The effects of individual-level espoused national cultural values on the willingness to use Bitcoin-like blockchain currencies

Some have called bitcoin a real bubble, while, according to others, it is the most radical invention of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, there is a consensus regarding the disruptive potential of blockchain technology, which is the basis of bitcoin and other similar cryptocurrencies. As the interest in these digital currencies is growing, many vendors around the globe now accept payments in blockchain-based currencies. However, not much is known about how individuals around the world would react to using blockchain-based currencies as spending currencies. Given the global reach of these currencies, in this study, we explore the role of national cultural values in influencing individuals’ willingness to use blockchain-based currencies. To do so, we collected survey data from the U.S. and India. We found that national cultural values (collectivism, power distance, masculinism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation) significantly affect blockchain-based currency usage.     

Reducing transaction uncertainty with brands in web stores of dual-channel retailers

Transaction uncertainty is an impediment to customer satisfaction and remains a problem in the dual-channel retailing context. Most consumers use web stores for information and evaluation. This process influences their subsequent retailer selection and consumer satisfaction. In this study, the retailer brand, as the source of transaction information, is considered as a solution to the problem of transaction uncertainty. Brand attractiveness, the affective aspect of brand, is identified as an affective-based uncertainty mitigator and is considered together with brand credibility, the cognitive aspect of brand. Drawing on the source attractiveness/credibility model, retailer brand attractiveness and credibility are proposed and confirmed to reduce transaction uncertainty, in turn improving customer satisfaction. The moderating role of online–offline channel integration on the uncertainty reduction effect of retailer brand attractiveness and credibility is investigated. Online–offline channel integration has been found to be the essential condition for the uncertainty reduction effect of retailer brand attractiveness. Online–offline channel integration is also found to form a synergy with retailer brand credibility in reducing uncertainty. These findings show that the web stores of dual-channel retailers should invest in brand attractiveness and credibility orderly and coordinate brand investment with online–offline channel integration.     

Tracking and recognizing emotions in short text messages from online chatting services

To automate the process of emotion recognition, in this study, we develop a computational approach for continuously tracking and analyzing users’ emotions while chatting online. Our work has several unique features: it provides relative probabilities of possible emotions for a word, constructs a distribution for each chatting message accordingly, performs a clustering procedure for the message distribution, and aggregates the emotions of continuous chatting sentences to draw the conclusion. To evaluate the proposed approach, we conducted experiments in two phases. The first phase was to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed computational approach in analyzing the chatting sentences. The participants were asked to focus on tagging emotions toward each sentence for a pre-designed dialogue. The second phase involves a real-time chatting between two online users. The participants were asked to choose topics and freely chat with each other. The messages were analyzed, and the results were provided to the users for their evaluations. The results show that our approach is both effective and efficient in tracking the emotions of chatting users. Additional analyses and further discussions were carried out to further evaluate the quantitative experimental results. All the findings confirmed the usefulness and feasibility of the presented approach.     

Globalization or Colonization in Online Education: Opportunity or Oppression?

ABSTRACT

A proliferation of student enrollment in online higher education, particularly in social work, may reflect a neoliberal shift from public good to private commodity. Critical theory is an excellent lens to assess whether there has been such a shift. While online higher education represents opportunities for information globalization, consciousness-raising, and social justice, it may also be an instrument of colonization related to profit generation, reliance on market transactions, and power related to discourse. Recommendations made here include targeted student recruitment and accessibility, geographically and culturally grounded knowledge integration, cultivation of market skills and student voice, and intentional outcome measures.     

State of e-Learning Marketing: Results and Recommendations from a Nationwide Survey

Abstract

To better understand how librarians across the country market e-learning resources to faculty, a survey was distributed to academic librarians in the United States to gauge what marketing strategies were being used, how the marketing responsibilities were being divided, and what strategies were deemed successful. The survey’s results suggested that active, tailored marketing strategies which utilize the traditional liaison model tend to be the most successful. This study emphasizes the need for communication among librarians and includes recommendations for increasing the awareness of e-learning resources on your campus.     

A systematic review of fantasy driven vs. contact driven internet-initiated sexual offences: Discrete or overlapping typologies?

Within the literature individuals who use the internet to facilitate the sexual abuse of a minor are generally classified as being fantasy or contact driven. Classification is based upon the intended location for sexual climax: fantasy driven individuals aim to reach sexual climax online, whereas contact driven individuals target minors to achieve physical sex offline. This review systematically investigates whether there is an empirical basis for the distinction between these two proposed discrete types. Comparison of tactics and behaviour are considered to examine whether the contact vs. fantasy distinction is useful. A two-stage literature selection process, considered against pre-determined inclusion criteria, identified a total of twenty-two studies. As methodological heterogeneity limited the ability to conduct pooled analysis, a narrative synthesis of data employing an interpretive approach was conducted. This showed that the contact and fantasy distinction is ambiguous, given that both groups engage in online behaviours that provide them with online sexual gratification that can also lead to offline contact. Furthermore, no clear pattern of behaviour was found to define contact and fantasy individuals idiosyncratically. The European Online Grooming Project typology is thus proposed as a better representation of this behaviour; intimacy seeking, adaptable and hypersexualized groups. The distinction between these groups focuses primarily on the intensity of the relationship, acknowledging that sexual abuse can occur with or without offline contact. This review also highlights the need for larger, methodologically robust studies that examine the behaviour of online child sexual offenders.     

An Introduction: Reimagining Social Work Education for the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

Despite the recent publication of a number of articles, along with current presentations at professional conferences, and a scholarly text all on the topic of distance learning and online social work education, many believe that the subject has not received the level of recognition among academics in our profession that it needs and deserves. This Introduction to a special double issue of a prominent peer-reviewed journal serves to welcome the reader to the contents of the seventeen articles that follow, and to provide both an overview and conceptual framework for the special issue as a whole. Underscoring both the opportunities and quandaries, support and resistance, most of the authors would appear to conclude that social work educators must rapidly become more agile in embracing the unique opportunities presented by the technology that we now have at hand.     

面向在线学习的形成性评价系统的构建

为适应广泛开展的在线教学,改进原有的学习效果评价方法,基于电子商务专业“图形图像处理”课程的教学实践,构建基于学习过程的评价系统,并从评价指标、评价指标的权重、评价主体、评价标准四个方面详细阐述形成性评价系统的构建过程。该评价系统更注重学生的学习态度、学习过程及其学习能力的培养,实际应用效果良好。     

Committing to Memory: A Project to Publish and Preserve California Local History Digital Resources

SUMMARY

This article highlights the LSTA-grant funded California Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP) as a case study of a collaborative statewide program involving three primary groups: cultural heritage institutions, grant funding agencies, and digital library service providers. It explores how the infrastructure of the California Digital Library (CDL) is utilized to preserve and promote public access to digitized local history collections, and discusses challenges and technical solutions to integrating heterogeneous resources into METS-based repositories. Project building blocks are also discussed, including digital object encoding and transmission tools, scanning services, metadata and imaging standards, and training programs.     

California Cultures: Implementing a Model for Virtual Collections

SUMMARY

This article highlights the California Cultures Project as a case study examining the architecture and framework required to support the deployment of digital objects as virtual collections at the California Digital Library. Chronologically arranged, it describes the Online Archive of California (OAC) Working Group's functional requirements for access to digital objects independent of parent finding aids, and the development and implementation of infrastructures supporting this vision. Discussion includes project organization and content selection for digitization, Web site service vision for K-12 teacher target audience, best practices for encoding, data standards, lesson plans, metadata requirements, METS creation tools, project manuals, repositories, search engines, tools enabling customizable interfaces, user assessment, and usability testing.