in the virtual extension
DOI:10.1145/1562164.1562168
in the Virtual extension
Communications’ Virtual Extension brings more quality articles to ACM
members. These articles are now available in the ACM Digital Library.
Ballot Box communication in
online communities
Mu Xia, Yun Huang, Wenjing Duan,
and Andrew B. Whinston
User interaction in online communities
is one of the most noted features in the
Web 2.0 era. A variety of sites devoted to
sharing pictures (flickr), video (You Tube),
collective music recommendations (last.
fm), and even voting for news articles that
deserve attention (Digg), as well as social
bookmarking ( del.icio.us) have, for the
first time, opened the door for users to
interact with each other through short
messages and other types of interaction.
nonmessage-based interactions have
become a major force behind successful
online communities. Recognition of this
new type of user participation is crucial
to understanding the dynamics of online
social communities and community
monetization.
examining user involvement in
continuous Software Development
Achita (Mi) Muthitacharoen
and Khawaja A. Saeed
This study examines different factors
that help promote users’ participation
in sending error reports through error
report systems (ERS) that take a proactive
approach by allowing users to send error-related information directly to the software
firms when their software experiences a
mishap. A survey conducted on 317 users
and ERS factors were ranked according to
their impacts on user’s intention to send
error report. Among several findings, the
results reveal that value compatibility is
the most influential factor. The study also
discovered initial evidence of user’s reflexive
behavior in their interaction with the ERS.
constructive function-based
modeling in multilevel education
Alexander Pasko and Valery Adzhiev
The authors describe how a shape modeling
and rendering framework based on the
rapidly progressing function representation
is used in the spirit of the educational
constructionism theory to implement
an active, creative, and collaborative
learning process. The modeling language
and software are being developed within
an international Hyperfun Project. The
authors applied the theoretical framework
and software tools on different levels of
education starting from elementary schools
to doctoral thesis research in various
areas related to mathematics, computer
graphics, programming languages,
artistic design, animation, and digital
fabrication. They illustrate the presented
approach by practical experience examples
from different educational institutions
and countries.
one Size Does Not fit all:
Legal Protection for
Non-copyrightable Data
Hongwei Zhu and Stuart E. Madnick
The Web is the largest data repository
on earth and Tim Berners-Lee has noted
“the exciting thing is serendipitous
reuse of data: one person puts data up
there for one thing, and another person
uses it another way.” However, data
reuse faces certain legal challenges. As
computing professionals develop new Web
technologies, we must understand the legal
implications of using them for data reuse
purposes. After reviewing legal and policy
issues, the authors discuss a framework
for policies that maximally allow value-creating data reuse without diminishing
the incentives of compiling databases and
making them available on the Web.
The State of corporate
Web Site accessibility
Eleanor T. Loiacono, Nicholas C. Romano,
Jr., and Scott McCoy
Web accessibility continues to have
important social, legal, and economic
implications for e-commerce. over 50
million Americans and around 600 million
people worldwide possess some sort
of disability. In this study, the authors
expound on a previous Communications
article that surveyed fortune 100 Web
sites for their level of accessibility at a
snapshot in time. This study adds three
additional data sets for a total of four—
2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005—to present
a longitudinal perspective. The authors
examine the reasons why global companies
should care about accessibility and offer
recommendations on how to get started.
Reducing employee computer
crime through Situational
crime Prevention
Robert Willison and Mikko Siponen
Employee computer crime represents
a substantial threat for organizations.
Yet information security researchers
and practitioners currently lack a clear
understanding of how these crimes
are perpetrated, which consequently
hinders security efforts. The authors
argue that recent developments in
criminology can help to address the
insider threat. More specifically, they
demonstrate how an approach, entitled
Situational Crime Prevention, can not
only enhance an understanding of
employee computer crime, but also
strengthen security practices designed
to address this problem.
modified agile Practices for
outsourced Software Projects
Dinesh Batra
In recent years, agile practices have
become popular in the software
development industry. However, some
agile practices break down when
faced with the realities of outsourced
development, including the larger size of
the typical project, and the geographical,
language, temporal, social, and cultural
barriers. This article explores how
agile practices must be reevaluated
in the broader software development
environment.
Technical opinion:
falling into the Net:
main Street america
Playing Games and
making friends online
James Katz and Ronald E. Rice
findings from a U.S. survey of the
general population identify how the
Internet is affecting the daily lives
of ordinary people. A nationally
representative random survey of 1,404
people finds that, on balance, there is
almost no evidence to support the harsh
contentions that the Internet is harmful
or breeds sad, lonely people as has been
asserted. neither is there evidence to
indicate the Internet is male-dominated.
Rather, the survey findings indicate
that millions of people find community
online, and many new friendships have
been forged. In fact, a significant fraction
of those friendships have extended from
the virtual to the face-to-face world. So
rather than people “dropping out” of life
to become hermits, data shows the net
is a pro-social medium, resource, and
network that brings people together.