Validating the is-impact model in the Malaysian public sector

This research is one of several ongoing studies conducted within the IT Professional Services (ITPS) research programme at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2003, ITPS introduced the IS-Impact model, a measurement model for measuring information systems success from the viewpoint of multiple stakeholders. The model, along with its instrument, is robust, simple, yet generalisable, and yields results that are comparable across time, stakeholders, different systems and system contexts. The IS-Impact model is defined as “a measure at a point in time, of the stream of net benefits from the Information System (IS), to date and anticipated, as perceived by all key-user-groups”. The model represents four dimensions, which are ‘Individual Impact’, ‘Organizational Impact’, ‘Information Quality’ and ‘System Quality’. The two Impact dimensions measure the up-to-date impact of the evaluated system, while the remaining two Quality dimensions act as proxies for probable future impacts (Gable, Sedera & Chan, 2008). To fulfil the goal of ITPS, “to develop the most widely employed model” this research re-validates and extends the IS-Impact model in a new context. This method/context-extension research aims to test the generalisability of the model by addressing known limitations of the model. One of the limitations of the model relates to the extent of external validity of the model. In order to gain wide acceptance, a model should be consistent and work well in different contexts. The IS-Impact model, however, was only validated in the Australian context, and packaged software was chosen as the IS understudy. Thus, this study is concerned with whether the model can be applied in another different context. Aiming for a robust and standardised measurement model that can be used across different contexts, this research re-validates and extends the IS-Impact model and its instrument to public sector organisations in Malaysia. The overarching research question (managerial question) of this research is “How can public sector organisations in Malaysia measure the impact of information systems systematically and effectively?” With two main objectives, the managerial question is broken down into two specific research questions. The first research question addresses the applicability (relevance) of the dimensions and measures of the IS-Impact model in the Malaysian context. Moreover, this research question addresses the completeness of the model in the new context. Initially, this research assumes that the dimensions and measures of the IS-Impact model are sufficient for the new context. However, some IS researchers suggest that the selection of measures needs to be done purposely for different contextual settings (DeLone & McLean, 1992, Rai, Lang & Welker, 2002). Thus, the first research question is as follows, “Is the IS-Impact model complete for measuring the impact of IS in Malaysian public sector organisations?” [RQ1]. The IS-Impact model is a multidimensional model that consists of four dimensions or constructs. Each dimension is represented by formative measures or indicators. Formative measures are known as composite variables because these measures make up or form the construct, or, in this case, the dimension in the IS-Impact model. These formative measures define different aspects of the dimension, thus, a measurement model of this kind needs to be tested not just on the structural relationship between the constructs but also the validity of each measure. In a previous study, the IS-Impact model was validated using formative validation techniques, as proposed in the literature (i.e., Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw, 2006, Petter, Straub and Rai, 2007). However, there is potential for improving the validation testing of the model by adding more criterion or dependent variables. This includes identifying a consequence of the IS-Impact construct for the purpose of validation. Moreover, a different approach is employed in this research, whereby the validity of the model is tested using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method, a component-based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. Thus, the second research question addresses the construct validation of the IS-Impact model; “Is the IS-Impact model valid as a multidimensional formative construct?” [RQ2]. This study employs two rounds of surveys, each having a different and specific aim. The first is qualitative and exploratory, aiming to investigate the applicability and sufficiency of the IS-Impact dimensions and measures in the new context. This survey was conducted in a state government in Malaysia. A total of 77 valid responses were received, yielding 278 impact statements. The results from the qualitative analysis demonstrate the applicability of most of the IS-Impact measures. The analysis also shows a significant new measure having emerged from the context. This new measure was added as one of the System Quality measures. The second survey is a quantitative survey that aims to operationalise the measures identified from the qualitative analysis and rigorously validate the model. This survey was conducted in four state governments (including the state government that was involved in the first survey). A total of 254 valid responses were used in the data analysis. Data was analysed using structural equation modelling techniques, following the guidelines for formative construct validation, to test the validity and reliability of the constructs in the model. This study is the first research that extends the complete IS-Impact model in a new context that is different in terms of nationality, language and the type of information system (IS). The main contribution of this research is to present a comprehensive, up-to-date IS-Impact model, which has been validated in the new context. The study has accomplished its purpose of testing the generalisability of the IS-Impact model and continuing the IS evaluation research by extending it in the Malaysian context. A further contribution is a validated Malaysian language IS-Impact measurement instrument. It is hoped that the validated Malaysian IS-Impact instrument will encourage related IS research in Malaysia, and that the demonstrated model validity and generalisability will encourage a cumulative tradition of research previously not possible. The study entailed several methodological improvements on prior work, including: (1) new criterion measures for the overall IS-Impact construct employed in ‘identification through measurement relations’; (2) a stronger, multi-item ‘Satisfaction’ construct, employed in ‘identification through structural relations’; (3) an alternative version of the main survey instrument in which items are randomized (rather than blocked) for comparison with the main survey data, in attention to possible common method variance (no significant differences between these two survey instruments were observed); (4) demonstrates a validation process of formative indexes of a multidimensional, second-order construct (existing examples mostly involved unidimensional constructs); (5) testing the presence of suppressor effects that influence the significance of some measures and dimensions in the model; and (6) demonstrates the effect of an imbalanced number of measures within a construct to the contribution power of each dimension in a multidimensional model.

Designing and evaluating mobile multimedia user experiences in public urban places : Making sense of the field

The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities (United Nations, 2008) resulting in an urban densification requiring people to live in closer proximity and share urban infrastructure such as streets, public transport, and parks within cities. However, “physical closeness does not mean social closeness” (Wellman, 2001, p. 234). Whereas it is a common practice to greet and chat with people you cross paths with in smaller villages, urban life is mainly anonymous and does not automatically come with a sense of community per se. Wellman (2001, p. 228) defines community “as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging and social identity.” While on the move or during leisure time, urban dwellers use their interactive information communication technology (ICT) devices to connect to their spatially distributed community while in an anonymous space. Putnam (1995) argues that available technology privatises and individualises the leisure time of urban dwellers. Furthermore, ICT is sometimes used to build a “cocoon” while in public to avoid direct contact with collocated people (Mainwaring et al., 2005; Bassoli et al., 2007; Crawford, 2008). Instead of using ICT devices to seclude oneself from the surrounding urban environment and the collocated people within, such devices could also be utilised to engage urban dwellers more with the urban environment and the urban dwellers within. Urban sociologists found that “what attracts people most, it would appear, is other people” (Whyte, 1980, p. 19) and “people and human activity are the greatest object of attention and interest” (Gehl, 1987, p. 31). On the other hand, sociologist Erving Goffman describes the concept of civil inattention, acknowledging strangers’ presence while in public but not interacting with them (Goffman, 1966). With this in mind, it appears that there is a contradiction between how people are using ICT in urban public places and for what reasons and how people use public urban places and how they behave and react to other collocated people. On the other hand there is an opportunity to employ ICT to create and influence experiences of people collocated in public urban places. The widespread use of location aware mobile devices equipped with Internet access is creating networked localities, a digital layer of geo-coded information on top of the physical world (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011). Foursquare.com is an example of a location based 118 Mobile Multimedia – User and Technology Perspectives social network (LBSN) that enables urban dwellers to virtually check-in into places at which they are physically present in an urban space. Users compete over ‘mayorships’ of places with Foursquare friends as well as strangers and can share recommendations about the space. The research field of Urban Informatics is interested in these kinds of digital urban multimedia augmentations and how such augmentations, mediated through technology, can create or influence the UX of public urban places. “Urban informatics is the study, design, and practice of urban experiences across different urban contexts that are created by new opportunities of real-time, ubiquitous technology and the augmentation that mediates the physical and digital layers of people networks and urban infrastructures” (Foth et al., 2011, p. 4). One possibility to augment the urban space is to enable citizens to digitally interact with spaces and urban dwellers collocated in the past, present, and future. “Adding digital layer to the existing physical and social layers could facilitate new forms of interaction that reshape urban life” (Kjeldskov & Paay, 2006, p. 60). This methodological chapter investigates how the design of UX through such digital placebased mobile multimedia augmentations can be guided and evaluated. First, we describe three different applications that aim to create and influence the urban UX through mobile mediated interactions. Based on a review of literature, we describe how our integrated framework for designing and evaluating urban informatics experiences has been constructed. We conclude the chapter with a reflective discussion on the proposed framework.

A strategy for delayed research method selection : deciding between grounded theory and phenomenology

This paper presents a strategy for delayed research method selection in a qualitative interpretivist research. An exemplary case details how explorative interviews were designed and conducted in accordance with a paradigm prior to deciding whether to adopt grounded theory or phenomenology for data analysis. The focus here is to determine the most appropriate research strategy in this case the methodological framing to conduct research and represent findings, both of which are detailed. Research addressing current management issues requires both a flexible framework and the capability to consider the research problem from various angles, to derive tangible results for academia with immediate application to business demands. Researchers, and in particular novices, often struggle to decide on an appropriate research method suitable to address their research problem. This often applies to interpretative qualitative research where it is not always immediately clear which is the most appropriate method to use, as the research objectives shift and crystallize over time. This paper uses an exemplary case to reveal how the strategy for delayed research method selection contributes to deciding whether to adopt grounded theory or phenomenology in the initial phase of a PhD research project. In this case, semi-structured interviews were used for data generation framed in an interpretivist approach, situated in a business context. Research questions for this study were thoroughly defined and carefully framed in accordance with the research paradigm‟s principles, while at the same time ensuring that the requirements of both potential research methods were met. The grounded theory and phenomenology methods were compared and contrasted to determine their suitability and whether they meet the research objectives based on a pilot study. The strategy proposed in this paper is an alternative to the more „traditional‟ approach, which initially selects the methodological formulation, followed by data generation. In conclusion, the suggested strategy for delayed research method selection intends to help researchers identify and apply the most appropriate method to their research. This strategy is based on explorations of data generation and analysis in order to derive faithful results from the data generated.

Exploring Indigenous social attitudes and priorities in Australia

Given significant government attention to, and expenditure on, Indigenous equity in Australia, this article addresses a core problem: the lack of a sound understanding of Indigenous social attitudes and priorities. An account of cultural theory raises the likelihood of difference in outlook between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, including those making and implementing policy. Yet, years of scholarly research and official statistical collections have overlooked potentially critical aspects of Indigineity. Suggestions of difference emerge from reference to the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA). If the attitudes recorded a small sample in this instrument manifest in the Indigenous population at large, policy priorities and directions should be reviewed and possibly revised. Despite inherent methodological difficulties, the article calls for targeted social attitude research among Australia's Indigenous peoples so that future policy can be better oriented and calibrated. The national benefits would outweigh the costs via better directed policy making.

What do we currently know about designing and evaluating road safety advertising?

Overview: What we currently know - content design and evaluation The direct role (persuasive effects) of advertising Review of some key findings within a conceptual framework of the persuasive process Definitional inconsistencies, methodological limitations, & gaps in existing knowledge Suggested issues/directions for future advertising research

Reducing aggression on our roads : testing a comprehensive model of aggressive driving

Background: Trauma resulting from traffic crashes poses a significant problem in highly motorised countries. Over a million people worldwide are killed annually and 50 million are critically injured as a result of traffic collisions. In Australia, road crashes cost an average of $17 billion annually in personal loss of income and quality of life, organisational losses in productivity and workplace quality, and health care costs. Driver aggression has been identified as a key factor contributing to crashes, and many motorists report experiencing mild forms of aggression (e.g., rude gestures, horn honking). However despite this concern, driver aggression has received relatively little attention in empirical research, and existing research has been hampered by a number of methodological and conceptual shortcomings. Specifically, there has been substantial disagreement regarding what constitutes aggressive driving and a failure to examine both the situational factors and the emotional and cognitive processes underlying driver aggression. To enhance current understanding of aggressive driving, a model of driver aggression that highlights the cognitive and emotional processes at play in aggressive driving incidents is proposed. Aims: The research aims to improve current understanding of the complex nature of driver aggression by testing and refining a model of aggressive driving that incorporates the person-related and situational factors and the cognitive and emotional appraisal processes fundamental to driver aggression. In doing so, the research will assist to provide a clear definition of what constitutes aggressive driving, assist to identify on-road incidents that trigger driver aggression, and identify the emotional and cognitive appraisal processes that underlie driver aggression. Methods: The research involves three studies. Firstly, to contextualise the model and explore the cognitive and emotional aspects of driver aggression, a diary-based study using self-reports of aggressive driving events will be conducted with a general population of drivers. This data will be supplemented by in-depth follow-up interviews with a sub-sample of participants. Secondly, to test generalisability of the model, a large sample of drivers will be asked to respond to video-based scenarios depicting driving contexts derived from incidents identified in Study 1 as inciting aggression. Finally, to further operationalise and test the model an advanced driving simulator will be used with sample of drivers. These drivers will be exposed to various driving scenarios that would be expected to trigger negative emotional responses. Results: Work on the project has commenced and progress on the first study will be reported.

Recommendations for the reporting of foot and ankle models

Multiple marker sets and models are currently available for assessing foot and ankle kinematics in gait. Despite the presence of such a wide variety of models, the reporting of methodological designs remains inconsistent and lacks clearly defined standards. This review highlights the variability found when reporting biomechanical model parameters, methodological design, and model reliability. Further, the review clearly demonstrates the need for a consensus of what methodological considerations to report in manuscripts, which focus on the topic of foot and ankle biomechanics. We propose five minimum reporting standards, that we believe will ensure the transparency of methods and begin to allow the community to move towards standard modelling practice. The strict adherence to these standards should ultimately improve the interpretation and clinical useability of foot and ankle marker sets and their corresponding models.

Ethical issues in research on adolescent depression and suicidal behaviour

Argues that the codes of ethical conduct of the Australian Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association imply that researchers of adolescent depression and suicidal behavior must plan to intervene to assess risk where a participant in a study indicates an intention to commit suicide. Participants in research of this kind need to be advised of this possibility in advance. The obligation to intervene, and to advise of the possibility of intervention, poses practical and methodological problems for research in this area but does not, it is argued, absolve the researcher of the primary responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the research participant. This obligation exists only when there is indication of harm but not, for instance, in the case of depression without suicidal intent.

Studying Mobile Media : Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone

The iPhone represents an important moment in both the short history of mobile media and the long history of cultural technologies. Like the Walkman of the 1980s, it marks a juncture in which notions about identity, individualism, lifestyle and sociality require rearticulation. This book explores not only the iPhone’s particular characteristics, uses and "affects," but also how the "iPhone moment" functions as a barometer for broader patterns of change. In the iPhone moment, this study considers the convergent trajectories in the evolution of digital and mobile culture, and their implications for future scholarship. Through the lens of the iPhone—as a symbol, culture and a set of material practices around contemporary convergent mobile media—the essays collected here explore the most productive theoretical and methodological approaches for grasping media practice, consumer culture and networked communication in the twenty-first century.

Studying the mobile : locating the field

Book Description: The iPhone represents an important moment in both the short history of mobile media and the long history of cultural technologies. Like the Walkman of the 1980s, it marks a juncture in which notions about identity, individualism, lifestyle and sociality require rearticulation. this book explores not only the iPhone’s particular characteristics, uses and "affects," but also how the "iPhone moment" functions as a barometer for broader patterns of change. In the iPhone moment, this study considers the convergent trajectories in the evolution of digital and mobile culture, and their implications for future scholarship. Through the lens of the iPhone—as a symbol, culture and a set of material practices around contemporary convergent mobile media—the essays collected here explore the most productive theoretical and methodological approaches for grasping media practice, consumer culture and networked communication in the twenty-first century.

Power in legal education : a (new) critical and analytical approach

This article explores power within legal education scholarship. It suggests that power relations are not effectively reflected on within this scholarship, and it provokes legal educators to consider power more explicitly and effectively. It then outlines in-depth a conceptual and methodological approach based on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’ to assist in such an analysis. By detailing the conceptual moves required in order to research power in legal education more effectively, this article seeks to stimulate new reflection and thought about the practice and scholarship of legal education, and allow for political interventions to become more ethically sensitive and potentially more effective.

Implementing a systematic process for rapidly embedding sustainability within chemical engineering education: a case study of James Cook University, Australia

Sustainability has emerged as a primary context for engineering education in the 21st Century, particularly the sub-discipline of chemical engineering. However, there is confusion over how to go about integrating sustainability knowledge and skills systemically within bachelor degrees. This paper addresses this challenge, using a case study of an Australian chemical engineering degree to highlight important practical considerations for embedding sustainability at the core of the curriculum. The paper begins with context for considering a systematic process for rapid curriculum renewal. The authors then summarise a 2-year federally funded project, which comprised piloting a model for rapid curriculum renewal led by the chemical engineering staff. Model elements contributing to the renewal of this engineering degree and described in this paper include: industry outreach; staff professional development; attribute identification and alignment; program mapping; and curriculum and teaching resource development. Personal reflections on the progress and process of rapid curriculum renewal in sustainability by the authors and participating engineering staff will be presented as a means to discuss and identify methodological improvements, as well as highlight barriers to project implementation. It is hoped that this paper will provide an example of a formalised methodology on which program reform and curriculum renewal for sustainability can be built upon in other higher education institutions.

A behavioural car-following model that captures traffic oscillations

This paper presents a behavioral car-following model based on empirical trajectory data that is able to reproduce the spontaneous formation and ensuing propagation of stop-and-go waves in congested traffic. By analyzing individual drivers’ car-following behavior throughout oscillation cycles it is found that this behavior is consistent across drivers and can be captured by a simple model. The statistical analysis of the model’s parameters reveals that there is a strong correlation between driver behavior before and during the oscillation, and that this correlation should not be ignored if one is interested in microscopic output. If macroscopic outputs are of interest, simulation results indicate that an existing model with fewer parameters can be used instead. This is shown for traffic oscillations caused by rubbernecking as observed in the US 101 NGSIM dataset. The same experiment is used to establish the relationship between rubbernecking behavior and the period of oscillations.

Time-dependent rates of molecular evolution

For over half a century, it has been known that the rate of morphological evolution appears to vary with the time frame of measurement. Rates of microevolutionary change, measured between successive generations, were found to be far higher than rates of macroevolutionary change inferred from the fossil record. More recently, it has been suggested that rates of molecular evolution are also time dependent, with the estimated rate depending on the timescale of measurement. This followed surprising observations that estimates of mutation rates, obtained in studies of pedigrees and laboratory mutation-accumulation lines, exceeded long-term substitution rates by an order of magnitude or more. Although a range of studies have provided evidence for such a pattern, the hypothesis remains relatively contentious. Furthermore, there is ongoing discussion about the factors that can cause molecular rate estimates to be dependent on time. Here we present an overview of our current understanding of time-dependent rates. We provide a summary of the evidence for time-dependent rates in animals, bacteria and viruses. We review the various biological and methodological factors that can cause rates to be time dependent, including the effects of natural selection, calibration errors, model misspecification and other artefacts. We also describe the challenges in calibrating estimates of molecular rates, particularly on the intermediate timescales that are critical for an accurate characterization of time-dependent rates. This has important consequences for the use of molecular-clock methods to estimate timescales of recent evolutionary events.

Branch-length estimation bias misleads molecular dating for a vertebrate mitochondrial phylogeny

Despite recent methodological advances in inferring the time-scale of biological evolution from molecular data, the fundamental question of whether our substitution models are sufficiently well specified to accurately estimate branch-lengths has received little attention. I examine this implicit assumption of all molecular dating methods, on a vertebrate mitochondrial protein-coding dataset. Comparison with analyses in which the data are RY-coded (AG → R; CT → Y) suggests that even rates-across-sites maximum likelihood greatly under-compensates for multiple substitutions among the standard (ACGT) NT-coded data, which has been subject to greater phylogenetic signal erosion. Accordingly, the fossil record indicates that branch-lengths inferred from the NT-coded data translate into divergence time overestimates when calibrated from deeper in the tree. Intriguingly, RY-coding led to the opposite result. The underlying NT and RY substitution model misspecifications likely relate respectively to “hidden” rate heterogeneity and changes in substitution processes across the tree, for which I provide simulated examples. Given the magnitude of the inferred molecular dating errors, branch-length estimation biases may partly explain current conflicts with some palaeontological dating estimates.