Decisions concerning IT systems are often made without adequate decision-support. This has led to unnecessary IT costs and failures to realize business benefits. The present thesis presents a framework for analysis of four information systems properties relevant to IT decision-making. The work is founded on enterprise architecture, a model-based IT and business management discipline. Based on the existing ArchiMate framework, a new enterprise architecture framework has been developed and implemented in a software tool. The framework supports modeling and analysis of data accuracy, service performance, service availability and application usage. To analyze data accuracy, data flows are modeled, the service availability analysis uses fault tree analysis, the performance analysis employs queuing networks and the application usage analysis combines the Technology Acceptance Model and Task-Technology Fit model. The accuracy of the framework's estimates was empirically tested. Data accuracy and service performance were evaluated in studies at the same power utility. Service availability was tested in multiple studies at banks and power utilities. Data was collected through interviews with system development or maintenance staff. The application usage model was tested in the maintenance management domain. Here, data was collected by means of a survey answered by 55 respondents from three power utilities, one manufacturing company and one nuclear power plant. The service availability studies provided estimates that were accurate within a few hours of logged yearly downtime. The data accuracy estimate was correct within a percentage point when compared to a sample of data objects. Deviations for four out of five service performance estimates were within 15 % from measured values. The application usage analysis explained a high degree of variation in application usage when applied to the maintenance management domain. During the studies of data accuracy, service performance and service availability, records were kept concerning the required modeling and analysis effort. The estimates were obtained with a total effort of about 20 man-hours per estimate. In summary the framework should be useful for IT decision-makers requiring fairly accurate, but not too expensive, estimates of the four properties. / <p>QC 20120912</p>

The rise of the streaming music services and the decreasing importance of physical distribution is an inevitable change that the industry has been facing, which is resulting from the so-called internet revolution over the past few years. Through years, the music business has already shifted to online platform with the birth of file sharing. Today, a generation who had grown up digital came to age. Members of this generation have different consumption habits than before, and have different motives toward consumption. The consumer behavior of this group was examined at different stages of the digital revolution during last decade. However, although there is a wide number of researches have examined online consumer behavior and the adoption file-sharing technologies, no study investigated the use of streaming music services. Therefore, in order to understand the changing consumption behavior of the net generation music consumers, and to under-stand the use of streaming music services, this study extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to account the streaming music services. A questionnaire based empirical study was administrated among the users of Sweden based streaming music service Spotify. Results confirm that there is a significant relationship between users‟ perceived usefulness of service use, and their attitude toward using and their behavioral intention to use. In addition, it is also confirmed by the results that advertisement/charge, flow, and social influence are effective in explaining the motives of users‟, and the use of streaming music services. Furthermore, according to the findings of the study streaming music services have a positive effect on decreasing the music piracy.

Background: Because of the high-speed development of e-commerce, online group          buying has become a new popular pattern of consumption for Chinese consumers. Previous research has studied online group-buying (OGB) purchase intention in some specific areas such as Taiwan, but in mainland China. Purpose:    The purpose of this study is to contribute to the Technology Acceptance Model, incorporating other potential driving factors to address how they influence Chinese consumers' online group-buying purchase intentions. Method:     The study uses two steps to achieve its purpose. The first step is that I use the focus group interview technique to collect primary data. The results combining the Technology Acceptance model help me propose hypotheses. The second step is that the questionnaire method is applied for empirical data collection. The constructs are validated with exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis, and then the model is tested with Linear multiple regression.  Findings: The results have shown that the adapted research model has been successfully tested in this study. The seven factors (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, price, e-trust, Word of Mouth, website quality and perceived risk) have significant effects on Chinese consumers' online group-buying purchase intentions. This study suggests that managers of group-buying websites need to design easy-to-use platform for users. Moreover, group-buying website companies need to propose some rules or regulations to protect consumers' rights. When conflicts occur, e-vendors can follow these rules to provide solutions that are reasonable and satisfying for consumers.

The tablet is a new IT-tool which have started to get introduced into school, but research is still missing and especially in the pre-school environment. The purpose with this study is to investigate teachers uptake, how they use the tablet in everyday pedagogy work as well as the organizational conditions that that facilitate and hinders. Through my observations and interviews in a Swedish K-5 school I have found that the teachers find tablets more appealing to use in comparison to computers. These findings are partly supported by Davis et al.’s (1989) TAM-theory who considers there to be three types of aspects that affect the way individuals adapt to technology. Firstly the teachers’ motivation increased when they saw the usefulness in the tablet in both educational and administrative possibilities. Secondly, the tablet is perceived as an ease of use-artifact which in it self gives the teachers incentive for usage. Thirdly, the infrastructure problem that exists around computers creates an escape to the more appealing tablets.

With the development of the broadband and the digital technology, different medium could integrate and converge together and the boundaries become dimmer and dimmer. For example, Chunghwa Telecom¡¦s (CHT) Multimedia On Demand service crossed the boundary and entered the digital visual industry in March, 2004. CHT¡¦s MOD is based on the television and through ADSL to offer the digital interactive TV service, making broadband from the study to the living room. Above the service platform, it could not only transmit the visual message, but also the voice and data messages. This kind of business model will be the operational target of the broadband suppliers in the future. However, there are some problems on the promotional pace of CHT¡¦s MOD mow. Based on the results of the earlier researches, the reason why the interactive visual service could not promote successfully is the government and companies put too much emphases on the technical infrastructure, but they all neglect the market situation and the customers¡¦ usages. But, in order to popularize one kind of new media technology, understanding the conditions of the target audiences accurately is the most important mission. Therefore, this research will take CHT¡¦s MOD as an example to understand the key factors which will influence the target audiences to accept the new media technology. And we will see the viewpoints of users. This research will take the Technology Acceptance Model as the main framework and combine the innovation characteristics, such as the compatibility, Trialability and observability. Moreover, we also take subject norm, network externality and new media technology self ¡Vefficacy into account. Through our survey and analysis, we could also prove the originate TAM again and our extended model is more explicative than the originated one. As TAM says, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use will influence the behavioral intention to use directly. And perceived usefulness is the most powerful variable in the model. Other variables will influence the perceived usefulness or perceived ease of use. For instance, subjective norm and network externality have the positive and remarkable effect on perceived usefulness. And new media technology self ¡Vefficacy has the direct effects on the perceived ease of use. On the other hand, among the innovation characteristics, the compatibility and observability have the direct effects on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, but trialability doesn¡¦t. That says, the more compatibility and observability are, the stronger perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are. From the outcome of this research, we could understand the key factors of affecting the behavioral intention to accept CHT¡¦s MOD. And it could be the reference for the operators. Furthermore, all variables included in this research will affect the behavioral intention intensely. When we talk about such kind of information system with entertainments, the motivational variables could be considered.

In an era of digital convergence, people in related fields are devoted to activities of digitalization, especially in digital TV. This research is based on the Information System Success Model from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and aimed to understand the factors that affect user satisfaction and acceptance behavior. The researcher adopts the methodology of questionnaire survey. After statistical data analyses, the results show the main factor that influences MOD users¡¦ intention to use is perceived usefulness. Furthermore, perceived usefulness is influenced by perceived ease of use and user satisfaction. Three factors related to perceived ease of use and user satisfaction are program content quality, system quality and service quality of MOD. However, the influence of information quality is not significant. This research successfully constructs a technology acceptance model for MOD development and contributes for reference not only to future researches on users concerning innovative technologies but also to specific guidance for MOD operators to improve their services, expediting the development of digital TV in Taiwan.

This research regards internet users with hearing-impairment as the target. The purpose is to investigate the factors which will influence hearing-impaired people use internet. This research is theoretically based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). According to the literatures, join subject norm, media richness, internet self-efficacy and perceived enjoyment. A total of 255 effective samples were collected via internet questionnaire. Through the survey and analysis, we could prove that subject norm, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use will influence the behavioral intention directly. Subject norm, media richness, perceived enjoyment and perceived ease of use will influence the perceived usefulness directly. And media richness, internet self-efficacy and perceived enjoyment will influence the perceived ease of use. According to the findings of research, there are the following suggestions. (1) Hearing-impaired communities should offer information courses of computer and internet. (2)The government should offer more services through internet, and social welfare organizations should update information as instant as possible. (3)Implement the execution of the regulations of web accessibility.

This study investigated the perceptions of students, the instructor and the laboratory assistant about the use of remote access technology in group projects of programming language courses. Their perceptions are investigated in terms of three aspects: effects of the use of this technology on their motivation, the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use of this technology. A central shared project server was installed for group project studies of students. To access to the central project server, Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, which is a remote access technology, was used. The data were collected from 2nd grade university students by using a computer attitude scale and a questionnaire developed by the researcher. Also, interviews were conducted with the course instructor and the laboratory assistant. Descriptive statistics, frequency distributions and descriptive analysis methods were used to analyze the results. In results, the high percentage of indecisive students, which is between 38% and 48%, was noticeable. It was concluded that by increasing the length of usage of the system this high ratio may be decreased to reasonable levels. On the other hand, high number of the rest of the students reported positive perceptions. They expressed that remote access technology is a useful and also easy to use technology. It is concluded that students, the instructor and the laboratory assistant accepted the use of this new technology in their learning environment. Also, like instructor and the laboratory assistant, they stated that it affected their motivation towards the group projects in a positive way.

This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting faculty intention to use course management systems (CMS). The study was conducted in a private university with a mixed-method approach. First, 260 responses to a questionnaire was analysed by using structural equation modeling technique in order to examine the provided model. Second, interviews with selected 14 faculty members were conducted to understand the interrelationships. The findings indicated that, faculty intention to use CMS is mostly related with seeing value in using CMS including both personal and task/course related issues. In addition, the use of CMS should be perceived as easy which is directly influenced by the computer self-efficacy of the instructors. Discrimination of perceived personal benefits and task/course related usefulness is found to be important. Course/task related perceived usefulness is found to be weak without perceiving them personally beneficial. Availability of training and support is found to be weakly related to initial intention, however it appeared as an important variable for continuing to use CMS. &lsquo / Communicating the vision through leadership&rsquo / , &lsquo / promoting CMS&rsquo / , and &lsquo / sharing experiences and real life examples&rsquo / emerged as powerful approaches to facilitate use of CMS. Institutional policies regarding issues like &lsquo / academic freedom&rsquo / should be considered carefully while supporting the use of CMS. Moreover, to support institutional change it is important to be aware of the existence of different faculty profiles, which should be considered separately in relevant decisions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate students&rsquo / social networking sites (SNSs) involvement, students&rsquo / involvement of Facebook as course management system (CMS) in face-to-face course, students&rsquo / acceptance of Facebook, students&rsquo / motivations, students&rsquo / achievements, and their relationships. The study, used Facebook as CMS, was conducted in a private university with 42 participants in two different freshman courses. Maximum variation sampling was employed in selecting 12 students for interview. Mixed method was employed as part of an action-research approach. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were utilized to thoroughly analyze Facebook use as CMS. Quantitative data were collected through three questionnaires about Facebook acceptance, motivation to the course and involvement of Facebook and course Facebook page. The qualitative data were collected through both individual interviews and discussion posts of course Facebook page. The quantitative data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, and correlation analyses. Coding schemes were used to both find the depth-of-discussion posts and convert qualitative data into quantitative data. The results stated that students&rsquo / SNSs involvement, students&rsquo / acceptance of Facebook, students&rsquo / motivations, students&rsquo / achievements and their relationships were different according to the taken course. Possible reasons of the differences of utilization and engagement in the course activities were clarified in the study. Results support that students and instructors could benefit from Facebook usage in learning and teaching. Most of the participants believed the value of having CMSs in all courses. Moreover, they preferred Facebook as CMS to communicate easily, to increase their active participation and interactions in their courses.