Este trabalho busca avançar o conhecimento sobre Global Value Chains (GVC) e inovação com usuários ao estudar a influência da colaboração dos usuários finais no upgrading de desenvolvedores em cadeias digitais. A pesquisa sugere que esforços de inovação entre uma empresa fornecedora em cadeias digitais e seus usuários finais levam a tipos preferenciais de upgrading, que variam em função de características específicas da indústria de jogos e da governança da cadeia na qual o desenvolvedor está inserido. Os referenciais teóricos das Cadeias Globais de Valor (GVC), inovação com usuários finais e método de regressão logística são utilizados para estabelecer as estruturas analíticas para este trabalho. Os resultados do trabalho são: (i) validação do modelo MOA+ID (Motivação, Oportunidade, Habilidade, e Infraestrutura Digital) para estudar a colaboração entre fornecedores e usuário final; (ii) identificação que o impacto da interação com usuários finais no upgrading de desenvolvedores em cadeias jogos digitais depende de características específicas de tal indústria, e (iii) identificação que o impacto da interação com usuários no upgrading de desenvolvedores em cadeias jogos digitais depende da governança da cadeia na qual o desenvolvedor está inserido. Desenvolvedores de jogos pertencentes a cadeias cujas governança são dos tipos Mercado e Relacional apresentam upgrading devido a colaboração com usuário final por que possuem liberdade e competências para se beneficiarem da relação com usuários final. Desenvolvedores de jogos pertencentes a cadeias cujas governança são dos tipos Modular e Cativa não apresentam upgrading devido à interação com usuário devido ao baixo nível de dependência do governante da cadeia. / This work seeks to advance knowledge about Global Value Chains (GVC) and innovation with end-users through the study of the influence of collaboration with end-user on the upgrading of developers in digital chains. The research suggests that innovation efforts between a supplier in digital chains and end-users lead to preferential types of upgrading, which will vary depending on the specific characteristics of the digital gaming industry and the governance of the chain in which the developer is embedded. The theoretical frameworks of Global Value Chains (GVC), innovation with end-users and method of logistic regression are used to establish the analytical structures for this work. The results of the work are: (i) validation of the MOA + DI model (Motivation, Opportunity Ability, Digital Infrastructure) to study collaboration between suppliers and end-user; (ii) recognition that the impact of innovation with end-users on the upgrading of developers in digital game chains depends on specific characteristics of such industry, and (iii) recognition that the impact of innovation with end users on the upgrading of developers in digital game chains depends on the chain governance in which the developer is embedded. Game developers under the Market and Relational types of governance present upgrading due to collaboration with endusers because such developers have freedom and competencies to benefit from the end-user interface. Game developers under the Modular and Captive types of governance chains do not experienced upgrading due to the interface with end-user because such firms do not have opportunities and competencies to benefit from the end-user interface.

Le sujet de recherche est dans la continuité des travaux réalisés au cours de mon M2R sur la programmation par démonstration appliqué à la cobotique en milieu industriel. Ce sujet est à la croisée de plusieurs domaines (interaction Humain-Robot, planification automatique, apprentissage artificiel). Il s'agit maintenant d'aller au delà de ces premiers résultats obtenus au cours de mon M2R et de trouver un cadre générique pour la programmation de « cobots » (robots collaboratifs) en milieu industriel. L'approche cobotique consiste à ce qu'un opérateur humain, en tant qu'expert métier directement impliqué dans la réalisation des tâches en ligne, apprenne au robot à effectuer de nouvelles tâches et à utiliser le robot comme assistant « agile ». Dans ce contexte la thèse propose un mode d'apprentissage de type « end-user programming », c'est-à-dire simple et ne nécessitant pas d'être expert en robotique pour programmer le robot industriel Baxter. / The increasing presence of robots in industries has not gone unnoticed.Cobots (collaborative robots) are revolutionising industries by allowing robots to work in close collaboration with humans.Large industrial players have incorporated them into their production lines, but smaller companies hesitate due to high initial costs and the lack of programming expertise.In this thesis we introduce a framework that combines two disciplines, Programming by Demonstration and Automated Planning, to allow users without programming knowledge to program a robot.The user constructs the robot's knowledge base by teaching it new actions by demonstration, and associates their semantic meaning to enable the robot to reason about them.The robot adopts a goal-oriented behaviour by using automated planning techniques, where users teach action models expressed in a symbolic planning language.In this thesis we present preliminary work on user experiments using a Baxter Research Robot to evaluate our approach.We conducted qualitative user experiments to evaluate the user's understanding of the symbolic planning language and the usability of the framework's programming process.We showed that users with little to no programming experience can adopt the symbolic planning language, and use the framework.We further present our work on a Programming by Demonstration system used for organisation tasks.The system includes a goal inference model to accelerate the programming process by predicting the user's intended product configuration.

Abstract not available

隨著資訊科技的發展，會計資訊系統的功能愈來愈強，所提供的資訊也不限於財務報表還包括了管理報告，本研究探討會計資訊系統提供何種資訊給使用者、會計資訊系統所面臨的問題、及會計資訊系統對於企業實現其競爭策略的幫助。 本研究以台灣五家上市公司為樣本，實地訪談企業資訊部門之人員來探討上述的問題，研究結果發現： 1. 五家受訪企業會計資訊系統電腦化皆有十年以上的歷史，能夠提供企業使用者日常業務所需要的大部份資訊。 2. 資訊使用者對於會計資訊系統不滿意之處有三：(1)系統無法滿足使用者所有的資訊需求，(2)系統開發改善速度緩慢，(3)需求的申請遭到資訊部門的拒絕。 3. 受訪人員表示，會計資訊系統能提供使用者決策之攸關資訊，對企業競爭策略之實現有幫助。 / In recent yrear, the function of AIS has been improved. AIS can provide not only financial reports, but also managerial reports. This study empirically examines of 5 enterprises' AIS to understand the AIS in Taiwan. The empirical results show that: 1.AIS could provide user useful information to help decision making. 2.AIS improve process is not fast enough to satisfy users' needs. 3.AIS could help enterprises' Competitive Strategy.

The use of computers has become part of every day life. The high prevalence of computer use may lead employers to assume university graduates will have good computing skills. Such assumptions may be the reason that employers use broad terms to advertise the computing tasks required for graduate-level positions. This thesis investigates how well the expectations of employers match the perceptions of near-graduates about their computer skills. Four graduate-level positions were identified from advertisements placed in order to recruit graduates. The employers who placed these advertisements were surveyed by interview and questionnaire. Twenty-one students about to graduate from a university commerce programme were also interviewed and surveyed. It was found that the wording of the advertisements did not satisfactorily portray the requirements and intentions of the employers. It was also found that skills the near-graduates perceived they possessed frequently did not meet the expectations of employers. Results also show that the near-graduates did not fully understand which computing skills would be expected in the workplace. This study highlights implications for three groups: employers, graduates and educators.

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is a popular usability inspection method. Yet little is known about the effect the evaluators have on the outcome of HE. One potentially important feature of evaluators is their end-user status, that is, whether or not they are end-users for whom the interface is designed. I completed a detailed review of the HE literature, combined sources, developed an explicit method for conducting an HE and trained HE novices from different work domains using it. Using these methods I conducted a preliminary randomized crossover study (n=6) of the effect of end-user status during the inspection and merging stages of HE. I estimate a larger study of approximately 148 end-users would be needed to test hypotheses regarding end-user status. I demonstrated a novel measure of the effect of end-user status for the merging stage of HE, which I called the measure of matching similarity (MMS).

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is a popular usability inspection method. Yet little is known about the effect the evaluators have on the outcome of HE. One potentially important feature of evaluators is their end-user status, that is, whether or not they are end-users for whom the interface is designed. I completed a detailed review of the HE literature, combined sources, developed an explicit method for conducting an HE and trained HE novices from different work domains using it. Using these methods I conducted a preliminary randomized crossover study (n=6) of the effect of end-user status during the inspection and merging stages of HE. I estimate a larger study of approximately 148 end-users would be needed to test hypotheses regarding end-user status. I demonstrated a novel measure of the effect of end-user status for the merging stage of HE, which I called the measure of matching similarity (MMS).

NETI@home is an open-source software package that collects network performance statistics from end-systems. It has been written for and tested on the Windows, Solaris, and Linux operating systems, with testing for other operating systems to be completed soon. NETI@home is designed to run on end-user machines and collect various statistics about Internet performance. These statistics are then sent to a server at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where they are collected and made publicly available. This tool gives researchers much needed data on the end-to-end performance of the Internet, as measured by end-users. NETI@homes basic approach is to sniff packets sent from and received by the host and infer performance metrics based on these observed packets. NETI@home users are able to select a privacy level that determines what types of data are gathered, and what is not reported. NETI@home is designed to be an unobtrusive software system that runs quietly in the background with little or no intervention by the user, and using few resources.

Basic Laboratory Information System (BLIS) is a joint initiative of C4G @ Georgia Tech, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Ministries of Health in several countries in Africa. The vast majority of health laboratories in Africa, engaged in routinely testing samples drawn from patients (for HIV, malaria etc.), have been using non-standardized paper logs and manual entries for keeping track of patients, test samples and results. Besides the obvious burden of tedious record-keeping, these methods increase the chances of errors due to transcription and mismatches, making it difficult to track patient history or view critical population-wide data. In 2008, PEPFAR (the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) together with the CDC was reauthorized with a $48 billion budget over five years to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The focus of PEPFAR has shifted from rapid scale-up to the quality and reliability of the clinical health programs and having an effective laboratory management system is one of its goals. C4G BLIS is a robust, customizable and easy-to-use system that keeps track of patients, samples, results, lab workflow and reports. It is meant to be an effective and sustainable enhancement to manual logs and paper-based approaches. The system is designed to work in resource-constrained laboratories with limited IT equipment and across sites with good, intermittent or no internet availability. With varied practices, workflow and terminology being followed across laboratories in various African countries, the system has been developed to enable each laboratory or country to customize and configure the system in a way that suits them best. We describe various aspects of BLIS including its flexible database schema design, configurable reports and language settings, end-user customizability and development model for rapid incorporation of user feedback. Through BLIS, we aim to demonstrate a sustainable ICT solution brought about by the early and constant involvement of the target laboratory staff and technicians, identifying their short- and long-term needs, and ensuring that the system can match these needs. We will present preliminary evaluation results from laboratories in Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda.

Software development is no longer a task limited to professionally trained computer programmers. Increasing support for software customization through scripting, the opening of application programmer interfaces on the Web, and a growing need for domain specific application support have all contributed to an increase in end-user programming. Unfortunately, learning to program remains a challenging task, and the majority of end-user programmers lack any formal education in software development. Instead, these users must piece together their understanding of programming through trial and error, examples found online, and help from peers and colleagues. While current approaches to address the difficulties facing end-user programmers seek to change the nature of the programming task, I argue that these challenges often mirror those faced by all novice programmers. Thus, pedagogical solutions must also be explored. This dissertation work investigates the challenges that end-user programmers face from a computer science education perspective. I have engaged in a cycle of learner-centered design to answer the high-level questions: What do users know; what might they need to know; how are they learning; and how might we help users discover and learn what they need or want to know? In so doing, I uniquely frame end-user programming challenges as issues related to knowledge and understanding about computer science. Rather than building new languages or programming tools, I address these difficulties through new types of instructional materials and opportunities for felicitous engagement with them. This work is contextualized within a specific domain of non-traditional programmers: graphic and web designers who write scripts as part of their careers. Through an in-depth, learner-centered investigation of this user population, this dissertation makes five specific contributions: (1) A detailed characterization of graphic and web design end-user programmers and their knowledge of fundamental computing concepts. (2) An analysis of the existing information space that graphic and web designers rely on for help. (3) The implementation of a novel case-based learning aid named ScriptABLE that is explicitly designed to leverage existing user practices while conveying conceptual knowledge about programming. (4) Initial confirmatory evidence supporting case-based learning aids for the informal computing education of web and graphic design end-user programmers. (5) An argument in support of the value of normative computing knowledge among informally trained programmers.