Eva-Maria Jakobs

Reproductive writing—writing from sources

Abstract The subject of this paper is ‘reproductive writing’, a term covering all forms of writing that involve other texts. Different kinds of reproductive writing are discussed with the main focus on text production in which the writer uses other texts in academic writing for the development of his or her own ideas as well as for references to the scientific literature. Receptive, reproductive, and productive processes all interact in reproductive writing. Situational and individual constraints on this type of text production are discussed in terms of the results of a survey of scientific writers from a variety of disciplines at German universities.

Usability Evaluation of Mobile Passenger Information Systems

Public transportation becomes increasingly diverse because of innovation in transport modalities and a large number of service providers. For facilitating passengers’ comfort, intermodal passenger information systems are required, which combine data of different providers and transport modes. Therefore, context sensitive mobile applications are promising solutions to supporting passengers at every stage of their trip. Crucial for the success of these applications is their usability. In this paper, a prototype of an intermodal passenger information system is investigated in a usability evaluation and tested in comparison to the leading mobility application in Germany. Both iOS apps were evaluated with a questionnaire using the system usability scale (SUS) in a lab setting (n=20) and in a field test (n=20). Additionally, participants of the field test were interviewed retrospectively about app and setting. The user feedback was beneficial in learning about users’ expectations towards information retrieval procedure in and functionalities of a passenger information system. The usability evaluation basically revealed easy to improve usability problems, but also a trust issue and the need for a participatory component in public transportation, probably by integrating social media.

Writing at Work

Der Beitrag gibt einen Uberblick zu den Fragestellungen, Methoden und Defiziten der Forschungsrichtung. In einem Inklusionsmodell werden relevante Aspekte des Schreibens im Beruf und seiner Rahmenbedingungen erfasst und im Anschluss ausgewahlte Aspekte diskutiert: der Zusammenhang zwischen Beruf, Schreibertyp und -aufgabe, Status, Stellenwert und Umfang des Schreibens, Arbeitssituation bzw. -organisation sowie dem Textproduktionsprozess. Der Textproduktionsprozess komplexerer Organisationen wird beschrieben als document cycling und/oder kooperatives Schreiben, das institutionelle Reviewprozesse einschliest. Ein anderer Schwerpunkt betrifft mediale Aspekte (IuK) sowie domanenspezifische Formen des Schreibens am Arbeitsplatz. Abschliesend werden Forschungsfelder benannt. Der Aachener Forschungsschwerpunkt gilt dem Schreiben in technikbezogenen beruflichen Kontexten (Ingenieurwissenschaften).

Reasons for Using Social Networks Professionally

Since the success of social media in private usage settings, social media applications spread rapidly in the working context. In business internal contexts these applications seem useful as a measure for strategic knowledge management. Social media in this context promises to offer adequate facilities to support a systematic storage of knowledge as well as a support of knowledge exchange and communication in enterprises. But since social media is only successful when used, the usage motivation of employees is one central key for their success. Therefore this paper focusses on the motivation to use social media professionally. To achieve this we are investigating the influence of user diversity factors such as age, gender, and social media expertise on aspects of usage motivation. In a study with N=84 the employees of an enterprise were asked which reasons for using social media are relevant to them. Findings show that both factors age and gender reveal a relatively low influence on the factors evaluation of usage motives, tools as a measure for motivation, and incentives/reinforcements for social network usage. In contrast both expertise with social media and achievement motivation revealed many correlations with both usage motives and tools as well as incentives and reinforcements.

Schreiben am Arbeitsplatz

Wer als Ingenieur in der Industrie erfolgreich sein will, muss kommunizieren konnen, sowohl mundlich als auch schriftlich. Ingenieure in allen Bereichen mussen ihre Arbeit dokumentieren — fur den Vorgesetzten, fur den Kunden, den Geldgeber oder die Scientific Community. Sie mussen verstandlich, pragnant und uberzeugend vermitteln konnen, warum sie und ihre Arbeit gebraucht werden. Wem das nicht bewusst ist, wer keine ausreichende Kompetenz in der schriftlichen Ausdrucks-fahigkeit mitbringt, ist auf lange Sicht fur ein Unternehmen nicht interessant. (Hochschullehrer, Elektrotechnik)

Kommunikation in Netzwerken

Zu den Grosen, die den Erfolg von Netzwerken zu beeinflussen vermogen, gehort u. a. die Qualitat der Kommunikation im Netzwerk wie auch des Austausches zwischen Netzwerk und Umwelt. Netzwerke basieren auf dem Prinzip der Kooperation. Kooperation heist Interaktion; Interaktion erzeugt kommunikativen Bedarf.

New ways to develop professional communication concepts

This paper presents an interdisciplinary approach concerning a professional communication concept for energy projects using the example of deep geothermal energy. The interdisciplinary approach combines methods and approaches of engineering science, psychology, and professional communication. The communication concept is based on empirical case studies. It addresses decision makers (e.g. project leaders or mayors), communication professionals working for energy projects, and interested citizens. It aims to enable project managers and communication experts to establish an open-minded dialog between both sides (project leader and involved stakeholders) that fosters the public acceptance of renewable energy projects and helps interested people to inform themselves about the given technology. The communication strategy consists of a communication concept, background information, guidelines, and a Web app. The strategy supports information and communication tasks along the whole project life cycle and reacts on site- or event-specific needs. The communication strategy can be adapted to support the introduction and operation of other technologies.

Co-creation by commenting: Participatory ways to write Quicklook® reports

The authors examined comments in revisions of 24 Quicklook® reports that were written to provide market feedback to entrepreneurs. Most Quicklook reports underwent a revision cycle, and the number of comments per draft varied considerably. Based on this analysis, commenting was frequently used to provide revision guidance from staff to the assessors who authored the Quicklook reports. The commenting activities focus on the overall objective to deliver strong arguments for an innovation from the markets perspective. Therefore, the most comments address the Quicklook reports most important sections: Potential Commercial Markets, Competitors and Benefits, and Potential Benefits. In particular, staff comments addressed co-creation, argumentation, the writing process, and text quality. We conclude by calling for further research into such reports in particular and entrepreneur communication in general.

Handbook of writing and text production

This handbook explains state-of-the-art research on writing and text production, focusing on theory and methodology, authors, modes/media, genres, and domains. Exemplary research projects illustrate the theoretical perspectives from globally relevant research spaces and traditions. Both established and future scholars can benefit from the handbooks fresh approach to real-life writing in a globally connected, multi-semiotic, and mediatized world.

Talking about mobile communication systems: verbal comments in the web as a source for acceptance research in large-scale technologies

In the research project HUMIC (RWTH Aachen University) we strike out in a new direction in acceptance research. In order to identify previously undetected acceptance factors in user-generated content, traditionally used methods are complemented by innovative methods of computational linguistics. Verbal comments from social media tools like weblogs are analyzed by text mining methods with the aim to get access to user judgements. This methodology offers the possibility to learn how user perceive and conceptualize large-scale technologies using the example of the mobile communication systems.