Paula Swatman

University of Tasmania, School of Engineering and ICT, Faculty Member

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Address: Huonville, Tasmania, Australia

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Papers by Paula Swatman

Applying External Solutions to Organizational Development: eLearning as a Platform for Internal Growth

by Dr. Chandana Unnithan and Paula Swatman

Innovations in technology have facilitated eLearning process development, bringing significant im... more

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Social media and health: The Australian Paradigm

by Paula Swatman and Dr. Chandana Unnithan

Ensuring Privacy of Participants in Social Media Based Research: an Australian perspective

by Dr. Chandana Unnithan and Paula Swatman

Content analysis offers an effective approach to inquiring into ethical challenges in social medi... more Content analysis offers an effective approach to inquiring into ethical challenges in social media based research. Content from social media sites used for the small number of research studies conducted to date, taken in conjunction with the various national human research ethics guidelines, offer a means of understanding how ethical challenges of privacy and anonymity can be (and are being) addressed for responsible social media-based research. This paper explores the ways in which privacy/anonymity of participants can be ensured in social media-based research in the Australian context. Using the notion of trust and privacy within a set of selected social media channels through which participants are recruited for specific research studies, we initially identify what is being done and analyse the effectiveness of these approaches. Subsequently, we seek to identify emerging avenues of exploration and offer strategies for enhanced efficacy.

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A Longitudinal Study of Expectations in Small Business Internet Commerce

International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1999

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Special Section: Electronic Commerce Architectures: Chains, Networks, and Communities

International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1997

ABSTRACT

What's in a Name? Conceptual Issues in Defining Electronic Commerce

Ecis, 2000

Definitions of electronic commerce are many and varied. They indicate a lack of consensus about w... more Definitions of electronic commerce are many and varied. They indicate a lack of consensus about what electronic commerce is. 'A 'definition' implies a direct and unproblematic correspondence between the phenomena and the way a researcher identifies it. However, electronic commerce presents a reality that is too complex for a mere definition to extract its true 'essence'. Weber's 'ideal type' provides a construct to interpret complex phenomena at a less simplistic level. The ideal type acts as a yardstick for assessing actual situations but is never seen as a direct definition of that reality. To provide an improved basis for theorising, we attempt to construct an ideal type for electronic commerce and use it to develop closer approximations to reality. We conclude that definitions provide a gauge of current conceptual problems in seeing what electronic commerce is. Once we have applied the ideal type methodology to electronic commerce, definitions provide us with a point of orientation for building features, developing and refining understanding of its complexities.

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Effective Internet Acceptable Usage Policy for Organisations

With the Internet increasingly being used for the conduct of electronic commerce, organisations a... more With the Internet increasingly being used for the conduct of electronic commerce, organisations are now cognisant of the need to control their employees' usage of the Internet. Little research has been conducted to date into this important concern. An Internet acceptable usage policy is one vehicle for providing this control, containing guidelines for employees indicating both acceptable and unacceptable Internet usages. The policy aims to control those employee behaviours and actions which contribute to the incidence and severity of internal and external Internet risks, while enabling employees and the organisation to gain maximum business value from the Internet connection. This paper explores the issues to be considered in the development of an organisation's Internet acceptable usage policy, using a case study of a large, Australian organisation to illustrate the issues. A set of criteria for an effective Internet acceptable usage policy is proposed as a result of this research.

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Formal Object-Oriented method—FOOM

FOOM (Formal Object-Oriented Methodology) is a method which assists in understanding and modellin... more

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Implementing information management strategically: an Australian EDRMS case study

Organisations in both private and public sectors are increasingly becoming aware of the need to t... more Organisations in both private and public sectors are increasingly becoming aware of the need to take a strategic approach to the management of corporate information and records. In this paper we present a case study of a successful Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) implementation within a major Australian capital city council. Guided by Ward and Peppard's strategic systems framework , the case study highlights a set of strategies which were responsible for the successful outcome of the implementationand shows just how crucial it is for any organisation to bring with it the people and the processes involved in the creation, management and maintenance of records and information, if a centralised approach is to work over the longer term.

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E-Commerce, Human Resource Strategies, and Competitive Advantage: Two Australian Banking Case Studies

International Journal of Electronic Commerce Ijec, 2005

... that personal customers who owned SMEs would only move their business banking to AUB ... of c... more

Encouraging SME Acceptance of EDI: An Educational Approach1

Telecommunications addresses the tyranny of distance for international and domestic trade communi... more Telecommunications addresses the tyranny of distance for international and domestic trade communities by providing information linkages both internally and externally to an organisation. These global networks give firms the opportunity to gain strategic advantages such as the strengthening of trading partner relationships and the redesigning of internal procedures to improve overall efficiency and cost effectiveness. Many organisations -more noteably small and medium-sized enterprises -however, have been slow to adopt telecommunications and its enabled technologies (EDI in particular) due to a general lack of understanding of the benefits available from their effective utilisation. This paper describes the various benefits attributed to telecommunications and, more specifically, to EDI. The paper summarises many of the major factors which might be contributing to the slow rate of acceptance of this technology, despite the benefits which the business community stands to gain from its widespread adoption. The paper then argues that using laboratory-based teaching programmes might prove to be an effective way in which to alleviate this problem of EDI and telecommunications acceptance, particularly in the case of SMEs.

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E-Book Technology and Its impact on Libraries

As of September 2006 19,000 free e-books are available from the Project Gutenberg Online Book Cat... more As of September 2006 19,000 free e-books are available from the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog and over 2 million e-books are downloaded each month from the Gutenberg web site . Academic and scholarly libraries are preparing for a significant shift from physical to electronic material presentation within the next few years. Within this context, we review some recent developments in e-book and its impacts on academic libraries.

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Through A Glass Darkly': Can Theoretical Models for Technology Adoption Add Value to Enterprise Wide System Implementations?

A theoretical framework or model can provide practitioners with a lens to better view the wellkno... more A theoretical framework or model can provide practitioners with a lens to better view the wellknown problems associated with uptake of enterprise wide systems (EWS). However, in the IS field, no existing theoretical framework or model has gained widespread acceptance. In this paper we tackle this conundrum by assessing the applicability of two well known theoretical frameworks -Diffusion of Innovation and the TAM/TAM2 as possible predictors for outcomes from a successful implementation of an Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) in a local government context. The authors then propose modifications of these two frameworks to arrive at a technology implementation model of their own design. The proposed model allows for improved measurement and monitoring of EWS implementations as they occur and has the potential to assist technology implementers in three fundamental areas: improving design of technology projects, monitoring projects varying from the desired position prior to failure, and identifying failed projects at a point early enough to minimise organisational disruption, expense and loss of credibility.

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Employee development strategies in the B2C banking environment: Two Australian case studies

European Is Profession in the Global Networking Environment Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Information Systems Turku Finland June 14 16 2004, 2004

The implementation of technology and, in particular, eCommerce technologies has had unforeseen co... more The implementation of technology and, in particular, eCommerce technologies has had unforeseen consequences for the relationship between managers and employees. To be able to operate in an increasingly global and competitive environment, retail banks have had to develop new ways of dealing with their employees. Issues have arisen that have necessitated a rethink in the way employees interact with customers and this, in turn, has required changes to human resource strategies. The question we address in this paper is what are the employee capabilities and qualities retail banks must develop to satisfy both more sophisticated customers (who demand flexibility of interactions, responsiveness and convenience) as well as the organisation's own needs (including expanded sales opportunities, cost containment or reduction and customer loyalty) when implementing eCommerce technologies. The paper discusses two case studies illustrating some of the issues with which banks, as service organisations, have had to deal. These two banks have taken rather different approaches in their use of technology to interact with their customers and this has implications for the way they manage their employees who deal with those customers.

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The impact of internet technology on the online content sector: value webs in online news and music

In the increasingly complex world of online content provision, traditional providers of content -... more In the increasingly complex world of online content provision, traditional providers of content -such as newspapers or record 'labels' -are finding that their old ways of doing business are no longer sufficient. New technology has allowed music consumers to by-pass the legal music market altogether in peer-to-peer networks and, even in the legal music download business, albums sales are giving way to track-based music purchasing. In the online news sector, it has become increasingly difficult to find ways of creating value from a product which most consumers now see as free! This paper provides an overview of the literature on diffusion of innovation and eBusiness models, identifying the limitations of 'traditional' views of both -and suggesting that evolutionary economics, with its rejection of the concept of optimisation, its focus on markets and firms rather than individuals, and its acknowledgement of the importance of human agents in the acceptance and use of technology may well be better placed to explain what is happening in this market-space. The paper builds on the findings of a three-year investigation of the European online news and music sectors, discussing the ways in which business models in these markets are evolving; and identifying the crucial role which value webs are playing in successful and innovative firms.

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From surface to meaningful collaboration: An activity theory perspective

The present paper follows up earlier research about the implementation of case discussions online... more The present paper follows up earlier research about the implementation of case discussions online which has shown the need for more procedural guidance to avoid shallow case discussion. The limited success of case discussions in an online environment demanded a more comprehensive approach to modeling the online interaction space. In the first part we develop our model, following a sociocultural understanding of collaborative learning we depart from Vygotsky's idea of mediated action and introduce the concept of Engeström's activity system. Both constructs are the theoretical basis for our model presenting individual and collective activities horizontally and methodological and media-technological competencies vertically, reflecting the mediation of activities through social interaction and tools. The resulting 4 quadrants provide an analytical grid which is meant to support online instructors in detecting potential tensions within or among the multiple activities during online case discussions.

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Online Case Discussions: an activity theory perspective

In this paper we present a perspective of case discussions in an online learning environment base... more In this paper we present a perspective of case discussions in an online learning environment based on Activity Theory, which allows us to analyse the embedded nature of students' learning activities. We see Activity Theory as a first step towards structuring the complexity of students' experiences in today's higher education systems, recognising the distinction between potential and actual learning activities. Preliminary results of a study of an undergraduate course which used several forms of synchronous and asynchronous communication demonstrate the effect of taking an activity theory perspective of instructional design decisions. Although online case discussions can be supported through scripts and scaffolds to overcome the logistical and epistemological problems of online collaboration, the use of synchronous communication technology revealed that constraints such as low bandwidth and a complex software interface still present major hurdles to the smooth integration of synchronous technologies.

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No Content Provider is an Island: the changing role of technology providers in value networks

The convergence of digital technology and the emergence of Web 2.0 have radically changed the nat... more The convergence of digital technology and the emergence of Web 2.0 have radically changed the nature of the digital content sector. This paper, building on a theoretical base of Evolutionary Diffusion Theory and business model analysis, initially summarises and updates the findings from the EC 5th Framework SimWeb project. It then argues the position that 21st-century technology providers are increasingly playing the major role in the content delivery market space -especially in the music industry -to create and ensure long term interoperability between the different stakeholders in the digital content value network.

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Describing a design pattern: Why is it not enough to identify patterns in educational design?

In this paper we analyse the use of patterns across a number of fields including architecture, so... more In this paper we analyse the use of patterns across a number of fields including architecture, software development and educational technology design. Focusing on the reusability of a pattern outside its area of development, we have identified several issues related to the context and the value system of a pattern. The paper draws together lessons learned from different fields where patterns are already used and described. We conclude with a recommendation of pattern descriptors and guidelines which improve their applicability in varying value systems.

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The transition from surface to meaningful collaboration in online case-based learning: an activity-theory perspective

Abstract The use of cases for teaching and learning, while increasingly popular, is a challenging... more

Paula Swatman

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