<p>During the last year Tieto has been interested in evaluating the potential of a newly developed technology called Rich Ajax Platform (RAP). The RAP technology allows the developer to write Java code and deploy it on the web as a Rich Internet Application (RIA)with similar look and feel as a regular application ran in for example Microsoft Windows. The biggest benefit with a RIA is that it offers similar features to stand-alone applications but these features are deployed via a web server i.e. no installation at the client side is needed.</p><p>To evaluate this technique a Scrum handler prototype was developed using the RAP. Secondly, a comparison with another similar technique called Google Web Toolkit had been made. The Scrum process is an agile development method which is based on small iterations.The purpose of this study was to create a functional prototype in order to evaluate and demonstrate the RAP technology.</p><p>The result of the evaluation is that RAP is a strong competitor for developing Web 2.0 applications. Most of the concerns regarding RAP depend on the fact that it is a new technology and is still under development. Since Tieto in Karlstad currently develops RCPapplications, the RAP technology is a logical successor since the developers do not have to learn a new technology.</p>

This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of record labels from a context involving the technological developments, while the opportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industry find themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains are threatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they work in order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has been conducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, by using a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that the traditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenue is gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties in order to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control of activities that used to be controlled by the record label.

Title: Constructing identity on Facebook.com – A qualitative ethnographyNumber of pages: 40 (34)Author: Clara LindholmTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and communications studies CPeriod: HT (Autumn) 2009University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of InformationScience, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to study how the social community Facebook.com canbe used in order to construct identity. The study follows three Facebook users in anobservation where they are able to document their thoughts and reflections in anprivate media diary. This study investigates their use of the medium and focuses onthe functions with which they are able to alter their profiles. The result consists of acombination of these reflections, interviews and a selection of literature relevant tothe subject of new media, the use of social internet communities and social sciencetheories. The social theories are a selection of theories from the social scientist ErvingGoffman.Material/Method: This study is based on a qualitative research method and anethnographic method. The ethnography is a combination of an observation where theobserved are asked to keep a diary over the changes and updates they make on theirFacebook profiles. The ethnographic method further consists of selected literature andpersonal interviews. Finally the results are analyzed and presented.Main results: The three people in this study admit to being worried about uploadingpersonal information on the community Facebook. Still they found the socialcommunity Facebook as something positive which they all use several times per weekand in some cases daily. The conclusion shows that there is an uncertaintysurrounding the ethics of the use of Facebook when it comes to the differencebetween private and public and how to handle the personal information of others.Also it is concluded that an important part of the construction of identity on Facebookprofiles is the activity of deleting information whilst trying to uphold an image thatgoes along with the person’s percepted role in the society.Keywords: Facebook, social network, community, ethnography, Digital identity,Web 2.0

This thesis examines the ways in which Reddit, a social news aggregator, functions as a tool that allows users to give and receive support and information during times of crisis. By exploring how Reddit was used in the aftermath of the Aurora shootings of July 2012 and the Boston bombings of April 2013, this thesis argues that Reddit has the potential to be a powerful and useful tool in times of crisis.

Web 2.0 and the new decentralized, many-to-many technosocial tolls empower consumers and users to reproduce, and distribute content on their own and without permission, shifting the boundaries of participation. Alternative collaborative communities that produce and distribute information, knowledge and culture without seeking profit or operating hierarchically challenge and/or correct commercial entities. This thesis deals with such a variety of collaborative community: the scanlation community. It explores, describes and explains what differences there are in the practices and understandings of scanlators, with a special focus on their attitudes towards legal ownership and profit motives.  The main research question is: How do scanlators understand their cultural production, reproduction and distribution practices; with a special focus on which meanings do they ascribe to copyright infringement and the anti-profit motive? In particular, the study provides answers to the following questions: How do some become scanlators? What are the motives of the scanlators? How is scanlation organized? How is it managed? Which beliefs underpin it? Further impacts on and implications for the cultural industry of manga and the society at the level of politics, economy, and culture are taken into account and disccussed. Bruns' produsage based model of collaborative content production and usage is taken here as the main theoretical tool to analyze the participants, processes and principles of the scanlation community. Other concepts derived from fans studies and the political economy of media and communication complement the theoretical framework. Twenty qualitative interviews with individuals contributors to the collaborative process of content creation in a variety of groups were conducted.  The analysis of the results of the research suggests that scanlators collaborate in competition and cooperation with their open, free, ad hoc and heterarchical alternative model of (unauthorized) manga tranlation, reproduction and distribution to correct the many shortcomings of the traditional model: it is free, faster and universally accessible; whereas the latter is expensive, slow, and geo-locked. Moreover, scanlators recognize author's moral rights and do not a priori disregard copyrights, but criticize licensing and rights handling mechanisms together with economic and political censorship. Finally, although they do not want to be paid for their free affective labour, they are not adverse to commercial approaches to their produsage, if these take place on their own terms. This thesis serves as a contribution for the better understanding of communal produsage practices, by the produsers themselves.

Social Software is potentially a disruptive technology in Higher Education, because it proposes changing the instructional paradigm from a formal, structured curriculum based model to a more open, informal, borderless learning model. The purpose of this study was to explore this potential in the context of participating Net Generation students in a technology oriented, laptop based university located in southern Ontario. Net Generation students, are broadly characterized as the first digitally native generation who grew up with information and communication technologies, and that they demand more technology in all aspects of their lives. The study was interested in the efficacy and pedagogical impact of social software technologies to support students’ learning experience. The review of the literature highlighted the paucity of empirical studies examining the utility and value of these software in the higher education environment. This dissertation explored the participating students’ views and attitudes regarding SSW, their behaviours regarding the adoption of these tools in the learning environment, and the effects of SSW in their performance as measured by information literacy test scores and students’ perceptions of their learning. The study used a quantitative method, employing questionnaires and a quasi-experimental design to answer the research questions. A total of eighty students participated, 24 in the treatment group using SSW during the instruction phase, and 56 in the control group, using a Learning Management System (LMS). A pre-test showed a relatively moderate use of SSW technologies among the participants, with the exception of social networking technologies – whose adoption was almost universal. Academic use of these tools was even less pronounced in the pre-test phase. Students showed moderate willingness to employ SSW for the support of their learning. Barriers to the adoption of these technologies were discussed. Study findings could not demonstrate that the use of SSW would lead to different information literacy scores, compared with more established technologies such as the LMS. However, SSW use also formed an undercurrent of student behaviour, and in the aggregate SSW use was associated with different outcomes. The role of factors contributing to these differences, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The recognition that YouTube, a free-access video sharing website, is being widely used as a source of public information has lead medical researchers to conduct studies on health-related videos. However, it appears that educational researchers have not explored YouTube videos about reading instruction, given that no published studies could be located on this topic. The current study conducted controlled searches related to the “big five” areas of early elementary reading instruction as identified by the National Reading Panel (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension). Search results were recorded and the top 40 “most relevant” videos on each topic were analyzed to determine information about viewership, format, content, and creators of the videos. Results indicated that while YouTube videos addressing all five areas of reading instruction were prolific and highly viewed, users would need to be critical, informed, and tech-savvy in order to find relevant videos from credible sources.

The recognition that YouTube, a free-access video sharing website, is being widely used as a source of public information has lead medical researchers to conduct studies on health-related videos. However, it appears that educational researchers have not explored YouTube videos about reading instruction, given that no published studies could be located on this topic. The current study conducted controlled searches related to the “big five” areas of early elementary reading instruction as identified by the National Reading Panel (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension). Search results were recorded and the top 40 “most relevant” videos on each topic were analyzed to determine information about viewership, format, content, and creators of the videos. Results indicated that while YouTube videos addressing all five areas of reading instruction were prolific and highly viewed, users would need to be critical, informed, and tech-savvy in order to find relevant videos from credible sources.

This design-based study was the first empirical investigation of a new model of learning and instruction called Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI). In KCI, students are engaged as a learning community as they work on scaffolded inquiry activities that target specific science learning objectives. Although community-oriented approaches have been successful at the elementary level, there has been relatively little uptake of such methods at the secondary school level – particularly in science. The pedagogical framework of KCI addresses the challenges of community models by blending established inquiry based approaches with community-oriented pedagogy. This dissertation tested the validity of KCI by designing, implementing, and empirically evaluating a curriculum based on the KCI model. This was achieved through curriculum trials involving two separate cohorts of grade-ten biology students (n = 102; n = 112). The first implementation consisted of a two-week physiology lesson that engaged students in co-authoring wiki artifacts about human system diseases, which students then used as a resource for solving medical case studies. The second implementation, an eight-week lesson on Canada's biodiversity, was a deeper application of the model, and focused on students' collaborative processes during the construction of their wiki-based knowledge repository. In both cases, the curriculum was evaluated according to its design, enactment, and learning outputs, as evidenced by students' knowledge artifacts and performance on the final exam. Technology scaffolds ensured that students focused on the physiology and biodiversity science curriculum expectations. Analyses of the data revealed that KCI engaged students in collaborative learning processes that were characteristic of a knowledge community. Additionally, final exam scores demonstrated increased learning performance when compared to those from previous years where students did not participate in KCI. The findings from this research provide the first empirical support for KCI, and demonstrate its potential for engaging secondary science students in the kinds of collaborative inquiry processes of authentic knowledge communities. This dissertation provides insight into the conditions necessary for such engagement, and contributes design recommendations for blending knowledge community and inquiry in secondary school science curriculum.

Social Software is potentially a disruptive technology in Higher Education, because it proposes changing the instructional paradigm from a formal, structured curriculum based model to a more open, informal, borderless learning model. The purpose of this study was to explore this potential in the context of participating Net Generation students in a technology oriented, laptop based university located in southern Ontario. Net Generation students, are broadly characterized as the first digitally native generation who grew up with information and communication technologies, and that they demand more technology in all aspects of their lives. The study was interested in the efficacy and pedagogical impact of social software technologies to support students’ learning experience. The review of the literature highlighted the paucity of empirical studies examining the utility and value of these software in the higher education environment. This dissertation explored the participating students’ views and attitudes regarding SSW, their behaviours regarding the adoption of these tools in the learning environment, and the effects of SSW in their performance as measured by information literacy test scores and students’ perceptions of their learning. The study used a quantitative method, employing questionnaires and a quasi-experimental design to answer the research questions. A total of eighty students participated, 24 in the treatment group using SSW during the instruction phase, and 56 in the control group, using a Learning Management System (LMS). A pre-test showed a relatively moderate use of SSW technologies among the participants, with the exception of social networking technologies – whose adoption was almost universal. Academic use of these tools was even less pronounced in the pre-test phase. Students showed moderate willingness to employ SSW for the support of their learning. Barriers to the adoption of these technologies were discussed. Study findings could not demonstrate that the use of SSW would lead to different information literacy scores, compared with more established technologies such as the LMS. However, SSW use also formed an undercurrent of student behaviour, and in the aggregate SSW use was associated with different outcomes. The role of factors contributing to these differences, and recommendations for future research are discussed.