Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number: AAT 3295549."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2010. / Typescript (photocopy). "Research supervisors: Associate Professor Christopher Burt, University of Canterbury, Professor Simon Kemp, University of Canterbury." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-53). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Jelena Mirkovic, Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers, 1993. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-109).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-91). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11855

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-192). Also available on the Internet.

Mobile digital library service could make students’ lives easier and may help academic libraries to enhance their image by offering their services through smartphones, which are very popular among students nowadays. However, the literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework to understand factors affecting the adoption of such a service. This research focused on factors affecting the intention to use a mobile digital library within the context of the UAE and explored features and services that would encourage students to adopt such technology. The research design considered users’ perspectives, comprised a number of phases and employed mixed methods. The first phase involved designing a preliminary prototype and framework based on the literature and the technology acceptance model (TAM). This prototype was used in the second (exploratory) phase as a stimulus material when students and librarians were interviewed in 10 focus groups. Based on their comments and views, factors that affect their intention were explored and hypotheses were generated. This exploratory phase allowed the development of a theoretical framework for mobile digital library adoption. Focus group results, card sorting methodology and usability testing produced a final prototype that was sent to all students at Zayed University within UAE with an experiential online questionnaire through e-mail. This testing phase was conducted to test the hypotheses and confirm the importance of the same factors extracted in the second phase. The results obtained from the 211 respondents supported a number of paths in the proposed theoretical framework. First, Perceived usefulness, Perceived ease of use, Mobile and web experience, Distinctiveness/prestige, and Trust were found significantly affecting the Behaviour intention directly. Second, Mobility, Library assistance, Interface design, and Social influence were found to affect the intention to use indirectly through Perceived ease of use. Finally, the relationship between Perceived ease of use and Perceived usefulness was found significant. The results lead for producing a final framework for mobile digital library acceptance consisting of seven external factors falling in the three general categories: interface characteristics, personal characteristics and system characteristics. It consists of Interface design, Social influence, Mobility, Library assistance, Distinctiveness/prestige, Mobile and web search experience and Perceived trust. This research contributed in understanding factors affecting mobile digital library adoption within the developing world.

The landscape of the Internet is continually evolving. This creates huge opportunities for different industries to optimize vital channels online, resulting in various-forms of new Internet services. As a result, digital users are interacting with many digital systems and they are exhibiting dynamic behaviors. Their shopping behaviors are drastically different today than it used to be, with offline and online shopping interacting with each other. They have many channels to access online media but their consumption patterns on different channels are quite different. They do philanthropy online to help others but their heterogeneous motivations and different fundraising campaigns leads to distinct path-to-contribution. Understanding the digital user’s decision making process behind their dynamic behaviors is critical as they interact with various digital systems for the firms to improve user experience and improve their bottom line. In this thesis, I study digital users’ decision journeys and the corresponding digital technology firms’ strategies using inter-disciplinary approaches that combine econometrics, economic structural modeling and machine learning. The uncovered decision journey not only offer empirical managerial insights but also provide guideline for introducing intervention to better serve digital users.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:33:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-07-01Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:04:00Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 hummel_cp_dr_rcla.pdf: 1041628 bytes, checksum: 2cfed197947965919d4c6204bc7fedca (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Entre as inovações tecnológicas, a Internet, sem dúvida, é a que mais fascina o homem devido às suas possibilidades de contatos à distância, de produção e de distribuição de conteúdos. Mas, apesar do crescimento acelerado do número de usuários apresentado nos últimos anos, esse espaço virtual não está ainda ao alcance de qualquer pessoa. Existem fatores importantes na definição das condições possibilitadoras para que o indivíduo possa ser um cidadão virtual. Conhecer o usuário da rede mundial de computadores para entender esses fatores é o objetivo da presente pesquisa. Esse indivíduo desenvolve atividades no virtual, mas sua base de vida continua a ser o real, por isso, o espaço delimitado para o estudo sobre o usuário é Rio Claro, município localizado no eixo do desenvolvimento do Estado de São Paulo. Uma cidade, onde, teoricamente, existiriam todas as condições possibilitadoras e facilitadoras para a utilização da Internet. Desvendando o internauta como grupo, a pesquisa propõe uma geografia do usuário da rede, como forma de conhecer os fatores de acesso e contribuir para que os atuais excluídos possam também ser cidadãos virtuais / The Internet is certainly the technological innovation that most amazes people due to its possibility to distance contact, production and distribution of contents. But, despite the fast increase of the number of internet users displayed in recent years, this virtual space is still not within anyone's reach. There are important factors in defining enabler’s condition for the individual can be a virtual citizen. The goal of this research is to know the user's global network of computers to understand such factors. These individuals carry out activities in the virtual space, but their base of life continues to be real, so the space delimited for the study on the user’s is Rio Claro, a municipality located in the axis of development of São Paulo state. A city where, theoretically, there would be all conditions for enabling and facilitating the use of the Internet. Cracking the internet user as a group, the research proposes geography of the network user, as a way of knowing the factors of access and contributes to the current excluded people may also become virtual citizens