Cyberhistory is a thesis presented at The University of Western Australia for the Degree of Master of Science. Computer history is its prime field of focus. Cyberhistory pursues four key themes in computer history. These are, gender, the notion of the periphery, access and the role of the proselytiser. Cyberhistory argues that, gender issues are significant to computer history, culture ascribes gender to computing, and culture has driven computer development as much as technological progress. Cyberhistory identifies significant factors in the progress of computer technology in the 20th century. Cyberhistory finds that, innovation can occur on the periphery, access to computers can liberate and lead to progress, key proselytisers have impacted the development of computing and computing has become decentralised due to a need for greater access to the information machine. Cyberhistory traces a symbolic journey from the industrial periphery to the centres of computing development during WWII, then out to a marginal computer centre and into the personal space of the room. From the room, Cyberhistory connects into cyberspace. Cyberhistory finds that, despite its chaos, the Internet can act like a sanctuary for those seeking to bring imagination and creativity to computing.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-05-07T14:58:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MILENA SALES ARAÚJO - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2015..pdf: 2915607 bytes, checksum: ae3e37b001051a5fd440be9134f6e832 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-07T14:58:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MILENA SALES ARAÚJO - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2015..pdf: 2915607 bytes, checksum: ae3e37b001051a5fd440be9134f6e832 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-15 / Sites de perguntas e respostas são conhecidos por serem uma fonte de conhecimento simples e confiável. Os sites do StackExchange se destacam por estarem dentre as maiores comunidades de perguntas e respostas online, principalmente se considerarmos aquelas relacionadas à STEM. Assim como em outras comunidades online, mulheres são uma minoria nos sites do Stackexchange, fazendo com que estes sites não se beneficiem de pontos de vista diversificados na criação de seu conteúdo. Esta pesquisa investiga se mulheres que se dedicam aos sites do StackExchange contribuem menos e/ou deixam a comunidade precocemente. Para isso, examinamos diferenças entre os gêneros quanto ao número de contribuições feitas aos sites, o tempo que passaram contribuindo e quanto a diferença de qualidade. das suas contribuições segundo a comunidade. Nossos resultados mostram que, na maioria dos sites, mulheres contribuem tanto quanto homens, sendo suas contribuições com qualidade e por intervalos de tempo similares aos homens. Quando percebe-se diferença no número de contribuições, são as mulheres que tendem a contribuir mais. Além disso, encontramos que a proporção de contribuições provenientes de mulheres nos sites relacionados a STEM do StackExchange está aumentando na maioria das comunidades onde encontramos diferença estatisticamente significativa. Estes resultados ajudam a melhorar a visão que temos das contribuições feitas por mulheres neste tipo de site, gerando repercussão para pesquisas futuras, assim como discussão de design para os administradores. / Social Question and answer (Q&A) sites are known as simple and reliable knowledge databases. SitesfromtheStackExchangeplatformpresentlystandoutassomeofthelargest and most social Q&A spaces, particularly the sites related to STEM. As in some other collaborative online communities, women are underrepresented in StackExchange platform, hindering its sites from contemplating more diverse views in their content creation process. This work investigates whether women who are engaged with sites from StackExchange are influenced to contribute less and to leave the community. For that, we examined gender differencces in the number of contributions made to the sites, the time spent contributing, and on the evaluation of quality that the community provides for posted content. Our results point that, in the greater part of sites, women contributors contribute as much as men, with similar quality and for a similar period. When difference do occur, it happens most often that women tend to contribute more than men. Nevertheless, we found that the proportion of contributions coming from women in the STEM sites of StackExchange is increasing in several sites. These results point to aricher picture of female contribution in those sites, and raise several implications for future research, as well as to site administrators.