This thesis explores the design and evaluation of a collaborative, inquiry learning Intelligent Tutoring System for ill-defined problem spaces. The common ground in the fields of Artificial Intelligence in Education and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning is investigated to identify ways in which tutoring systems can employ both automated coaching and collaborative techniques to support students as they learn. The resulting system, Rashi, offers feedback on student work by using an Expert Knowledge Base to recognize students' work. Evaluation in actual classrooms demonstrated that collaboration significantly improves students' contributions, and some evidence suggests that there is a significant positive correlation between the amount of coaching received and metrics that represent positive inquiry behavior. Finally, this thesis highlights the potential for combining coaching and collaboration such that 1) collaborative work can create more opportunity to provide automated coaching and 2) automated coaching can identify key moments when collaboration should be encouraged.

The objective of computer acquisitions is generally to have the computers used in ways that assist faculty in their teaching, research, and other work-related activities. The conceptual model and the research design of this study were based on the premise that the needs and concerns of users must be understood and addressed in order to achieve a desired level of utilization of computer resources. This study examined the perceptions of faculty members about a new networked system of microcomputers. An administrative decision had been made to provide all full-time faculty members with a microcomputer networked to shared laser printers with communications capabilities. The concerns most frequently expressed by faculty were indicative of the early stages of using an innovation. This can be explained in part by the fact that the self-reported ratings for computer software experience indicated that as a group this faculty was at a beginner level. The faculty expressed concerns about learning how to use the networked computers as well as concerns how the college would manage the system so that it would be a cost effective acquisition. Statistical analysis indicated that faculty members' characteristics like age and gender were not indicators of the concerns reported. However, a statistically significant relationship was found between computer software experience and reported stages of concern. The results also showed that the more self-reported computer software experience, the higher the scores on the later stages of concern: Consequence, Collaboration, and Refocusing. There was also a statistically significant relationship found between computer experience and discipline and interest in learning new software and discipline. The disciplines where it would be expected that faculty might make greater use of computer resources (i.e. Sciences) did show greater self-reported experience amongst the faculty. Also, those in disciplines with the least self-reported experience indicated interest in learning new software sooner than those in disciplines with more experienced faculty. The responses to the open-ended question and the interview data confirmed and added to the information gathered from the quantitative analysis. The study concludes with recommendations that may be useful to others managing technological innovations of this nature.

Research in the field of Automated Planning is largely focused on the problem of constructing plans or sequences of actions for going from a specific initial state to a goal state. The complexity of this task makes it desirable to find “generalized” plans which can solve multiple problem instances from a class of similar problems. Most approaches for constructing such plans work under two common constraints: (a) problem instances typically do not vary in terms of the number of objects, unless theorem proving is used as a mechanism for applying actions, and, (b) generalized plan representations avoid incorporating loops of actions because of the absence of methods for efficiently evaluating their effects and their utility. Approaches proposed recently address some aspects of these limitations, but these issues are representative of deeper problems in knowledge representation and model checking, and are crucial to the problem of generalized planning. Moreover, the generalized planning problem itself has never been defined in a manner which could unify the wide range of representations and approaches developed for it. This thesis is a study of the fundamental problems behind these issues. We begin with a comprehensive formulation of the generalized planning problem and an identification of the most significant challenges involved in solving it. We use an abstract representation from recent work in model checking to efficiently represent situations with unknown quantities of objects and compute the possible effects of actions on such situations. We study the problem of evaluating loops of actions for termination and utility by grounding it in a powerful model of computation called abacus programs. Although evaluating loops of actions in this manner is undecidable in general, we obtain a suite of algorithms for doing so in a restricted class of abacus programs, and consequently, in the class of plans which can be translated to such abacus programs. In the final sections of this thesis, these components are utilized for developing methods for solving the generalized planning problem by generalizing sample plans and merging them together; by using classical planners to automate this process and thereby solve a given problem from scratch; and also by conducting a direct search in the space of abstract states.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes one special report study. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

<p> Primary users can create a user experience (UX) for others&mdash;secondary users&mdash;when interacting with a system in public. Common ground occurs when people have certain knowledge in common and each knows that they have this shared understanding. This research investigates how designing for a secondary UX improves common ground during a patient-provider first encounter. During formative work, patients and providers participated in telephonic interviews and answered online questionnaires so that their respective information requirements for clinical encounters could be understood. The outcome of the formative work was a smartphone application prototype to be used as the treatment in an experimental study. In a mixed methods study, with a patient role-player using the prototype during a simulated clinical encounter with 12 providers, the impact of the prototype upon secondary user satisfaction and common ground was assessed. The main finding was that the prototype was capable of positively impacting secondary user satisfaction and facilitating common ground in certain instances. Combining the notions of human-computer interaction design, common ground, and smartphone technology improved the efficiency and effectiveness of providers during the simulated face-to-face first encounter with a patient. The investigation substantiated the notion that properly designed interactive systems have the potential to provide a satisfactory secondary UX and facilitate common ground.</p>

<p> Throughout the years, the United States government and local law enforcement has used electronic domestic surveillance for criminal justice purposes. Shortly after World War II, the government began to abuse the power of electronic domestic surveillance for the purposes of gathering intelligence on American citizens. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, electronic domestic surveillance focused heavily on American citizens in the name of national security. The government has a duty to protect the United States and American citizens. The use of electronic domestic surveillance is a method for that purpose; however, the infringement of American&rsquo;s Fourth Amendment rights has become a conflict for the government while trying to maintain national security. Along with attempting to keep security for American citizens, the United States government has lacked transparency in their electronic domestic surveillance methods, causing controversy with American citizens. It is a question of how much privacy would Americans sacrifice for their security. The research in this paper focuses on the comparison of the electronic domestic surveillance methods, how these processes affected the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens, and the response to these programs and violations by Americans and the United States government, respectively. </p>

<p> Measuring knowledge management performance was one of, if not the most challenging knowledge management activities. This study suggested using intellectual capital as a proxy for knowledge management performance in evaluating its impact on organizational performance. The Value Added Intellectual Coefficient model was employed to measure intellectual capital. Although being used widely in research, the model had its limitations. Also, for intellectual capital measurement, there was a lack of guidelines supported by empirical evidence or best practices. The present study aimed to test the classic and a modified version of this model, and based on the results, shed light on whether the classic version was good enough or the modified one should be highly recommended. The financial fundamental and market data of 425 randomly selected publicly listed firms were collected, and the structural equation modeling technique was employed to test the models. Chi-square difference test was performed to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between these two models. The results of the tests indicated that the difference between them was insignificant. Therefore, it was concluded that the classic model is adequate, and it can be used effectively to measure intellectual capital. Adding two new efficiency elements&mdash;research and development efficiency and relational capital efficiency&mdash;in the model did not provide any significant benefit.</p>

<p> The Oman government developed a vision to transform the nation into a sustainable knowledge society by supporting information and communication technologies to improve government services (ITA, n.d.). According to a United Nations (2012) report, Oman ranks 64th worldwide in e-government readiness, the lowest compared to other countries in the region. The goal of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore processes associated with selected unsuccessful e-government projects in Oman, as well as the driver of failure, and generate a model with recommendations for the role of executives in government organization for successful execution of e-government initiatives. The main findings developed into a theoretical concept for a recommended leadership model for executives in Oman to use for the successful implementation of e-government initiatives. The research was guided by three research questions: &ldquo;How do leadership roles in government organizations in Oman support the success of e-government projects?&rdquo;, &ldquo;What leadership skills do leaders need to possess to achieve successful implementation of e-government projects?&rdquo;, and &ldquo;What model of e-government projects in Oman could explain or account for the value of successful leadership?&rdquo;. Study participants were 25 executives from five government organizations in Oman. Four themes emerged from analyzing research data (a) there is a need for e-government, (b) the e-government creates challenges, (c) challenges require a leader, and (d) a leader with particular skills mitigates challenges and influences the way to success. Four e-government essential leadership skills emerged from the study (a) determined, (b) knowledgeable, (c) communicator, and (d) social. </p>

<p> Nurses need sharp, clinical reasoning skills to respond to critical situations and to be successful at work in a complex and challenging healthcare system. While past research has focused on using virtual learning environments to teach clinical reasoning, there has been limited research on the experiences of nursing faculty and there is a need for research to include a clearer understanding of potentially significant insights that nurse educators may gain from teaching clinical reasoning skills with virtual learning tools. This qualitative study identified and described nursing faculty experiences with teaching clinical reasoning skills when using virtual learning environments. The researcher interviewed eight nursing faculty and content analyzed the data from those interviews. Findings from this qualitative study supported past research and added to the body of knowledge regarding faculty members&rsquo; use of virtual learning environments. For example, faculty experiences indicated that virtual learning environments included patient situations that offered faculty a way to better assess students. It was found that assessing a student in the clinical setting could be very subjective, while the virtual environment is finite. Faculty experiences indicated that one of the challenges to teaching clinical reasoning skills with virtual learning environments was that students found that virtual communication was difficult and faculty claimed that using virtual environments increased faculty workload. The findings of this study provided deeper understanding into experiences reported by nursing faculty on the teaching of clinical reasoning skills when using a virtual learning environment. Recommendations for further research include using a larger sample size, a specified education level population, traditional, face-to-face classes as compared to classes from an online, or blended program, and investigating use of a specific virtual learning environment, in new research.</p>

<p> Business organizations are faced with an enormous challenge to improve cyber security, as breeches and lapses through firewalls are increasingly commonplace. The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Information Technology (IT) staff are constantly challenged to identify and purge online and network structural weaknesses. The goal is to reduce overall business risk because unresolved risks are a constant concern to consumers who are uneasy about cyber security failures. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to examine the role and impact of Cyber Security Mentoring (CSM) from the perspectives of the workplace CISO, mentors, and prot&eacute;g&eacute;s, who were randomly polled from various workplace settings across the United States. Mentoring allows IT staff members to learn from their CISOs and from workplace mentor mistakes and successes. Workplace IT staff are also closest to the various attack methodologies used by cyber hackers, and cohort and dyadic mentoring may provide insight into and responding to cyber-attacks and improving cyber defenses. Sixty-eight sets of respondent data relating to field experience, formal education, professional industry cyber security certifications, and mentoring were compared and examined between respondents. The goal was to determine where respondents agreed and disagreed on issues pertaining to cyber security and CSM. The findings suggested that CSM with a qualified mentor could improve cyber security in the workplace; in addition, more time must be devoted to continued professional education. Implications for positive social change included the use of CSM to enhance cyber security through the sharing of incidents, mindsets, procedures and expertise, and improvement of customer-consumer security confidence.</p>