The impact of social presence on team performance in social networking platforms

Next to the extensive use of social networking platforms (SNPs) for communication and relationship building with friends and relatives, SNPs are also increasingly used for enhancing collaboration at work. SNP usage at the workplace is fundamentally different and it is unclear how SNPs can improve collaboration as well as in what way their designs should be modified and adapted to collaboration settings. This research identifies specific SNP functions that enhance social presence as particularly beneficial for collaboration. Consequently, two designs of SNPs, one with high social presence and one with low social presence, are outlined and its impacts on collaboration are discussed. A framework is constructed that illustrates how social presence in SNPs can improve team performance through enhancing transactive memory within teams (intra-group collaboration) and relational capital across teams (inter-group collaboration). In addition, it is outlined how this framework could be evaluated in an experimental setting of teams working on a complex group task.

Monitoring and Assessment of Desertification and Land Degradation: Knowledge Management, Institutions and Economics: White Paper of the DSD Working Group 3

The White Paper is a review of leading scientific knowledge on the role of knowledge management, institutions and economics in monitoring and assessment of land degradation and desertification. It provides key recommendations for more effective policies and actions for combating desertification both withn the UNCCD and beyond. This White Paper is the result of an international collaboration and consultation led jointly by the Association of DesertNet International and the United Nations University - Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), of the Dryland Science for Development Consortium (DSD). The findings were presented at the First UNCCD Scientific Conference held during the COP-9 in Buenos Aires, 2009.

An OMNeT++ Framework to Evaluate Video Transmission in Mobile Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

The development and evaluation of new algorithms and protocols for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) are usually supported by means of a discrete event network simulator, where OMNeT++ is one of the most important ones. However, experiments involving multimedia transmission, video flows with different characteristics, genres, group of pictures lengths, and coding techniques must be evaluated based also on Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics to reflect the user's perception. Such experiments require the evaluation of video-related information, i.e., frame type, received/lost, delay, jitter, decoding errors, as well as inter and intra-frame dependency of received/distorted videos. However, existing OMNeT++ frameworks for WMSNs do not support video transmissions with QoE-awareness, neither a large set of mobility traces to enable evaluations under different multimedia/mobile situations. In this paper, we propose a Mobile MultiMedia Wireless Sensor Network OMNeT++ framework (M3WSN) to support transmission, control and evaluation of real video sequences in mobile WMSNs.

Social skills as predictors of communication, performance and quality of collaboration in project-based learning

The assumption that social skills are necessary ingredients of collaborative learning is well established but rarely empirically tested. In addition, most theories on collaborative learning focus on social skills only at the personal level, while the social skill configurations within a learning group might be of equal importance. Using the integrative framework, this study investigates which social skills at the personal level and at the group level are predictive of task-related e-mail communication, satisfaction with performance and perceived quality of collaboration. Data collection took place in a technology-enhanced long-term project-based learning setting for pre-service teachers. For data collection, two questionnaires were used, one at the beginning and one at the end of the learning cycle which lasted 3 months. During the project phase, the e-mail communication between group members was captured as well. The investigation of 60 project groups (N = 155 for the questionnaires; group size: two or three students) and 33 groups for the e-mail communication (N = 83) revealed that personal social skills played only a minor role compared to group level configurations of social skills in predicting satisfaction with performance, perceived quality of collaboration and communication behaviour. Members from groups that showed a high and/or homogeneous configuration of specific social skills (e.g., cooperation/compromising, leadership) usually were more satisfied and saw their group as more efficient than members from groups with a low and/or heterogeneous configuration of skills.

Updated method guidelines for cochrane musculoskeletal group systematic reviews and metaanalyses.

The Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group (CMSG), one of 53 groups of the not-for-profit, international Cochrane Collaboration, prepares, maintains, and disseminates systematic reviews of treatments for musculoskeletal diseases. It is important that authors conducting CMSG reviews and the readers of our reviews be aware of and use updated, state-of-the-art systematic review methodology. One hundred sixty reviews have been published. Previous method guidelines for systematic reviews of interventions in the musculoskeletal field published in 2006 have been substantially updated to incorporate methodological advances that are mandatory or highly desirable in Cochrane reviews and knowledge translation advances. The methodological advances include new guidance on searching, new risk-of-bias assessment, grading the quality of the evidence, the new Summary of Findings table, and comparative effectiveness using network metaanalysis. Method guidelines specific to musculoskeletal disorders are provided by CMSG editors for various aspects of undertaking a systematic review. These method guidelines will help improve the quality of reporting and ensure high standards of conduct as well as consistency across CMSG reviews.

Multiprofessional collaboration in teaching practices in all-day-schools in Switzerland

Multiprofessional collaboration in settings of extended education has been an important research topic in the past 40 years and has been discussed as a means to improve educational achievement, foster professional development, and support teachers in their everyday work. Several recent studies in multiprofessional settings found that collaboration practices often remain on a student-centered, time-limited, and superficial level of exchange, whereas higher forms of collaboration are very rare (Dizinger, Fussangel, Kasper, 2011). Furthermore there exists an obvious research gap on collaboration in Swiss all-day schools (Jutzi&Thomann, 2012). In this study we analyzed practices of multiprofessional collaboration in school-based and community-based extracurricular activities of all-day schools in Switzerland. The aim of this qualitative study of 10 all-day schools was to answer the following questions: (a) What forms of collaboration (informal/formal) are used between the different professionals? and (b) Are there different types of all-day schools with regard to distinctive and consistent types of collaboration? We conducted 18 problem-centered interviews (with the principals/heads of the all-day schools) and 10 focus group discussions (teams). In the process of data evaluation, we applied the method of qualitative content analysis. The results show that multiprofessional collabo ration is taking place in all of the all-day schools examined in the study. However, the collaborative practices differ in their level of intensity, design, and purpose.

Conditions promoting good multiprofessional collaboration practices in Swiss all-day schools

Multiprofessional collaboration in all-day schools refers to teamwork and coordination that takes place between professionals with different vocational backgrounds. In Switzerland, all-day schoolscomprise regular school instruction and school-based extracurricular activities. Nevertheless, multiprofessional collaboration can also refer to collaboration between education professionals in all-day schools and professionals outside the school in a community-based setting of extracurricular activities. A synthesis of the literature shows that collaboration inside and outside the school setting is promoted by conditions in three areas: structural characteristics of the institution, characteristics of the team, and interpersonal processes (Schüpbach, Jutzi & Thomann 2012). In view of these findings, it was the aim of this study to analyze conditions of good collaboration practices in all-day schools in Switzerland. This qualitative study examined 10 all-day schools in five different cantons in the German-speaking part of Switzerland that showed good collaboration practice. In the course of this study, we conducted 18 problem-centered interviews and 10 focus group discussions. In the process of data evaluation, we applied the method of qualitative content analy sis. The findings show that all of the three areas of conditions promoting good collaboration proved to be relevant in the whole sample of all-day schools. Nevertheless, for the three different types of collaboration found? The school- oriented, the mixed/in termediate, and the social environment-oriented type? We identified different conditions of good collaboration practice.

Privacy-Preserving Optimal Meeting Location Determination on Mobile Devices

Equipped with state-of-the-art smartphones and mobile devices, today's highly interconnected urban population is increasingly dependent on these gadgets to organize and plan their daily lives. These applications often rely on current (or preferred) locations of individual users or a group of users to provide the desired service, which jeopardizes their privacy; users do not necessarily want to reveal their current (or preferred) locations to the service provider or to other, possibly untrusted, users. In this paper, we propose privacy-preserving algorithms for determining an optimal meeting location for a group of users. We perform a thorough privacy evaluation by formally quantifying privacy-loss of the proposed approaches. In order to study the performance of our algorithms in a real deployment, we implement and test their execution efficiency on Nokia smartphones. By means of a targeted user-study, we attempt to get an insight into the privacy-awareness of users in location-based services and the usability of the proposed solutions.

The dermatologists' role in managing psoriatic arthritis: results of a swiss delphi exercise intended to improve collaboration with rheumatologists.

BACKGROUND Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) substantially impacts the management of psoriatic disease. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to generate an interdisciplinary national consensus on recommendations of how PsA should be managed. METHODS Based on a systematic literature search, an interdisciplinary expert group identified important domains and went through 3 rounds of a Delphi exercise, followed by a nominal group discussion to generate specific recommendations. RESULTS A strong consensus was reached on numerous central messages regarding the impact of PsA, screening procedures, organization of the interaction between dermatologists and rheumatologists, and treatment goals. CONCLUSION These recommendations can serve as a template for similar initiatives in other countries. At the same time, they highlight the need to take into account the impact of the respective national health care system. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.