Looks at the design elements of an effective human interface. Outlineswhat makes a good interface and why so many are bad. Explains the importanceof having a clear idea of what…
Abstract
Looks at the design elements of an effective human interface. Outlines what makes a good interface and why so many are bad. Explains the importance of having a clear idea of what jobs are to be done and an understanding of the ways errors happen. Also explains the need to understand and involve the user and the importance of trying out the interface at an early stage. Concludes that bad interfaces cost money and can be dangerous and that the human interface should attract at least the same level of resources as any other major part of system design.
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Klen Copic Pucihar, Matjaž Kljun, John Mariani and Alan John Dix
Personal projects are any kind of projects whose management is left to an individual untrained in project management and is greatly influenced by this individual’s personal touch…
Abstract
Purpose
Personal projects are any kind of projects whose management is left to an individual untrained in project management and is greatly influenced by this individual’s personal touch. This includes the majority of knowledge workers who daily manage information relating to several personal projects. The authors have conducted an in-depth qualitative investigation on information management of such projects and the tacit knowledge behind its processes that cannot be found in the organisational structures of current personal information management (PIM) tools (file managers, e-mail clients, web browsers). The purpose of this paper is to reveal and understand project information management practices in details and provide guidelines for personal project management tools.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews similar to that in several other PIM exploratory studies were carried out focusing on project fragmentation, information overlap and project context recreation. In addition, the authors enhanced interviews with sketching approach not yet used to study PIM. Sketches were used for articulating things that were not easily expressed through words, they represented a time stamp of a project context in the projects’ lifetime, uncovered additional tacit knowledge behind project information management not mentioned during the interviews, and were also used to find what they have in common which might be used in prototype designing.
Findings
The paper presents first personal project definition based on the conceptualisations derived from the study. The study revealed that the extensive information fragmentation in the file hierarchy (due to different organisational needs and ease of information access) poses a significant challenge to context recreation besides cross-tool fragmentation so far described in the literature. The study also reveals the division of project information into core and support and emphasises the importance of support information in relation to project goals. Other findings uncover the division of input/output information, project overlaps through information reuse, storytelling and visualising information relations, which could help with user modelling and enhancing project context recreation.
Research limitations/implications
On of the limitations is the group of participants that cannot represent the ideally generalised knowledge worker as there are many different kinds of knowledge workers and they all have different information needs besides different management practices. However, participants of variety of different backgrounds were observed and the authors converged observations into points of project information management similarities across the spectrum of different professions. Nevertheless, its observations and conceptualisations should be repeatable. For one, some of the issues that emerged during this work have been to different extents discussed in other studies.
Practical implications
The empirical findings are used to create guidelines for designing personal project information management tools: support the selective focus on information with the division into core and supportive information; visualise changes in project information space to support narratives for context recreation; overcome fragmentation in the file system with selective unification; visualising project’s information relationship to better understand the complexity of project information space; and support navigating in project information space on two axes: time and between projects (overlaps through information).
Originality/value
The study presents a longitudinal insight into personal project information management. As such it provides a first formal definition of personal project from the information point of view. The method used in the study presented uses a new approach – sketching in which participants externalised and visualised personal information and projects they discussed. The insights derived from the study form design implications for personal project management tools for knowledge workers.
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Religious and secular pilgrimages present rich opportunities for investigating information activities in an original and intriguing context. While the Information Science…
Abstract
Purpose
Religious and secular pilgrimages present rich opportunities for investigating information activities in an original and intriguing context. While the Information Science community has previously shown interest in digital expressions of religion and spirituality, discussion on pilgrimage is at a nascent stage. The purpose of this study is to conduct an in situ investigation of how pilgrims record, curate, and share their experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
A field ethnography was conducted while walking with, observing and interviewing pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago, a popular European pilgrimage and UNESCO World Heritage route. Data collected from 25 semi-structured interviews and participant observations were thematically analysed within a theoretical framework combining Stebbins' contemplation and Nature Challenge Activity in serious leisure and Hektor's model of information behaviour.
Findings
This study expands the interpretation of pilgrimage by introducing new insights into pilgrims, different types of mobilities, spaces and objects, and social interactions. By using field ethnography and close-up observations of praxis, pilgrimage is analysed as a socio-technical process and discussed literature within and beyond Information Science. The work presents new understandings of the interplay between spirituality, embodied information practices, physical and online social interactions, analogue and digital media before, during and after these journeys and legacy aspirations.
Originality/value
The study is original in its combination of theoretical models and their ethnographic in situ application. It contributes to a more in-depth, in-the-field understanding of how pilgrims document their experiences via a rich palette of old and new media, the dynamics of using digital technologies during such physical and inner journeys and pilgrims' sharing practices. Implications for serious leisure and information practices are discussed, from theoretical to practical challenges and opportunities offered by pilgrimage experiences.
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Ignacio Vélez‐Pareja and Joseph Tham
It is a well known problem the interactions between the market value of cash flows and the discount rate (usually the weighted average cost of capital, WACC) to calculate that…
Abstract
It is a well known problem the interactions between the market value of cash flows and the discount rate (usually the weighted average cost of capital, WACC) to calculate that value. This is mentioned in almost all text books in corporate finance. However, the solution adopted by most authors is to assume a constant leverage D%, and hence assume that the leverage gives raise to an optimal capital structure and the discount rate is constant. On the other hand, most authors use the definition of the Ke, the cost of leveraged equity for perpetuities even if the planning horizon is finite. Among these authors we find the work of Wood and Leitch W&L 2004. In this article we wish to analyse the claim made by W&L 2004 in the sense to have found an iterative solution to the problem of circularity that results in a “near” matching with the Adjusted Present Value APV, proposed by Myers, 1974. They use as the basic principle the fact that there is a “near” constant relation between Ke the cost of equity and Kd the cost of debt. They consider as well that the cost of debt Kd is not constant and changes proportionately with the leverage D%. We propose a very simple and precise approach to solve the above mentioned circularity problem.
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Since the shootings at Kent State University (KSU) in 1970, students and activists have held commemorative ceremonies to mark that event. The university ignored that past and…
Abstract
Since the shootings at Kent State University (KSU) in 1970, students and activists have held commemorative ceremonies to mark that event. The university ignored that past and decided to build a gym annex covering part of the land on which the National Guard had maneuvered in 1970. Led by the May 4th Coalition, activists sought to persuade the university to change the building's location. The student concern was the preservation of what they viewed as “sacred” ground which would be buried underneath the annex. At the 1977 annual commemoration speakers raised the annex issue and the newly formed May 4th Coalition ultimately occupied the site of the planned building with a tent city. That occupation was forcefully removed, and the university did build the facility where planned. The physical and spatial aspects of the commemoration of the Kent State shootings did, over time, lead the university to take on the responsibility to memorialize that conflict. This paper focuses on two interrelated issues: (1) the efforts of the May 4th Coalition and residents of Tent City to block or move the gym annex and (2) the refusal of KSU for years to recognize the broad significance of the events of May 1970 and their attempt to ignore or bury it.
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The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A…
Abstract
The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A reference book is here defined as any book that is likely to be consulted for factual information more frequently than it will be picked up and read through in sequential order. Medical reference books have a place in public, school, college, and other non‐medical libraries as well as in the wide variety of medical libraries. All of these libraries will be considered in this column. A basic starting collection of medical material for a public library is outlined and described in an article by William and Virginia Beatty that appeared in the May, 1974, issue of American Libraries.
Steven Lysonski, Alan Singer and David Wilemon
Evidence suggests that product managers' need to communicate across organizational and environmental boundaries under conditions of uncertainty can give rise to powerful role…
Abstract
Evidence suggests that product managers' need to communicate across organizational and environmental boundaries under conditions of uncertainty can give rise to powerful role pressures of conflict and ambiguity. These pressures are generally associated with negative or dysfunctional personal outcomes such as job‐related tension, dissatisfaction, and poorer performance. Moreover, in situations where role conflict is particularly high, experienced product managers are susceptible to “burnout.” Some practical approaches to overcoming these difficulties are discussed.
Ariel R. Belasen and Alan T. Belasen
Skin tone has been shown to impact the ability of darker-skinned athletes to maximize their earnings to potential earnings ratio. Additionally, studies of fan preference have…
Abstract
Purpose
Skin tone has been shown to impact the ability of darker-skinned athletes to maximize their earnings to potential earnings ratio. Additionally, studies of fan preference have found strong support for racial implications on team preference and ticket sales. The purpose of this paper is to test these theories empirically by examining the marginal impact of skin tone on top selling jerseys.
Design/methodology/approach
This study makes use of an ordered probit regression analysis to examine the impact of NBA players’ skin tone on their jersey sales after controlling for a number of other factors. Jersey sales are measured in rank order and skin tone is captured by measuring the level of pigmentation in player profile photos.
Findings
Overall, the study finds a significantly positive relationship between skin tone and jersey sale rankings. This runs contrary to the standard literature results that darker-skinned athletes are likely to earn less and attract fewer endorsements than their lighter-skinned counterparts. More specifically, the marginal impact of skin tone is comparable to the marginal impact of individual player statistics in determining how well a player’s jersey will sell.
Practical implications
If, in fact, fans are more likely to purchase jerseys from darker-skinned NBA players, it stands to reason that the standard business practice found in the literature of rewarding lighter-skinned players with higher salaries and better endorsement deals requires further investigation.
Originality/value
This study provides valuable information about athlete branding and offers insights to advertisers and sponsors seeking to align the strategy of branding athletes for increased jersey sales.
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Alan Day, Malcolm Key, Mike Cornford, Wilfred Ashworth, Richard Preston, Mike Pattinson, Roman Iwaschkin and Wilfred Ashworth
THE New English dictionary on historical principles founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A H Murray, forty‐four years in the…
Abstract
THE New English dictionary on historical principles founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A H Murray, forty‐four years in the making, and now known the world over as the Oxford English dictionary holds an unchallenged place in that remarkable series of substantial works of learning and scholarship planned, nurtured, and executed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Rolls series, the Dictionary of national biography, and at the turn of the century, the Cambridge moderm history and the Victorian history of the counties of England, all bear witness to the tremendous, almost incredible, energy of the Victorian middle classes who, sometimes holding academic posts at the universities, or perhaps earning their bread as publishers (regarded then as one of the very few commercial pursuits allowed to gentlemen), formed clubs and learned societies to occupy their ‘leisure’ hours, and conceived and brought to fruition their costly schemes for ambitious publishing programmes, refusing to be deterred by years of unremitting toil which consumed their time, their money, but never sapped their vision or their dedication.