Gabriele Meiselwitz

Understanding Web Credibility: A Synthesis of the Research Literature

As more of our communication, commerce, and personal data goes online, credibility becomes an increasingly important issue. How do we determine if our e-commerce sites, our healthcare sites, or our online communication partners are credible? This paper examines the research literature in the area of web credibility. This review starts by examining the cognitive foundations of credibility. Other sections of the paper examine not only the general credibility of web sites, but also online communication, such as e-mail, instant messaging, and online communities. Training and education, as well as future issues (such as CAPTCHAs and phishing), will be addressed. The implications for multiple populations (users, web developers, browser designers, and librarians) will be discussed.

Universal Usability: Past, Present, and Future

Computers are used all over the world in a variety of contexts by users with all levels of technical experience. This includes users such as kindergarteners, older users, people with various impairments, people who are busy doing other tasks (such as driving a car), and users with differing levels of education, literacy, and socio-economic means. The concept of computer interfaces that will be easy to use, for all of these users, in all of these different situations, is known as “universal usability.” Making progress toward this goal requires innovations in techniques for gathering and understanding requirements, designing and developing interfaces, evaluation and assessment, development and use of standards, and public policy, and much work in this field remains to be done. This monograph will present an overview of universal usability as it currently exists in the human–computer interaction literature, and will also present some future directions for work in universal usability.

Heuristics for Implementation of Wiki Technology in Higher Education Learning

This paper discusses the use of wiki technology in higher education. Wikis are simple online information systems which often serve user communities. In higher education, wikis have been used in a supporting function to traditional courses; however, there is little research on wikis taking on a larger role as learning environments. This paper explores how wikis support goals of constructivist learning environments, especially communal constructivism theory. Further, it summarizes results of current research using wikis in the classroom and considers elements which can improve the use of wikis for learning. The paper concludes with a proposal of nine guidelines to improve the use of wiki technology as learning environments in higher education.

A taxonomy of novice user perception of error on the Web

Novice users face many challenges when browsing the Web. The goal of this experiment was to learn about how users perceive error situations when using the World Wide Web. Specifically, the goal was to learn which circumstances cause users to believe that an error has occurred. An exploratory experiment took place with 78 subjects who were novice users. In the experiment the subjects were asked to identify when they perceived that an error had occurred. The subjects reported a total of 219 error situations. These error situations were then classified by the researchers into the following four categories: user error, system error, situational error, and poor Web design. Based on the collected data, suggestions are presented for improving the usability of Web browsers and Web sites.

Readability assessment of policies and procedures of social networking sites

Many internet users today are members of social network sites, building personal profiles and interacting with millions of users worldwide. These virtual environments are based on Web 2.0 technology and offer rich user interaction, personalized use of the environment, and the option for sophisticated user-created content. Some of these environments have developed into large communities with complex relationships within the community, which are covered by policies and procedures. Users accept these when they sign up with the site, and many find that these policies and procedures can be quite complex and difficult to read. A large number of participants in these environments are children or teenagers, making it even more important to ensure that all users fully understand what these policies and procedures entail. Even adult users often have trouble understanding and applying the policies and procedures, and in many cases users just accept the default when registering with the site. This paper addresses the readability of such statements and evaluates the comprehension difficulty of standard policies and procedures of selected social network sites. It concludes with a summary and suggestions for future research.

Information security across disciplines

This paper describes a general education course in information security targeting all majors. A steady increase in security incidents in work and personal computing environments requires a trained workforce to respond to these incidents. In addition to educating computer professionals, undergraduate students of all disciplines should have the opportunity to be exposed to issues regarding computer security and forensics. This course addresses the understanding of information security across the disciplines, and has the goal to provide students with basic skills for identification of, prevention of, and response to security incidents. Students in the course completed a questionnaire assessing their security knowledge and skills in the beginning and at the end of the course. The paper concludes with a summary of data collected over three semesters.

Assessments in large- and small-scale wiki collaborative learning environments: recommendations for educators and wiki designers

This paper discusses assessment practice when wikis are used as learning environments in higher education. Wikis are simple online information systems which often serve user communities. In higher education, wikis have been used in a supporting function to traditional courses; however, there is little research on wikis taking on a larger role as learning environments and even less research on assessment practice for these learning environments. This paper reports on the assessment techniques for large- and small scale- learning environments. It explores the barriers to assessment described in the studies. The paper concludes with a proposal of five improvements to the wiki engine which could facilitate assessment when wikis are used as learning environments in higher education.

Human-Centered Computing: Defining a Research Agenda

Three National Science Foundation (NSF) programs—Human–Computer Interaction, Universal Access, and Digital Society and Technologies—were recently combined into one new cluster called “Human-Centered Computing” (HCC). Two workshops were held to share information about this new cluster with researchers, provide guidance to researchers who are early in their research careers and have yet to receive NSF funding, and provide feedback to NSF from the affected research communities regarding topics that are considered particularly important by this community. Continuing and emerging research opportunities identified included privacy and security issues in HCC context, intelligent user interfaces, universal access including research for different populations such as children and older adults, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and social computing, among others. Various issues concerning interdisciplinary research opportunities were also raised, including understanding the disciplines, promotion and tenure concerns, administrative overhead, and where to publish. Education discussions produced a list of curricular recommendations and a number of opportunities to enhance the education of future HCC practitioners and researchers.

Effects of Computer Competency on Usability and Learning Experience in Online Learning Environments

Many institutions in higher education are offering at least some of their curriculum online and use online course management systems to support these learning environments. Successful participation in online learning depends on many factors, and may especially be influenced by the degree of computer competency users bring with them to the learning environment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of several areas of computer competency on student learning experiences and learning environment usability in online learning environments. Subject of evaluation was a multi-section course consisting of eight sections taught in hybrid format; approximately 50% of course work was conducted using the World Wide Web. Results of the study have direct implications in online course design and development

Third agers and social networking in higher education

With an aging population and the social networking boom significant research has been performed in three areas. The first is the challenge higher education institutions face integrating social networking sites in class offerings. Students are embracing this medium at an accelerated rate; however, the benefits of social networking for students are not always clear. Secondly, this paper will look into the trend of seniors re-entering institutions of higher education; especially the challenges relating to Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking sites. Although a large number of seniors are online today; many are not comfortable using social networking [20, 14]. Finally, studies relating to the use of social networking sites by third agers outside the classroom will lead to a better understanding of potential challenges seniors and instructors may experience when seniors decide to return to the higher education roles.