Participation in contributing content to online communities remains heavily skewed. Yet little research has focused on lowering the contribution effort. I describe a general approach to facilitating user-generated content within the context of Wikipedia. I also present the IntelWiki prototype, a design and implementation of this approach, which aims to make it easier for users to create or enhance the free-form text in Wikipedia articles. The IntelWiki system i) recommends article-relevant reference materials, ii) draws the users' attention to key aspects of the recommendations, and iii) allows users to consult the recommended materials in context. A laboratory evaluation with 16 novice Wikipedia editors revealed that, in comparison to the default Wikipedia design, IntelWiki's approach has positive impacts on editing quantity and quality. Participants also reported experiencing significantly lower mental workload while editing with IntelWiki and preferred the new design.

Trust is a judgement of unquestionable utility - as humans we use it every day of our lives. However, trust has suffered from an imperfect understanding, a plethora of definitions, and informal use in the literature and in everyday life. It is common to say "I trust you, " but what does that mean? This thesis provides a clarification of trust. We present a formalism for trust which provides us with a tool for precise discussion. The formalism is implementable: it can be embedded in an artificial agent, enabling the agent to make trust-based decisions. Its applicability in the domain of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) is raised. The thesis presents a testbed populated by simple trusting agents which substantiates the utility of the formalism. The formalism provides a step in the direction of a proper understanding and definition of human trust. A contribution of the thesis is its detailed exploration of the possibilities of future work in the area.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on July 30, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In recent years an increasing focus has been placed on the development of students’ skills of critical thinking, problem solving and independent learning, throughout their time at university. There is an increasing shift towards incorporating activities which promote students’ active engagement with course materials – with the intention of promoting a deeper understanding of their chosen subject. Many tools and techniques are available that facilitate students’ transition from the passive recipient of knowledge, to a central, active actor in the learning process. One such tool, PeerWise, is an online, free to use application where students are encouraged to write multiple choice questions for their peers to answer, resulting in a bank of questions for students to test their knowledge and understanding. Students are given opportunities to give feedback to question authors on the quality of the question, in the form of a numerical rating or a qualitative comment, which provides further scope for students to engage in discussion about the question. It is hypothesised that actively engaging with course material will promote a deeper understanding of its content and will develop students’ skills of problem solving and critical thinking. The research in this thesis explores the relationship between engagement with PeerWise and performance in end of course examinations in six courses (physics, chemistry and biology), across three academic years within three research intensive UK universities. This work aims to unpick the nature of student interactions on PeerWise, and the extent to which engagement with each activity on the system is associated with attainment, when controlling for a student’s prior ability and other relevant factors such as their gender. Student views on engaging with the system have also been gathered to understand the degree to which students find PeerWise useful to their learning, and the ways in which they interact with the platform. Although the results paint a complex picture of the relationship between PeerWise use and attainment, in most courses, and for most ability levels, students who engage to a higher level with PeerWise achieve a higher exam score than their lower engaging peers. There is also often a significant, positive correlation between engaging with PeerWise and end of course exam score which persists, even when controlling for a student’s prior ability. Although it would seem to be that answering questions and writing high quality feedback is more often associated with attainment than writing questions and receiving feedback, the results suggest that engagement across all activities is most beneficial to students – indicating that overall engagement with the task is key to student learning.

Den utveckling som internet har genomgått har bidragit till att en rad förändringar har skett. Det innehåll som finns på internet har ändrats och skapas numer av dess användare lika mycket som av företag och organisationer. Det har skett en utökning av plattformar där användarna kan kommunicera och interagera med varandra och dela med sig av personliga åsikter och erfarenheter på ett enkelt sätt. Vi är dessutom mer kritiska till vad som skrivs på internet och reflekterar över vad som är pålitlig information eller inte, samtidigt som vi som turister och konsumenter bryr oss om och påverkas av vad andra tycker och tänker. Inom turismnäringen har TripAdvisor blivit en viktig plattform för denna form av informationsskapande och spridande. TripAdvisor är en arena där resenärer och turismverksamheter möts.   Syftet med uppsatsen är att kartlägga vad som skrivs på TripAdvisor och hur hotellverksamheter påverkas och arbetar med dessa omdömen, detta utifrån en studie av tre hotell i Karlstad. Uppsatsens syfte konkretiseras genom tre frågeställningar: Hur sker ryktesspridning via internet, så kallad e-WoM, inom hotellnäringen?, Hur ser hotellets arbete med omdömena ut? och Vilken påverkan har e-WoM för hotellen?. Detta undersöks genom kvalitativ metod i form av en textanalys av innehållet i TripAdvisor omdömen samt genom intervjuer med representanter från de tre hotellen. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkter berör user-generated content, elektronisk ryktesspridning, relations- och kommunikationsaspekter.   Studien har kommit fram till att innehållet i omdömena inte skiljer sig åt i någon större utsträckning gällande de tre hotellen. Hotellens arbete med TripAdvisor ser olika ut, två av hotellen arbetar aktivt med omdömena och det tredje saknar helt ett arbetssätt. Omdömenas påverkan är närvarande i hotellens arbete ur både positiv och negativ aspekt, här handlar det om förbättringsmöjligheter samt negativ publicitet. Att TripAdvisor omdömen fungerar som en viktig informationskälla och starkt påverkar potentiella gäster är något som framkommit tydligt under studiens gång.

Thesis (M.A.)--Texas State University--San Marcos, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-74). Also available on microfilm.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Mar. 31, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master Arts, [Department of] Humanities Computing, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

There has been a dramatic increase in the digitization of content consumers create and accumulate on their devices or social media platforms. People either create and store content on digital devices or cloud storage services or post content on social media platforms that provide network affordances. Given the sheer volume of user-generated digital content on devices and social media platforms, it is imperative to examine how consumers value it. Across eleven studies, I show that user-generated content on social media is valued less than similar user-generated content stored on digital devices or in the cloud. I propose a goal-theoretic framework to explain this difference in value. Consumers value user-generated content less as its creation and use are motivated more by a sharing goal and less by a memory preservation goal. However, consumers do value their user-generated content on social media when it is perceived to preserve meaningful memories. Lastly, I empirically demonstrate how enhancing the value of social media user-generated content has implications for platform loyalty, revenue model, and digital legacy regulation on these platforms. / 2024-05-16T00:00:00Z

This study examines information disclosure of Facebook users in America and Kenya. The main aim of this study is to find out the specific type of personal and demographic information that individuals disclose on their profiles. The literature review details the nature of social networking sites highlighting studies that have been carried out in the past on these sites. Self-disclosure is also discussed as described in the social penetration theory. An overview of the practice of public relations profession in Kenya is also given. The research study employs the content analysis methodology, with a total of 500 Facebook profiles being analyzed. Results of this study indicate that users disclose a lot of information on their Facebook profiles such as the use of a self-portrait as the main identifying mark on their profiles, their dates of birth, personal information such as religious and political views and education and work information. There are also major gender differences in information disclosure. There are also differences in information disclosure on Facebook between American users and Kenyan users. / Department of Journalism

Zugl.: Köln, Business School, Bachelorarbeit, 2007