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Educational technology research studies have found computer and software technologies to be underutilized in U.S. classrooms. In general, many teachers have had difficulty integrating computer and software technologies into learning activities and classroom curricula because specific technologies are ill-suited to their needs, or they lack the ability to make effective use of these technologies. In the development of commercial and business applications, participatory design approaches have been applied to facilitate the direct participation of users in system analysis and design. Among the benefits of participatory design include mutual learning between users and developers, envisionment of software products and their use contexts, empowerment of users in analysis and design, grounding of design in the practices of users, and growth of users as designers and champions of technology. In the context of educational technology development, these similar consequences of participatory design may lead to more appropriate and effective education systems as well as greater capacities by teachers to apply and integrate educational systems into their teaching and classroom practices. We present a case study of a participatory design project that took place over a period of two and one half years, and in which teachers and developers engaged in the participatory analysis and design of a collaborative science learning environment. A significant aspect of the project was the development methodology we followed - Progressive Design. Progressive Design evolved as an integration of methods for participatory design, ethnography, and scenario-based design. In this dissertation, we describe the Progressive Design approach, how it was used, and its specific impacts and effects on the development of educational systems and the social and cognitive growth of teachers. / Ph. D.

In today's digital age, social media platforms have become powerful tools for communication, enabling users to express their opinions while also exposing them to various forms of hateful speech and content. While prior research has often focused on the efficacy of online counterspeech, little is known about peoples' motivations for engaging in it. Based on a survey of 458 U.S. participants, we develop and validate a multi-item scale for understanding counterspeech motivations, revealing that differing motivations impact counterspeech engagement between those that do and not find counterspeech to be an effective mechanism for counteracting online hate. Additionally, our analysis explores peoples' perceived effectiveness of their self-written counterspeech to hateful posts, influenced by individual motivations to engage in counterspeech and demographic factors. Finally, we examine peoples' willingness to employ AI assistance, such as ChatGPT, in their counterspeech writing efforts. Our research provides insight into the factors that influence peoples' online counterspeech activity and perceptions, including the potential role of AI assistance in countering online hate. / Master of Science / In today's digital age, social media platforms have become powerful tools for communication, enabling users to express their opinions while also exposing them to various forms of hateful speech and content. In addition to content moderation, counterspeech, or direct responses aimed at undermining hateful speech, is a tool that is being explored by organizations to counteract online hate, as it has been shown to prevent "platform hopping" while also promoting free speech. While prior research has primarily focused on the effectiveness of various types of counterspeech, little is known about what motivates people to engage in it. Based on a survey of 458 U.S. participants, we develop and validate a multi-item scale for understanding counterspeech motivations, revealing that differing motivations impact counterspeech engagement between those that do and not find counterspeech to be an effective mechanism for counteracting online hate. Additionally, our analysis explores peoples' perceived effectiveness of their counterspeech, influenced by individual motivations to engage in counterspeech and demographic factors. Finally, we examine peoples' willingness to employ AI assistance, such as ChatGPT, in their counterspeech writing efforts. Our research provides insight into the factors that influence peoples' online counterspeech activity and perceptions, including the potential role of AI assistance in countering online hate.

The way in which environmental designers design neighborhood spaces has a role to play in the quality of outdoor spaces that shapes and directs daily outdoor social activities as well as creates a bridge between individuals and the local community. The high quality design of outdoor spaces is fundamental in fostering social cohesion among users/residents in order to produce a healthy social atmosphere, whereas a decline in the quality of outdoor spaces can contribute to antisocial behavior. Today, In Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia, in many cases of new neighborhoods, the outdoor space has become abandoned, and empty, or is avoided. Within this setting, these spaces do not provide opportunities for families with their children to gather and play, to sit and socialize with neighbors, to gather in outdoor activities, to walk to the mosque or school, or to do their daily grocery shopping without being threatened by dangerous car traffic. Moreover, even if users and residents experience problems in their neighborhood, and have their own needs and visions to solve the problem, they do not have the experience to mentally visualize and resolve these problems. Through this qualitative research, the researcher proposes a new approach in incorporating users' imagination in the ideation process of design in order to examine to extend the current normative theory through the development of a more "collaborative ideation process."In this new collaborative process, the representation of ideas becomes more iterative and knowledge exchange between researcher and users becomes more seamless. Through incorporating the researcher's sketching skills as a process of "collaborative-sketching," possible ideas and solutions are explored that are responsive to the needs and desires of users. Using a number of photographs of an outdoor residential space as an example, the objective of this study is to examine the use of collaborative sketching as a way of taping into users' imagination as a rich source of their needs and desires to empower the design process. The findings showed that applying a collaborative sketching process in the early ideation stage of design can result in a rich exchange between designers and user, enabling the designer to have a better and more realistic understanding of needs and desires from the perspective of the user. Through this collaborative-sketching process, the users were continuously, iteratively, and instantly stimulated to not only to narrate their needs and desires, but to visually provide realistic and specific details about the social activities and physical elements including their affordance, rationale of using, value of use, and how social interactions might occur within the different settings. / Ph. D.

Cloud-based collaborative editors enable real-time document processing via remote connections. Their common application is to allow Internet users to collaboratively work on their documents stored in the cloud, even if these users are physically a world apart. However, this convenience comes at a cost in terms of user privacy. Hence, the growth of popularity of cloud computing application stipulates the growth in importance of cloud security. A major concern with the cloud is who has access to user data. In order to address this issue, various third-party services offer encryption mechanisms for protection of the user data in the case of insider attacks or data leakage. However, these services often only encrypt data-at-rest, leaving the data which is being processed potentially vulnerable. The purpose of this study is to propose a prototype software system that encrypts collaboratively edited data in real-time, preserving the user experience similar to that of, e.g., Google Docs.

In spite of the popularity of technologies that facilitate distance learning, institutions still educate students who gather together in shared physical spaces. But now even these traditional settings for learning are more collaborative and technology-rich environments. Qualitative methods in the sociolinguistic tradition allowed me to attend carefully to the vocal and non-vocal interactions of students engaged in a computer supported collaborative authoring assignment. Three research questions guided my inquiry: 1) In what ways did students negotiate roles and responsibilities?; 2) In what ways did students negotiate access to their assignment?; and 3) what was the nature of discourse in computer supported collaborative authoring? I conducted microanalysis of the communication in online discussions and face-to-face discourse throughout an entire semester of one graduate level course entitled The Psychology of Teachers and Teaching. My data revealed that the online discussion forum, physical proximity to the computer during face-to-face collaboration and instructor influence shaped the students’ roles and responsibilities as well as their entry into the assignment. I propose a model illustrating how students negotiate entry into computer supported collaborative authoring assignments and discuss its implications for teaching and learning. / text

La Web Social y la Web Semántica han impactado en la forma en que la creación de conocimiento se ha llevado a cabo en la Web. La Web Social promociona la participación de los usuarios para crear y editar contenido y conocimiento en la Web. La proliferación de contenido y la necesidad de tener una administración automatizada de esta información disparó la aparición de la Web Semántica. Actualmente, la Web Social y la Web Semántica conviven y comparten un mismo tema: un mejor manejo del conocimiento. Sin embargo, la mayoría de la información en la Web Social no es parte de la Web Semántica, y la información de la Web Semántica no es utilizada para mejorar a la Web Social. Esta tesis presenta un enfoque innovador para estimular una co-evolución entre la Web Semántica y la Web Social: las fuerzas que impulsan la Web Social y las herramientas que llevan a cabo la Web Semántica trabajando en conjunto con el fin de tener beneficios mutuos. En este trabajo afirmamos que la co-evolución entre la Web Social y la Web Semántica mejorará la generación de información semántica en la Web Semántica, y mejorará la producción de conocimiento en la Web Social. Esto invita a responder las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cómo puede incluirse la generación de datos semánticos en las actividades de los usuarios de la Web Social? ¿Como puede definirse la semántica de un recurso web en un entorno social? ¿Cómo puede inyectarse en la Web Social las nuevas piezas de información extraídas de la Web Semántica? ¿Poseen las comunidades de la Web Social convenciones generales que deban ser respetadas? Con el fin de mejorar la Web Semántica con las fuerzas de la Web Social, en este trabajo se proponen dos enfoques de Social Semantic Tagging: P-Swooki que permite a usuarios de una wiki semántica gestionar anotaciones semánticas permitiendo completar el proceso de construcción de conocimiento, y Semdrops que permite a los usuarios describir en forma semántica cualquier recurso de la Web tanto en un espacio de conocimiento personal como en un espacio compartido. Además, con el fin de mejorar el contenido de la Web Social, proponemos BlueFinder: un sistema de recomendación que detecta y recomienda la mejor manera de representar en un sitio de la Web Social, información que es extraída de la Web Semántica. En particular, BlueFinder recomienda la manera de representar una propiedad semántica de DBpedia en Wikipedia, respetando las convenciones de la comunidad de usuarios de Wikipedia. / Tesis realizada en co-tutela con la Universidad de Nantes (Francia). Director de tesis por la Universidad de Nantes: Pascal Molli; co-director de tesis por la Universidad de Nantes: Hala Skaf-Molli. Grado alcanzado por la Universidad de Nantes: Docteur de l'Université de Nantes.

Le développement d'un environnement collaboratif est un processus complexe. La complexité réside dans le fait que ce développement implique beaucoup de prise de décisions. De multiples compromis doivent être faits pour répondre aux exigences actuelles et futures d'utilisateurs aux profils variés. La prise en compte de cette complexité pose des problèmes aux chercheurs, développeurs et utilisateurs. Les informations et données requises pour prendre des décisions adéquates de conception et évaluer rigoureusement ces décisions sont nombreuses, parfois indéterminées et en constante évolution. Dans la partie-I de cette thèse, nous formulons les connaissances générales sur le travail collaboratif synchrone qui constituent l'état de l'art du domaine du problème. Nous pratiquons de même pour les environnements collaboratifs synchrones (domaine de la solution technique) et leur cette formulation s'appuie sur une étude de la littérature et conduit à la proposition de Schéma Conceptuel (Concept Maps). Nous en déduisons trois modèles: SyCoW (travail collaboratif synchrone), SyCoE (environnement collaboratif synchrone) et SyCoEE (évaluation environnement collaboratif synchrone). Dans la partie II de cette thèse, nous proposons un processus pour la sélection / développement d'un environnement collaboratif, où nous démontrons comment les modèles SyCoW, SyCoE et SyCoEE structurent ce processus. Grâce à la mise en œuvre de la démarche proposée, nous présentons le développement d'un nouvel environnement collaboratif synchrone pour une réunion de revue de conception nommé MT-DT. MT-DT a été conçu, développé et évalué par l'auteur dans sa thèse de doctorat. MT-DT est une application logicielle 3D spécifique à une table multi-touche qui assiste les activités de revue de conception collaborative. Les résultats de l'évaluation ont confirmé la convivialité de MT-DT et fournissent des éléments de validation des choix que nous avons faits au cours du développement de MT-DT. / Development of collaborative environment is a complex process. The complexity lies in the fact that collaborative environment development involves a lot of decision making. Several tradeoffs need to be made to satisfy current and future requirements from a potentially various set of user profiles. The handling of these complexities poses challenges for researcher, developers and companies. The knowledge required to make suitable design decisions and to rigorously evaluate those design decisions is usually broad, complex, and evolving. In Part-I of this thesis we investigate to formulate the general knowledge about: synchronous collaborative work which conceptualize the problem domain, synchronous collaborative environment which conceptualize the solution domain and synchronous collaborative environment evaluation which conceptualize the evaluation of whole or part of the proposed solution for the specified problem. This formulation has been done through literature study and leaded to the Concept Maps. The results generate three models: SyCoW (synchronous collaborative work), SyCoE (synchronous collaborative environment) and SyCoEE (synchronous collaborative environment evaluation). In Part-II of this thesis we proposed a process for selection/development of collaborative environment, where we demonstrate how SyCoW, SyCoE and SyCoEE support this process in different ways. Through the proposed process we present the development of new synchronous collaborative environment for design review meeting, named, MT-DT. MT-DT has been designed, developed and evaluated by the author in her PhD. MT-DT consist of a multi-touch table with specific 3D software application which support collaborative design review activities. The results of evaluation confirmed the usability of MT-DT and provide arguments for our choices which we made during development of MT-DT.

La complexité des systèmes urbains est un défi constant pour les acteurs qui y sont confrontés. L’appréciation de ce phénomène est largement conditionnée par la posture (usager, technicien, pouvoir public, chercheur) et le bagage culturel, disciplinaire et professionnel, comme en rend compte une littérature pluridisciplinaire prolifique. Sur le plan de la recherche, multiplier les regards sur les systèmes complexes contribue à déceler des pistes de développements originales. Cette thèse est le fruit d’une rencontre entre le génie industriel, les sciences politiques et l’urbanisme autour d’une logique de transfert technologique. En effet, les technologies de la conception, notamment collaborative, et de l’innovation centrée-utilisateur sont parmi les réponses du génie industriel aux problématiques générées par la complexité et auxquelles doit faire face le monde industriel. Notre analyse nous amène alors à considérer le potentiel que représente l’adaptation de la conception collaborative distribuée (CCD). En conséquence, nous formulons des outils, des méthodes et un environnement nécessaires au développement d’une CCD dédiée aux projets urbains afin de favoriser leur acceptabilité globale et durable. Ces travaux posent alors la question de la place accordée à l’usager final dans le processus de conception des projets urbains. Dans ce cadre, les sciences politiques nous aident à comprendre les rapports entre citoyens et experts. Ce faisant nous pouvons poser les bases d’une approche collaborative dès la phase de conceptualisation car celle-ci influence l’ensemble du développement des projets. Plus globalement, le collaboratif participe à l’émergence de villes durables / The complexity of urban systems is a constant challenge for the actors who are confronted with it. Prolific multidisciplinary literature shows the appreciation of this phenomenon is widely conditioned by personal culture, disciplinary knowledge and professional know-how. From a research angle, analyzing complex systems from various points of view (user, technician, public authority, researcher) helps generate original development opportunities. This thesis results from a meeting between industrial engineering, political sciences and town planning around a logic of technology transfer. Indeed, the technologies of collaborative design and user-centric innovation are among the answers industrial engineering brings to problems generated by complexity. Our analysis brings us then to consider the potential that the adaptation of distributed collaborative design (DCD) represents. Consequently, we formulate tools, methods and one specific environment necessary for the development of a DCD dedicated to urban projects to facilitate their global and sustainable acceptability. These studies ask subsequently the question of role which should be given to the final user in the urban project design process. Political sciences help us to understand the relations between citizens and experts. This gives us elements to develop a collaborative approach from the conceptualization phase as this impacts the whole development of the projects. More globally, such collaborative processes may contribute to the emergence of sustainable cities