Virtual Learning Environments Revealing Preconditions for Trustful Collaboration and Reflection

AUTHOR Anne Gerdes ABSTRACT It is generally acknowledged that trust plays an important role for the flourishing of collaborative relations in real life as well as in cyberspace. This paper analyses preconditions for trust in virtual learning environments. The concept of trust is discussed with reference to cases reporting trust in cyberspace (Jarvenpee & Leidner, […]

Barriers to Exit in Communities on the Web: Description, Business Causes and Effects on Users

AUTHOR Roberto Garigliano and Luisa Mich ABSTRACT Users who take part in online communities often develop deep attachments that have a series of consequences on their lives. We argue that in order to understand this long-term loyalty and its effects, it is useful to analyse it as a form of switching cost, often generated by […]

Getting to the Other Side – Beyond the Digital Divide

AUTHOR William M. Fleischman ABSTRACT For ten years now, we have been participating in a collaborative effort with students and teachers of the Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia designed to overcome some of the obstacles to technological inclusion and educational progress that affect young students from low-income families. Those of us engaged […]

Public versus Private Domain : Knowledge and Information in the Global Communications Network

AUTHOR László Fekete ABSTRACT It goes without saying that knowledge and information are the most valuable com-modities in the new economy. Though knowledge and information as private goods could provide great business opportunities for rights holders in the global communications network, they exhibit the distinctive characteristics of public goods (Samuelson 1954, 387-389; Stiglitz 1999, 308-325). […]