This dissertation analysed the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of visual artists. An empirical survey was conducted on a sample of the more informationliterate visual artists in South Africa. A model of the information environment of South African visual artists was developed. This model provides a basis for another model which represents the optimal service that should be rendered to meet the needs of this user group. It was found that the general information needs of South African artists are fairly adequately met, but that there are several shortfalls, especially in serving their more complex information needs. The most important problems are the lack of training in the use of information sources and services, inadequate marketing of services and inadequate coverage of South African art. It was also found that greater coordination between service providers is urgently required, especially in the provision of information about South African art. / M. (Information Science)

The researcher investigated internet usage among students at the University of Nairobi using a quantitative case study method. A questionnaire-based survey was done among 381 students and face-to-face interviews were conducted with the university‟s library staff. The research findings indicate that the students' level of awareness about the internet services offered at the university was high. The students had good basic computer and internet skills; however, they lacked more advanced skills and this negatively affected their use of internet resources. The students used the internet for various purposes, including to study, teach and do research; to communicate; and for social interaction. The major recommendations of the study include providing formal internet training and adequate facilities; implementing a better, inclusive policy on internet use; and better co-ordinated university efforts. Free internet access should be made available to all the university students, if not all members of the university community. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In today's fast paced world, people have become increasingly interested in online communication to facilitate their lives and make it faster. This goes on from simple social interactions to more advanced actions like shopping on the internet. The presence of such activities makes it crucial for people to use their common sense and judgment to process all this information and evaluate what/who they trust and what/whom they do not. This process would have been much easier if the number of people in such networks is really small and manageable. However, there are millions of users who are hooked online every day. This makes the person very overwhelmed with his trusting decision, especially when it comes to interacting with strangers over the internet, and/or buying personal items, especially expensive ones. Therefore, many trust models have been proposed by computer scientists trying to evaluate and manage the trust between users using different techniques and combining many factors. What these computer scientists basically do is coming up with mathematical formulas and models to express trust in online networks and capture its parameters. However, social scientists are the people better trained to deal with concepts related to human behaviors and their cognitive thinking such as trust. Thus, in order for computer scientists to support their ideas and get a better insight about how to direct their research, people like social scientists should contribute. With this in mind, we realized in our group work the importance of such contribution, so we came up with the idea of my research work. In my search, I tried to find how these social scientists think and tackle a dynamic notion like trust, so we can use their findings in order to enhance our work and trust model. Through the chapters, I will discuss an already developed trust model that uses measurement theory in modeling trust. I will refer back to this model and see how other social scientists dealt with some of the issues encountered by the model and its functionality. Some small experiments have been done to show and compare our results with social scientists results for the same matter. One of the most important and controversial points to be discussed from social scientists' point of view is whether trust is transitive or not. Other points to be discussed and supported by social scientists' research include aggregation, reputation, timing effects on trust, reciprocity, and experience effects on trust. Some of these points are classified into trust mapping categories and others are related to trust management or decision making stages. In sum, this work is a multidisciplinary study of trust whose overall goal is to enhance our work and results, as computer scientists.