The use of the Internet as a medium for education has grown exponentially since the mid-1990s. Institutions of higher education are increasingly offering online access to distance education programmes, especially at postgraduate level. Some see e-learning as offering solutions to many problems traditionally associated with distance education. Research into e-learning at a distance has largely focussed on the effectiveness of differing technologies for the delivery of online courses, the emphasis being upon the technology itself, with few studies examining the student experience of this new phenomenon. It is therefore argued that a gap exists, as the views of distance e-learners at postgraduate level have seldom been paid attention, with their specific and individual needs failing to be addressed. This study aims to rectify this gap by examining postgraduates' experiences of e-learning at a distance. The purpose of the study is to inform the future development of elearning at postgraduate level and help determine how higher education can best support this rapidly expanding group of learners. The research presents a qualitative case study of a group of students studying modules from the University of Salford's MSc/Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health in a virtual learning environment called GOLDPhase, which was specifically designed and developed to facilitate the study. Issues related to the students' heightened awareness of their peers, their sensitivity to tutor feedback, and the learning strategies they adopted are identified and discussed. The findings show that e-learning engendered a range of barriers and enhancements for this group of distance learners. The enhancements were largely computer based and barriers were mostly sociological. The findings have implications for both online teaching and online learning strategies. As distance e-learning is in its infancy the study will increase overall understanding in this area and contribute to the growing body of knowledge.

Unrestricted accessible scholarly resources are increasingly considered essential to knowledge creation and socio-economic development. In order to facilitate this, university libraries at National Research Universities (NRUs) in Thailand have established institutional repositories (IRs). The development of the Open Access publishing movement also provides opportunities and challenges to NRUs’ IRs and scholarly community. Like others, the IR projects in Thailand have experienced low awareness and content contribution from stakeholders. Accordingly, this study aims to optimize the established IR projects in NRUs in Thailand by exploring the stakeholders’ research publishing behaviour, and the perception, participation, and utilisation of IRs. This study advances the understanding of IRs in NRUs in Thailand from the perspectives of multiple stakeholder groups. This inductive qualitative study employs Constructivist Grounded Theory as a research methodology. Theoretical sampling, convenient sampling, and purposive sampling were used to recruit key participants in Thai scholarly communication at three NRUs. An in-depth semi-structured interview method was used to collect data and Charmaz’s Grounded Theory Method of Open coding and Focused coding was used to analyse it. The analysis resulted in the generation of the 4Cs (/foresee/) Model for the Development of University-based IRs. It composes of “Communication” “Collaboration”, “Copyright understanding”, “Control” and “Local academic culture”. This innovative model provides an explanatory framework identifying the factors for the availability and accessibility of full-text digital research publications in Thai university-based IRs. Moreover, the 3Rs – Rethinking, Redefining, and Re-collaborating- are recommended as key activities to be considered when confronting the difficulties in the development of IRs. In addition, this study also proposes the “2PSC model for operational excellence – Policies, Procedure, Services, and Competencies” as a practical and effective mechanism for managing IRs. Further, the study offers theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the understanding of IRs in NRUs in Thailand from the perspectives of multiple stakeholder groups.

The Semantic Web (SW) represents the next wave in the evolution of the World Wide Web (WWW). It is a web of interlinked documents containing information that can be processed, understood and reasoned over by machines. The machine is the primary user in this Web. The aim of the Semantic Web is to turn the WWW from what can be described today as a gigantic web of pages, to a global database that will permit a more fine-grained access to the information that resides on the Web. Queries initiated by humans or machines retrieve the information of interest. In this thesis the application of concepts of the Semantic Web is being investigated in the context of product unit cost modelling in Rolls-Royce plc. Parametric cost modelling is one of the approaches used to cost estimation. Parametric models rely on statistical techniques that analyse usually historical data to produce regression equations. During this process numerous assumptions become embedded in the models. Understanding the underlying data and assumptions enables judgements to be made about the suitability and applicability of a given cost model to the task at hand and leads to an understanding of the model in question. Passing knowledge intensive artefacts such as cost models over organisational boundaries requires a shared understanding between providers and consumers, of what the model represents and under which circumstances it can be used. A shared understanding is reached when ambiguity regarding possible alternative interpretations is eliminated. Currently this is achieved by providing cost model documentation to the end users. It is hypothesised that the use of explicit vocabularies a.k.a. ontologies to describe the data used in cost models will enable the effective dissemination of costing knowledge within Rolls-Royce plc, from organisations that possess such expertise to the engineering functions that consume it. A corporate semantic web drawing on its inference capabilities can remove some of the documentation overhead expended by the costing organisations in support of the tasks of producing, validating, disseminating, auditing and maintaining these parametric cost models. Such a semantic web can provide designers with cost models in a manner that reflects the change in availability of design information as the design definition evolves from abstract to concrete. Information resources from the corporate intranet can be integrated with costing data to provide contextual information in support of the statistical analysis and validation stages.

This submission addresses the change to the electronic environment in libraries. It presents eight selected research papers which cumulatively contribute to knowledge regarding the management issues arising from this change. The specific elements of the research programme focused primarily on changes in academic libraries and secondly in public libraries. The implications of changes in different countries were investigated. The research programme evolved over time, as its applicability and relevance extended to other players in the developing library electronic resources field. The need for effective communication and marketing regarding electronic resources was identified as key, and it became increasingly evident that libraries needed to adopt marketing techniques appropriate to the changing environment and different to those techniques traditionally used. The linked elements of the research programme involve managing changing user needs in line with a changing user base, which includes remote users, and the requirements for changing staff skills. Further elements include work in a virtual environment alongside a physical environment and collaboration and consortia working. The central aim of the research programme was to identify solutions for best practice, and funding was obtained for many of the research elements. Originality is demonstrated by investigation into an emerging area, using library websites at the time of their development and applying an experimental research technique. Research methods from different research paradigms - positivist and interpretivist - were employed. Quantitative data was obtained to establish hard facts. Qualitative approaches enabled the acquisition of multiple perspectives and understanding of social constructions of meaning and knowledge, such as respondents' attitudes, feelings and perceptions. The extent and modes of discussion with respondents facilitated triangulation of methods that resulted in multiple views for synthesis so as to clarify understanding. All of the research was underpinned by an on-going literature review, which was vital in order to assess both what existed and current developments. The research methods used were applied in a sequence of eight stages as the electronic environment in libraries developed. The research aimed to provide a fully rounded picture, investigating the issues arising from the introduction of electronic resources in libraries, and it achieved this by considering developments over a period of time just in excess of the past decade. The papers present findings that can be applied by players in the field of electronic resource provision. Foremost amongst these was the requirements for educating library users, often in a remote environment, in the use of the new electronic resources, which were derived and the vital importance of operating different marketing and communication techniques, which was demonstrated.

In recent years, such vast archives of video information have become available that human annotation of content is no longer feasible; automation of video content analysis is therefore highly desirable. The recognition of semantic content in images is a problem that relies on prior knowledge and learnt information and that, to date, has only been partially solved. Salient analysis, on the other hand, is statistically based and highlights regions that are distinct from their surroundings, while also being scalable and repeatable. The arrangement of salient information into hierarchical tree structures in the spatial and temporal domains forms an important step to bridge the semantic salient gap. Salient regions are identified using region analysis, rank ordered and documented in a tree for further analysis. A structure of this kind contains all the information in the original video and forms an intermediary between video processing and video understanding, transforming video analysis to a syntactic database analysis problem. This contribution demonstrates the formulation of spatio-temporal salient trees the syntax to index them, and provides an interface for higher level cognition in machine vision.

This thesis examines an under researched area in the field of action learning: how learning set participants experience action learning and the effectiveness of action learning sets. Through the adoption of a qualitative research approach, which utilised unstructured interviews with learning set members and employed a grounded theory approach to analysis, the thesis thus provides a unique insight into action learning practices and group processes, the latter significantly adding to knowledge in the field of organisational behavior. The research presented, which traces the connections between the research process, methodology and the ongoing development of analysis, also adds to existing knowledge in organisational research methods. Within the thesis, a number of significant issues concerning group processes within action learning sets are discussed. Through analysis of the data it is shown that differing hierarchies exist amongst set members and that these affect the contribution that individual members make to the operations in the set. Furthermore, trust is shown to be vital to the effective working of the set, with members needing to feel psychologically and politically safe before they will self disclose. Finally, member?s self disclosure is revealed to be located on a continuum ranging from comfort to discomfort, with a possibility that some set members may actively engage in dissimulation as a way of reducing cognitive dissonance in self disclosure. Analysis within the thesis also provides a unique insight into action learning practices. A discussion of the findings reveals several significant issues in relation to both set members and facilitators. These include the effect of the location of the set, member?s expectations of the facilitator?s role and the extent to which these expectations accord with the facilitator?s style of facilitation. Analysis of this latter point directly adds to the body of literature concerning the skills of facilitators in action learning sets.

The electronic computer is the most significant tecnological product of the 20th Century. It has changed the lives of a vast number of people beyond recognition. It has changed our work, our leisure, and our relationships with each other. Its development has taken place in a period where an increasing amount of information is documented and recorded, and yet elements of its history, particularly its social history are distinct. A number of histories have been written about the computer. Mostly, these address the technical developments and economic or business histories behind the products rather than the designed form of the computer itself. They have tended to view the development of computing from a technologically deterministic perspective. By presenting the computer as the reseult of inevitable technological progress, they have ignored the social agency of their users and the cultural contexts in which they operate. Over the past ten years, i have researched and published on vaious aspects of computing technology from a social construction perspective. Using a novel methodology developed and tested over a significant period, this body of work has considered the acceptance and use of computers by different social groups, exploring the role of a computer as a tool of production, a means of control, and as an indicator of status. It has considered the design form and the depiction of computers in the mass media and popular culture to assess the influences on its design and its role in social relations, and in the process has made an original contribution to knowledge in the field of design history. This submission draws together five published articles from this body of work, which individually trace the history of the conception, production, representation and consumption of different types of computer. Collectively, these articles construct a coherent account exploring the design history of the computer as a social and cultural artefact.

Towards the end of the twentieth century there was a furore of activity and interest regarding the potential of information communication technologies (ICTs) to contribute towards a process of development. The growing interest in ICT for development (ICT4D) resulted in a World Summit held over two stages in 2003 and 2005 and a plethora of initiatives and interventions. However to date, the mechanisms and ways in which ICTs may best be applied to development, and in particular poverty reduction, remain unclear. The study described herein contributes to this debate. The study is concerned with the analysis of a single ICT based intervention in rural Java in the Republic of Indonesia; the e-Pabelan telecentre project. The objective of e-Pabelan was to overcome information asymmetries and improve the market participation of poor rural farmers. The objective of this study is to analyse the impacts of this intervention and its underlying conceptual basis. In order to facilitate the research a conceptual framework is presented that draws on Richard Heeks’ (1999b) concept of the information chain and Stuart Plattner’s (1985) concept of equilibrating markets. After Heeks, the conceptual framework emphasises that the assimilation and application of information towards a desired development outcome is a staged process. In order to better contextualise and understand such a process the research presents an analysis of actors, goods and transactions in relation to the market relations of poor farmers after Plattner. The research consists of an extended case study. Two key survey instruments are also employed. One is a survey of 216 poor households and the other is a survey of 70 poor farmers. These survey instruments are employed within a broader research context that utilises participant observation, informal interviews and occasional participatory rural appraisal (PRA) instruments. The research emphasises the importance of contextualisation in seeking to better understand the application of ICT based intervention towards poverty reduction. The research highlights issues of access within ICT4D and challenges approaches that see ICT4D as universally applicable and relevant. Instead, the research demonstrates that the institutional context that ICT4D initiatives are placed into and implemented through can have significant bearings on the perceived utility of the intervention by the intended beneficiaries. The research shows that a failure to engage with local contexts during the establishing of access to ICTs can result in such initiatives being disempowering rather than empowering. The research also questions conceptualisations of poverty within ICT4D that emphasise the widening of opportunities over and above the increasing of security. With regard to markets the research demonstrates that the received view not uncommon within ICT4D literature of the farmer as a passive victim of impersonal markets is flawed. The research shows that the way in which poor farmer in Java manage risk through their selection of differing crops and the manner in which these farmers play the market is central to understanding how ICT4D interventions are assessed in terms of utility and relevance. The research concludes that there is a need for greater engagement between the emerging field of ICT4D and the broader field of development studies. There is also a need to better contextualise and target ICT4D interventions in relation to the specific needs and conditions of the intended beneficiaries. Such an approach requires acknowledging that the adoption and application of information will be subject to a process of continual assessment; rather than seeing assessment as a separate stage within the information chain. In this regard a framework for the analysis of market based ICT4D interventions seeking to impact upon poverty is developed via the research from the original conceptual framework outlined above.

This research reported in this thesis explores job search networking amongst 16-24 year olds living in Scotland, and the role of social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) during this process. Networking is treated as an information behaviour; reflecting this, the study is underpinned by a prominent model from the domain of information science. A sequential, mixed methods approach was applied to gather data. This included the use of interviews, focus groups, and a survey questionnaire. The interviews incorporated ego-centric network methods to develop a relational perspective of job search networking. The findings show that young people accrue different types of information from network contacts which can be useful for all job search tasks. Indeed, frequent networking offline and on social media is associated with positive job search outcomes. This is especially true of engaging with family members and acquaintances, and frequent use of Facebook for job search purposes. However, demographic and other contextual factors have a substantial impact on the nature of networking behaviours, and the extent to which they can influence outcomes. Additionally, young jobseekers face a range of barriers to networking, do not always utilise their networks thoroughly, and are more likely to use social media platforms as supplementary tools for job search. A key contribution of this work is that it provides a detailed insight into the process of networking that has been neglected in previous studies. Its focus on social media also reveals a new dimension to the concept which has received little attention in the job search literature. Given its focus on young jobseekers living in Scotland, the findings have also been used to create a detailed list of recommendations for practitioners.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation of the problems of including pictorial digital art in the context of Digital Libraries (DLs). The rational for this work is that digital art material is a significant source of learning and research, provided that it is systematically collected and maintained in structured electronic repositories. The thesis addresses a fundamental question: How to provide description and retrieval services, which are based on the needs of digital art user communities? This raises three research issues. One is the need to combine DL collections into meaningful and functional content. The second is the importance of a user-oriented approach to designing and developing Digital Libraries. The third is the requirement for continuing access to digital art as a record of modern culture. These questions are explored through a needs assessment targeted to Arts & Humanities scholars, digital artists and representatives of the DL community. A data collection methodology is developed, based on the principles of Social Informatics and a case study of evaluation efforts in extant projects. The results from this process demonstrate that the scholarly value of digital art can be established by aggregating material from various repositories into a unified dataset. The results also identify specific documentation and retrieval issues deriving from inclusion of digital art in a DL environment that necessitate further investigation. To this end, a review of sixteen digital art online resources is conducted which reveals ad-hoc collection strategies and metadata deficiencies. The work presents a prototype Digital Library for enhancing the educational outcome of digital art. The application is used as an implementation platform for material aggregation and augmented documentation through the Media Art Notation System (MANS). The summative evaluation findings confirm that the suggested solutions are highly rated by the targeted audiences. The thesis makes a contribution to academic knowledge in situating the representation of digital art within modern society. By critically examining the unique requirements of this material using the resources of social theory, the thesis represents a contemporary and pragmatic perspective on digital media art. In a well-structured Digital Library, the scholarly potential of digital art is much greater than the currently employed ad-hoc context. This work offers a sustained reflection and a roadmap for selecting and consistently applying a strategy that aims to continually improve the quality of digital art provision.