Background: Computer science faces a persistent attrition problem, with people leaving the field at a rate that exceeds new entrants. Given the increasing demand for computing jobs, it is essential to focus on reducing the number of individuals exiting the field. Purpose: This study investigates why individuals leave the computer science field…

This study explores the phenomenon of computational thinking indicated by the use of Bloom's taxonomy's cognitive domain verbs in the Scratch community, the online, collaborative environment for the Scratch Visual Programming Language (VPL). A corpus of 660,984 words from three Scratch community sub-forums provide the data for this study. By…

For the fortieth time, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two volumes.…

This study investigated the impact of discussion forum design and facilitative strategies on student participation and cognitive levels of student dialogue. A multiple-case study design was used. Three online classes taught by the same instructor participated (n = 55). Data were collected from observations, discussion transcripts, and teacher…

The advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has created opportunities for learning that are clearly in high demand, but the direction in which MOOCs should evolve to best meet the interests and needs of learners is less apparent. Motivated by our interest in whether there are potential and purpose for archived MOOCs to be used as learning…

This article traces the influences of hypertext theory throughout the various genres of online publication in technical communication. It begins with a look back at some of the important concepts and theorists writing about hypertext theory from the post-World War II era, to the early years of the World Wide Web 2.0, and the very differing notions…

Targeted email attacks to enable computer network exploitation have become more prevalent, more insidious, and more widely documented in recent years. Beyond nuisance spam or phishing designed to trick users into revealing personal information, targeted malicious email (TME) facilitates computer network exploitation and the gathering of sensitive…

This paper examines the effective deployment of conversational agents in virtual worlds from the perspective of researchers/practitioners in cognitive psychology, computing science, learning technologies and engineering. From a cognitive perspective, the major challenge lies in the coordination and management of the various channels of information…

An internal assessment was conducted utilizing a sociotechnical systems approach and cultural lens as a means of exploring the dynamics of a blended doctoral program. Blended learning environments were conceived of as sociotechnical systems, and blended programs were defined as programs that utilize multimodal means for the mediation of…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies have been an integral part of distance education for many years. They are found in both synchronous and asynchronous platforms and are intended to enhance the learning experience for students. CMC technologies add an interactive element to the online learning environment. The findings from this…

This research study examined whether the overall effectiveness of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) could be predicted by measuring multiple independent variables. The primary variables studied included the number of ITIL process modules adopted and the overall ITIL "maturity level." An online survey was used to…

Library/information science professionals need a clearly articulated definition of usability/Web usability to implement intuitive websites. In this study, the authors analyzed usability definitions provided by the ARL library professionals and those found in the library/information science and computer science-information systems literature.…

Existing research on context and context awareness has broadly focused on the technical aspects of context acquisition and interpretation of users' surroundings, also called physical or sensor-based context. Such an approach has lacked from reconciling the perception of real-world context exhibited by humans, also known as user context, and…

This paper presents the main findings, and lessons learned, from introducing a synchronous peer collaboration activity in a distance learning computer science course. Synergo, a software that supports such an approach, was used in this activity. The organizational, technical, and academic challenges of introducing this activity in the course are…

Gaming and social networking define the millennial student. This research focuses on an evolving collaboration between 2 faculty members of different disciplines who merged Web 2.0 and game scenarios to infuse research techniques as integral components of math/computer science courses. Blogs and wikis facilitated student-faculty interaction beyond…