The central purpose of this research seminar class was to instruct us in the ways to effectively design IS research studies, collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data, and interpret and communicate research findings. For me, the professor easily achieved this goal. I learned enough in this one class to feel confident about teaching research methods to others.

I came to this class with high expectations. I came armed with the knowledge, from accounts of other students who had taken the course, that the class is taught well. As it turned out, my expectations were not high enough. It is a class that, were it not a required doctoral class, I would recommend to all my friends.

To be sure, the subject matter covered in this class can easily be accessed on the Internet and in a number of research methods texts, including the assigned class reading. But the difference this class makes is in its use of first-rate teaching methods to help the students internalize the methods and techniques of the IS research process. Looking back, I can categorically state that a critical success factor was the professor’s excellent knowledge of both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject matter. This knowledge, which was manifest in the clarity of explanations, in the depth and breadth of concepts covered, and in the manner in which we were steered to gain insight into the practical aspects of IS research, allowed the professor to win our trust, respect and confidence.

This class combined sound instructions on the theory and methods of information systems research with class discussions and practical exercises. The practice sessions, which consisted of weekly reviews of scholarly IS papers, provided a training framework for testing how well we were internalizing what was being taught in class and presented in the text. But for me, the high point occurred when in the course of each class session the professor presented his own evaluation of the paper under review. Before this, the students would have submitted their individual reviews both in blog posts and during class discussion sessions. What I found impressive was that no matter how well we tried to exhaust the issues involved, there were always a few angles to the professor’s analysis that we did not consider, making me realize just how invaluable to a successful career in research it is to possess good analytical qualities in addition to a sound grasping of the concepts involved in conducting research in the IS domain. Surely, social research is both science and art. Yet, it is quite easy for inexperienced researchers like me to fall under the misapprehension that all that is required to become a good researcher is to acquire the theoretical knowledge of the research process and techniques. Obviously, knowledge of the theory is not a sufficient condition.

Not only did this class teach the concepts and issues that constitute the science of IS and social research, it also provided indelible insight as to the practical dimensions of making claims, constructing theoretical arguments, designing questionnaire, interviewing, conducting field observation, carrying out content analysis, conducting H-C research, and more. The class left me with no delusion as to the intellectual and organizational rigor essential to producing scholarly research work.

In this class, I learned about the different underlying views of nature that yield the positivist, interpretivist, and critical-realist schools of thought. I also learned about the different perspectives of qualitative and quantitative IS researchers and the concomitant wide variety of research methods and techniques. Most importantly, I learned about the capabilities of these methods and techniques as well as how to relate and match them to research problems. Additionally, I learned how to use this knowledge to evaluate and review scholarly research works.

In sum, the IS362 class taught me that, in the domain of IS research, the means ought to justify the end. To achieve reliable, valid, and useful original research results, we must strive to ground our research on appropriate theory, provide operational definition of constructs based on that theory, employ the appropriate research and data analysis methods, lucidly interpret results on the basis of that theory, and communicate the research study to the relevant audience.

For me, this class at once demystified the research process and brought to the fore the centrality of applying due process to the conduct of research.

The central purpose of this research seminar class was to instruct us in the ways to effectively design IS research studies, collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data, and interpret and communicate research findings. For me, the professor easily achieved this goal. I learn enough in this one class to feel confident about teaching research methods class, at least, at the undergraduate level.

I came to this class with high expectations, having been told by students who had taken it that the professor handles it excellently. As it turned out, my expectations were not high enough. It is a class that, were it not a required doctoral class, I would recommend to all my friends.

To be sure, the subject matter covered in this class can easily be accessed on the Internet and in a number of research methods texts, including the assigned class reading. But the difference this class makes is in its use of first-rate teaching methods to help the students internalize the methods and techniques of the IS research process. Looking back, I can categorically state that a critical success factor was the professor’s excellent knowledge of both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject matter. This knowledge, manifests in the clarity of explanations, in the depth and breadth of concepts covered, and in the manner in which we were steered to gain insight into the practical aspects of IS research, allowed the professor to win our trust, respect and confidence.

This class combined sound instructions on the theory and methods of information systems research with class discussions and practical exercises. The practice sessions, which consisted of weekly reviews of scholarly IS papers, provided a training framework for testing how well we were internalizing what was being taught in class and presented in the text. But for me, the high point occurred when in the course of each class session the professor presented his own evaluation of the paper under review. Before this, the students would have submitted their individual reviews both in blog posts and during class discussion sessions. What I found impressive was that no matter how well we tried to exhaust the issues involved, there were always a few angles to the professor’s analysis that we did not consider, making me realize just how invaluable to a successful career in research it is to possess good analytical qualities in addition to a sound grasping of the concepts involved in conducting research in the IS domain. Surely, social research is both science and art. Yet, it is quite easy for inexperienced researchers like me to fall under the misapprehension that all that is required to become a good researcher is to acquire the theoretical knowledge of the research process and techniques. Obviously, knowledge of the theory is not a sufficient condition.

Not only did this class teach the concepts and issues that constitute the science of IS and social research, it also provided indelible insight as to the practical dimensions of making claims, constructing theoretical arguments, designing questionnaire, interviewing, conducting field observation, carrying out content analysis, conducting H-C research, and more. The class left me with no delusion as to the intellectual and organizational rigor essential to producing scholarly research work.

In this class, I learned about the different underlying views of nature that yield the positivist, interpretivist, and critical-realist schools of thought. I also learned about the different perspectives of qualitative and quantitative IS researchers and the concomitant wide variety of research methods and techniques. Most importantly, I learned about the capabilities of these methods and techniques as well as how to relate and match them to research problems. Additionally, I learned how to use this knowledge to evaluate and review scholarly research works.

In sum, the IS362 class taught me that, in the domain of IS research, the means ought to justify the end. To achieve reliable, valid, and useful original research results, we must strive to ground our research on appropriate theory, provide operational definition of constructs based on that theory, employ the appropriate research and data analysis methods, lucidly interpret results on the basis of that theory, and communicate the research study to the relevant audience. For me, this class at once demystified the research process and brought to the fore the centrality of applying due process to the conduct of research.

The central purpose of this research seminar class was to instruct us in the ways to effectively design IS research studies, collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data, and interpret and communicate research findings. For me, the professor easily achieved this goal. I learn enough in this one class to feel confident about teaching research methods class, at least, at the undergraduate level.

I came to this class with high expectations, having been told by students who had taken it that the professor handles it excellently. As it turned out, my expectations were not high enough. It is a class that, were it not a required doctoral class, I would recommend to all my friends.

To be sure, the subject matter covered in this class can easily be accessed on the Internet and in a number of research methods texts, including the assigned class reading. But the difference this class makes is in its use of first-rate teaching methods to help the students internalize the methods and techniques of the IS research process. Looking back, I can categorically state that a critical success factor was the professor’s excellent knowledge of both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject matter. This knowledge, manifest in the clarity of explanations, in the depth and breadth of concepts covered, and in the manner in which we were steered to gain insight into the practical aspects of IS research, allowed the professor to win our trust, respect and confidence.

This class combined sound instructions on the theory and methods of information systems research with class discussions and practical exercises. The practice sessions, which consisted of weekly reviews of scholarly IS papers, provided a training framework for testing how well we were internalizing what was being taught in class and presented in the text. But for me, the high point occurred when in the course of each class session the professor presented his own evaluation of the paper under review. Before this, the students would have submitted their individual reviews both in blog posts and during class discussion sessions. What I found impressive was that no matter how well we tried to exhaust the issues involved, there were always a few angles to the professor’s analysis that we did not consider, making me realize just how invaluable to a successful career in research it is to possess good analytical qualities in addition to a sound grasping of the concepts involved in conducting research in the IS domain. Surely, social research is both science and art. Yet, it is quite easy for inexperienced researchers like me to fall under the misapprehension that all that is required to become a good researcher is to acquire the theoretical knowledge of the research process and techniques. Obviously, knowledge of the theory is not a sufficient condition.

Not only did this class teach the concepts and issues that constitute the science of IS and social research, it also provided indelible insight as to the practical dimensions of making claims, constructing theoretical arguments, designing questionnaire, interviewing, conducting field observation, carrying out content analysis, conducting H-C research, and more. The class left me with no delusion as to the intellectual and organizational rigor essential to producing scholarly research work.

In sum, the IS362 class taught me that, in the domain of IS research, the means ought to justify the end. To achieve reliable, valid, and useful original research results, we must strive to ground our research on appropriate theory, provide operational definition of constructs based on that theory, employ the appropriate research and data analysis methods, lucidly interpret results on the basis of that theory, and communicate the research study to the relevant audience. For me, this class at once demystified the research process and brought to the fore the centrality of applying due process to the conduct of research.

The report of an experiment on the effect of the language of health messages

The Role of Wording on Health Message Credibility

ABSTRACT

Context:  Even though most academic and practitioner research into the efficacy of health messages focuses on framing effects, there is a growing interest in the possible role that the wording of these messages may play in motivating the desired health behavior. While some hold the view that health messages should be free from technical jargon in order to be meaningful to the intended audience, others maintain that a necessary level of formality in the wording is required to convey message credibility.

Objective:  To conduct a preliminary study to determine the possible association between the language of a health message and its perceived credibility.

Design of Study:  Pilot experiment involving the administration of questionnaires containing two health messages to 51 participants. Each message has two variations—formal and informal. The questionnaires are of two different types. Questionnaire A has Message #1 worded formally and Message #2 informally. Questionnaire B has Message #1 as informal and Message #2 as formal. Thus, we have a within subject design, in which each of the 51 participants was surveyed as to their opinion concerning the credibility of one formal and one informal health message. Credibility is operationalized as the degree to which participants construe a health message to be dependable and useful.

Outcome Measures: Credibility is measured through a five-item scale of whether it is written by a health professional, useful, interesting, authentic, and worthy to be followed.

Results:  The pilot failed to find any significant difference between participants’ perceptions of the credibility of formal and informal messages. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing the greatest level of credibility, the mean scores were 2.90 and 2.57 respectively for the formal and informal wordings.

Conclusions: A more robust study is required—one that will involve many more participants and more thought-out measures of message credibility. Due to time constraints, this study did not test the reliability and validity of the items used to measure credibility. Also, the messages will need to be vetted by experts in linguistics to validate the classification of message wordings into formal and informal categories. A future study will incorporate these measures. Meanwhile, it is possible that the limitations mentioned could well have affected the validity of our results. As a result, we are unable to conclude at this stage that wording has no effect on the perception of message credibility.

Book Chapter Review

Always On
Chapter 3: Controlling the Volume: Everyone a Language Czar

In chapter 3, Baron uses the metaphor of the volume control on our radios and or television sets to describe and analyze electronically-mediated communication technologies and techniques that online community members use to control and manage conversations with others. People turn up the volume when they check their email or make themselves available on IM. They turn down the volume when they ignore an incoming call on their mobile phone or block someone on IM.

Multitasking is a volume control technique that people use to accomplish several conversation tasks simultaneously. IM has essentially become a background activity to other electronically-mediated; people routinely carry phone conversation or perform other communication tasks while being in an instant messaging conversation. Multitasking is a volume control technique in that people use it to prioritize their communicative activities.

Baron point out that discourse control always has existed in traditional face-to-face and written communication settings. The difference is that the new language technologies have affordances that permit a wider range of control options. People can, for instance, choose to be in an always on, always connected state, completed off-line, or any combination of always on and off-line states. Because of these new language technologies, each one of us is becoming a language czar, having more and more control over our conversational realm.

The Cult of the Amateur
Chapter 7: 1984 (version 2.0)

Here's another metaphor from the Cult of the Amateur, Chapter 7.

Keen uses George Orwell’s “1984” as a metaphor for the manner in which Web 2.0 has empowered people to know everything they want to know about us and use that knowledge for their nefarious purposes. It does not matter that that knowledge may be about the most private details of our personal lives. According to him, we have a digital surveillance culture in which not only that the “Big Brother” knows almost everything about us, but also our deepest fears, most intimate emotions, and most private thoughts  can be broadcast to the world without our knowledge or permission. On the Internet, our privacy can easily be compromised—either through the indiscretion of people and organizations we trust to keep our private information private or through the breaching of the security of systems holding our personal information, which is the root cause of identity theft.

In addition, when we are on the Internet, search engines like Google keep tab of what we do and the sites we visit. Over time, they have amassed tons of records of our tastes, our desires, and our hobbies, which they can theoretically keep forever as they are under no legal obligation to destroy these records. They sell this information about us to advertisers and marketers who can then better target their products and selling approaches. The problem is that between the search engines and these marketers, our personal information can be accessed by just about anyone—from hackers and cyber-thieves to state and federal officials. For Keen, we live in a world, an Orwellian age, with little privacy. It will be even less private in the future of the “ultimate search engine” and ubiquitous computing. With the ultimate search engine Google can track the exact movements and intentions of every individual. With ubiquitous computing, our daily interactions with smart buildings, furniture, wears, and other wares will produce data that will end up in databases much like Google's.

NOTE:
I do not share Keen's extremely negative opinion about Google and search engines. He leaves the impression that Web 2.0 and the companies that champion it are without any redeeming value. By failing to give credence to the merits of the new technologies, he has trivialized the very issues he feels so strongly about.

Chapter 8, “Whatever”  Is the Internet Destroying Language?

In this chapter, Baron deliberates on the question of whether or not the Internet is destroying language. Noting that people have historically made considerable fuss about language, she argues that most of the changes being bemoaned as language decline by sticklers to language standards happen because languages over time change. As she puts it, “Given enough time most changes treated with disdain by language elites become the norm.” Language change does not necessarily mean language decline.

Concerning the disregard for language standards, Baron observed that many scapegoats have been proposed, including laid-back parenting, permissive educators, and now, electronically mediated language. Except that the public outcry against electronically mediated language is unprecedented. Yet, research on IM and text messaging suggest that at least among college students, electronic language is at most a very minor dialectical variation. If we must look for language culprits, then the place to look is the larger American society, which has grown increasingly informal—we notice it in the dressing of lawyers, in the way we address people, in the way chairs are arranged in classrooms, and in the way we write. Since WW II, education in the US has become increasingly informal, student centered, and non-normative. The end result is that we now have a “whatever” generation who care very little for grammatical and language rules. Baron points out that computer-based technology is not the culprit for language degradation. Rather, the speed in which written language is produced today and this ''whatever'' approach towards language rules are the main reasons for sloppy writing styles, while computers and the Internet, in her eyes, only magnify the ongoing trends. She concludes the chapter by pointing out that the Internet does not destroy language: ''If you look at the effects - direct or otherwise - on traditional language, the case is highly tenuous''. She does not see any significant effects on speech, either.

Chapter 9, ''Gresham's Ghost - Challenges to Written Culture''

This chapter takes a look at contemporary changes in written culture being fostered by new technologies. Writing (and reading too) through emails, IMs, text messages, blogs, and wikis are taking ever increasing proportion of our time, giving rise to what Baron calls “text in the fast lane” and “flooding the scriptorium”. We seem to have so much to write within an ever shrinking time window. Could all this outpouring of text be redefining or perhaps debasing our standards for the written word? What motivation to produce good prose will remain if “good” and “bad” writing are equally regarded? What would be the reward of scholarship and art? Would not the bad chase the good out of circulation, thereby impacting negatively on a 300-year old written culture? Baron describes the function and form of the written culture and maintains that despite the growth of open source and Creative Commons licenses, there is no imminent danger to copyrights, authorship, publishing as well as reading and writing. The fundamentals of the written culture will still be the same. People will continue to read and write, and manufacturers of bookcases and paper mills will continue to do brisk business. For Baron, the greater issue is determining what roles reading and writing, books and paper will assume in the cultural life of the future.

How we Will Communicate 50 Years On

The ICT revolution will keep going on, except that revolution will become an inappropriate term for a state of flux that has come to encapsulate the way of life of the future. Kids yet unborn will do stuff with mobile, ubiquitous, and Internet technologies that will amaze present day jet age teens.

The drivers of this never-ending revolution will be

• Advances in research in nano, semantic, mobile application, and ubiquitous computing technologies 
• IT businesses looking to thrive in an ever increasingly competitive industry. Successful organizations will be knowledge organizations with tons of semantically processed information about consumers, competition, suppliers, the operating environment, and more. This knowledge will be invaluable in directing organizations toward product and service offerings that will satisfy the consumers and  grow corporate bottomlines.

But this begs the question: In a world where most corporations are knowledge organizations, employing easily available semantic Web technologies to gain superior business intelligence, will knowledge and/or information continue to be a source of sustenable competitive advantage? The paradox is that those companies that fail to invest in knowledge technologies will fail; those that do might have to look over and above their knowledge resources for competitive advantage.

But would the general public continue to accept as given companies' use of cookies, spyware, adware, and whatever other spying technologies that will yet come?

Looking to the future, I see privacy concerns to rise even as corporations will devise means to preserve the status quo and billion-dollar empires that depend on the outcome of business intelligence technologies

Chapter 8, “Whatever”  Is the Internet Destroying Language?

In this chapter, Baron deliberates on the question of whether or not the Internet is destroying language. Noting that people have historically made considerable fuss about language, she argues that most of the changes being bemoaned as language decline by sticklers to language standards happen because languages over time change. As she puts it, “Given enough time most changes treated with disdain by language elites become the norm.” Language change does not necessarily mean language decline.

Concerning the disregard for language standards, Baron observed that many scapegoats have been proposed, including laid-back parenting, permissive educators, and now, electronically mediated language. Except that the public outcry against electronically mediated language is unprecedented. Yet, research on IM and text messaging suggest that at least among college students, electronic language is at most a very minor dialectical variation. If we must look for language culprits, then the place to look is the larger American society, which has grown increasingly informal—we notice it in the dressing of lawyers, in the way we address people, in the way chairs are arranged in classrooms, and in the way we write. Since WW II, education in the US has become increasingly informal, student centered, and non-normative. The end result is that we now have a “whatever” generation who care very little for grammatical and language rules. Baron points out that computer-based technology is not the culprit for language degradation. Rather, the speed in which written language is produced today and this ''whatever'' approach towards language rules are the main reasons for sloppy writing styles, while computers and the Internet, in her eyes, only magnify the ongoing trends. She concludes the chapter by pointing out that the Internet does not destroy language: ''If you look at the effects - direct or otherwise - on traditional language, the case is highly tenuous''. She does not see any significant effects on speech, either.

Chapter 9, ''Gresham's Ghost - Challenges to Written Culture''

This chapter takes a look at contemporary changes in written culture being fostered by new technologies. Writing (and reading too) through emails, IMs, text messages, blogs, and wikis are taking ever increasing proportion of our time, giving rise to what Baron calls “text in the fast lane” and “flooding the scriptorium”. We seem to have so much to write within an ever shrinking time window. Could all this outpouring of text be redefining or perhaps debasing our standards for the written word? What motivation to produce good prose will remain if “good” and “bad” writing are equally regarded? What would be the reward of scholarship and art? Would not the bad chase the good out of circulation, thereby impacting negatively on a 300-year old written culture? Baron describes the function and form of the written culture and maintains that despite the growth of open source and Creative Commons licenses, there is no imminent danger to copyrights, authorship, publishing as well as reading and writing. The fundamentals of the written culture will still be the same. People will continue to read and write, and manufacturers of bookcases and paper mills will continue to do brisk business. For Baron, the greater issue is determining what roles reading and writing, books and paper will assume in the cultural life of the future.

Chapter 8, “Whatever”  Is the Internet Destroying Language?

In this chapter, Baron deliberates on the question of whether or not the Internet is destroying language. Noting that people have historically made considerable fuss about language, she argues that most of the changes being bemoaned language decline by sticklers to language standards happen because languages over time change. As she puts it, “Given enough time most changes treated with disdain by language elites become the norm.” Language change does not necessarily mean language decline.

Concerning the disregard for language standards, Baron observed that many scapegoats have been proposed, including laid-back parenting, permissive educators, and now, electronically mediated language. Except that the public outcry against electronically mediated language is unprecedented. Yet, research on IM and text messaging suggest that at least among college students, electronic language is at most a very minor dialectical variation. If we must look for language culprits, then the place to look is the larger American society, which has grown increasingly informal—we notice it in the dressing of lawyers, in the way we address people, in the way chairs are arranged in classrooms, and in the way we write. Since WW II, education in the US has become increasingly informal, student centered, and non-normative. The end result is that we now have a “whatever” generation who care very little grammatical and language rules. Baron points out that computer-based technology is not the culprit for language degradation. Rather, the speed in which written language is produced today and this ''whatever'' approach towards language rules are the main reasons for sloppy writing styles, while computers and the Internet, in her eyes, only magnify the ongoing trends. She concludes the chapter by pointing out that the Internet does not destroy language: ''If you look at the effects - direct or otherwise - on traditional language, the case is highly tenuous'' (p. 180). She does not see many effects on written language and even fewer on speech.

 
Chapter 9, ''Gresham's Ghost - Challenges to Written Culture''

This chapter takes a look at contemporary changes in written culture being fostered by new technologies. Writing (and reading too) through emails, IMs, text messages, blogs, and wikis are taking ever increasing proportion of our time, giving rise to what Baron calls “text in the fast lane” and “flooding the scriptorium”. We seem to have so much to write within an ever shrinking time window. Could all this outpouring of text be redefining or perhaps debasing our standards for the written word? What motivation to produce good prose will remain if “good” and “bad” writing are equally regarded? What would be the reward of scholarship and art? Would not the bad chase the good out of circulation, thereby impacting negatively on a 300-year old written culture? Baron describes the function and form of the written culture and maintains that despite the growth of open source and Creative Commons licenses, there is no imminent danger to copyrights, authorship, publishing as well as reading and writing. The fundamentals of the written culture will still be the same. People will continue to read and write, and manufacturers of bookcases and paper mills will continue to do brisk business. For Baron, the greater issue is determining what roles reading and writing, books and paper will assume in the cultural life of the future.