Introduction
My research seeks to improve the World Wide Web (Web) by exploring methods to improve the quality and usability of web based information. I am currently working on two research projects that explore: the Internet as a platform for collective intelligence and the management of Web-based information for decision making. The first project involved developing a "Web 2.0" application allows special education practitioners to collect data and share insights related to student performance during educational tasks and social interactions. The system can be used to assess special education student progress and improve decision making. The second project explores the use of adaptive information extraction agents to retrieve and analyze online data, specifically from a new generation of Web 2.0 applications. An important part of both research projects is the development and validation of prototype systems that can be used to demonstrate the benefits the systems can provide individuals and organizations.
Research Approach
My research is strongly design science oriented, with an emphasis
on building real software systems and using them to evaluate benefits,
human computer interaction, and research concepts. I believe it
is crucial to evaluate software systems through real implementations,
since the complexity of modern distributed systems can be extremely
hard to capture through simulation or experiments alone. Furthermore,
the software artifacts, which result from such implementations,
are an essential contribution of design science research that drives
both product development and future research.
In order to better understand the role of design science research
in IS and to develop a model for conducting my own research, I worked
on a project designed to evaluate and refine the design science
component of IS research. This research involved developing a scientific
framework for doing IS research using a design science methodology,
reviewing 509 abstracts from 7 top IS journals to find the IS articles
that use a research methodology that involved systems-building,
and finally, reviewing and classifying 110 articles that used a
design science research methodology using the scientific framework
developed. This research was published in
Information Systems
Frontiers (2001). It is currently being used to teach design
science methodology in several Ph.D. programs.
Research Contributions
My research papers can be grouped into four overlapping research areas: online auctions, web quality, information retrieval agents, and collective intelligence (or Web 2.0) applications. All four of these research areas utilize software agents, web applications, and web information in one way or another. I was either the sole author or the lead author on all but one of my refereed journal publications to date. The tables on the next pages summarize my contribution on each of these papers.
Published Research Contribution Summary
| Title | Journal | Type of Journal |
Journal Quality* |
My Role | Citations** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dressing Your Online Auction Business For Success: An Experiment Comparing Two E-Bay Businesses | MIS Quarterly | Refereed (Research) |
A h-index: 14 ISI: 4.978 |
Primary author responsible for concept development, research design, conducting the experiment and 70% of the first draft | 0 (6 months) journal avg: 5.68 |
| Exploring Information Extraction Resilience | Journal of Universal Computer Science | Refereed (Research) |
B+ h-index: 9 ISI: 0.338 |
Sole Author, Invited Paper | 0 (9 months) journal avg: |
| A Typology of Complaints about eBay Sellers | Communications of the ACM | Refereed (Practitioner / Research) |
A-
|
Primary author responsible for research design and first draft | 2 (1 year) journal avg: 2.0 |
| eLearning Agents | The Learning Organization | Refereed (Research) |
B h-index: 7 |
Sole Author | 0 (1.5 years) journal avg: 1.16 |
| Exploiting the Information Web | IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C | Refereed (Research) |
A h-index: 24 ISI: 0.706 |
Primary author responsible for concept development, all code, research design, conducting the experiment and 90% of the first draft | 7 (2 years) journal avg: 3.81 |
| Market Decision Making for Online Auction Sellers: Profit Maximization versus Socialization Perspective | Journal of Electronic Commerce Research | Refereed (Research) |
B h-index: 6 |
Second Author involved in scale development, SEM analysis, and 30% of the first draft. | 5 (2 years) journal avg: 2.29 |
| Adaptive Web Information Extraction | Communications of the ACM | Refereed (Practitioner / Research) |
A- A practitioner h-index: 17 ISI: 1.797 |
Primary author responsible for research design and first draft | 13 (3 years) journal avg: 2.0 |
| The Role of Reputation Systems in Reducing Online Auction Fraud | International Journal of Electronic Commerce | Refereed (Research) |
A- A EC h-index: 9 ISI: 1.143 |
Primary author responsible for concept development, research design and first draft | 13 (3 years) journal avg: 3.27 |
| Auction Advisor: Online Auction Recommendation and Bidding Decision Support System | Decision Support Systems | Refereed (Research) |
A- |
Primary author responsible for concept development, research design, conducting the experiment and 70% of the first draft | 16 (3 years) journal avg: 4.42 |
| XDependency: maintaining relationships between XML data resources | Information & Software Technology | Refereed (Research) |
B+ h-index: 11 ISI: 1.2 |
Sole author | 0 journal avg: |
| E-commerce Auction Agents and Online-Auction Dynamics | Electronic Markets | Refereed (Research) |
B B+ eCommerce h-index: 7 |
Primary author responsible for the initial concept, data acquisition, the majority of the data analysis and 70% of the first draft | 14 journal avg: |
| Distributing decision support systems via the WWW: The validation of a DSS metadata model | Decision Support Systems | Refereed (Research) |
A- |
Primary author responsible for concept development, research design and first draft | 21 journal avg: 4.42 |
| Understanding the Philosophical Underpinnings of Software Engineering Research in Information Systems | Information Systems Frontiers | Refereed (Research) |
B |
All authors contributed equally to concept development, research design, analysis and writing | 36 journal avg: |
| A Proposal for an Open DSS Protocol | Communications of the ACM | Refereed (Practitioner / Research) |
A- |
Primary author responsible for research design and first draft | 13 journal avg: 2.0 |
|
* Includes A/B type perceived quality
for IS discipline as a whole as well as perceived quality
in an allied or sub discipline where appropriate. Also
includes the h-index impact factor computed using Harzing's
Publish or Perish software for the three year period
preceding April 2009 and ISI impact factors from 2005
(where available). |
|||||
In-Press Research Contribution Summary
| Title | Journal | Type of Journal |
Journal Quality* |
My Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Relationship Between Website Quality, Trust and Price Premiums at Online Auctions | Electronic Commerce Research | Refereed (Research) |
B+ A- eCommerce h-index: 11 |
Primary author responsible for concept development, research design, conducting the experiment and 70% of the first draft |
| Developing a Collective Intelligence Application for Special Education | Decision Support Systems | Refereed (Research) |
A-
|
Sole Author |
| Designing for Collective Intelligence | Communications of the ACM | Refereed (Research/ Practitioner) |
A- A practitioner h-index: 17 ISI: 1.797 |
Sole Author |
| Online Reputation Scores: How well are they understood? | Journal of Computer Information Systems | Refereed (Research) |
A h-index: 9 |
Sole Author |
Online Auctions Auctions Online Auctions One of the most successful types of Internet marketplaces has been the online auction. Online auction data can be analyzed to improve our understanding of the factors that contribute to the success of this marketplace. My research in online auctions examines the impact of online image (e-image) type on online auction success, the use of online reputation systems for documenting and predicting online auction fraud, the criteria auction sellers use when selecting an online auction site and the impact of Web agents operating in online B2C and C2C auctions. This area of research has resulted in the publication of six papers in the last 3 years International Journal of Electronic Commerce Research (2006), Journal of Electronic Commerce Research (2006), Communications of the ACM (2008) and MIS Quarterly (2008), Journal of Computer Information Systems (forthcoming) and Electronic Commerce Research (forthcoming). It has also resulted in an article under second review at the Journal of the AIS.
Distributed Meta-Data and Web Quality My dissertation research proposed using distributed meta-data approaches to support web based content quality. Meta-data is information about information. Meta-data approaches allow classification of web content and can describe the relationships between content and other web resources. The meta-data labels developed as a part of my dissertation research can help improve the primary quality dimensions identified in prior research. This research has resulted in publications in Communications of the ACM (1999), Decision Support Systems (2002), and Information and Software Technology (2003). It has also resulted in two conference proceedings. I am currently working with a PhD student to extend this research by identifying important web information quality dimensions. This has resulted in one conference proceedings and an article under review at the Journal of the AIS and a second article under review at Journal of Computer Information Systems. I am extending this research with a colleague and we have an article under review on this topic at the ournal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research.
Information Retrieval Agents The creation of the World Wide Web has led to an explosive growth of information resources associated with it. This has also given rise to a wide range of Web mining activities, which are increasingly necessary for extraction of knowledge from the web. My research in this area has focused on Web content mining, the automated search of information sources that are available on-line and the extraction of data from these sources for use in business decision-making. This research has resulted in four journal articles at Decision Support Systems (2006), Communications of the ACM (2006), IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics- Part C (2007), and The Learning Organization (2007), and an invited paper at the Journal of Universal Computer Science (2008).
Collective Intelligence Applications: My most recent area of research is on collective intelligence applications. A collective intelligence application is one that harnesses the knowledge and work of its users to provide the data for the application and to improve its usefulness. Collective applications leverage Web 2.0 technologies to create specialized applications for a specific domain. My first research project in this area involved designing and implementing a web-based collective intelligence application that allows for the collection and analysis of special education data. This research has resulted in two papers accepted for publication at Decision Support Systems (forthcoming) and the Communications of the ACM (forthcoming). I also have a paper accepted at Autism and Asperger's Digest on this topic and two special education conference papers and presentations. I related paper on Web 2.0 Mash-up technology is currently under review at Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce.
Future Research
I plan on continuing my research into collective intelligence applications with future research focusing on using intelligent agents to improve the usefulness of collective intelligence data. I also am continuing my research on the dynamics of online auctions with a research project on user perceptions of reputation profiles. Finally, I am continuing my research on website quality with a project that examines the information content of websites and begins to develop a set of best practices defining what information organizations should be providing on their websites to satisfy users. My goal is to average two to three journal publications per year with at least one of these publications appearing in a top research outlet like: MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, International Journal of Electronic Commerce Research or an IEEE Transactions.
last updated March 12, 2009