Miles, G. E., Howes, A., & Davies, A. (2000). A framework for understanding human factors in web-based electronic commerce, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 52(1), 131-163.
Excerpt: "The World Wide Web and email are used increasingly for purchasing and selling products. The use of the internet for these functions represents a significant departure from the standard range of information retrieval and communication tasks for which it has most often been used. Electronic commerce should not be assumed to be information retrieval, it is a separate task-domain, and the software systems that support it should be designed from the perspective of its goals and constraints. At present there are many different approaches to the problem of how to support seller and buyer goals using the internet. They range from standard, hierarchically arranged, hyperlink pages to "electronic sales assistants", and from text-based pages to 3D virtual environments. In this paper, we briefly introduce the electronic commerce task from the perspective of the buyer, and then review and analyse the technologies. A framework is then proposed to describe the design dimensions of electronic commerce. We illustrate how this framework may be used to generate additional, hypothetical technologies that may be worth further exploration. Copyright 2000 Academic Press"
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Miller, E. T., Neal, D. J., Roberts, L. J., Baer, J. S.,
Cressler, S. O., Metrik, J., & Marlatt, G. A. (2002). Test-retest
reliability of alcohol measures: Is there a difference between Internet-based
assessment and traditional methods?. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16, 56-63.
Excerpt: "This study compared Web-based assessment techniques with traditional paper-based methods of commonly used measures of alcohol use. Test-retest reliabilities were obtained, and tests of validity were conducted. A total of 255 participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: paper-based (P&P), Web-based (Web), or Web-based with interruption (Web-I). Follow-up assessments 1 week later indicated reliabilities ranging from .59 to .93 within all measures and across all assessment methods. Significantly high test-retest reliability coefficients support the use of these measures for research and clinical applications. Furthermore, no significant differences were found between assessment techniques, suggesting that Web-based methods are a suitable alternative to more traditional methods. This cost-efficient alternative has the advantage of minimizing data collection and entry errors while increasing survey accessibility."
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Raziano, D. B., Jayadevappa, R., & Valenzula, D. (2001). E-mail versus conventional postal mail survey of geriatric chiefs. The Gerontologist, 41(6), 799-804.
Excerpt: "This study compared the response time, response rate, and cost of two types of survey administration techniques: e-mail/web-based versus conventional postal mail. The main aim of the survey was to collect descriptive information on the existence of Acute Care for Elders units and their characteristics by surveying geriatric division chiefs. Design and Methods: Two randomized cohorts of geriatric division chiefs were formed to receive a survey either by electronic mail (n = 57) or by conventional postal mail (n = 57). If there was no response to the initial mailing, two follow-up mailings were sent to both groups using the original modality; a third follow-up was performed using the alternative modality. For each group, response rate and response time were calculated. The average total cost was computed and compared across two groups. Results: The aggregate response rate was 58% (n = 31) for the e-mail group versus 77% (n = 44) for the postal mail group. The overall average response time was shorter in the e-mail group, 18 days compared with 33 days for the conventional postal mailing group. The cost comparison showed that average cost was $7.70 for the e-mail group, compared to $10.50 per response for the conventional mail group. Implications: It appears that although the web-based technology is gaining popularity and leads to lower cost per response, the conventional postal method of surveying continues to deliver a better response rate among the geriatric medical division chiefs. The web-based approach holds promise given its lower costs and acceptable response rate combined with the shorter response time"
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Thong, J.Y. L., Hong, W., & Tam, K. (2000) Understanding user acceptance of digital libraries: what are the roles of interface characteristics, organizational context, and individual differences? International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57(3), 215-242
Excerpt: "Digital library research efforts originating from library and information scientists have focused on the technical development. While millions of dollars have been spent on building 'usable' digital libraries, previous research indicates that potential users may still not use them. This study contributes to understanding user acceptance of digital libraries by utilizing the technology acceptance model (TAM). Three system interface characteristics, three organizational context variables, and three individual differences are identified as critical external variables that have impact on adoption intention through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the digital library. Data was collected from 397 users of an award-winning digital library. The findings show that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are determinants of user acceptance of digital libraries. In addition, interface characteristics and individual differences affect perceived ease of use, while organizational context influences both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of digital libraries."
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Yun, G. W., Yun, G., & Trumbo, C. W. (2000). Comparative response to a survey executed by post, e-mail, & web form. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 6(1).
Excerpt: "Conducted an analysis of the characteristics of 3 survey response modes (post, e-mail, and Web site), using data from a survey of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), in which science writers' professional use of e-mail and the Web is evaluated. The results show a number of potentially important differences in the response characteristics of these 3 groups. Researchers using multi-mode survey techniques should keep in mind that subtle effects might be at play in their analyses. The authors do not, however, observe significant influences of survey mode in their substantive analyses. They conclude, at least in this case, that the differences detected in the response groups indicate that using multi-mode survey techniques improved the representativeness of the sample without biasing other results."
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