Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 57 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-51).

Ανάλυση λειτουργιών πρωτοκόλλου ΜΙΜΕ για τη διαχείριση ομάδων συζητήσεων (forums) και ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου (e-mail) σε ιστοσελίδες δικτυακού τόπου / Analysis of features of MIME presentation protocol

The purpose of the study was to test the generalizability of Steinfield's (1983) study by employing college students as research participants instead of members from a business organization. The study was concerned with identifying factors relating to different patterns of electronic mail (EM) use in a college setting. A total of 446 college students participated in the research. The two dimensions of EM use, task and social, were the dependent variables. The study examined the impact of several independent variables on EM use. Specifically, perceived ease of EM, social presence of EM, prior experience with EM, gender of the user, the number of people to communicate with, and perceived ease of access were investigated.Pearson correlations and t-tests were used to test the hypotheses. Significant relationships were obtained between perceived attributes and task/social use of EM. Prior experience with EM also was found to relate to task/social use of the medium. No significant differences were found for EM use on the basis of gender. However, there were significant relationships between the number of accounts through which to communicate with others and task/social use of EM. Additionally, a relationship was found between perceived ease of access to EM and task/social uses of EM. A significant correlation between students' and their instructor's task use of EM also was found. Finally, students' and instructor's social presence of EM were positively related to each other.The researcher recommended that future research be conducted on the basis of more sophisticated statistics, real-time based data, a content analysis, and pre- and posttests. An encouragement for new students to use EM for their own diverse purposes was suggested as a practical implication. / Department of Speech Communication

This thesis investigated the claim that the adaptation to the keyboard interface of a computer-mediated (CM) decision making group leads to differences in the style of communication when compared to that of a face-to-face (FTF) group. More importantly it examined the possibility that changes in satisfaction with the process and the decision outcome are determined not by the mode of communication, but rather the style of communication the decision makers employed in response to the keyboard interface. The decision processes of CM and FTF groups were examined using a simulated panel of enquiry presented via computer databases and containing inconsistent and incomplete shared information that could only be resolved through collaboration between the group members. An analysis of the communication styles employed in real-time CM and FTF groups (Experiment 1) revealed a tendency of CM discussions to exhibit a preference for a normative style of communication exchanging a proportionally high number of value statements and indications of preference, and for. FTF groups to rely proportionally more heavily upon factual and inferential statements. A paradigm for enabling intervention into the decision making process through the monitoring and coding of all group communication was developed (Chapter 2) which permitted the real-time analysis of the differences in communication style and aimed to reduce the differences in communication style. Using this paradigm and the norms for communication of the two forms of group (CM and FTF) established in Experiment 1, a series of studies examining the communication process were undertaken. Experiment 2 explored the possibility of intervening into the communication process using e-mail based support messages that conveyed the discrepancies between a CM groups communication style and the style a group might be expected to employ where it communicating FTF. Two configurations of support messages that each attempted to shape the communication style of CM decision panels to resemble those of FTF panels were considered. It was found that alerting users to their communication style and instructing them to increase or decrease certain styles of communication enabled them to more closely resemble the communication process and satisfaction levels of FTF groups. Experiment 3 considered the possibility that the presence of a monitoring system, rather than the content of the support messages provided, was the key issue in securing changes in the communication style of CM groups. Having established that it was indeed the content of the support messages that enabled CM groups to operate as if communicating FTF, attention turned to effects of the support. By easing the interpretation of the feedback through two configurations of visual feedback, Experiment 4 attempted to increase decision makers adherence to the content of the support messages. This study suggested that visual feedback alone was not sufficient to elicit the desired changes in communication style and that the text-based communication was required. Moreover, Experiment 4 considered the impact of support messages themselves, considering whether the support acted as continual assistance to the users or whether it merely trained the users to communicate in the desired way Conclusions from this study were slightly inconclusive, however, given that changes in communication styles had been achieved a further analysis of the content of the messages was undertaken. This final analysis (Chapter 7) revealed effects of confirmation bias within the communication and intervention steps that can on occasionally overcame such biases. The possibilities for the development of real-time intervention into these processes are considered and the findings interpreted in the light of existing theories of CM communication and recent developments in computer-based communication.

Anonymizers based on an intermediate computer (a set of them) located between the sender and the receiver of an e-mail message have been used for several years by senders of e-mail messages who do not wish to disclose their identity to the receivers. The job of the computer in the middle (the mediator) is to receive the message from the sender, delete the sender's address and other personal data from the header of the message, and forward the message to its final destination. In this paradigm, there are no means to hide the identity of the user from the mediator simple because the message sent arrives in the middle computer, with information that easily leads to the identity of the sender. The origin of this problem is that the sender uses a computer identified by an IP-address that unambiguously leads to the identity of its user. In fact, the sender discloses his identity to the mediator computer from the very moment lie sends his message in the hope that the mediator will protect it. Because of this, in this paradigm the strength of the system for protecting the identity of the sender depends on the ability and willingness of the mediator to keep the secret. In this dissertation we propose a novel approach to sending truly anonymous and confidential messages over the Internet which does not depend on a third party. Our idea departs from the mediator approach in that we do not use an IP-addressed computer to send anonymous messages, we use an IP-addressless computer instead, to be specific, we use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) which is IP-addresslessly connected to the Internet with the support of a Mobile Support Station (MSS). The PDA is identified by the MSS by a temporary, non-personal, random identifier (TmpId) which is assigned by the MSS and is valid only for one communication session. Thanks to the use of the TmpId, the sender of the anonymous messages does not need to disclose his identity to the MSS or to anybody else; thus, the strength of the system does not depend on any mediator. Having observed that a public telephone box provides complete anonymity when operated by coins, we took its functionality as a paradigm for our system. Thus, the main idea of our approach is to make the PDA, the MSS, and the Internet communication infrastructure imitate the work of a public telephone box connected to the telephone network. For this to be possible the PDA user uses anonymous electronic cash to pay for his anonymous message. To prove the feasibility of our approach and its correctness, the protocol of the proposed system was designed, specified in Promela specification language, and its basic safety properties and proper end-states were validated using the Spin validator.

Zugl.: Bochum, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

Thesis (D.Ed.) in Individualized Ph.D. Program--University of Maine, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-101).

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 19). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Zugl.: Greifswald, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Neil Rowe, Thomas Otani. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43). Also available online.