While workers in an urban environment typically enjoy full speed, always available, broadband access, those in rural and remote environments do not necessarily have the same level of service. The goal of this thesis is to investigate positive and negative rural and remote work experiences, looking for novel ways to leverage available strengths in mitigating productivity challenges. An exploratory qualitative study suggests increasing reliance on networked technology by participants, to accomplish work. Larger human networks are common, where members have diverse levels of network access. Search Connected, a prototype tool, looks to leverage this human network to mitigate challenges that might be experienced during work in remote locations, improving search productivity. A preliminary study evaluating the tool suggests that participants see value in the tool and further research be pursued to find a tipping point between added communication overhead and search speed improvement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/23723 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Melvin, Roberta M. |
| Contributors | Bunt, Andrea (Computer Science), Young, James (Computer Science) Van Winkle, Christine (Kinesiology and Recreation Management) |
| Publisher | ACM |
| Source Sets | University of Manitoba Canada |
| Detected Language | English |
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