Thesis (MPhil) -- Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In a time of uncertainty for newspapers due in part to dwindling circulation, loss of advertising revenue and declining readership, Internet-based technologies have continued to grow. The unprecedented rise of social media, of which Facebook and Twitter are wellknown examples, has not gone unnoticed by the newspaper community. Despite their initial misgivings about the credibility of the information disseminated on these media, mainstream journalists worldwide have gradually started to adopt social media as professional tools. Social media serve as channels that help to funnel information towards journalists. Some newspaper journalists also use these media to broadcast news and promote their personal brands. The continued use of social media on a professional level will arguably have an impact on the daily routines and cultures within a newsroom. Academic research in this area is limited, especially within the South African context. This study explores whether the professional use of social media, with specific reference to Facebook and Twitter, influences the processes and cultures of news selection and presentation at the South Africa newspapers Rapport and the Mail & Guardian. A newsroom study within a social constructionism paradigm employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, including self-administered questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and ethnography. The main findings of this study were that the majority of journalists at Rapport and the Mail & Guardian used Facebook and Twitter actively on a professional level – mainly for trend tracking. The newsroom cultures were open and encouraging towards social media use. Journalists were also aware that social media create opportunities for their audiences to challenge the traditional roles of journalists and the realities constructed by the mainstream media. According to the journalists from Rapport and the Mail & Guardian the professional use of social media had not significantly altered their processes of news selection and presentation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Terwyl koerante ’n onsekere tyd beleef, deels weens dalende sirkulasiesyfers, ’n verlies aan advertensie-inkomste en ’n afname in lesertalle, het Internetgebaseerde tegnologieë aanhou groei. Die ongekende groei van sosial media, waarvan Facebook en Twitter welbekende voorbeelde is, het nie ongesiens by die koerantgemeenskap verby gegaan nie. Ondanks hul aanvanklike bedenkinge oor die geloofwaardigheid van inligting wat op dié media versprei word, het hoofstroomjoernaliste wêreldwyd geleidelik begin om sosiale media as professionele hulpmiddels te aanvaar. Sosial media dien as kanale waardeur inligting na joernaliste vloei. Sommige koerantjoernaliste gebruik ook die media om nuus uit te saai en hul persoonlike handelsmerk te bemark. Die volgehoue gebruik van sosial media op ’n professionele vlak sal bes moontlik ’n impak op die daaglikse roetine en kulture binne ’n nuuskantoor hê. Akademiese navorsing op die gebied is beperk, veral binne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks. Hierdie navorsing ondersoek of die professionele gebruik van sosiale media, met spesifieke verwysing na Facebook en Twitter, ’n invloed het op die prosesse en kulture van nuusseleksie en -aanbieding by die Suid-Afrikaanse koerante Rapport en die Mail & Guardian. ’n Nuuskantoorstudie, binne ’n sosiale konstruktivisme paradigma, het ’n kombinasie van kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe navorsingsmetodologieë ingespan, insluitende: selfgeadministreerde vraelyste, halfgestruktureerde onderhoude en etnografie. Die hoofbevindinge van die studie was dat die meerderheid van die joernaliste by Rapport en die Mail & Guardian Facebook en Twitter aktief op ’n professionele vlak gebruik het – hoofsaaklik om tendense dop te hou. Die nuuskantoorkulture was oop en aanmoedigend teenoor die gebruik van sosiale media. Joernaliste was ook bewus daarvan dat sosiale media geleenthede skep vir hul gehore om die tradisionele rol van joernaliste, sowel as die realiteite wat deur die hoofstroommedia geskep word, te betwis. Volgens die joernaliste van Rapport en die Mail & Guardian het die professionele gebruik van sosiale media nie hul nuusinsamelings- en aanbiedingsprosesse noemenswaardig beïnvloed nie.

This research was selected after the South African Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi’s, statement in the Budget vote speech of 2002 that government spent an estimated R3 billion per annum on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) goods and services, but that only 20 percent of public servants are computer literate. In 2004, this was illustrated again by the Minister who stated that the government will be recruiting new skilled personnel and that the recruitment will take place primarily from African countries, India and Iran. During 14 to 17 November 2005 the Minister lead a delegation to India with the specific purpose of reaching agreements between the two countries for assistance by the Indian public service through the transfer of Indian public servants, as well as training interventions and mentorship programmes for South African public servants.technology is one of the key strategies that governments can use to reform and improve public service delivery. Large amounts of information are required to deliver public services, for example pension and unemployment administration. However, to make proper use of and benefit from information technology public servants will need information technology skills and knowledge. It is generally accepted that universities provide Public Administration education to students that will become the future workforce in the public service. It is the duty of a university to provide scientifically inspired career education to students. Universities undertake to provide the knowledge as well as higher education to students in order to function effectively in the workplace. A student studying for a career should be able to gain knowledge about the field of study and gain the necessary skills to be used in practice. Thus, students in Public Administration should not only have knowledge about the subject Public Administration, they should also be able to act as professional public servants that can serve the public. The question can however be asked whether the curricula provided to undergraduate Public Administration students at South African universities comply with the needs of the public work force when considering the use of information technology competencies? / Public Administration and Management / D. Litt. et Phil. (Public Administration)

Submitted by Maria Dulce (mdulce@ndc.uff.br) on 2014-08-19T17:59:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Debora_Ambinder-2012.pdf: 7205512 bytes, checksum: 51980739c1e1b14af9e73c65bef8588c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Dulce (mdulce@ndc.uff.br) on 2014-08-19T18:02:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Debora_Ambinder-2012.pdf: 7205512 bytes, checksum: 51980739c1e1b14af9e73c65bef8588c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-19T18:02:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Debora_Ambinder-2012.pdf: 7205512 bytes, checksum: 51980739c1e1b14af9e73c65bef8588c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Universidade Federal Fluminense / O padrão de publicação científica da atualidade é o periódico científico eletrônico. Com a chegada da internet e, principalmente, com a chegada das publicações eletrônicas, a humanidade passou a dispor de muita informação ao mesmo tempo, o que ocasionou uma grande “explosão informacional”. Hoje, a informação é produzida em um ritmo que excede as habilidades humanas. É determinante neste cenário, mobilizar o computador para tratar e processar o conteúdo das informações disponíveis no ambiente Web. Mesmo com a facilidade de acesso ao texto completo dos artigos de periódicos científicos, através de bibliotecas digitais, repositórios digitais, o formato utilizado no meio eletrônico ainda é textual legível somente por pessoas, o que impossibilita o seu processamento semântico por programas. As páginas da Web foram construídas com semânticas locais, e este fato, se constitui como o maior obstáculo para integrar seus conteúdos. Pensar em organizar o caos informacional disponível na Web se tornou imperativo para possibilitar novas formas de acesso à informação digital. A Web 2.0 e Web 3.0 (Web Semântica) se configuram como novas propostas para alcance desses objetivos. A Web Semântica propõe incorporar sentido às informações de maneira que as máquinas possam compreender a linguagem humana, ou seja, fornecer estruturas e dar significado ao conteúdo das páginas Web; e a Web 2.0, além de facilitar a comunicação interpessoal e compartilhar informações, se destacando também pela colaboração científica, incentivando os periódicos científicos tradicionais a adotarem ferramentas colaborativas como os blogs em seus websites. Várias experiências estão sendo desenvolvidas atualmente no sentido de utilizar as tecnologias da Web 2.0 e Web Semântica em publicações acadêmicas eletrônicas. A proposta desta pesquisa é identificar projetos e experiências inovadoras de periódicos científicos que utilizam as tecnologias da Web Semântica e Web 2.0 para fornecer acesso direto ao conteúdo semântico dos artigos científicos digitais e ampliar o potencial de compreensão e recuperação do conteúdo semântico e de interação entre autores e leitores de artigos científicos digitais na Web. O desenvolvimento desta pesquisa está fundamentado nas bases da Ciência da Informação, em especial na Comunicação Científica, dando ênfase à evolução do periódico científico como canal privilegiado deste meio de comunicação e na Ciência da Computação, ao que diz respeito às tecnologias da Web Semântica e Web 2.0. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de natureza documental na Web, bibliográfica, aplicada, qualitativa exploratória e descritiva, que utiliza o método comparativo encontrado no estudo das Ciências Sociais, para a exploração dos fenômenos, identificação das características comuns e diferenças existentes nas dezesseis experiências analisadas por este estudo. Dentre os resultados destas análises, constata-se que o tradicional modelo de artigo científico impresso já não atende muitas das novas necessidades dos pesquisadores e não utiliza efetivamente as potencialidades oferecidas pelas novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação para ampliar a comunicação científica. O grande percentual das experiências analisado está voltado para a área da Saúde, o que reflete o aspecto pioneiro da área Biomédica. As experiências propõem um passo adiante para a questão da recuperação e processamento semânticos de conteúdos em ambientes digitais. Ou seja, vão além do modelo do artigo impresso, lido exclusivamente por pessoas utilizando as tecnologias semânticas para que estes possam ser “inteligíveis” também por programas. Existe um uso efetivo de tecnologias da Web 2.0, com vistas a facilitar o relacionamento do pesquisador no ambiente digital, cujas métricas baseadas nestas atividades podem informar medidas mais rápidas de impacto, complementando as métricas tradicionais de citação, esboçando assim, um novo cenário para a cientometria com o uso destas tecnologias.

This research aimed to investigate the desires of the users of the Greek public Library on Gender and Equality (LGE) about a future Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) containing Web2.0 functionalities. The concepts of participation, information pluralism and community building in relation with Web 2.0 tools in libraries’ catalogues were introduced under the theoretical approach provided by Social Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas. Aqualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with users of the LGE wasconducted and the collected data that were analysed with the thematic analysis method,revealed positive users’ impressions regarding the introduction of Web 2.0 tools in theLGE’s OPAC. The research also disclosed users’ desires and suggestions regarding specific Web 2.0 features and their common motivation to participate and contribute to be the opportunity of communicating with like-minded people.

In the last decade, web browsers have seen a remarkable increase of performance, especially in the JavaScript engines. JavaScript has over the years gone from being a slow and rather limited language, to today have become feature-rich and fast. It’s speed can be around the same or half of comparable code written in C++, but this speed is directly dependent on the choice of the web browser, and the best performance is seen in browsers using JIT compilation techniques. Even though the language has seen a dramatic increase in performance, there’s still major problems regarding memory usage. JavaScript applications typically consume 3-4 times more memory than similar applications written in C++. Many browser vendors, like Opera Software, acknowledge this and are currently trying to optimize their memory usage. This issue is hopefully non-existent within a near future. Because the majority of scientific papers written about JavaScript only compare performance using the industry benchmarks SunSpider and V8, this thesis have chosen to widen the scope. The benchmarks really give no information about how JavaScript stands in comparison to C#, C++ and other popular languages. To be able to compare that, I’ve implemented a GIF decoder, an XML parser and various elementary tests in both JavaScript and C++ to compare how far apart the languages are in terms of speed, memory usage and responsiveness.

Abstract Children start to use the Internet ever-earlier, which is problematic as it has not been established that young children have the capacity to engage online safely. In this thesis I concentrate on how Finnish children aged 10-12 approach and enact online safety, how their online safety is mediated at home and in schools, and how this mediation could be supported. I use mostly qualitative data collection and analysis methods. I use Nexus analysis as my theoretical lens, as it suits research where focus is on complex social action. Children who participated in my research reported being skilled in online safety. They have confidence in their skills; as do parents and teachers, to a lesser extent. Children also mediate online safety within their own groups. At home, children’s Internet use is monitored and restricted, but parents favour active mediation such as talking and offering help. Technical parental controls are unpopular. To some extent, children and parents disagree on how much parental mediation is provided. In schools, restriction and monitoring are employed, e.g., concerning smartphones, but focus is on active mediation. Teachers believe the message is best received when tied to children’s experiences. Children say they like learning while doing, and hope for a positive tone and concrete advice from online safety education. Schools connect different actors in a dialogue concerning children’s online safety, but division of responsibilities seems blurry. Teachers feel alone in deciding how online safety is taught and wish for support. My results provide implications regarding how we design mediational means for ensuring children’s online safety. When mediating online safety, adults are balancing between necessary control, loving trust, and involvement. While some control is called for, I encourage adults to become involved in children’s online lives, and to build trusting relationships. To support online safety mediation at home, I suggest a combination of technical and active mediation that serves both parents’ and children’s interests, gives parents tools for ensuring children’s safety, and facilitates trust building between family members. To support online safety mediation at school, I suggest a more systematic approach to online safety, as well as teaching practices that facilitate active mediation, fit the children's world, and appeal to teachers. / Tiivistelmä Lapset aloittavat netinkäytön yhä nuorempana, mikä on ongelmallista, koska pienten lasten kyky toimia verkossa turvallisesti on vaillinaista. Väitöskirjassa tarkastelen kuinka suomalaiset 10-12-vuotiaat lapset lähestyvät nettiturvallisuutta, kuinka sitä toteutetaan kotona ja kouluissa ja kuinka nettiturvallisuuden toteuttamista voidaan tukea. Käytän tutkimuksessa pääosin laadullisia tiedonkeruu- ja analysointimetodeja. Teoreettisena linssinä käytän monimutkaisen sosiaalisen toiminnan tutkimiseen soveltuvaa neksusanalyysiä. Tutkimukseeni osallistuneet lapset suhtautuvat itse luottavaisesti taitoihinsa nettiturvallisuuden suhteen, kuten myös vanhemmat ja opettajat, joskin vähäisemmässä määrin. Lapset toteuttavat nettiturvallisuutta myös omissa ryhmissään. Kotona seurataan ja rajoitetaan lasten netinkäyttöä, mutta suositaan nk. aktiivista lähestymistapaa, kuten lapsille puhumista ja avun tarjoamista. Tekninen valvonta ei ole suosittua. Lapset ovat jossain määrin eri mieltä vanhempien kanssa siitä, kuinka paljon vanhemmat tukevat heidän nettiturvallisuuttaan. Kouluissa seurataan ja rajoitetaan mm. älypuhelinten käyttöä, mutta suositaan aktiivista lähestymistapaa. Opettajat uskovat lasten omaksuvan viestin parhaiten sidottuna omiin kokemuksiin. Lapset kertovat pitävänsä tekemällä oppimisesta. Opetukselta he toivovat positiivista sävyä ja konkreettisia neuvoja. Koulut yhdistävät toimijoita vuoropuheluun lasten nettiturvallisuudesta, mutta vastuunjako on epäselvää. Opettajat kokevat olevansa yksin päättämässä siitä, miten nettiturvallisuutta opetetaan ja he kaipaavat tukea. Tuloksillani on vaikutusta siihen, millaisia keinoja kehitämme lasten nettiturvallisuuden varmistamiseksi. Vaikka valvonta ja rajoitukset ovat joskus tarpeen, kannustan tarpeellisen valvonnan, rakastavan luottamuksen ja yhdessä tekemisen välillä tasapainoilevia aikuisia osallistumaan lasten nettielämään ja rakentamaan heihin luottamuksellisia välejä. Nettiturvallisuuden tukemiseksi kotona ehdotan teknisen ja aktiivisen lähestymistavan yhdistelmää, joka palvelee sekä vanhempien että lasten etuja, auttaa vanhempia varmistamaan lasten turvallisuutta ja helpottaa luottamuksen rakentamista. Nettiturvallisuuden tukemiseksi kouluissa ehdotan järjestelmällistä otetta sekä opetuskäytäntöjä, jotka vetoavat opettajiin, helpottavat aiheen aktiivista lähestymistä ja sopivat lasten maailmaan.

This dissertation thesis is focused at opportunities in real estate industry in connection with using internet based portal for real estate agencies. The thesis is based on Čestmír Kadlec's dissertation thesis which presents a methodology for creating real estate agencies portal. The main aim of this paper is to specify a concept of real estate agencies portal web pages according to methodology developed by Kadlec and evaluate required investment into development and operation the real estate agencies internet based portal. Firstly, theoretical part deals with information society, real estate market in the Czech Republic and how the evolution of information society influenced Czech real estate market in the past. Also the thesis contains description of real estate agency portals in the Czech Republic, their typology and a selection of a web portal for further analysis. The analysis of Sreality.cz contains a description of key processes and also description and fees of provided services. Practical part is focused at specification of real estate agencies web portal according to Kadlec's methodology which can be found in his dissertation thesis. Firstly, there is a description of real estate agencies portal as a system. Then there is an assessment how the proposed solutions meets the criteria specified by Kadlec, which the "ideal" web portal must have. In conclusion, the business case was prepared to Compaq the costs of development and operation of the portal and potential revenues according to competition market analysis. The outcome of the whole thesis is a recommendation whether the investment in the portal makes business sense.

The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the issue of enterprise social networking (ESN), other collaborative tools , and instruments of social interaction that can facilitate users their individual work tasks as well as contribute to the overall increase in enterprise efficiency. Futhermore, it offer the familiarization with their available functions and features, robustness and simplicity, advantages and disadvantages. It also offers practical guidance for the implementation of enterprise social networks, or other instrument of enterprise social interaction and what to avoid. The entire paper is conceived to three parts that are logically linked. The first part is theoretical, which is discussed fundamental issues what are social networks about. The second part discussed the concept of corporate social networks, the issue of implementation and at the same time this paper shows the major products to the market. The third part is a survey which evaluate the use of social networking in business practice. The paper thus provides a comprehensive

Thesis describes social networks as a new tool, which affects the way how people use in-ternet and how they communicate. This relatively new technology and trend is firstly de-scribed from technological perspective, which is in harmony with Green ICT. In detail describes contributions of virtualization, cloud computing and Web 2.0 which allowed this innovation in a first place. On the other side it describes social networks from sociological perspective as simple adapting to natural development, which doesn't require any big be-havioral changes. It seems that it is just another step in development of tools for infor-mation exchange and communication. Secondly thesis separates enterprise social network and characterize their potential application inside the company for supporting operation, communication, documents and information sharing, managing or decision making. Thesis analyze and compare current available enterprise social networks and creates multi-criteria matrix, which provides manual or guide for choosing the right ESN tool according to company's preferences. Simultaneously based on sample activities and dealing various situations from project management, compares communication by using enterprise social network with communication via email. On this examples demonstrate added value by using enterprise social networks by knowledge workers in the meaning of more effective cooperation and higher employee satisfaction.

The goal of this paper is to explore corporate and information strategies, focus is put on new and modern business models. I accentuate alignment between corporate and information strategy. Theoretical overview of corporate and information strategies is followed by description of modern trends that were discovered by author. All new trends are analyzed from IT and business point of view. Some trends are demonstrated on real companies in the paper. The analysis consists of corporate strategy and searching for the way how IT can support business and how to be in alignment. Two types of companies are included. First type is company that built up business model based on IT/ICT strategy. The other type includes companies that are running business for longer time and new IT/ICT strategy deployment or better alignment between strategies brought improvement and better market position. The paper includes basic model representing strategic management that is presented at the end. This gives an overview to all readers how the process goes from corporate and information strategy to application portfolio. The paper is destined for professionals and nonprofessionals who are interested in modern strategies. It is also useful for IT/ICT managers when working on own strategies.