Assignment (MRek)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Texte remanié de: Th.--Sc. de l'information--Paris 8, 1996. / Bibliogr. p. 324-342.

<p> Knowledge sharing among software developers enhances the success of software design and implementation. However, there is an inadequate understanding of how communication factors such as negotiation and reciprocity impact the knowledge-sharing process within software development teams and between team leaders and team members. The present study used a correlational research design to test the relationship between the reciprocity (i.e., communication between team members), negotiation (i.e., communication between team leaders and team members), and knowledge sharing to determine whether different types of communication influence knowledge-sharing outcomes. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from a target population of software developers. The sample consisted of 85 software developers with a minimum of 2 years of experience working on software development teams. Multiple linear regression analyses were run to determine the extent to which the variables of negotiation, reciprocity, and knowledge sharing were related. The results indicated that the variables were significantly related, and 70% of knowledge sharing was the result of reciprocity-exchange of ideas and reciprocity-meetings. Team meetings and the open exchange of ideas between team members were found to be the most effective methods of reciprocity related to knowledge sharing among team members. Negotiation and team cohesiveness, however, were not significant to the knowledge-sharing process. The findings indicated that the process of knowledge sharing is more important than individual relationships between software development team members. Thus, from an organizational perspective, holding regular project meetings with all team members would be a more effective knowledge-sharing strategy than using team-building exercises to strengthen personal bonds between team members. Additional research is necessary to determine how software developers&rsquo; personal characteristics impact knowledge-sharing processes.</p><p>

<p> Insider threat by employees in organizations is a problematic issue in today&rsquo;s fast-paced, internet-driven society. Gone are the days when securing the perimeter of one&rsquo;s network protected their business. Security threats are now mobile, and employees have the ability to share sensitive business data with hundreds of people instantaneously from mobile devices. While prior research has addressed social networking topics such as trust in relation to information systems, the use of social networking sites, social networking security, and social networking sharing, there is a lack of research in the mindfulness of users who spill sensitive data contained within images posted on social networking sites (SNS). The author seeks to provide an understanding of how non-malicious spillage through images relates to the mindfulness of employees, who are also deemed insiders. Specifically, it explores the relationships between the following variables: mindfulness, proprietary information spillage, and spillage of personally identifiable information (PII). A quasi-experimental study was designed, which was correlational in nature. Individuals were the unit of analysis. A sample population of business managers with SNS accounts were studied. A series of video vignettes were used to measure mindfulness. Surveys were used as a tool to collect and analyze data. There was a positive correlation between non-malicious spillage of sensitive business, both personally identifiable information and proprietary data, and a lack of mindfulness. </p><p>

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This study examined the information – seeking behaviour of members of the economically disadvantaged community of Amsterdam. The study involved both a qualitative and quantitative investigation of the critical factors that affected information – seeking, need, and use in the Amsterdam community. The research design included a study of various information behaviour models with particular emphasis on Wilson’s 1996 general model of information – seeking behaviour. The three factors identified by Wilson for the study of various groups’ information behaviour were personality, work – related or work – role and environmental factors. Information science researchers, in the study of rural communities’ information behaviour, have used these three factors extensively. The data collection was triangulated with the use of survey, observations, and focus group discussions and in – depth interviews. The findings show how the person, in the context of information – seeking and the role-played within a given environment, could determine information needs and use. A person in the context of information – seeking, could be a father, a mother, a group leader, a nurse or a teacher. The main elements are the situation within which a need for information arises, and the person performing a role in an environment situated within the context of information – seeking. Information was found to be a critical commodity for the socio – economic, political, and educational development of any given community. Recommendations were made that could transform the community of Amsterdam, through the provision of sustainable information.

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Yes / In this paper we explored three areas: decision making and information seeking, the relationship between information seeking and uncertainty, and the role of expertise in influencing information use. This was undertaken in the context of a qualitative study into decision making in the initial stages of emergency response to major incidents. The research took an interpretive approach in which activity theory is used as an analytical framework. The research provides further evidence that the context of the activity and individual differences influence the choice of decision mode and associated information behavior. We also established that information is often not used to resolve uncertainty in decision making and indeed information is often sought and used after the decision is made to justify the decision. Finally, we point to the significance of both expertise and confidence in understanding information behavior. The contribution of the research to existing theoretical frameworks is discussed and a modified version of Wilson's problem-solving model is proposed.

Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR) systems provide users with functionalities of representation, storage, organisation of and access to various types of electronic information resources based on their textual and geographic context. This thesis explores various aspects of the development, evaluation and application of GIR systems. The first study focuses upon the extraction and grounding of geographic information entities. My approach for this study consists of a hierarchical structure-based geographic relationship model that is used to describe connections between geographic information entities, and a supervised machine learning algorithm that is used to resolve ambiguities. The proposed approach has been evaluated on a toponym disambiguation task using a large collection of news articles. The second study details the development and validation of a GIR ranking mechanism. The proposed approach takes advantage of the power of the Genetic Programming (GP) paradigm with the aim of finding an optimal functional form that integrates both textual and geographic similarities between retrieved documents and a given user query. My approach has been validated by applying it to a large collection of geographic metadata documents. The third study addresses the problem of modelling the GIR retrieval process that takes into account both thematic and geographic criteria. Based on the Spreading Activation Network (SAN), the proposed model consists a two-layer associative network that is used to construct a structured search space; a constrained spreading activation algorithm that is used to retrieve and to rank relevant documents; and a geographic knowledge base that is used to provide necessary domain knowledge for network. The retrieval performance of my model has been evaluated using the GeoCLEF 2006 tasks. The fourth study discusses the publishing, browsing and navigation of geographic information on the World Wide Web. Key challenges in designing and implementing of a GIR user interface through which online content can be systematically organised based on their geospatial characteristics, and can be efficiently accessed and interrelated, are addressed. The effectiveness and the usefulness of the system are shown by applying it to a large collection of geo-tagged web pages.