This paper focuses on the content analysis, a technique frequently used for the approach of issues concerning asynchronous computer mediated discussion groups in distance education. Despite the fact that this research technique is frequently used, there are still no standards established. There is a variety of approaches, varying both at detail’s level and at the type of categories of analysis ...

People with cognitive impairments have problems organizing their daily life autonomously. A virtual agent as daily calendar assistant could provide valuable support, but this requires that these special user groups accept such a system and can interact with it successfully. In this paper we present studies to elucidate these questions for elderly users as well as cognitively impaired users. Res...

Learning in asynchronous discussion groups: A multilevel approach to study the influence of student, group and task characteristics

This paper is targeted primarily at doctoral students and others considering hermeneutics as a research strategy. Research using hermeneutics was carried out with occupational therapy educators and clinicians in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. A total of 53 participants engaged in focus groups and individual interviews over a one-year. The paper explores hermeneutics as a credible, ...

Watching sports is a favorite pastime of many consumers. A more nomadic life style makes the traditional spectating venues unavailable. Designing a sports spectator experience using mobile devices poses design and technological challenges in order to achieve a good experience at an acceptable cost. Combining animations, which have higher understandability and lower cost, with video, which has a...

This paper presents a first sketch of the intonation and rich focus marking devices of Komotini Romani on the basis of an autosegmental-metrical analysis of spontaneous data prosody. Contrary to the “minimality condition” that has been argued to prevail in the choice of focus strategies, Komotini Romani often uses several focus marking devices concurrently. Moreover, Komotini Romani adds stress...

I-DIAG is an attempt to understand how to take the collective discussions of a large group of people and distill the messages and documents into more succinct, durable knowledge. I-DIAG is a distributed environment that includes two separate applications, CyberForum and Consolidate. The goals of the project, the architecture of IDIAG, and the two applications are described here.

The dominant narrative of the Internet has been one of unconstrained growth, abundance, and plenitude. It is in this context that new forms of organizing, such as online groups, have emerged. Yet the same factors that underlie the utopian narrative of Internet life also give rise to numerous online groups, many of which fail to attract participants or to provide much significant value. This sug...

We describe our work on seeding and building a developmental learning community for recruiting and retaining women in educational programs and careers related to computing and information science (CIS). Our approach is explicitly participatory: we work with young women to better understand how they view and approach CIS and to build activities that may attract women who would otherwise be disin...