Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Web – Internet'

Internet of Things (IoT): tre parole che sintetizzano al meglio come la tecnologia abbia pervaso quasi ogni ambito della nostra vita. In questa tesi andrò a esplorare le soluzioni hardware e soprattutto software che si celano dietro allo sviluppo di questa nuova frontiera tecnologica, dalla cui combinazione con il web nasce il Web of Things, ovvero una visione globale, accessibile da qualsiasi utente attraverso i comuni mezzi di navigazione, dei servizi che ogni singolo smart device può offrire. Sarà seguito un percorso bottom-up partendo dalla descrizione fisica dei device e delle tecnologie abilitanti alla comunicazione thing to thing ed i protocolli che instaurano fra i device le connessioni. Proseguendo per l’introduzione di concetti quali middleware e smart gateway, sarà illustrata l’integrazione nel web 2.0 di tali device menzionando durante il percorso quali saranno gli scenari applicativi e le prospettive di sviluppo auspicabili.

The ability to target consumer segments and achieve a match between the product or promotional instrument and the consumer self-concept is stressed in the marketing literature. The online quality of a website has been said to have a positive impact on intention to use a website and perform a search, with preference for a website linked to perceptions of its credibility. Website preferences cam also encourage or discourage consumers’ purchasing intentions and the perceived visual attractiveness of a website is said to have a greater impact on e-loyalty and consumer retention than traditional attributes such as product selection and price. The important impact of preferences necessitates an understanding of the factors in a website that can appeal or not to people. Unfortunately, until as recently as 2004, studies investigating website aesthetics were anchored in the universalist paradigm which assumed that reactions would be universally held rather than differentiated according to demographic variables. A Canadian study in 2005 documented differences in reaction by gender but this study was inadequate in using a single commercial stimulus which had not been selected on any particular basis. Prior to this, research on web aesthetics was rooted in the universalist aesthetic in assuming that a single set of factors would suit all tastes. The overview describes the work by the author to ascertain the extent to which website productions differ by segmentation variables and the extent to which preferences can also be segmented. The author’s work has isolated the impact of segmentation variables (gender, personality and nationality) on website productions and of gender on website preferences and the overview focuses on gender since the impact of this variable has been explored in relation to productions and preferences.

Les col•laboracions democratitzades a Internet, entenent-les com les eines participatives de la xarxa, o la Web 2.0, afecten en l'actualitat a nombrosos aspectes la nostra vida. Els acadèmics destaquen el potencial de la Web 2.0 per millorar l’aprenentatge o la salut, així com el seu continu impacte en sectors com el de la tecnologia de mitjans de comunicació. També plantegen un gran nombre de qüestions importants als professionals i estudiosos. Per exemple, la consideració crítica de la Web 2.0 com una bombolla o bé com un element més del màrqueting, que necessita d'una determinació del seu abast i naturalesa. Aquest mateix punt és aplicable a l'ús de la Web 2.0 en el sector sanitari, també anomenat com Medicina 2.0 o Sanitat 2.0. Referent a això, considerant el risc que el contingut generat per altres usuaris sigui utilitzat per prendre decisions relatives a la salut, i tenint en compte l'eficàcia no provada de la Web 2.0 com a instrument de la política sanitària, els acadèmics del tema conviden a la definició de millors models que es puguin aplicar a l'ús pràctic d'aquesta eina. Aquesta tesi es centra en l'estudi d'aquestes qüestions fonamentals, en un camp que es mou a gran velocitat, per darrera de la pràctica real, i que requereix la concertació d'una investigació interdisciplinària. Per tant, aquesta tesi incorpora set obres diferents que ofereixen àmplies perspectives sobre l'ús d'eines de col•laboració en la xarxa en el camp de l'atenció sanitària, cadascuna analitzant el tema amb una profunditat suficient com per seguir sent rellevant en un camp en ràpida evolució. Aquestes obres inclouen un examen d'(1) la Web 2.0 i (2) la Medicina 2.0, utilitzant l'anàlisi del contingut de milions de converses de la xarxa per identificar les principals qüestions pràctiques o teòriques i les tensions subjacents a cada concepte. Dos estudis addicionals analitzen (3) com i per què els metges fan servir les eines de la Web 2.0, i (4) com els metges busquen la informació en aquest context en constant moviment com és el d'Internet. Aquests dos estudis es basen en enquestes, diaris i entrevistes amb els metges que treballen en el Servei Nacional de Salut del Regne Unit. Tots dos destaquen resultats importants com ara models per a l'ús de la Medicina 2.0, o contribucions importants a la literatura com la connexió de la recerca cognitiva en la xarxa i la valoració de la informació en xarxa, tots dos camps sense connexió amb anterioritat a aquest treball. Tres estudis addicionals analitzen la web 2.0 des d'una perspectiva organitzacional, incloent (5) un estudi dels models de disseny de l'ús de la Web 2.0 en el sector farmacèutic, el qual detalla els millors models de pràctiques d'ús, i la seva clara relació amb els models de disseny de codi obert, i (6) també les estratègies d'innovació oberta al sector farmacèutic, on les eines de col•laboració en la xarxa permeten aquest tipus d'estratègies. Els dos últims estudis fan servir entrevistes amb 120 executius del sector farmacèutic analitzats a través d'anàlisi temàtic. Tots dos fan contribucions importants a la literatura mitjançant la caracterització de les estratègies d'innovació oberta i les implicacions per generar la capacitat d'absorció en el context d'innovació oberta. L'últim estudi (7) examina la Medicina 2.0 des de la perspectiva dels proveïdors de serveis de salut, per ajudar a la gestió d'ús de la Web 2.0 com un instrument per a millorar l’atenció sanitària. En general, hi ha moltes contribucions importants a la literatura, que en conjunt aconsegueixen ampliar el panorama de la Web 2.0 en l'assistència sanitària, i aporten consideracions especifiques a la literatura que abasta els sistemes d'informació, les ciències de la informació i la informàtica mèdica , així com la innovació oberta i l'estratègia.
Las colaboraciones democratizadas en Internet, entendiéndolas como las herramientas participativas de la red o la Web 2.0, afectan en la actualidad a numerosos aspectos nuestra vida. Los académicos destacan el potencial de la Web 2.0 para mejorar el eAprendizaje o la salud, así como su continuo impacto en sectores como el de la tecnología de medios de comunicación. También plantean un gran número de cuestiones importantes a los profesionales y estudiosos. Por ejemplo, la consideración crítica de la Web 2.0 como una burbuja o bien como un elemento más del marketing, que necesita de una determinación de su alcance y naturaleza. Este mismo punto es aplicable al uso de la Web 2.0 en el sector sanitario, también denominado como Medicina 2.0 o Sanitad 2.0. A este respecto y considerando el riesgo de que el contenido generado por otros usuarios sea utilizado para tomar decisiones relativas a la salud, y la eficacia no probada de la Web 2.0 como instrumento de la política sanitaria; los académicos del tema invitan a la definición de mejores modelos que se puedan aplicar al uso práctico de esta herramienta. Esta tesis se centra en el estudio de estas cuestiones fundamentales, en un campo que se mueve a gran velocidad, por detrás de la práctica real, y que requiere la concertación de una investigación interdisciplinaria. Por lo tanto, esta tesis incorpora siete obras distintas que ofrecen amplias perspectivas sobre el uso de herramientas de colaboración en la red en el campo de la atención sanitaria, cada una analizando el tema con una profundidad suficiente como para seguir siendo relevante en un campo en rápida evolución. Estas obras incluyen un examen de (1) la Web 2.0 y (2) la Medicina 2.0, utilizando el análisis del contenido de millones de conversaciones de la red, para identificar las principales cuestiones prácticas o teóricas y las tensiones que subyacen a cada concepto. Dos estudios adicionales analizan (3) cómo y por qué los médicos usan las herramientas de la Web 2.0, y (4) cómo los médicos buscan la información en este contexto en constante movimiento como es el de Internet. Estos dos estudios se basan en encuestas, diarios y entrevistas con los médicos que trabajan en el Servicio Nacional de Salud del Reino Unido. Ambos destacan resultados importantes tales como modelos para el uso de la Medicina 2.0, o contribuciones importantes a la literatura como la conexión de la búsqueda cognitiva en la red y la valoración de la información en red, ambos campos sin conexión con anterioridad al presente trabajo.Tres estudios adicionales analizan la Web 2.0 desde una perspectiva organizacional, incluyendo (5) un estudio de los modelos de diseño del uso de la Web 2.0 en el sector farmacéutico, el cual detalla los mejores modelos de prácticas de uso, y su clara relación con los modelos de diseño de la open source, y (6) y también las estrategias de innovación abierta en el sector farmacéutico donde las herramientas de colaboración en la red permiten este tipo de estrategias. Los dos últimos estudios emplean entrevistas con 120 ejecutivos del sector farmacéutico analizados a través de análisis temático. Ambos hacen contribuciones importantes a la literatura mediante la caracterización de las estrategias de innovación abierta y las implicaciones para generar la capacidad de absorción en el contexto de innovación abierta. El último estudio (7) examina la Medicina 2.0 desde la perspectiva de los proveedores de servicios de salud, para ayudar a la gestión de uso de la Web 2.0 como un instrumento para la gestión de una mejor atención sanitaria. En general, hay muchas contribuciones importantes a la literatura, que en conjunto logran ampliar el panorama de la Web 2.0 en la asistencia sanitaria, y aportan consideraciones específicas a la literatura que abarca los sistemas de información, las ciencias de la información, la informática médica, así como la innovación abierta y la estrategia.
Democratized internet collaborations, referring to participatory online tools or Web 2.0, now impact many aspects of people’s lives. Scholars note Web 2.0’s potential to improve eLearning or healthcare, and its ongoing impact in sectors such as tech-media. They also raise a plethora of important questions for practitioners and scholars, such as the criticism of Web 2.0 as hype or marketing term, which necessitates some determination of the scope and nature of Web 2.0. This holds equally for Web 2.0’s use in health care, denoted as Medicine 2.0 or Health 2.0. Moreover, given the risks of people using user-generated content for health decisions, and its unproven effectiveness as a health policy tool, scholars have called for best practice models of use. This thesis addresses these fundamental issues, in a field that is fast moving, behind actual practice, and that requires concerted inter-disciplinary research. Therefore, this thesis incorporates seven distinct works that provide broad perspectives on the use of online collaboration tools in healthcare, each analyzing a specific topic in enough depth to remain relevant in a fast moving field. These works include an examination of (1) Web 2.0 and (2) Medicine 2.0, using content analysis of millions of online conversations to surface the major practical or theoretical issues and tensions that underpin each concept. Two further studies examine (3) how and why doctors use Web 2.0 tools, and (4) how doctors search or forage for information in this evolving internet environment. These two studies rely on surveys, diaries and interviews from doctors working in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Both highlight important results, such as models for Medicine 2.0 use, or make important contributions to literature such as connecting the previously separate cognitive online search and internet information judgment literatures. Three further studies examine Web 2.0 from an organizational perspective, including (5) design patterns of Web 2.0’s use in global Pharma, which details best practice models of use and its clear link to Open Source design patterns, and (6) global Pharma’s Open Innovation strategies, where online collaboration tools enable these strategies. The latter two studies employ interviews with 120 pharmaceutical executives analyzed through thematic analysis. They make major contributions to literature by characterizing open innovation strategies and gleaning implications for Absorptive Capacity in the Open Innovation context. The final study (7) examines Medicine 2.0 form the perspective of health service providers, informing management using eHealth as an instrument for improved healthcare management. Overall, there are many major contributions to literature, which together achieve both a broad overview of Web 2.0 in healthcare, but also make specific additions to literature encompassing information systems, information science, medical informatics, and open innovation and strategy.

Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 24. 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Resumo: O objetivo mais geral dessa dissertacao e efetuar um estudo comparado sobre algumas dimensoes do uso da internet (basicamente websites e midias sociais), pelas elites parlamentares do Brasil e dos Estados Unidos. Nossa proposta basica e articular os estudos que trabalham dentro da perspectiva do \recrutamento das elites. com as pesquisas que analisam o uso das tecnologias digitais pelos atores politicos. Para cumprir tal objetivo geral, utilizamos uma metodologia que se desdobra nas seguintes dimensoes: (i) em primeiro lugar, uma avaliacao das informacoes disponiveis na Web sobre alguns aspectos ssenciais do exercicio do mandato pelas elites parlamentares; (ii) em segundo lugar, procuraremos caracterizar algumas estrategias de uso da internet pelas elites parlamentares examinadas com vistas a precisar algumas experiencias mais avancadas de participacao e de representacao politica que se dao no ambito da rede; (iii) por fim, buscaremos articular variaveis de \recrutamento. das elites parlamentares com variaveis sobre as formas de emprego das tecnologias digitais pelos mesmos a fim de verificar sua influencia como fator explicativo de uso diferencial da internet por diferentes subgrupos de deputados e senadores. Procuraremos coletar evidencias que demonstrem a proposicao segundo a qual ha diferentes padroes de uso da web pelas elites parlamentares do Brasil e dos EUA, com os parlamentares brasileiros investindo mais na dimensao \informacao. do uso da internet, enquanto que os parlamentares dos EUA investem mais no uso da internet como ferramenta de mobilizacao e contato com os eleitores em suas respectivas bases eleitorais, atraves do uso massivo de midias sociais tais como facebook e youtube.

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After the expansion and popularization of information technology and the Internet, there are projects that integrate computational aspects and aesthetic intentions. The difficult task of identifying them and categorize them as art and as web design is the subject of this research. The main purpose involves research and mapping of digital design. Then be presented criteria defining web art and web design. Are proposed, based on case studies a comparative analysis of projects web sites art sites and digital design. The theoretical research is based on various authors such as Lucia Santaella, Clement Mok, Claudia Giannetti, Vicente Gosciola, Diana Domingues, Fabio Oliveira Nunes, Gilbertto Prado and Lucia Leão
Após a expansão e a popularização das tecnologias da informação e da internet, observa-se projetos que integram aspectos computacionais e intenções estéticas. A difícil tarefa de identificá-los e categorizá-los como arte e como web design é o tema da presente pesquisa. O objetivo principal envolve a pesquisa e o mapeamento de design digital. Em seguida, serão apresentados critérios que definam web art e web design. Propõem-se, a partir dos estudos de caso uma análise comparativa entre projetos de sites de web art e sites de design digital. Como referencial teórico, a pesquisa se fundamenta em vários autores tais como Lúcia Santaella, Clement Mok, Cláudia Giannetti, Vicente Gosciola, Diana Domingues, Fábio Oliveira Nunes, Gilbertto Prado e Lúcia Leão

Trotz substantieller ökonomischer und sozialer Implikationen des World Wide Webs existiert noch immer eine überraschend große Forschungslücke in Bezug auf empirische Untersuchungen der Webnutzung. Insbesondere bezüglich der individuellen Webnutzung weiß man heute noch wenig über Schlüsselthemen dieses Forschungsfeldes, wie zum Beispiel die Anzahl der Webseitenbesuche von Individuen, der Loyalität von Nutzern, und den demographischen Charakteristika, die bestimmend für die Internetnutzung sind. Deshalb sieht sich diese Dissertation als Schritt zur Überbrückung dieser Forschungslücke. Sie präsentiert die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse verschiedener, voneinander abhängiger, empirischer Studien der individuellen Webnutzung Pittsburgher Bürger. Diese Dissertation erweitert die Forschung im Bereich individuellen Webnutzungsverhaltens durch: - die Analyse des Einflusses der steigenden Anzahl von Webangeboten auf die individuelle Webnutzung, - die anwendung sessionbasierter Maße auf individuelle Webnutzungsdaten, um Einsichten in den Verlauf der Webnutzung bei gleichzeitigem Anstieg der individuellen Weberfahrung zu erhalten, - die Analyse der Loyalitaet im Web von einzelnen Nutzergruppen, um die Frage zu beantworten, ob Nutzergruppen zu favorisierten Seiten im Web konvergieren, - spezifisches Herangehen an das Thema der Portalnutzung im Web und das Beantworten der Frage, ob sich Portalnutzer von durchschnittlichen Internetnutzern unterscheiden. Aus betriebswirtschaftlicher und volkswirtschaftlicher Sicht interessante Webnutzungsmaße werden entwickelt und diskutiert. Die Anwendung dieser Maße führt zu Erkenntnissen bezüglich signifikanter Trends. So wird beispielsweise deutlich, dass keinesfalls eine Gleichverteilung der Nutzung über Nutzer und Zeit besteht. Nutzer können in vier Gruppen mit verschiedenen Entwicklungskurven eingeteilt werden. Alle Nutzergruppen nähern sich über die Zeit Sättigungsgrenzen der Webnutzung an. Außerdem verbringen die meisten Nutzer nur wenig Zeit im Internet. Auch wird deutlich dass Loyalität im Web äußerst gering ist und Webnutzer trotz steigender Erfahrung im Umgang mit dem Internet nicht sonderlich gezieltes Surfverhalten entwickeln. Zusätzlich führt die Anwendung von Regressionsmodellen zu Erkenntnissen über die individuellen Charakteristika, welche die Webnutzung beeinflussen. Solch Charakteristika sind zum Beispiel ethnische Herkunft, Geschlecht, Haushaltseinkommen, Telefon- und Emailnutzung und Computerkenntnisse. Daher liefert die vorliegende Arbeit Erkenntnisse, welche sowohl aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Sicht als auch aus volkswirtschaftlicher Sicht Relevanz haben. Insbesondere können Marketingabteilungen, vor allem in der Informations- und Kommunikationsindustrie, von den vorliegen Resultaten profitieren. Themen wie Webloyalität und Webnutzung, die in der vorliegenden Arbeit angesprochen werden, sind insbesondere relevant für Geschäftsmodelle aus dem B2C Bereich. Adressaten sind dementsprechend zum Beispiel Internetfirmen, welche von Werbeeinkünften aus Bannerwerbung abhängig sind und Firmen, welche einen hohen Grad an Loyalität unter Ihren Webnutzern suchen. Außerdem bilden die Erkenntnisse die Grundlage für staatliche Initiativen, die der Sicherstellung des Zugangs zum Internet alle Gruppen der Bevölkerung dienen. Die vorliegende Arbeit reichert die empirische Grundlage, welche zum Verständnis individueller Webnutzung nötig ist, an. Die Erkenntnisse sind insbesondere für am neuen Informationszeitalter teilhabenden Individuen und Institutionen, auch staatlicher Art, interessant.
Despite the substantial social and economic implications of the World Wide Web, there is still a surprising lack of empirical research on Web usage. Specifically, at the level of the individual user, little is known about key issues of Internet usage, such as the trajectory of change over time in the number of visits to Web sites, the degree of individual loyalty to Web sites, and the demographics that determine Web usage. In order to overcome this lack of research, we report in this dissertation the results of several interrelated studies of individual Web usage patterns of average citizens from the Pittsburgh area. This dissertation advances the research on individual Web usage by: - analyzing the impact of increasing Web site visiting opportunities on Web utilization rates of individual users, - employing session-based measures to data on individual Web usage in order to identify how Web users change the way they use the Web as their level of expertise increases, - analyzing whether different user groups also differ in loyalty to Web sites and whether users converge over time to a set of favorite Web sites, - specifically dealing with the issue of Web portal utilization to answer the question whether Web portal users are different from average Web users. We develop measures of Web usage that are particularly relevant from a business and public policy perspective. By applying these measures to longitudinal data on Web usage, we identify significant trends in individual Internet usage. For example, we reveal that individual Web usage is not distributed equally across subgroups of users. Web users can be clustered into four groups with distinct trajectories of Web usage. All groups reach saturation in their extent of Web usage after following a downward path. Further, most Web users spent only limited time in the Web and only a small group of users uses the Web heavily. Also, users show consistently little loyalty to Web sites. Surprisingly, as Web users gain experience in using the Web, there does not seem to be a significant shift from undirected browsing to directed access of Web sites over time. We apply regression models in order to predict the determinants of Web utilization. Individual characteristics, such as ethnic background, gender, household income, phone usage, e-mail usage, and computer skill level, determine Web usage. Thus, the results have implications for both electronic commerce and public policy as it pertains to the digital divide. They are particularly useful for marketing departments, especially in the information and communication industry. Discussions of Web user loyalty and Web visiting opportunities as conducted in this dissertation are relevant to business models in use in business-to-consumer electronic commerce, especially for Internet companies that rely on advertising income generated from serving banner advertisements and companies that need to maintain a high degree of customer loyalty. The results also provide the factual foundation for key policy initiatives to promote access to the Internet for all groups of people. Policy makers need data on Internet usage in order to measure the size of a possible digital divide and ensure that everybody belonging to the present and the next generation - and not a subgroup of people only - has access to the Internet. In summary, this study advances the empirical foundation for understanding individual Web use. The findings of this dissertation will be useful to stakeholders in the new Information Age, in particular marketing departments and policy makers.

This text is an extract from the book Word Matters: multicultural perspectives on information societies. This book, which has been coordinated by Alain Ambrosi, Valérie Peugeot and Daniel Pimienta was released on November 5, 2005 by C & F à ditions. The text is under the Creative Commons licence, by, non commercial. Knowledge should be shared in free access... But authors and editors need an economy to keep on creating and working. If you can afford it, please buy the book on line.

Roaming the Internet, users sometimes encounter severe problems or feel dissatisfied using a particular site. E-government websites are the public gateways to access information and services but there is still no agreement on how to assess a government's online presence. Failure of e-government projects in achieving their goals is common and there is uncertainty about how best to evaluate an e-government website. It has been argued that existing evaluation frameworks have some methodological limitations and they mostly neglected citizens. There is a lack of an engineering approach for building web systems and the literature on measuring the quality of website is limited. There is an uncertainty in the selection of evaluation methods and some risks of standardizing inadequate evaluation practices. Managing the complexity of web applications, Web Engineering is emerging as a new discipline for the development and evaluation of web systems to promote high-quality websites. But web quality is still a debatable issue and web metrics is considered a valuable area of ongoing research. Therefore this research focuses on the methodological issues underlying web metrics and how to develop an applicable set of measurement for designing websites. The main aim is to create new metrics for web engineering and develop a generalizable measurement framework for local e-government since research in this field is limited. This study adopted a positivist quantitative research and used triangulation web evaluation methods (heuristic evaluation, user testing, automatic link checkers, and Alexa) to test multiple-case study of Saudi city websites. The proposed E-City Usability Framework is unique in integrating 3-dimension measures (website usability, e-services, and the number and type of e-services), and in using multi-orientations to cover several aspects of e-government: output (information and services), outcomes (citizen-centricity indicators), model, and model-based assessments. Existing e-government models were criticized, and the findings employed in developing the proposed framework. The best web evaluation methods were heuristic evaluation and user testing, while link checkers and Alexa proved to be unreliable tools; nevertheless, they can be used as a useful complementary approach. Saudi city websites were ranked by website quality, e-services, and overall evaluation. Common usability problems in these websites were found to be: the sites were not citizen-centered, limited e-services and information, no e-transaction, no emergency alerts, no municipal budget, and no city council reports. They also suffered from broken links, an inactive city map, a poor eComplaint section, and a nonfunctioning search facility.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 1999.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 90 p. : ill., map. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-68).

Thesis (M.S.)--Southern Utah University, 2009.
A workbook CD accompanies this text. For more information contact the author, Lance Jackson, Southern Utah University, 351 W. University Blvd., Cedar city, UT 84720. E-mail: jackson@suu.edu. Telephone: (435) 586-7867. Title from PDF title page. "April 2009." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree [of] Master of Arts in Professional Communication." "A project presented to the faculty of the Communication Department at Southern Utah University." Dr. Jon Smith, Project Supervisor. Includes bibliographical references (p. 14, 33, 49, 69, 85, 104, 135, 155, 174).

The purpose of the study was to assess the effectiveness of banner advertising on the World Wide Web, as well as to explore and analyse the attitudes and behaviours of internet users towards banner advertising. The research objective was to determine, why people do not click on banners and to find ways in which advertisers can make banner advertisements appeal to consumers more effectively. Outcomes of the research suggested which features advertisers should avoid when developing clickable banners. An extensive literature review was carried out in order to highlight important aspects of historic research. The analysis conducted on this topic indicated that a gap exists in the area of public attitudes towards clickable banner advertising and the reasons why people avoid clicking on banners. To address the above questions, peoples’ attitudes towards banner and other Internet advertising were investigated through focus group interviews and surveys. The findings suggest that the main reason for the ignorance surrounding clickable banners was the low involvement between the product or service being advertised and the viewer’s interests. Other reasons included the high annoyance level of banner advertising and the threat of viruses that some banners may pose. Conclusions of the research recommend narrow targeting and personalisation of banner advertisements, constant rotations and replacements of banners to avoid burnouts as well as trustful and original appeal and content. Other important findings included: • The majority of people are indifferent towards banners, • People with less than three years of Internet experience tend to click more than people with more than three years of Internet experience, • Females showed more “clickable behaviour” than males, • People are more likely to click on banners which present interesting information, are bright and animated or promote catchy phrases for the surfer, • People prefer to see banners located on the top of the page or on the right side of the page, • Pop-ups are the most noticeable and are possibly the route cause of what triggers people to become annoyed or dislike banner ads, Findings of this research have high social value. If advertisers would take into account the results of the current study, they would be able to create more effective banners, which could effectively be redirected to the appropriate target market. This will enable them to cut their costs. Furthermore, online users would enjoy a more polite and friendly online environment, where their interests will be taken into account, which would diminish the current gap between customers and advertisers.

Web Usage Mining (WUM) can be used to determine whether the information architecture of a web site is structured correctly. Existing WUM tools however, do not indicate which web usage mining algorithms are used or provide effective graphical visualisations of the results obtained. WUM techniques can be used to determine typical navigation patterns of the users of organisational web sites. An organisational web site can be described as a site which has a high level of content. The Computer Science & Information Systems (CS&IS) web site at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) is an example of such a web site. The process of combining WUM and information visualisation techniques in order to discover useful information about web usage patterns is called visual web mining. The goal of this research is to discuss the development of a WUM model and a prototype, called WebPatterns, which allows the user to effectively visualise web usage patterns of an organisational web site. This will facilitate determining whether the information architecture of the CS&IS web site is structured correctly. The WUM algorithms used in WebPatterns are association rule mining and sequence analysis. The purpose of association rule mining is to discover relationships between different web pages within a web site. Sequence analysis is used to determine the longest time ordered paths that satisfy a user specified minimum frequency. A radial tree layout is used in WebPatterns to visualise the static structure of the organisational web site. The structure of the web site is laid out radially, with the home page in the middle and other pages positioned in circles at various levels around it. Colour and other visual cues are used to show the results of the WUM algorithms. User testing was used to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of WebPatterns for visualising web usage patterns. The results of the user testing clearly show that the participants were highly satisfied with the visual design and information provided by WebPatterns. All the participants also indicated that they would like to use WebPatterns in the future. Analysis of the web usage patterns presented by WebPatterns was used to determine that the information architecture of the CS&IS web site can be restructured to better facilitate information retrieval. Changes to the CS&IS web site web were suggested, included placing embedded hyperlinks on the home page to the frequently accessed sections of the web site.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1995 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada
The Internet, as the online worldwide connection of computers has come to be known, has now grown to the point of emergence as a major tool in many applications. It will soon become, if it has not already become, an indispensable source of information and interaction for scientists and business people alike. The use of the Internet's various protocol's, including mail, newsreader, and file transfer, produces a global interconnectedness that is impossible to achieve in any other fashion. It is also important to realize that the Internet is currently doubling in size every year and will continue to grow at an extremely accelerated rate for at least the next five years. It is therefore important to be aware of the various applications made possible by use of the Internet, and of the potential for telemetry related uses.

Das Forschungsprojekt „Exploring the Hidden Web. Zu den Nutzungsweisen, Eigenschaften und Spezifika anonymer Kommunikation im Internet“ ging im Rahmen des von der VolkswagenStiftung ausgeschriebenen Programms „Offen - für Außergewöhnliches“ von vier zentralen Fragestellungen aus. Erstens sollte erforscht werden, worüber im Hidden Web kommuniziert wird. Zweitens ging es darum, welche Medien dafür genutzt werden. Und drittens sollte danach gefragt werden, wie unter den Bedingungen der Anonymität das für Interaktionen notwendige Vertrauen hergestellt wird. Für diese drei Aspekte sollte viertens jeweils untersucht werden, welche Unterschiede, Gemeinsamkeiten und Schnittstellen zu frei zugänglichen, gemeinhin als Internet bezeichneten Medien („Clearnet“) bestehen. Diese Fragen wurden im Rahmen eines explorativen, qualitativen Vorgehens untersucht
The research project “Exploring the Hidden Web. Use, features and specific character of anonymous communication on the Internet”, as a part of the VolkswagenStiftung funding initiative “Off the beaten track”, was based on four distinct issues: The central research questions pursued are (a) what the topics of communication on the Hidden Web are and (b) which media is used for the communication. Another issue building on this is (c) how, under the condition of anonymity, the trust necessary for any communication is built. Regarding these three aspects, the question is to be posed of (d) which differences, common aspects and interfaces there are with freely-accessible media, commonly referred to as the Internet (“Clearnet”). The empirical foundation of this project is an explorative, qualitative approach

Doutoramento em Engenharia Informática
Esta tese surge no contexto de sistemas e serviços web. O objectivo é propor uma solução para o problema da integração de informação de diversas fontes, numa plataforma web única, personalizável e adaptável ao utilizador. Nos casos de empresas ou organizações que tenham para diferentes tarefas, diferentes sistemas de informação independentes, o problema da integração de informação surge com a necessidade de integração destes numa única interface disponibilizada aos seus utilizadores. A integração de serviços numa mesma interface pressupõe que haja comunicação entre um sistema central (que fornece a interface) e os diversos sistemas existentes (que detêm a totalidade – ou parte – da informação a apresentar). Assim, será necessário garantir a identidade do utilizador a cada um dos serviços apresentados, bem como assegurar que cada utilizador tem à sua disposição de forma centralizada, apenas e só a informação e operações a que realmente tem acesso em cada um dos sistemas. Trata-se de uma plataforma que pretende por um lado, fornecer a informação correcta e orientada ao utilizador e, por outro lado, garantir que a organização que suporta o sistema consegue informar e interagir com os seus utilizadores de forma mais eficaz. O cenário adoptado é a Universidade de Aveiro. Esta pretende disponibilizar uma plataforma electrónica, onde os diferentes interlocutores (alunos, docentes, funcionários, ex-alunos, etc.) possam ter acesso a informação dirigida e orientada aos seus interesses e funções na Universidade. De modo a que cada utilizador seja realmente visto como um utilizador único, serão estudados e comparados serviços de modelação de utilizador e perfis de utilizador. Será proposto um serviço de modelação de utilizador e uma lógica de criação de perfis de utilizador, distintos do existente no estado de arte. Esta lógica conjuga a personalização da interface por parte do utilizador, com a gestão de operações e definição de políticas de segurança por parte da organização, de forma independente relativamente ao sistema de informação subjacente.
This thesis’ focus is on web systems and services. Its goal is propose a solution for the multiple information sources integration on a single web platform, customizable and adaptable by the user. In cases where companies and organizations have for different tasks, different information systems, the information integration problem comes with the need of assembly of this disperse information in a single interface for their users. Single interface service integration requires the communication between a central platform system (that supplies the interface) and the spread systems that hold the hole (or part of the) information to present to the users. Therefore, it will be necessary to guarantee the user’s identity to each of the presented services, as well as to ensure that each user will only access the information and functionalities to which he has clearance in those systems. This platform aims at providing on one hand, the proper information for the user, and on the other, guarantee that the organization that supports the system can inform and interact with its users in a more effective manner. The adopted scenario for testing is the Universidade de Aveiro. The university plans on making available an electronic platform where the different users (students, teachers, non-teaching staff, alumnae, etc.) may have access to information directly guided towards their interests and roles at the University. In order to have each user seen as a unique user, user modeling servers and user profiles will be studied and compared. It will be proposed a user modeling server and a user profile approach, both different from the state of the art approaches. This approach encompasses the interface customization by the user with operation management and security policy definition by the organization, in an independent logic from the overall information system.

Syfweb est un méta moteur de recherche ; il permet d'interroger les moteurs de recherche sur le Web et de récupérer, analyser et trier les résultats selon une formule de pertinence prenant en compte dans son calcul le contenu intégral des documents. Les documents sont partagés en zones classées par ordre d'importance et leur pertinence se trouve augmentée ou diminuée suivant la présence ou l'absence des termes de la requête dans ces documents. A chaque document est attribuée une matrice d'occurrences faisant apparaître les zones clés du document, avec pour chaque zone les occurrences des termes de la requête. Syfweb va au-delà de la recherche sur le Web : il permet, en outre, d'interroger en local les documents à contenu textuel ; ceci permet à son utilisateur d'effectuer des recherches dans un espace à deux dimensions (Internet, Intranet). Dans son traitement ; Syfweb se base sur :1. Le développeur de requête : à partir de la requête posée par l'utilisateur, Syfweb utilise une base terminologique (WordNet ou la Base terminologique du Québec BTQ) pour construire un ensemble de requêtes. L'utilisateur intervient de façon active tant au niveau de la terminologie que dans le choix des requêtes qui seront envoyées au système. 2. L'extracteur des documents : interroge les moteurs de recherches avec l'union des requêtes validées et récupère les documents-réponses, il élimine les doublons, les documents avec des liens vides et ceux ne respectant pas le profil de l'utilisateur (taille minimale des documents, type des documents, domaine des sites). 3. Le classificateur : classe les documents retenus après une analyse statistique de leur contenus. L'affichage de la valeur de pertinence dans Syfweb alerte l'utilisateur sur la mauvaise qualité de la réponse des moteurs et méta moteurs à la question posée. Pour continuer sa recherche, l'utilisateur doit : soit reformuler sa requête avec d'autres termes équivalents, soit interroger d'autres moteurs ou méta moteurs de recherche.

Thesis (M.S. in Systems Engineering) Naval Postgraduate School, September 1998.
Thesis advisor(s): Gus K. Lott. "September 1998." Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-104). Also available online.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2004.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-148).
Over the past five years, mobile Internet services in Japan have seen major expansion as a result of collaboration between mobile operators acting as mobile portal providers, and their complementors, namely, content providers. However, the content business is currently under pressure to become profitable, and major players have found it difficult to differentiate their services from competitors In other words, service has become commoditized, which has resulted in a shift to the mature stage. This thesis suggests Web services as a solution to overcoming the commoditization of mobile Internet services and spurring new development in the industry. This emerging technology allows users to create a combination of Web resources through two fundamental approaches that lead to an innovation. The Web service requester approach enables integration of a variety of Web services as complementary assets from their business partners into their content. System Dynamics modeling methodology is used to examine how Web service requesters could promote product and process innovation as well as outsourcing. The analyses indicate that it is critical to adopt a different strategy under different scenarios of Web services diffusion, taking into consideration the requesters' dependence on Web service providers. The Web service provider approach offers an excellent opportunity to create distribution channels for services. Two case studies are analyzed in depth to understand how the subject companies took advantage of being a Web service provider with the support of complementors as well as users to promote innovation. Finally, suggestions are made for how the mobile industry value chain could evolve through Web services implementations, and policy
(cont.) recommendations are offered for major stakeholders. Web services will likely enable close collaboration between players in the industry, including Web service providers, Web service requesters, and toolkit developers, all of which should see increasing value, which leads to further evolution of the mobile Internet industry.
by Daizo Ikeda.
S.M.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of five Internet-based neologisms in the Global Web-based English corpus (GloWbE) (Davies, 2013), which includes data from six Inner Circle countries, where English is spoken as a native language, and 14 Outer Circle countries, where English has historically acquired an official status alongside the local languages (Kachru, 1985). Three of the target words (download, upload, and tweet) can function as verbs and nouns, whereas the other two (hashtag and app/s) only occur as nouns in the GloWbE corpus. Each word was examined in terms of its frequency of occurrence in the entire corpus and in each of the 20 countries. Then, the frequencies for the Inner and Outer Circle countries were collapsed and compared. For the first three words, which can be both verbs and nouns, separate searches were conducted in order to generate frequency statistics for the occurrence of the verbs and the nouns. Finally, the most frequent noun collocates for the verbs and the most frequent adjective collocates for the nouns were generated and analyzed. The data analysis revealed that in terms of overall frequency, the most frequently used was download, followed by tweet and upload, the latter showing the lowest frequency of the three. In addition, the statistics per million words showed higher frequencies for download and upload in the Outer Circle countries, whereas for tweet, higher frequencies per million words were observed in the Inner Circle countries. The most common noun collocates for the verb download included music, apps, and files, whereas upload and tweet most commonly occurred with photos and pictures. On the other hand, hashtag and app/s occurred only as nouns in the GloWbE corpus. Of the two, app/s showed a much higher frequency than hashtag, and in fact had the highest frequency statistics of the five words. The statistics per million words for the Inner and Outer Circles showed a consistent pattern, where the occurrence of both nouns per million words was at a higher rate in the Inner Circle than in the Outer Circle. The most common adjective collocates for app/s referred to different types, such as mobile apps, native apps, and third-party apps, whereas the adjectives modifying hashtag revealed a preference for new, popular, trending, and relevant hashtags. Overall, this study has revealed how five Internet-based neologisms occur in World Englishes in terms of frequencies, functions, and common collocates, which in turn suggested similarities and differences at the cultural and social level. It also invites further investigation of the GloWbE corpus, which as described by Davies and Fuchs (2015), offers numerous opportunities for comparisons among the different varieties of World English in terms of lexical, morphological, syntactic, and discourse variations.

Web applications have come a long way both in terms of adoption to provide information and services and in terms of the technologies to develop them. With the emergence of richer and more advanced technologies such as Ajax, web applications have become more interactive, responsive and user friendly. These applications, often called Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) changed the traditional web applications in two primary ways: Dynamic manipulation of client side state and Asynchronous communication with the server. At the same time, such techniques also introduce new challenges. Among these challenges, an important one is the difficulty of automatically crawling these new applications. Crawling is not only important for indexing the contents but also critical to web application assessment such as testing for security vulnerabilities or accessibility. Traditional crawlers are no longer sufficient for these newer technologies and crawling in RIAs is either inexistent or far from perfect. There is a need for an efficient crawler for web applications developed using these new technologies. Further, as more and more enterprises use these new technologies to provide their services, the requirement for a better crawler becomes inevitable. This thesis studies the problems associated with crawling RIAs. Crawling RIAs is fundamentally more difficult than crawling traditional multi-page web applications. The thesis also presents an efficient RIA crawling strategy and compares it with existing methods.

More people are connecting to the Internet, by using computers and other devices. At the same time web applications are replacing locally installed applications. This makes web application usability an interesting and important subject.

The aim of this thesis was to find a set of usability recommendations and guidelines specifically suited for web-based applications. The guidelines were derived both from studies on how web applications and regular web sites should be designed, usability studies for locally installed applications as well as more general usability and interaction design guidelines.

A prototype was created based on the list of guidelines. The prototype was then evaluated from a usability perspective, using heuristic evaluation with Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, to test the validity of the guidelines.

The results of the evaluation says that while the list of guidelines can be used to help creating usable web applications, following the guidelines is not alone a mean of getting rid of all usability problems.

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The objective of this research is to present a support environment to the construction of school timetabling using the WEB. This environment is characterized by the configuration, generation and resolution of a computacional model structured in a problem of interger linear programming in the WEB to the schools of medium teaching. The implemented architecture offers flexibility to be used in other problems in the public service that can be solved through varied techniques of operational research. The results of this implementation in Ceará s State will allow the the state s schools to optimize it s construction of school timetabling.
O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um ambiente de apoio a construção de tabela de horário escolar utilizando a WEB. Este ambiente caracteriza-se pela configuração, geração e resolução de um modelo computacional estruturado em um problema de programação linear inteira disponibilizado na WEB para as escolas de ensino médio. A arquitetura implementada oferece flexibilidade na aplicação em outros problemas no serviço público que possam ser solucionados através de variadas técnicas de pesquisa operacional. Os resultados obtidos desta implementação no Estado do Ceará permitirão otimizar o processo de construção das tabelas de horários nas escolas estaduais.

Cette thèse propose une description des parcours sur le Web sur la base de données de trafic centrées-utilisateur. Nous élaborons des méthodes et des outils pour enrichir de telles données afin de rendre compte de la forme, de la temporalité et du contenu des parcours. Nous les appliquons à des données issues de panels résidentiels représentatifs, et construisons une typologie des sessions en cinq classes sur la base de leur typologie. Confrontés aux contenus visités et aux pratiques et territoires individuels, ces parcours-type renvoient à trois modes d'appréhension prototypiques du Web : le familier, parcours rapides tournés vers des flux d'information et de communication ; l'occasionnel, parcours plus complexes orientés vers les services et l'achat ; et l'exploratoire, sessions éclatées dédiées à la découverte au sein de recherches ciblées. Ce travail a été mené au laboratoire de sciences humaines de France Télécom R&D, dans le cadre de l'étude des usages d'Internet à domicile
This thesis proposes a description of users' paths through the Web on the basis of user-centric traffic data. We elaborate methods and tools to enrich such data, in order to represent the form, the temporality and the content of Web paths. We apply them to traffic data collected from representative panels of French Internet users at home, and build a five-classes typology of Web sessions on the basis of their typology and their rythm. Confronted to the visited contents and to individual practices and territories, these types of paths refer to three modes of apprehension of Web contents : the familiar, fast paths dedicated to information and communication streams ; the occasional, more complexes paths related to Web srvices and e-commerce ; and the exploratory, dispersed sessions dedicated to discovery within targeted searches. This work was conducted at the Social Sciences laboratory at France Telecom R&D

Aus der Einführung: "Mit der ständig wachsenden Bedeutung des Internets als Medium für Kommunikation und Datenverarbeitung werden auch Qualitätsmerkmale wie Verfügbarkeit, Zuver-lässigkeit und Sicherheit immer wichtiger. Das gilt insbesondere für die Anwendung im Rahmen des e-Business und anderer kommerzieller Anwendungen [13]."

More than two-and-a-half million people currently use the Tor network to communicate anonymously via the Internet and gain access to online media that are not accessible using standard Internet technology. This sphere of communication can be described as the hidden web. In part because this phenomenon is very recent, the subject has scarcely been studied in the social sciences. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to answer four fundamental questions: What is the hidden web? What characterises the communication sphere of the hidden web in contrast to the “normal Internet”? Which reasons can be identified to explain the development of the hidden web as a new communication sphere? And, finally, what is the social significance of the hidden web?
Über zweieinhalb Millionen Menschen nutzen gegenwärtig das Tor Network, um anonym über das Internet zu kommunizieren und Zugriff auf Online-Medien zu erhalten, die mit gewöhnlicher Internettechnik nicht nutzbar ist. Diese Kommunikationssphäre kann als Hidden Web bezeichnet werden. Unter anderem weil es sich um ein sehr junges Phänomen handelt, liegen bisher nahezu keine sozialwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse zu dem Thema vor. Dementsprechend werden hier vier grundlegende Fragen beantwortet: Was ist das Hidden Web? Welche Eigenschaften weist die Kommunikationssphäre des Hidden Web im Vergleich zum „normalen“ Internet auf? Welche Gründen lassen sich identifizieren, die die Entstehung des Hidden Web als neue Kommunikationssphäre erklären können? Und welche gesellschaftliche Bedeutung kommt dem Hidden Web schließlich zu?

Modern Internet services are multi-tiered and are typically hosted in virtualized shared platforms. While facilitating flexible service deployment, multi-tier architecture introduces significant challenges for Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning in hosted Internet services. Complex inter-tier dependencies and dynamic bottleneck tier shift are challenges inherent to tiered architectures. Hard-to-predict and bursty session-based Internet workloads further magnify this complexity. Virtualization of shared platforms adds yet another layer of complication in managing the hosted multi-tier Internet services.

We consider three critical aspects of Internet service management for improved performance and quality of service provisioning : admission control, dynamic resource provisioning and service differentiation. This thesis concentrates on statistical learning based approaches for multi-tier Internet service management to achieve efficient, balanced and scalable services. Statistical learning techniques are capable of solving complex dynamic problems through learning and adaptation with no priori domain-specific knowledge. We explore the effectiveness of supervised and unsupervised learning in managing multi-tier Internet services.

First, we develop a session based admission control strategy to improve session throughput of multi- tier Internet services. Using a supervised bayesian network, it achieves coordination among multiple tiers resulting in a balanced service. Second, we promote session-slowdown, a novel session-oriented metric for user perceived performance. We develop a regression based dynamic resource provisioning strategy, which utilizes a combination of offline training and online monitoring, for session slowdown guarantees in multi-tier systems. Third, we develop a reinforcement learning based coordinated combination of admission control and adaptive resource management for multi-tier Internet service differentiation and performance improvement in a shared virtualized platform. It addresses limitations of supervised learning by integrating model-independence of reinforcement learning and self-learning of neural networks for system scalability and agility. Finally, we develop an user interface based Monitoring and Management Console, intended for an administrator to monitor and fine tune the performance of hosted multi-tier Internet services.

We evaluate the developed management approaches using an e-commerce simulator and an implementation testbed on a virtualized blade server system hosting multi-tier RUBiS benchmark applications. Results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of statistical learning approaches for QoS provisioning and performance improvement in virtualized multi-tier Internet services.

The internet's original design, guided by the end-to-end design principle, pushed all application-specific logic and complexity to the edges of the network and kept the core of the network focused on the simple task of delivering data. The original end-to-end principle, however, did not explicitly account for trust and security. There are several central points of trust and failure on the traditional internet. These include root servers for the Domain Name System (DNS) and public-key infrastructure like Certificate Authorities (CAs) that publish security certificates. Further, the success of cloud hosted services in the last decade means that most user data is stored on remote servers and end-users need to trust these remote servers for correct execution of their applications.

In this thesis, we present a new internet architecture that explicitly follows the trust-to-trust design principle, i.e., end-users don't need to trust the core of the network for anything, and end-users can use applications and services in a fully decentralized way. We make the observation that cryptocurrency blockchains, like Bitcoin, can be used to bootstrap trust for new nodes joining a network. We identify the various limitations, like high latency and limited bandwidth, of contemporary blockchains and discuss how our architecture can scale by moving most operations outside of the blockchain layer.

We detail our experience of running a large production system on top of a cryptocurrency blockchain and how that experience guided our design. We present the implementation of a new decentralized internet, called Blockstack, that takes the trust-to-trust architecture from a theoretical concept to a production system. Deploying new systems by modifying production blockchains is hard because it requires coordination and agreement from several parties. We introduce virtualchains, a virtual blockchain constructed by processing data from underlying blockchains, to enable the seamless introduction of new functionality on top of blockchains without requiring any consensus-breaking changes. Blockstack is already powering several fully decentralized applications, like OpenBazaar; it's released as open-source software and, to date, more than 70,000 domains have been registered on it.

In the year 2000, American researchers reported that women constituted 51 percent of Internet users. This was a significant discovery, as throughout the medium's history, women were outnumbered by men as both users and builders of sites. This thesis probes not only this historical moment of change, but how women are mobilising the World Wide Web in their work, leisure and lives. Not considered in the '51% of American women now online' headline is the lack of women engaged in Web building rather than Web shopping. In technical fields relating to the Web, women are outnumbered and marginalized, being poorly represented in computer-related college and university courses, in careers in computer science and computer programming, and also in digital policy. This thesis identifies the causes for the low number of women in these spheres. I consider the social and cultural reasons for their exclusion and explore the discourses which operate to discourage women's participation. My original contribution to knowledge is forged as much through how this thesis is written as by the words and footnotes that graze these pages. With strong attention to methodology in Web-based research, I gather a plurality of women's voices and experiences of under-confidence, humiliation and fear. Continuing the initiatives of Dale Spender's Nattering on the Net, I research women's use of the Web in placing a voice behind the statistics. I also offer strategies for digital intervention, without easy platitudes to the 'potential' for women in the knowledge economy or through Creative Industries strategies. The chapters of this thesis examine the contexts in which exclusionary attitudes are created and perpetuated. No technology is self-standing: we gain information about 'new' technologies from the old. I investigate representations and mediations of women's relationship to the Web in fields including the media, the workplace, fiction, the Creative Industries and educational institutions. For example, the media is complicit in causing women to doubt their technological capabilities. The images and ideologies of women in film, newspapers and magazines that present computer and Web usage are often discriminatory and derogatory. I also found in educational institutions that patriarchal attitudes privilege men, and discourage female students' interest in digital technologies. I interviewed high school and university students and found that the cultural values embedded within curricula discriminate against women. Limitations in Web-based learning were also discovered. In discussing the cultural and social foundations for women's absence or under-confidence in technological fields, I engage with many theories from a prominent digital academic: Dale Spender. In her book Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace, Spender's outlook is admonitory. She believes that unless women acquire a level of technological capital equal to their male counterparts, women will continue to be marginalised as new political and social ideologies develop. She believes women's digital education must occur as soon as possible. While I welcome her arguments, I also found that Spender did not address the confluence between the analogue and the digital. She did not explore how the old media is shaping the new. While Spender's research focused on the Internet, I ponder her theses in the context of the World Wide Web. In order to intervene in the patriarchal paradigm, to move women beyond digital shoppers and into builders of the digital world, I have created a website (included on CD-ROM) to accompany this thesis's arguments. It presents links to many sites on the Web to demonstrate how women are challenging the masculine inscriptions of digital technology. Although the website is created to interact directly with Chapter Three, its content is applicable to all parts of the thesis. This thesis is situated between cultural studies and internet studies. This interdisciplinary dialogue has proved beneficial, allowing socio-technical research to resonate with wider political applications. The importance of intervention - and the need for change - has guided my words. Throughout the research and writing process of this thesis, organisations have released reports claiming gender equity on the Web. My task is to capture the voice, views and fears of the women behind these statistics.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências da Educação, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação, Florianópolis, 2010
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Este trabalho objetiva analisar a percepção e o uso científico-acadêmico de ferramentas Web 2.0 pelos docentes de Programas de pós-graduação stricto sensu em Ciência da Informação no Brasil. A ciência possibilita o desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias ao mesmo tempo em que é alavancada ou desafiada pelas ferramentas tecnológicas que desenvolve. A Internet se apresenta como mais um meio propício à comunicação entre cientistas e pesquisadores e a Web 2.0 representa um novo padrão, ao viabilizar a colaboração do tipo muitos-muitos, recurso que vem sendo utilizado pela comunidade científico-acadêmica. A fim de cumprir o primeiro objetivo específico de caracterizar o cenário de uso da Web 2.0 pela comunidade científica recorreu-se à pesquisa bibliográfica e investigação de natureza exploratória. Para cumprir o segundo e o terceiro objetivos específicos de identificar respectivamente uso e a percepção sobre ferramentas Web 2.0 pelos docentes, sujeitos da pesquisa, recorreu-se a instrumento de coleta de dados na forma de questionário on-line com perguntas fechadas, espaço para comentários opcionais e uma pergunta aberta. Os dados das perguntas fechadas foram analisados por meio de análise estatística simples seguida de análise qualitativa. Os comentários opcionais foram interpretados por meio de análise qualitativa. A pergunta aberta foi tratada pela técnica de análise de conteúdo. Os resultados da pesquisa mostraram que da amostra de 44 respondentes, 68% usam a Web 2.0 com finalidades científico-acadêmicas, 14% não usam a Web 2.0 com essa finalidade e 18% responderam não usar, mas ter interesse. Em síntese, 86% dos respondentes usam ou tem interesse no tema. Conclui-se que a Web 2.0 é percebida pelos respondentes da pesquisa, professores da Ciência da Informação como tendo potencial para a colaboração científica, para a internacionalização da ciência, para as atividades de ensino, entretanto a visibilidade para pesquisas de países periféricos e semiperiféricos não depende da tecnologia mais do que depende do idioma. A colaboração científica não depende apenas da tecnologia, mas é alavancada por esta. A confiabilidade da informação não é determinada pelo meio em si. A Web 2.0 tem o potencial de alavancar a colaboração entre pessoas motivadas por interesses diversos. A ciência é uma atividade social em rede e vem sendo beneficiada pelas ferramentas colaborativas da Web 2.0. Para a Ciência da Informação, a Web 2.0 traz desafios em função de a informação se apresentar não estruturada, em interação dinâmica em tempo real com o usuário/produtor.
The objective of this study is to investigate how lecturers of post-graduate courses in information science in Brazil perceive and use Web 2.0 tools. While science enables the development of new technologies, it is also leveraged or challenged by the technological tools it develops. The Internet has arrived as another suitable means of communication between researchers and Web 2.0 represents a new standard, supporting many-many type collaboration, a commonly used resource in the academic-scientific community. Bibliographical research and exploratory investigation techniques were employed to achieve the first specific objective of characterizing the use of Web 2.0 by the scientific-academic community. In order to achieve the second and third objectives, namely to identify the usage and perception of Web 2.0 tools by the lecturers, data collection was conducted by means of an on-line questionnaire comprised of closed questions, an optional comments box and one open question. The data from the closed questions were analyzed through simple statistical analysis followed by qualitative analysis. Qualitative analysis was also used to interpret the optional comments, while the answers to the open question were examined by means of content analysis. The survey results showed that of the sample of 44 respondents, 68% use Web 2.0 for academic-scientific purposes, 14% do not use Web 2.0 for that purpose and 18% do not use the tool at all, but are interested in using it. Overall, 86% of the respondents either use or are interested in using the tool. In conclusion, Web 2.0 is seen by the survey respondents, information science lecturers, as capable of providing the grounds for scientific collaboration, the internationalization of science and for educational activities, however increased exposure of research studies from fringe and semi-fringe countries depends more on the language than on the technology employed. Scientific collaboration does not rely solely on technology, but is leveraged by it. Moreover, the reliability of the information is not determined by the means itself. Web 2.0 has the potential to support collaboration between people driven by different interests, and science as an institution and networked social activity is being furthered by Web 2.0 collaborative tools. Web 2.0 has brought changes to the field of Information Science in virtue of the non-structured presentation of the information, in dynamic and real time interaction with the user/producer.

Scholarly research is the sum of diverse activities and leads to the dissemination of a large amount of material. Traditional approaches to exploring and becoming proficient within an esoteric research field rely on slow and sometimes ineffective discourse, and depend more on a scholar's detective skill, effort, and perseverance. However, the Web has introduced the potential for improved accessibility, interconnectivity, and more efficient and effective communication; we are becoming e-Scholars. Current efforts on the Web have focussed mainly on improving the accessibility of on-line research material and as a result, researchers have yet to realise the full implications of the new medium. Consequently, the emphasis must shift to improving and enhancing access to scholarly material; this research proposes a novel approach by presenting researchers with the facility to comprehensively, extensively, and rationally explore their research field and ask intricate questions about it and the individual facts and issues raised by it. This is realised through the integration of principles from the hypertext, Semantic Web, and digital library fields to interconnect and analyse all scholarly material in the academic domain. The e-Scholar Knowledge Inference Model (ESKIMO) demonstrates the approach and provides a platform for evaluation and further research.