Timothy R. Hill

Toward Third Generation Threaded Discussions for Mobile Learning: Opportunities and Challenges for Ubiquitous Collaborative Environments

The mobile communication revolution has led to pervasive “connectedness—as evidenced by the explosive growth of instant messaging in the home, and more recently, the enterprise–and, together with the convergence of mobile computing, provides a basis for extending collaborative environments toward truly ubiquitous “immersion.” Leveraging the true anytime/anywhere access afforded by mobile computing, it becomes possible to develop applications that not only are capable of responding to users whenever/wherever, on demand, but that also may actively “seek out” and engage users when the need arises. Thus, immersive environments need no longer be thought of strictly in terms of physical immersion with clearly discernable “enter” and “exit” events, but rather they may be extended, through mobile-enabled computing, toward ubiquity in terms of both time and space. Based on Media Synchronicity Theory, potential benefits are envisioned, particularly in the case of collaborative learning environments, from shortened response cycles and increased real time interaction opportunities. At the same time, a number of challenging issues must be addressed in designing such an environment to ensure user acceptance and to maximize realization of the potential. Third Generation (3G) Threaded Discussion has been conceptualized as an environment, well suited to mobile learning (m-learning) that could leverage mobile-enabled ubiquity to achieve a degree of extended immersion and thereby accrue the associated collaboration benefits. Exploring this conceptualization serves to help surface both the opportunities and the challenges associated with such environments and to identify promising design approaches, such as the use of intelligent agents.

The Emerging Challenge of Knowledge Management Ecosystems: A Silicon Valley High Tech Company Signals the Future

A Silicon Valley case study serves as a leading indicator of knowledge management challenges emerging in high-tech knowledge economies. Though a leader in technology innovation, this multi-billion-dollar semiconductor company struggles with traditional knowledge management efforts in technical support owing to the sheer complexity and dynamism of their intellectual property. Add to this the back-end knowledge linkages to suppliers and customer-driven knowledge channels sprouting like weeds and a managed ecosystem perspective emerges. Implications of these emerging phenomena for knowledge management theory and practice are discussed.

Effects of Perceiver / Target Gender and Social Networking Presence on Web-based Impression Formation

As the Web has expanded in its use and utility it has fundamentally changed the way in which individuals gather and use information. This paper suggests that those changes give rise to tangible and significant effects in the impressions people form of others using Web-based information. This study explores the impacts of perceiver gender, target gender, and social networking presence on subjects’ perceptions of potential teammates otherwise unknown to them as revealed by ratings they assign based only on search engine results. Experiments reveal differences in how male and female perceivers view others’ social networking activity in general and suggest that how the perceiver gender matches, or differs, from the gender of the target affects how social networking presence plays into impression formation. Findings hold implications for professionals, academics and individuals concerned with the role that Web-based information plays in impression formation and how inherent gender-based biases may affect power and politics in the workplace and beyond.

Playing ‘catch up’ with blended learning: performance impacts of augmenting classroom instruction with online learning

ABSTRACT This study examines the efficacy of blended learning – an approach that combines in-class and online methods in a way that leverages the strengths of both – using a field experiment spanning 16 weeks. An information-processing model of learning suggests that learners will weigh the cost of information accessibility against its value in ways that will impact their interactions with the available information sources, which will consequently affect learning outcomes. Results of our study suggest that such an assessment did indeed occur and that it impacted learning performance. Specifically, our results support the idea that providing high-value content in both settings – the classroom (rich, yet high cost) and online (efficient, yet low cost), enhances performance. The largest gains in performance were seen by those who used the blended learning system the most, with the lowest gains by those who did not use the system at all (i.e. the control group).

Computer-Aided Negotiation for Classroom Instruction: Assessing Neural Network Potential

In an article previously published in this Journal [1], we described a computer system designed to enhance student learning in the area of dispute resolution. Working with this system, based on the concept of Problem Structure Analysis [2], students could literally see how possible settlements were affected as assumptions about negotiation situations were varired. We believe this helps students in their understanding of how decision analysis techniques can be applied in the area of negotiation. In the present article we describe an extension of that system, designed to further enhance student understanding of the potential as well as the limits of technology in negotiation. Students participated in an experiment that demonstrated how certain types of information could be useful in a negotiation situation.