In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

The intent of this research is to create a qualitative framework to guide perceptions and observations about informal self-directed learning in the arena of contemporary Web 2.0 e-learning. Drawing influence from the studies on self-directed learning conducted by Allen Tough and his associates, the writings on educational connoisseurship and criticism by Elliot Eisner, as well as research and literature about contemporary e-learning contexts, this exploratory study is comprised of a hermeneutic analysis that seeks to discover themes, patterns and points of intersection in these three areas. The analysis presents the application of the resulting framework to three illustrative scenarios, constructed from ideas and themes drawn from the major elements of the study, and discusses the findings revealed by the investigation. The study concludes with reflection and recommendations for application and further research.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

Resum pendent

La complexité est au premier rang des défis en gestion de projet. Un outil de collaboration issu des technologies du Web 2.0 appelé "wiki" offre de nouvelles pistes de réponses à cette problématique. L'objectif principal de cette recherche est de montrer comment le wiki peut nous aider à composer avec la complexité en gestion de projet. Plus précisément, il s'agit de s'appuyer sur les tremplins de la systémique et de la complexité pour proposer une modélisation du système wiki avant de tenter de le légitimer à partir de données recueillies sur le terrain. Pour ce faire, une étude de cas a été réalisée sur une période de cinq mois auprès d'une entreprise oeuvrant dans le secteur des télécommunications. Celle-ci a mis en place un wiki pilote pour servir de plateforme de collaboration au développement d'un logiciel de test interne. Cette recherche constructiviste, suit une approche exploratoire. Son cadre conceptuel se fonde sur une revue des notions théoriques dans les domaines de la systémique, de la complexité et du wiki. Sont explorés notamment les trois principes morinniens de la dialogique, de la récursion et de l'hologramme. La collecte des données s'est faite à partir d'entrevues préliminaires, d'un sondage intermédiaire, de documents internes et d'une observation directe participative. En définitive, cette recherche devrait apporter des contributions tant conceptuelles que managériales à la problématique de la complexité en gestion de projet. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Complexité, Gestion de projet, Systémique, Hologramme, Récursion, Dialogique, Wiki, Technologie, Web 2.0, Collaboration.

Ett examensarbete som med fokus på elever och undervisning utreder hur bloggen kan fungera i klassrummet. Jag har samlat in tidigare uppsatser från hela världen om bloggar i klassrummet och gjort egna enkäter och egna intervjuer med ett antal elever.Syftet var att analysera en av de många nya förekomster på internet och se hur väl den passar in i skolan. Bloggar blir lätt begränsade av tekniken som till exempel hur många datorer skolan har eller hur många som har internet hemma. Men bloggar har också så många fördelar så om man har möjlighet så är det väl värt ett försök.

The terms social media and social networking have been under the spotlight in recent times due to enormous success of some of the social networking websites. Creating profiles and making friends are the prime activities on these sites. People upload pictures, videos and create events on these sites to share with their friends. Some people are more active than others when it comes to participating in online social activity. But more or less, most users; be it active or passive find time almost daily to log in and see what is happening on these sites. The aim of this paper is to propose a design for online profiles of researchers and teachers who work in a university environment based on ideas from existing social media and similar systems. In this research I a) identified elements of such a system by studying the already existing profiles of researchers in ten different Swedishuniversities b) interviewed researchers and students at different departments of UppsalaUniversity to get first hand knowledge on how such a system should look like c) propose design recommendations for online profiles of people involved in education in universities based on the requirements collected.

Although information systems have had a great impact on environmental information, they can still influence how the environment is protected through the use of new technology. In this study, it was revealed that while the majority of people, including citizens, environmental experts and related civil servants are active and collaborate in this domain, they are still concerned about it. While information is found to be a key player, it is necessary to find a system that can lead it from the source to the proper destination. Consequently this study investigates how environmental information can be shared and more easily accessed. Different actors in the system create the opportunity to have more holistic view of the problem at hand. Soft systems methodology inspires me to draw requirements of different groups of actors, represent diverse conceptual models of their desired system and eventually examine a proposed information system. The study characterises a framework for employing Web 2.0 technology to facilitate the collaboration and coordination of environmental information with the goal of protecting the environment.

This research paper aims to investigate the role of enterprise social network to address these concerns such as knowledge sharing and collaboration. The authors have considered a case study based research approach as it is the best method to answer the research question. The leading multinational Bus and truck manufacture Scania was considered for our case study. The study has been done by researching the impact of enterprise social network tools such as Yammer and Lync and their attempt to answer these challenges in the organization. The paper concludes with the analysis based on the empirical findings and theoretical frame of reference. Suggestions and recommendations for further research in this area have also been mentioned in the concluding part of the thesis.

The intent of this research is to create a qualitative framework to guide perceptions and observations about informal self-directed learning in the arena of contemporary Web 2.0 e-learning. Drawing influence from the studies on self-directed learning conducted by Allen Tough and his associates, the writings on educational connoisseurship and criticism by Elliot Eisner, as well as research and literature about contemporary e-learning contexts, this exploratory study is comprised of a hermeneutic analysis that seeks to discover themes, patterns and points of intersection in these three areas. The analysis presents the application of the resulting framework to three illustrative scenarios, constructed from ideas and themes drawn from the major elements of the study, and discusses the findings revealed by the investigation. The study concludes with reflection and recommendations for application and further research.