Upon reviewing the extant literature on determinants of unionism, it becomes clear that many areas that have had a plethora of research attention do not converge upon singularly directional findings. This study explores a potential cause of such an apparent anomaly: nonlinearity of data. An exploratory examination of correlation coefficients among…

Engineers of the 21st century will spend appreciable portions of their careers in environments rich with global connections. Therefore, engineering colleges and universities must develop strategies that provide the global perspectives and international experiences that will help their graduates excel in this new world order. The current paper…

In 2004, the authors began an evaluation of England's Networked Learning Communities Program--137 self-selected networks, involving over 1500 schools. The focus of their evaluation has been on identifying promising features and processes as they are being implemented in networked learning communities, and ascertaining the importance of these…

The authors conducted a comparative analysis to examine learners' interaction in the Web-based learning environment of 2 distance education institutions. The interaction was critically analyzed based on social, procedural, expository, explanatory, and cognitive dimensions, across 7 categories of exchanges between course coordinator to groups,…

Introduction: Virtual communities play an important role in innovation. The paper focuses on the particular form of collective action in virtual communities underlying as Open Source software development projects. Method: Building on resource mobilization theory and private-collective innovation, we propose a theory of collective action in…

Introduction: The ToLigado Project--Your School Interactive Newspaper is an interactive virtual learning environment conceived, developed, implemented and supported by researchers at the School of the Future Research Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Method: This virtual learning environment aims to motivate trans-disciplinary…

The article deals with blended learning in the context of pre-graduate English language teacher education. Firstly, the concept of blended learning is defined, then, the attention is focused on the online component of a blend, namely on the issue of interpersonal interaction including the challenges, which learning through online networking poses.…

This study examines the development of nanoscience/nanotechnology over a 35 year period (1970-2004) by mapping its social and cognitive structures using social network analysis, bibliometrics and document analysis, and following their changes in time. Mapping is performed based on 580,000 journal articles, 240,000 patents and 53,000 research…

A review of the antecedents of the recent interest in social network analysis makes a case for using network information in mapping professional groups as part of the program planning process. Three major streams of theory and research have converged into a broad multidisciplinary approach to viewing social structure that is termed "network…

Content analysis of 5,190 news stories appearing on network weekday evening newscasts between May 1982 and April 1984 reveals under- and overrepresentations of geographic/political subdivisions and of individuals representing various social groups within the United States and internationally. More specifically, on "geographic" biases,…

This study examined indirect communication patterns among professionals in the computer-based instruction field by analyzing citations from the Journal of Computer-Based Instruction. The patterns found provide the basis for identifying invisible colleges, defined here as communication networks that facilitate the diffusion of knowledge and direct…

Examines the structure of the discipline of communication using the frequency of joint memberships in the International Communication Association's divisions and interest groups. Finds that the structure is more complex than previously suggested by bibliometric research. (SR)

The purpose of this study was to explore and investigate the ways faculty at The School of Information Studies at Syracuse University use Networked Information Sources and Services to support their service tasks. Library and Information Sciences faculty were chosen as the population for this study. The study aimed to answer the following…

This study uses social network analysis (SNA) in an innovative way to describe interaction and explain how interaction influences sense of community of students in online learning environments. The findings reveal differences on sense of community between two similarly structured online courses, and show unique interaction patterns for students in…

The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between communication styles, social networks, and learning performance in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) community. Using social network analysis (SNA) and longitudinal survey data, we analyzed how 31 distributed learners developed collaborative learning…