Calidad de vida y sus factores determinantes en universitarios españoles de Ciencias de la Salud

La calidad de vida en la población universitaria adquiere una especial importancia ya que permite obtener información sobre las condiciones de vida de los universitarios y, sobre todo, de cómo éstos las perciben. Objetivo: Evaluar la calidad de vida de los universitarios que cursan estudios en ciencias de la salud y su relación con diferentes factores tales como: hábitos de vida, parámetros antropométricos y la influencia de las distintas variables sobre su percepción. Material y Método: Estudio transversal de una muestra de 1.753 estudiantes de ciencias de la salud de nueve universidades españolas con diseño muestral aleatorio y estatrificado según curso y facultad al que se le aplicó un cuestionaro ad hoc que recogía todas las variables a estudio. Resultados: La calidad de vida percibida por los participantes fue Me = 75. Los factores explorados de la calidad de vida se co-relacionaron significativamente con la percepción global de calidad de vida de los estudiantes (p<0,001). Se establecieron 3 dimensiones y el impacto de cada una de ellas sobre la percepción de calidad de vida global fue p<0,001. Los varones percibieron mejor calidad de vida que las mujeres y también los estudiantes con menor Índice de Masa Corporal (IMC). Conclusión: Los universitarios son una población clave para realizar actividades de promoción y prevención de la salud por lo que resulta necesario crear mejores infraestucturas y recursos educativos para mejorar la CV y fomentar hábitos y estilos de vida saludable con especial atención en la alimentación y la realización de una adecuada actividad física.

Detección de regularidades en taekwondo de alto nivel

El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar las acciones del combate de taekwondo de alto nivel masculino en las 8 categorías de peso oficiales (Minimosca: <54kg, Mosca: 54-58kg, Gallo: 58-62kg, Pluma: 62-67kg, Ligero: 67-72kg, Superligero: 72-78kg, Medio: 78-84, Pesado: >84kg) en competición. Se diseñó un instrumento de observación ad hoc vinculado a un nuevo instrumento de registro (Drewtina 23), que analizaba las acciones realizadas en los combates. Los criterios de estudio fueron: el tipo de acción ofensiva y acciones defensivas, las acciones técnicas y los asaltos del combate. La observación se realizó en las anales de 6 campeonatos y copas del mundo del 2000 al 2008, con un total de 48 combates de 71 taekwondistas. Para el análisis estadístico descriptivo e inferencial se utilizó el programa PASW Statistics para Windows, y para el análisis de retardos el SDIS-GSEQ. Los resultados revelan que las acciones ofensivas tienen una mayor frecuencia que las defensivas, siendo el contraataque la ofensiva más utilizada. El peso Medio es el que más ofensivas realiza y el Superligero el que más defensivas. La media de acciones por asalto y combate es más alta en el tercer asalto. Más del 95% de las veces los combates se resuelven al analizar el tercer asalto. El análisis secuencial de retardos muestra que las acciones ofensivas actúan como favorecedoras de las acciones e$caces y las defensivas como inhibidoras. La ventaja en el marcador actúa como inhibidora de las acciones ofensivas y excitadora de las defensivas en todas las categorías de peso.

El portafolis europeu de llengües en versió electrònica (ePEL+14): percepció del professorat universitari de la Xarxa Vives

Aquest article presenta el portafolis europeu de llengües en versió electrònica (ePEL+14) recentment validat pel Consell d'Europa. El propòsit és descriure aquesta innovació educativa en la docència universitària dels Erasmus Intensive Language Courses (EILC) i conèixer l'opinió dels professors universitaris de llengua catalana de la Xarxa Vives participants en la primera preexperimentació amb aquesta innovació en el curs 2011-2012. Es va dur a terme una enquesta després d’un taller de l'ePEL+14 en els EILC. El qüestionari ad hoc contenia quatre dimensions: variables sociodemogràfiques, coneixement previ del PEL i ePEL, materials de suport per implementar-ho i conseqüències del seu ús en l'aprenentatge de la llengua. La valoració va ser positiva, especialment per l'adequació de l'eina tecnològica i les funcionalitats informatives i pedagògiques per a l’aprenent de llengües. No obstant això, també assenyalen una influència moderada en l’aprenentatge de la llengua i cultura.

Lifelong Learning for teachers via INTEF MOOCs gular

Supplying teachers with nothing else but ICT, or in the best case, with some knowledge of the tool, has proved to be insufficient for the effectiveness and improvement of the education system. Having as a starting point the personal process of learning, this PhD thesis intends to explore the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that are offered to teachers by the educaLAB, a platform created ad hoc by INTEF (InstitutoNacionalde TecnologíasEducativasy de Formacióndel Profesorado). My work intends to explore the impact these spaces have on our learning process.

Automatic evaluation and data generation for analytical chemistry instrumental analysis exercises

In general, laboratory activities are costly in terms of time, space, and money. As such, the ability to provide realistically simulated laboratory data that enables students to practice data analysis techniques as a complementary activity would be expected to reduce these costs while opening up very interesting possibilities. In the present work, a novel methodology is presented for design of analytical chemistry instrumental analysis exercises that can be automatically personalized for each student and the results evaluated immediately. The proposed system provides each student with a different set of experimental data generated randomly while satisfying a set of constraints, rather than using data obtained from actual laboratory work. This allows the instructor to provide students with a set of practical problems to complement their regular laboratory work along with the corresponding feedback provided by the system's automatic evaluation process. To this end, the Goodle Grading Management System (GMS), an innovative web-based educational tool for automating the collection and assessment of practical exercises for engineering and scientific courses, was developed. The proposed methodology takes full advantage of the Goodle GMS fusion code architecture. The design of a particular exercise is provided ad hoc by the instructor and requires basic Matlab knowledge. The system has been employed with satisfactory results in several university courses. To demonstrate the automatic evaluation process, three exercises are presented in detail. The first exercise involves a linear regression analysis of data and the calculation of the quality parameters of an instrumental analysis method. The second and third exercises address two different comparison tests, a comparison test of the mean and a t-paired test.

Visualization of communication system testing logs

During the past decades testing has matured from ad-hoc activity into being an integral part of the development process. The benefits of testing are obvious for modern communication systems, which operate in heterogeneous environments amongst devices from various manufacturers. The increased demand for testing also creates demand for tools and technologies that support and automate testing activities. This thesis discusses applicability of visualization techniques in the result analysis part of the testing process. Particularly, the primary focus of this work is visualization of test execution logs produced by a TTCN-3 test system. TTCN-3 is an internationally standardized test specification and implementation language. The TTCN-3 standard suite includes specification of a test logging interface and a graphical presentation format, but no immediate relationship between them. This thesis presents a technique for mapping the log events to the graphical presentation format along with a concrete implementation, which is integrated with the Eclipse Platform and the OpenTTCN Tester toolchain. Results of this work indicate that for majority of the log events, a visual representation may be derived from the TTCN-3 standard suite. The remaining events were analysed and three categories relevant in either log analysis or implementation of the visualization tool were identified: events indicating insertion of something into the incoming queue of a port, events indicating a mismatch and events describing the control flow during the execution. Applicability of the results is limited into the domain of TTCN-3, but the developed mapping and the implementation may be utilized with any TTCN-3 tool that is able to produce the execution log in the standardized XML format.

Ohjelmistotuotteen käyttäjälähtöinen kehittäminen

Työn tavoitteena on satamanpitäjille suunnatun PDS toiminnanohjausjärjestelmä ohjelmiston kehittäminen käyttäjälähtöisesti. Tavoitteena on selvittää ohjelmiston vahvuuksia ja heikkouksia käyttäjien näkökulmasta ja tunnistaa kehitystarpeita ohjelmiston käytön tehokkuuden, hyödyllisyyden ja käyttäjäystävällisyyden parantamiseksi. Aluksi tutkitaan kirjallisuuslähteitä käyttäjälähtöisen tuotekehityksen, käyttäjätiedon, sekä sen keraamisen ja käytettävyyden aihepiireistä. Työn käytännön osuudessa määritetään tapauskohtainen käyttäjälähtöisen kehittämisen prosessi, jota sovelletaan PDS ohjelmiston kehittämiseen käyttäjän näkökulmasta. Työn lopputuloksena saadaan kuvaus kehittämisen tarpeista PDS ohjelmiston käyttäjälähtöisyyden parantamiseksi. Tulokset saadaan yhdistelemällä Satamatieto Oy:n kehitys ja ylläpitohenkilöstön näkemykset, tuotteen käytön aikainen dokumentointi, käyttäjäkyselyn tulokset, sekä ryhmälle käyttäjiä teetetyn teemahaastattelun muodossa pidetyn kehityspäivän tulokset.

Parallella, dynamiska representationer i gymnasiefysiken : implementering av ett interaktivt datorverktyg i didaktiska situationer och uppfattning av effektivt lärande

The computer is a useful tool in the teaching of upper secondary school physics, and should not have a subordinate role in students' learning process. However, computers and computer-based tools are often not available when they could serve their purpose best in the ongoing teaching. Another problem is the fact that commercially available tools are not usable in the way the teacher wants. The aim of this thesis was to try out a novel teaching scenario in a complicated subject in physics, electrodynamics. The didactic engineering of the thesis consisted of developing a computer-based simulation and training material, implementing the tool in physics teaching and investigating its effectiveness in the learning process. The design-based research method, didactic engineering (Artigue, 1994), which is based on the theoryof didactical situations (Brousseau, 1997), was used as a frame of reference for the design of this type of teaching product. In designing the simulation tool a general spreadsheet program was used. The design was based on parallel, dynamic representations of the physics behind the function of an AC series circuit in both graphical and numerical form. The tool, which was furnished with possibilities to control the representations in an interactive way, was hypothesized to activate the students and promote the effectiveness of their learning. An effect variable was constructed in order to measure the students' and teachers' conceptions of learning effectiveness. The empirical study was twofold. Twelve physics students, who attended a course in electrodynamics in an upper secondary school, participated in a class experiment with the computer-based tool implemented in three modes of didactical situations: practice, concept introduction and assessment. The main goal of the didactical situations was to have students solve problems and study the function of AC series circuits, taking responsibility for theirown learning process. In the teacher study eighteen Swedish speaking physics teachers evaluated the didactic potential of the computer-based tool and the accompanying paper-based material without using them in their physics teaching. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using questionnaires, observations and interviews. The result of the studies showed that both the group of students and the teachers had generally positive conceptions of learning effectiveness. The students' conceptions were more positive in the practice situation than in the concept introduction situation, a setting that was more explorative. However, it turned out that the students' conceptions were also positive in the more complex assessment situation. This had not been hypothesized. A deeper analysis of data from observations and interviews showed that one of the students in each pair was more active than the other, taking more initiative and more responsibilityfor the student-student and student-computer interaction. These active studentshad strong, positive conceptions of learning effectiveness in each of the threedidactical situations. The group of less active students had a weak but positive conception in the first iv two situations, but a negative conception in the assessment situation, thus corroborating the hypothesis ad hoc. The teacher study revealed that computers were seldom used in physics teaching and that computer programs were in short supply. The use of a computer was considered time-consuming. As long as physics teaching with computer-based tools has to take place in special computer rooms, the use of such tools will remain limited. The affordance is enhanced when the physical dimensions as well as the performance of the computer are optimised. As a consequence, the computer then becomes a real learning tool for each pair of students, smoothly integrated into the ongoing teaching in the same space where teaching normally takes place. With more interactive support from the teacher, the computer-based parallel, dynamic representations will be efficient in promoting the learning process of the students with focus on qualitative reasoning - an often neglected part of the learning process of the students in upper secondary school physics.

Enseñanza de la bioética: una síntesis

La bioética se viene consolidando como una disciplina estructurada desde la década de los 1970, y desde un comienzo hubo una creciente preocupación por la mejor forma de enseñarla en los niveles de pregrado. Muchos docentes han debido adaptarse a las disponibilidades de profesores y recursos, en tanto otros han podido elaborar programas más extensos. Una revisión de la literatura muestra que los programas varían entre 5-10 sesiones y un máximo de 200 horas, desarrolladas en semestres básicos o clínicos, con preferencia por el nivel en que los estudiantes comienzan su práctica clínica. Los métodos de enseñanza son muy diversos, casi todos utilizando en alguna medida la clase magistral complementada con discusión en pequeño grupo. Hay una clara preferencia por la docencia interactiva, pero no siempre hay suficientes profesores para realizarla. Los textos de bioética son escasos y los artículos publicados suelen ser demasiado especializados, por lo que muchos docentes recomiendan preparar apuntes ad hoc que cubran sistemáticamente las materias esenciales. En cuanto a evaluación de los alumnos, la mayoría utiliza el ensayo breve y el análisis de viñetas: los casos esquemáticos

Maavoimien verkostokeskeisen tiedonsiirtojärjestelmän arkkitehtuuri ja sen toteuttaminen

Tämä tutkimus pyrkii määrittelemään itsenäisenä puolustushaarana toimivalle maavoimille sen tehtäviin soveltuvan verkostokeskeisyyttä ja joukkorakenteita tukevan tiedonsiirtojärjestelmän arkkitehtuurin. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan teoreettinen. Siinä analysoidaan yleistä sotilaallisten tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien kehitystä kylmästä sodasta lähtien, tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien kehitystä Yhdysvaltain ja Suomen maavoimissa sekä kaupallisten tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien kehitysnäkymiä. Analyysin pohjalta on laadittu arkkitehtuurikuvaus koostuen kahdeksasta PVTAKmäärittelyn mukaisesta näkymästä sekä esimerkki arkkitehtuurin soveltamisesta käytäntöön. Tämän työn tutkimusongelmana on, millainen maavoimien tiedonsiirtojärjestelmän arkkitehtuuri tukee tulevaisuudessa parhaiten verkostokeskeisyyttä ja yleistä teknistä kehitystä. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa selvitetään sotilaallisten tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien historian ja kehitysnäkymien vaikutusta arkkitehtuurin rakenteeseen. Tutkimusmenetelmänä työssä käytetään kirjallisuusanalyysia ja suunnittelua. Arkkitehtuurin laatiminen ja esimerkki arkkitehtuurin toteuttamisesta luokitellaan suunnitteluksi. Puolustusjärjestelmää valmistaudutaan käyttämään alue-, YETTS-, kriisinhallinta- ja informaatiosodassa. Keskeinen vaatimus on kyky toimia kaikissa näissä toimintaympäristöissä samalla kalustolla. Verkostokeskeisyyden toteuttamisen puolestaan todettiin vaativan suorituskykyistä, yhteensopivaa ja tietoturvallista tiedonsiirtojärjestelmää, joka takaa yhteydellisyyden taistelukentän toimijoiden kesken. Tällä tuetaan erityisesti verkostokeskeistä johtamista ja suunnittelua. Tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien kehityksen todettiin olevan kaikissa asevoimissa hidasta. Myös käytössä olevien ikääntyneiden järjestelmien kehityksen nopeuttaminen on osoittautunut haasteelliseksi hankintaprosessin luonteesta johtuen. Yhdysvaltain maavoimien tiedonsiirtojärjestelmissä hyödynnetään yhä runsaammin COTStekniikka, mutta taktiset johtamisyhteydet toteutetaan yhä useimmiten sotilasjärjestelmillä. Uusimmassa maavoimien järjestelmässä WIN-T:ssä korostuu kerroksellisuus (maa, ilma ja avaruus) ja tehtävän vaatimusten mukaan rakennettava järjestelmä. Sen merkittävä osa on myös JTRS-ohjelmistoradio kaikkine versioineen. Järjestelmän modulaarinen rakenne mahdollistaa jatkuvan osajärjestelmien kehittämisen teknisen kehityksen myötä. Suomen maavoimien tiedonsiirtojärjestelmät vaativat nykyisellään kehitystyötä, mutta ulkomaanoperaatioiden järjestelmiä voidaan pitää onnistuneina ja nykyaikaisina. Tärkeänä nähdäänkin kaikkien joukkotyyppien järjestelmäkehityksen yhdistäminen paremman suorituskyvyn ja yhteensopivuuden saavuttamiseksi. Kaupallisten tiedonsiirtojärjestelmien sotilaskäytön todettiin sisältävän monia haasteita sekä mahdollisuuksia. Kehityksen eteneminen kohti NGN-verkkoja kuitenkin tukee verkostokeskeisyyttä ja sotilassovelluksia. Tällä hetkellä mielenkiintoisimpia sovelluksia ovat ohjelmistoradio ja langattomat laajakaistaiset ad hoc -datansiirtojärjestelmät. Maavoimien tiedonsiirtojärjestelmän arkkitehtuuri on modulaarinen rakentuen siirtojärjestelmistä, käyttäjäympäristö- ja järjestelmäsolmuista sekä yhtenäisestä ohjaus- ja valvontajärjestelmästä. Siirtojärjestelmiä ovat PAN- (henkilökohtaiset), LAN- (lähi), LOS- (suoran yhteyden), BLOS- (epäsuoran yhteyden) ja runkoverkkojärjestelmät. Solmuja ovat esikunta- , komentopaikka- ja liikkuvan tilaajan sekä järjestelmäsolmu. Siirtoteitä ja solmuja kyetään ohjaamaan sekä valvomaan yhtenäisellä ohjaus- ja valvontajärjestelmällä. Keskeistä kokonaisuudessa on IP-protokollan laaja hyödyntäminen. Arkkitehtuuria voidaan soveltaa kaikille joukkotyypeille. Sen toteutuksen tekniikat ja järjestelmät voivat olla COTS:ia tai sotilaallista tekniikkaa. Toteutetut järjestelmät ovat joukkojen erilaisesta luonteesta ja toiminnan vaatimuksista johtuen mahdollisesti hyvinkin erilaisia.

Sotilaan paikkatiedon siirtäminen tietoverkoissa

Paikkatietojärjestelmän avulla voidaan seurata maastossa olevien sotilaiden sijaintia karttasovellukselta. Paikkatietojärjestelmien käyttäminen lisää tilannetietoisuutta ja palvelusturvallisuutta. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on kehittää sotilaan paikkatietojärjestelmän käytettävyyttä Puolustusvoimissa. Tutkimuksessa esitellään paikkatietojärjestelmä sotilastoiminnassa ja yleiset paikantamismenetelmät. Tutkimuksessa selvitetään paikkatietojärjestelmään soveltuvat tietoverkot ja tekniikat. Tutkimuksessa esitellään paikkatietojärjestelmään kehitteillä oleva sanomanvälitysjärjestelmä.

The marketing communications industry in flux: Large B2C advertisers’ viewpoint

The recent digitization, fragmentation of the media landscape and consumers’ changing media behavior are all changes that have had drastic effects on creating marketing communications. In order to create effective marketing communications large advertisers are now co-operating with a variety of marketing communications companies. The purpose of the study is to understand how advertisers perceive these different companies and more importantly how do advertisers expect their roles to change in the future as the media landscape continues to evolve. Especially the changing roles of advertising agencies and media agencies are examined as they are at the moment the most relevant partners of the advertisers. However, the research is conducted from a network perspective rather than focusing on single actors of the marketing communications industry network. The research was conducted using a qualitative theme interview method. The empirical data was gathered by interviewing representatives from nine of the 50 largest Finnish advertisers measured by media spending. Thus, the research was conducted solely from large B2C advertisers’ perspective while the views of their other relevant actors of the network were left unexplored. The interviewees were chosen with a focus on variety of points of view. The analytical framework that was used to analyze the gathered data was built the IMP group’s industrial network model that consists of actors, their resources and activities. As technology driven media landscape fragmentation and consumers’ changing media behavior continue to increase the complexity of creating marketing communications, advertisers are going to need to rely on a growing number of partnerships as they see that the current actors of the network will not be able to widen their expertise to answer to these new needs. The advertisers expect to form new partnerships with actors that are more specialized and able to react and produce activities more quickly than at the moment. Thus, new smaller and more agile actors with looser structures are going to appear to fill these new needs. Therefore, the need of co-operation between the actors is going to become more important. These changes pose the biggest threat for traditional advertising agencies as they were seen as being most unable to cope with the ongoing change. Media agencies are in a more favorable position for remaining relevant for the advertisers as they will be able to justify their activities and provided value by leveraging their data handling abilities. In general the advertisers expect to be working with a limited number of close actors and in addition having a network of smaller actors, which are used on a more ad hoc basis.

Improving the performance of a dismounted Future Force Warrior by means of C4I2SR

This thesis comprises seven peer-reviewed articles and examines systems and applications suitable for increasing Future Force Warrior performance, minimizing collateral damage, improving situational awareness and Common Operational Picture. Based on a literature study, missing functionalities of Future Force Warrior were identified and new ideas, concepts and solutions were created as part of early stages of Systems of Systems creation. These introduced ideas have not yet been implemented or tested in combat and for this reason benefit analyses are excluded. The main results of this thesis include the following: A new networking concept, Wireless Polling Sensor Network, which is a swarm of a few Unmanned Aerial Vehicles forming an ad-hoc network and polling a large number of fixed sensor nodes. The system is more robust in a military environment than traditional Wireless Sensor Networks. A Business Process approach to Service Oriented Architecture in a tactical setting is a concept for scheduling and sharing limited resources. New components to military Service Oriented Architecture have been introduced in the thesis. Other results of the thesis include an investigation of the use of Free Space Optics in tactical communications, a proposal for tracking neutral forces, a system for upgrading simple collaboration tools for command, control and collaboration purposes, a three-level hierarchy of Future Force Warrior, and methods for reducing incidents of fratricide.

Reframing the relationship between service design and operations: a service engineering approach

The significance of services as business and human activities has increased dramatically throughout the world in the last three decades. Becoming a more and more competitive and efficient service provider while still being able to provide unique value opportunities for customers requires new knowledge and ideas. Part of this knowledge is created and utilized in daily activities in every service organization, but not all of it, and therefore an emerging phenomenon in the service context is information awareness. Terms like big data and Internet of things are not only modern buzz-words but they are also describing urgent requirements for a new type of competences and solutions. When the amount of information increases and the systems processing information become more efficient and intelligent, it is the human understanding and objectives that may get separated from the automated processes and technological innovations. This is an important challenge and the core driver for this dissertation: What kind of information is created, possessed and utilized in the service context, and even more importantly, what information exists but is not acknowledged or used? In this dissertation the focus is on the relationship between service design and service operations. Reframing this relationship refers to viewing the service system from the architectural perspective. The selected perspective allows analysing the relationship between design activities and operational activities as an information system while maintaining the tight connection to existing service research contributions and approaches. This type of an innovative approach is supported by research methodology that relies on design science theory. The methodological process supports the construction of a new design artifact based on existing theoretical knowledge, creation of new innovations and testing the design artifact components in real service contexts. The relationship between design and operations is analysed in the health care and social care service systems. The existing contributions in service research tend to abstract services and service systems as value creation, working or interactive systems. This dissertation adds an important information processing system perspective to the research. The main contribution focuses on the following argument: Only part of the service information system is automated and computerized, whereas a significant part of information processing is embedded in human activities, communication and ad-hoc reactions. The results indicate that the relationship between service design and service operations is more complex and dynamic than the existing scientific and managerial models tend to view it. Both activities create, utilize, mix and share information, making service information management a necessary but relatively unknown managerial task. On the architectural level, service system -specific elements seem to disappear, but access to more general information elements and processes can be found. While this dissertation focuses on conceptual-level design artifact construction, the results provide also very practical implications for service providers. Personal, visual and hidden activities of service, and more importantly all changes that take place in any service system have also an information dimension. Making this information dimension visual and prioritizing the processed information based on service dimensions is likely to provide new opportunities to increase activities and provide a new type of service potential for customers.

Virtual communities : a virtual treasure trove for end-user developers

End-user development is a very common but often largely overlooked phenomenon in information systems research and practice. End-user development means that regular people, the end-users of software, and not professional developers are doing software development. A large number of people are directly or indirectly impacted by the results of these non-professional development activities. The numbers of users performing end-user development activities are difficult to ascertain precisely. But it is very large, and still growing. Computer adoption is growing towards 100% and many new types of computational devices are continually introduced. In addition, other devices not previously programmable are becoming so. This means that, at this very moment, hundreds of millions of people are likely struggling with development problems. Furthermore, software itself is continually being adapted for more flexibility, enabling users to change the behaviour of their software themselves. New software and services are helping to transform users from consumers to producers. Much of this is now found on-line. The problem for the end-user developer is that little of this development is supported by anyone. Often organisations do not notice end-user development and consequently neither provide support for it, nor are equipped to be able to do so. Many end-user developers do not belong to any organisation at all. Also, the end-user development process may be aggravating the problem. End-users are usually not really committed to the development process, which tends to be more iterative and ad hoc. This means support becomes a distant third behind getting the job done and figuring out the development issues to get the job done. Sometimes the software itself may exacerbate the issue by simplifying the development process, deemphasising the difficulty of the task being undertaken. On-line support could be the lifeline the end-user developer needs. Going online one can find all the knowledge one could ever need. However, that does still not help the end-user apply this information or knowledge in practice. A virtual community, through its ability to adopt the end-user’s specific context, could surmount this final obstacle. This thesis explores the concept of end-user development and how it could be supported through on-line sources, in particular virtual communities, which it is argued here, seem to fit the end-user developer’s needs very well. The experiences of real end-user developers and prior literature were used in this process. Emphasis has been on those end-user developers, e.g. small business owners, who may have literally nowhere to turn to for support. Adopting the viewpoint of the end-user developer, the thesis examines the question of how an end-user could use a virtual community effectively, improving the results of the support process. Assuming the common situation where the demand for support outstrips the supply.