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doi: 10.1177/089443939801600102pmid: N/A
Although it is rapidly emerging as a forum for social science scholarship, the World Wide Web is now used mainly to propagate conventional scholarship. This is certain to change given the simultaneous expansion in the capabilities of Web-based communication and decline in libraries' ability to keep abreast of print scholarship. This article outlines opportunities for changing and enhancing the nature of scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles on the Web. Three mechanisms are discussed by which the form and content of the scholarly article can be improved: (a) the use of hypertext structuring, (b) the integration of multimedia components into articles, and (c) the use of differentiated pointers. Examples are on an accompanying Web page at http://artsci.wustl.edu/∼anthro/demo/.
Usip, Ebenge E.; Bee, Richard H.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600104pmid: N/A
Students enrolled in undergraduate economic statistics classes at Youngstown State University (YSU) were surveyed in an attempt to differentiate between users and nonusers of Web-based instruction (WBI) as a supplement to the traditional classroom lecture/problem-solving approach. Discriminant analysis and descriptive statistics tools were used to compare and contrast the perceptions of users and nonusers. The users concluded that distance learning via the World Wide Web (WWW or the Web) was not only a good method of obtaining general information but a useful tool in improving their academic performance in a quantitative economic class. Nonusers thought the university should help provide financial assistance for going online and that WBI should not be required for graduation.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600105pmid: N/A
This essay describes the creation of Web-based multipurpose multimedia databases concerned with the Supreme Court and other historically and politically significant institutions, events, and actors. These databases enrich instruction and may encourage learning. These materials are rich in emotive content that text-only transcriptions never capture. Scholars have only begun to tap multimedia resources. Their scholarship becomes verifiable when such media are open to all. Web access is one step toward this objective. Serious multimedia content providers may discover that hybrid compact disk (CD) and digital video disk (DVD) technology can simultaneously protect their intellectual property and encourage its use.
Finholt, Thomas A.; Teasley, Stephanie D.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600106pmid: N/A
The Internet explosion and broad interest in collaborative technology have driven increased interest in the field of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Historically, behavioral research on CSCW applications has reflected a strong influence from ethnomethodology. This article argues that the CSCW community should adopt a stronger orientation to other social science disciplines, particularly psychology. Greater attention to the psychological literature provides three benefits. First, psychologists offer well-validated principles about human behavior in group and organizational contexts that are relevant to CSCW research. Second, psychologists offer reliable and proven measures of human behavior that, if adopted by CSCW researchers, can provide a uniform basis for comparison across studies. Finally, psychologists offer data collection and analysis methods that identify salient and generalizable features of human behavior, which may lead to the development of universal principles of CSCW design.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600107pmid: N/A
This report describes the implementation and acceptance of an electronic syllabus on the World Wide Web (WWW). The greatest potential of a teaching home page on the Internet lies in a synergy effect of three domains: WWW pages serve as administrative tools, as powerful research instruments, and as a tool skill to prepare students for their careers in public or private institutions. This article uses the empirical example of an electronic syllabus to illuminate potentials, problems, and the acceptance of the Internet as an extended sociology classroom by students.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600108pmid: N/A
The purpose of the this article is to discuss the impact that online technologies are having and will continue to have on the way secondary analysis of survey research is performed. The authors discuss the validity of secondary analysis of survey research studies and the effect that online technology has on such analyses. Before reviewing current online public opinion sources, the authors make the argument that online services are becoming increasingly important for secondary analysis. Finally, the authors present a model indicating where online services can go in the future given the technology that is available today. Ultimately, it is believed that the Internet is currently underexploited for its capacity to aid secondary analysis. The authors advocate making survey data more easily available online to all potential users. This entails varying the format and depth of data so that users find sources suitable to their needs. It also entails the use of desktop technology to store and analyze survey research data and making that technology, or the applications that are developed through that technology, available to other users via computer networks, primarily via the Internet.
Timpone, Richard J.; Taber, Charles S.
doi: 10.1177/089443939801600109pmid: N/A
This article compares and contrasts traditional mathematical models with computer simulations. The strengths and flexibility of algorithmic computational simulations are shown by "walking through" a program designed to investigate and extend understanding in one of the most enduring questions in social choice research—concerns over the frequency of cycling collective decisions even when individuals hold clear transitive preferences. After discussing solutions to this problem from each approach—analytic and algorithmic—the authors modify the simulation to investigate questions dealing with weak preference orderings, even-numbered electorates, and the probabilistic uncertainty inherent in iterated approximations more generally. Although traditional formal solutions have a clear advantage for estimating the limiting values of the probability of cycles (i.e., as the electorate or number of alternatives goes to infinity), computer models are far more tractable for finite values and extensions.
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