The problem with e-texts are related to the way texts are displayed on a screen, with multiple and different aspects that affect legibility, making readers prefer to read a paper format rather than e-resources. This research describes the factors that affect the legibility of online texts aimed at obtaining a better understanding of the usability of electronic Arabic texts for learning purposes within the field of electronic reading; mainly reading Arabic texts for students aged 9 to 13. This study sets out three particular aims: (1) building a reading strategy for Arabic schoolbook in both formats electronic and paper format based on users’ cognitive and behavioural processes; (2) defining the influence of three typographical variables that affect reading Arabic texts on a screen (font size, font-type and line length); and (3) studying the efficiency of reading Arabic texts and the related factors impacting the efficiency of reading and comprehension. Based on the nature of the research questions and objectives, positivism and phenomenology are adopted as the underlying philosophy for this research. The empirical research was divided into three phases; the first phase focused on collecting data about using the internet among students in primary schools by means of a questionnaire. This has helped in the selection of samples and determined the extent of the students’ reluctance to read from a screen. The second phase was to investigate the reading process of school book in two formats [ paper and electronic format] to build reading model based on users’ cognitive and behavioural processes. The third phase was to examine the factors that affect negatively the usability of electronic texts by examining three issues: font size [10, 14, 16 and 18], font type [Arabic traditional, Arial, Times New Roman, Simplified Arabic, and Courier New], and line length [single column and double columns]. Observation was applied as a tool to collect the data. The study has made a significant contribution to the understanding of electronic reading of Arabic language. This contribution addressed five aspects: (1) Two models of reading process for schoolbook using Arabic language were built according to users’ interaction with the school textbook in two formats ( electronic and paper). These models will not only help define the interaction amongst users and e-books, but will also help designers to understand user behaviour of e-books and thereby to establish the most appropriate functions/features when building an e-book interface. (2) Identify the optimal font size for reading an Arabic script from screen by children aged 9 to 13. (3) Based on collecting data from experiments (2) and (3) and comparing this date with other researches that have done in the same field, new model explains the interaction between three topographical variables [font size, font type and line length] and their relationships with independent variables were provided. (4) Test a new display technique to improve the legibility of reading Arabic online texts by using colour to increase the ability to focus vision when moving from one line to another so as to improve the screen display. And (5) according to quantitative and qualitative several of the rules were recommended for designers and educators to follow when designing and presenting Arabic text on screen. On the other hand, some recommendations for future research have been derived from this thesis, such as the following. (1) Investigating the effect of the colour factor on improving the legibility of Arabic texts on screen for children, e.g. using different colours to distinguish between dots and vowels. (2) Exploring and developing an e-reading model based on all the factors recorded in the empirical studies in the reading field which will lead to building a theory on e- reading. (3) Investigating the influence of a variable effect reading process and the variables that have a positive or negative impact on it. (4) Applying a model that used colour to increase the ability to focus using different age-range and type of information such as journals or books.

The Internet is changing the way people obtain their information, growing at a faster rate than any previous media outlet. Experts fully expect this growth to continue. The power of the Internet as a new media source has led to research concerning its effect on traditional media (newspaper, television, radio, and magazines) for certain tasks. However, research has yet to focus solely on sports information gathering, which has been identified as the number one reason men between eighteen and thirty-four years of age access the Internet. The purpose of this study was to examine where students get their sports information, to determine whether gathering sports information through the Internet leads to a decrease in gathering sports information through traditional media. / Department of Journalism

Harmony is a major theme in Chinese culture. It is reflected in many forms, e.g. painting and garden design. However, calligraphy gives a straight forward insight into harmony in two dimensions. The main hypothesis was that the principles for building a harmonious calligraphic character could be converted from holistic to deductive and computable ones. These could then be applied to the design of harmonious screen interfaces, which would give visual pleasure. The first aim was to investigate and discover the quantifiable features of harmony in Chinese regular script calligraphy. Calligraphy has been associated in China with harmony and elegance for over 1500 years. There are features that are commonly accepted to establish harmony which can be quantified. However, the principles of Chinese calligraphy are embedded within Chinese culture. Direct translation does not convey the meaning. An extensive study was made of the literature on Chinese calligraphy and a practical exploration of characters was made. This resulted in a small number of principles which were needed to be satisfied for the character to appear harmonious. These were tested on several groups of participants. These principles were then converted into a mathematical form for Chinese regular script calligraphy, and for application to harmonious screen interface design. The mathematical forms were then tested on both Chinese regular script calligraphy and also on interface designs with groups of participants. Finally, an application for comparing harmony in Chinese calligraphic characters and interface designs was created. The “Harmony” application can be used to calculate how a Chinese calligraphic character or an interface design satisfies the principles of harmony and it can give an indication of how harmonious they are.

This research considers the ongoing challenge of semantics-based search from the perspective of how to exploit Semantic Web languages for search in the current Web environment. The purpose of the PhD was to use ontology-based query expansion (OQE) to improve search effectiveness by increasing search precision, i.e. retrieving relevant documents in the topmost ranked positions in a returned document list. Query experiments have required a novel search tool that can combine Semantic Web technologies in an otherwise traditional IR process using a Web document collection.

Thesis (doctoral)--Tartu Ülikool, 2006. / Thesis based on ten papers. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D. (Computer Assisted Education))--University of Pretoria, 2003.

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This thesis provides an inside, in-depth look at how journalists at latimes.com and salon.com came together to create content for their websites over a six month period. It vividly unveils the process of newsmaking by journalists working for organisations whose output is the world wide web. It uses mixed method case studies of two US-based news websites, latimes.com and salon.com, to show how both parentage and net native sites construct a news story. The case studies include direct observation, in-depth interviews and content analysis to deconstruct the process of covering the 2008 Presidential election. The thesis works around Brian McNair‘s cultural chaos paradigm (2006) which explains the emergent nature of news online and the lack of control by any environmental factors that seek to affect its outcome. The thesis begins by outlining the four crucial changes which occur online that are redefining major tenets of journalism both practically and theoretically. It goes on to explain not only how online news has become a destination for many around the world but also why these two online news websites have found a niche for themselves on the Web. The findings of this research outline not only how the newsmaking process exists in these two environments but also how they are creating a new type of convotelling journalism. The 2008 US Presidential election is used as a story to show the unstructured and chaotic network that now exists in how news is gathered, produced, and disseminated online. It goes on to explain the multitude of changing relationships journalists are grappling with as this convotelling newsmaking process occurs. The contrast between the net native and parentage website is dissected to show just how the two sites vary even though their goal is similar. The research concludes making an argument for a hybrid model of journalism being done online that is distinctive in nature.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Marcella Genz, Florida State University, School of Information Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 27, 2005). Includes bibliographical references.