Tomofumi Uetake

Proposal of the Support Tool for After-Class Work based on the Online Threaded Bulletin Board

In this paper, based on the assumption that after-class work in an exercise-based course accompanied by group work is done on an online threaded bulletin board system, the authors propose a support tool for the instructors. Specifically, while focusing on the factors that compose a discussion on the online bulletin board, the users who comment, the topics, and the items (keywords) to be discussed, the authors try to visualize the relationships among these factors as network diagrams. The authors also propose indexes, the comment degree and the activation degree, to evaluate communities formed there. Our experiments in which group work was actually implemented with the application of the proposed tool demonstrated that use of the network diagrams and the evaluation indexes served to distinguish the differences between those groups with properly-proceeding discussions and those without such discussions. The authors confirmed that this can enable the instructors to easily discover those students who do not participate in the discussion and groups with sluggish discussions.

A Proposal of an SNS to Support Individual Practices in a Voluntary Community

Widespread popularization of social networking services (SNSs) prompted, for example, a voluntary community such as an orchestra club of a university to use an SNS to support their activities. However, it is not all-purpose and lacks functions to improve members’ individual skills. Appropriate practice is a great help but we hardly find functions to motivate practices by, for instance, mutual evaluation, members’ advice, and creating competing environment. In this paper, we focus on members’ individual practices in an orchestra club and propose a SNS to foster and maintain their motivations to practice based on the analysis result of current conditions. As the first step of the system development, this paper introduces design of a prototype system and the results of a preliminary evaluation.

A Proposal of SNS to Improve Member's Motivation in Voluntary Community Using Gamification

Recently, the number of voluntary communities such as local communities and university club activities are in- creasing. In these communities, since there are various types of members and there are no binding forces, it is usually difficult to maintain and improve members motivation. To maintain and improve members motivation, most of these communities use social networking services (SNSs). However, since existing SNS offer few functions for voluntary community, it is difficult to solve this problem. This research focused on the concept of gami- fication and proposed an SNS to improve members motivation of voluntary community. First, the authors analyzed the current conditions and members of a voluntary community. Based on this analysis, the authors found that an SNS to improve members motivation of voluntary community requires functions which support members personal activities and also functions which increase social activities. Next, the authors built an SNS that had these functions by applying the concept of gamification. The authors implemented the SNS for a University clubs activities for one month and showed the effectiveness of our SNS.

Examination of the effect of social login through analysis of user's purchasing tendency

This study targets social login registrants on an EC site and aims to clarify the difference between the purchasing tendency of social login registrants and general members by analyzing product purchasing history. We focused on the golf portal site that is the subject of this research. We analyzed the purchasing data comparing social login registrants with general members. As the results, it became clear that social login registrants have less resistance to purchasing expensive products on an EC site compared with general members and golf clubs act as a bridge for purchasing.

An e-Learning System Using Gamification to Support Preliminary Learning for Job Hunting.

As many companies require job applicants to take a basic knowledge test as part of their selection procedure, many universities in Japan have begun to introduce an e-learning system that implements preliminary education to prepare for job hunting. This preliminary education usually includes various subjects and students are required to study all subjects equally. However, their motivation is often not high, and it is difficult for them to cover them all evenly. As a result, the frequency of use of the e-learning system by the students is low. In this paper, we focused on “gamification” and constructed an e-learning support system based on the metaphor of a bingo game that has a bingo function to promote learning in weak subjects and a ranking function to show learning achievement. Through the test use of our prototype system, we clarified that it is possible to maintain and improve students’ motivation and encourage balanced learning by using our e-Learning support system.

Collaborative Learning Support System for Programming Education Using Gamification

Computer programming education is being given increasing importance in many universities in Japan. But conventional classes do not allow enough time to cultivate computer programming skills. One of the effective methods for cultivating computer programming skills is a collaborative learning method in voluntary community. However, it is difficult to maintain a student’s motivation in such a voluntary community. On the other hand, Gamification has attracted much attention recently as a method to help users to maintain and improve their motivation. In this research, we propose a support system to emphasize collaborative learning in a voluntary community by using Gamification. The experimental results confirmed that our proposed system was effective in supporting the cultivation of computer programming skills.

Consideration of the Loyal Customer Sub-communities in a Consumer Community Through Analysis of Social Networking Services

Widespread popularization of social networking services (SNSs) promoted, many studies about marketing activities using SNSs. But, there are a few studies focused on tendencies of consumer communities on SNSs. In this paper, we focus on a fashion brand and “Instagram”. And we study about tendencies of consumer communities on SNSs to present necessary information for users effectively. From the results of our analysis, we found that there was a community which was formed of users who had high degree of loyalty in “Fashion Brand A”. Moreover, as the result of analysis of user behavior, the presence of loyal customers in the community was confirmed.

A consideration of the functions that support to find new friends in social games

Recently, social games have attracted considerable attention. Building a relationship with other players can heighten the enjoyment derived from these games. However, many users play social games only with their fixed friends. There are functions to assist users to find friends in social games and SNS, but the existing functions are not simple enough to find friends easily. In our previous research, we proposed methods of reducing the barrier that hinders making contact with unknown users. In this study, we propose a function to facilitate finding new friends using these methods.

Quality of Community in Social Games

With the widespread of Internet, ‘Contents’ on Internet are increasing. And, contents offered on Internet are transformed from a unique service into an undifferentiated service (Commodification of the Internet contents). And users’ concerns may be changing from the value of contents to other in the near future. In social games, we think that the selection criteria will change from the value of contents to the value of the community. So, it is important for Social Game suppliers to offer the function to improve the quality of community. In this paper, we aim to examine how to improve the quality of community. We focus on Q&A sites that have services to improve the quality of community. We analyze the structure of the community and consider the factors to improve the quality of community.