Electronic Communication Tools Research Articles

New bottle but old wine: A research of cyberbullying in schools

This study investigates the nature and the extent of adolescences' experience of cyberbullying. A survey study of 177 grade seven students in an urban city is conducted. In this paper, ''cyberbullying'' refers to bullying via electronic communication tools. The results show that almost 54% of the students were victims of traditional bullying and over a quarter of them had been cyber-bullied. Almost one in three students had bullied others in the traditional form, and almost 15% had bullied others using electronic communication tools. Almost 60% of the cyber victims are females, while over 52% of cyber-bullies are males. Majority of the cyber-bully victims and bystanders did not report the incidents to adults.

E‐learning at work: theoretical underpinnings and pedagogical challenges

PurposeFirst, to explore the application of e‐learning as a medium for workplace learning, as a form of adult learning and organisational learning from a theoretical point of view, second, to review empirical studies on recent solutions to pedagogical problems encountered in workplace learning in general and in e‐learning in particular, and finally, to consider the challenges facing the further development of e‐learning solutions targeted at the workplace.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews theories of adult learning, workplace learning and organisational learning and brings out main pedagogical implications of these theories from an e‐learning point of view. Some empirical studies in which electronic networks and communication tools have been utilised in workplace learning are also described.FindingsThe development of successful e‐learning solutions for the use of work organizations requires integrating research knowledge from different sources: theories of the learning organization, sociocultural theories of learning, and cognitive theories of learning.Practical implicationsBased on empirical examples and the literature review pedagogical challenges and theory‐based guidelines are presented for the design of e‐learning environments for the workplace. These include integration of theoretical knowledge with participants' practical experience, support for the explication of implicit knowledge, and encouragement of collaboration and knowledge exchange between different groups of people.Originality/valueThis paper integrates different theoretical approaches for the design of e‐learning environments of work organizations.

Determinants of e-communication adoption: The internal push versus external pull factors

Firms are engaging in the adoption and implementation of electronic communication tools to facilitate exchange between partners. Although extant studies have argued that market orientation is one of the key forces in driving a firm's adoption of innovation, the current study based on the responses of senior managers in four industries suggests otherwise in the context of e-communication adoption. In particular, we examine a firm's adoption of e-communication based on two forces: (1) internal push factors, namely customer orientation and competitor orientation, and (2) external pull factors, namely customer pressure and normative pressure. Structural equation modeling is used to test the model. Our findings indicate that external factors, particularly customer pressure and normative pressure, are far more critical in driving the intensity of e-communication adoption than internal factors. The results suggest a reactive nature of organizations' behavior towards the adoption of e-communication.

IT Project Managers' Perceptions and Use of Virtual Team Technologies

This paper presents the results of a case study pertaining to the use of information and communication media to support a range of project management tasks. A variety of electronic communication tools have evolved to support collaborative work and virtual teams. Few of these tools have focused specifically on the needs of project managers. In an effort to learn how practicing IT project managers employ these tools, data were collected at a North American Fortune 500 industrial company via interviews with IT project managers regarding their use and perceptions of electronic media within the context of their work on project teams. In this study, “virtual” describes the extent to which communication is electronic rather than the extent to which team members are geographically separated. Although the number of respondents was limited, the richness of the data collected leads to the conclusion that successful project managers and teams become skilled at adapting a variety of existing communication technologies to match the project task or process, the receiver, their own role as sender, and the content of the message. Groupware designers and developers need to better understand project management methods and best practices in order to provide better tools for practitioners, particularly as organizations expand globally and increasingly outsource various functions of their IT development and operations.

User Collaboration in Open Source Software Development

Open source development is labelled with free source, fast evolution and extensive user collaboration. Previous studies primarily touched on user activities in a few well‐known open source projects but lack the empirical data to represent important issues facing the open source development community. This paper reports on a survey‐based study that investigated user collaboration in open source development. Among the many interesting results, we found open source users themselves to be very experienced software developers. They are highly motivated to make their own contributions, work closely with developers on various tasks, and use electronic communication tools extensively. Users with different development experience and contributing to different category of projects tend to exhibit different motivations and behaviours. These findings confirm the differences between traditional and open source user collaboration and their implications for future open source evolution and management are given and discus...

Web-Based Trails and Cross-Campus Partnerships

SUMMARY At Portland State University, librarians work closely with faculty in cross-campus partnerships. Sharon Elteto presented examples of the Web-based trails created by librarians to aid faculty in integrating library resources into instruction, and other trails created by librarians working with faculty to aid students in conducting research. Maggie McVay-Lynch demonstrated and guided workshop participants in the use of four electronic communication tools.

Do hybrid flexible delivery teaching methods improve accounting students' learning outcomes?

This study investigates the association between the learning outcomes of students and two teaching models: a traditional face-to-face lecture/tutorial teaching model and a hybrid flexible delivery model. The hybrid flexible model is delivered using a combination of face-to-face seminars and electronic delivery and communication tools. It is found that academic performance is higher for students who studied under the flexible delivery model, achieved higher marks in prerequisite units, were female, or were younger. Evidence is provided that flexible delivery teaching models utilizing electronic delivery media can be used to achieve the benefits of small class sizes when teaching large student numbers. The results should be of interest to administrators and educators as they attempt to address the challenges of supplying tertiary education to an increasing number of students as well as meeting the perceived demand for flexible course delivery in a manner that can enhance students' learning outcomes. §Carlin Dowling and Jayne Godfrey were staff members at the University of Tasmania when most of this research was completed.

The Social Impacts of Electronic Mail in Organizations: A case study of electronic power games using communication genres

This paper investigates the effects of the introduction of electronic mail on organizational structure and power. It provides empirical support to the view that technology, organizational context, and individual actors interact to shape the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their effect on organizations. Through an analysis of power games reflected in the progressive constitution of electronic mail genres, it illustrates in particular how the specific organizational configurations in which technology is deployed deeply influence its ultimate use. Far from transforming an organization, it appears that the introduction of electronic communication tools may in certain circumstances help reinforce an organization's preexisting structure.

Organic Chemistry Online: Building Collaborative Learning Communities through Electronic Communication Tools

In this article, we report on the use of group research projects in an undergraduate course in organic chemistry to build small learning communities. Students engaged in group research projects via online resources and developed reports that were published online. They also worked together in groups to review the online reports of their peers. This work was facilitated by use of electronic media, including the course Web site, email, and an electronic discussion list.

Electronic communications for reference services: A case study

For more than three years, the Center for Electronic Records of the National Archives of the United States has used a variety of electronic communication tools in its Reference Services program. These include monitoring and participating in a number of network “listservs,” using electronic mail (e-mail) for reference communication, and providing copies of descriptive materials and finding aids online on the international computer networks via file transfer protocol (ftp) and via a “gopher” server. This article describes the types of services offered and discusses the Center's three years of experience with these tools. In addition, it provides an overview of constituency groups and volume of inquiries received and responded to using e-mail. Further, the analysis offers some general conclusions about the effects of electronic communications on the Center's Reference Services program, and on the provision of networked information services more broadly.