agencies. In recent years, the internet has arisen as a viable alternative to these sites. Motivations for the pursuit of internet-based work are numerous and include perceptions of greater ease, convenience and accessibility; anonymity, autonomy and safety, but, above all, the potential for more lucrative returns. The article also highlights the seemingly large numbers of men using dating websites who are casually propositioned online and may consent to such proposals, suggesting further research is required to ascertain the characteristics and experiences of those involved in informal sex work activity.