2. Your audience's use of communication
“Many effective email practices depend on understanding how the audience for your messages will use the information you are sending them, or more precisely, how you wish them to use it. (‘Use’ here includes many different things).
This concept is quite different from thinking about what you are telling your audience: it requires you to think about what the recipients of email will do with that mail
- Will they file it away for future reference?
- Will they respond immediately?
- Will they act upon the information if required?
- Will they be passing the message or parts of it onto others?
To be effective, you need to signal to your audience what you would like them to do; you need to help them to understand your intentions and expectations.
| Informational exchange consists in the content of messages but also the uses (intended or unintended) to which the information is put. |
Thinking about how audiences use Internet information is also very important for website designers; but, since most people are website users, we can also usefully extend the concept to include the processes that we need to consider when we use websites. Furthermore, all communication involves the development of both messages and intentions of use, which can run counter to, or differently from, received messages and received uses” (Allen,n.d).
Effective email use according to the Department of Broadband Use and Digital Economy (DBCDE, 2008) is similar in many ways to writing a conventional letter. However, when sending email, the sender may expect a quicker response. The key to delivering a message in the correct context is to specify the response you are looking for in the subject of the email. The subject is where the action words are, this means if you require an urgent response, you need to state this is the subject line.
Probably the most important tool you can use when delivering an email is to provide it in the correct context to enable the receiver to understand the email in the manner intended. According to (Tian, 2008) the key to delivering the correct message as intended is to do this in a pragmatic manner. This refers to understanding the context of the receiver in terms of what experiences they may have or their background and aim to deliver content to them in the intended manner. In writing, using semiotic disciplines such as pragmatics or semantics is critical to delivering the right message. This is the same with email where signs such as words and symbols are delivered in context and allow the user to respond as you have intended.
When using an internet web site the component of the site that we as users interact with is called the ‘User Interface’. This is often comprised of two components which are the ‘functional control’ and the ‘look and feel’ (Elin L 2001, p.37). It is this interface that enables us as users to navigate around the website and perform the actions that we desire.
According to (Elin L 2001, pp.38-40) there are 3 components which provide us with our website experience and in effect communicate with the user. The first of these is the metaphoric component of the user interface of a web site. This denotes effective communication through the web site deploying images, words or even sounds that we are familiar with and can put into context. An example of this could be the provision of icons which relate to symbols we have outside of the internet. An icon of an envelope could represent the ability to send an email from a website or a rubbish bin could represent the function of deleting an item. The second component relates to the user’s interaction in terms of intuitiveness and consistency. For example if the web site provides tools such as arrows to navigate this in intuitive as the user would understand these controls from everyday experiences.
Finally a user would expect a website to be created in the correct genre. For example, it would be difficult for the website to communication in text to young children and it may use large symbols instead. In the same way a technical website would be able to communicate using technical words or symbols (Elin L 2001, p.42). In summary, the same rules apply to communication wether internet related or not. The message needs to be delivered in the right context with emphasis on how the receiver is to interact.
Additional Resources
Site 1: - Email Etiquette and Protocol
http://www.impactfactory.com/p/email_communication_skills_training_development/friends_1635-2106-71105.html
This site is provides an insight into the way in which the receiver will interpret your email. The emphasis in this article is to think before you send. If your email is rushed an unclear or poorly formatted then the receiver is going to see this and may fail to respond as a result. It also focuses on providing the correct subject line to enable your email to be actioned accordingly as well as putting a focus on the entire email to determine wether the flow and format you apply to the email is achieving the goal you set out to accomplish.
Site 2: - User Friendly Web Design
http://www.northstarhosting.com/article/webdesign.asp
One of the key criteria for effective communication with a website is the web site design. This article from Northstar Internet provides useful tips on how to design an effective website. I found this article very interesting as it encompasses information that I would normally overlook. Some key points include easy navigation and friendly colour schemes. From a technical design perspective it also advises to avoid clutter which causes confusion as well as don’t use a computer colour scheme that can’t be supported by most computers. Finally it brings forward valid points in relation to content to ensure the text is simple and the messages clear.
10. Automation
“Effective email use depends on automation or, more precisely, on the ability of effective users to make decisions and then implement them as to how automation of information processing can assist users to make more efficient use of their valuable time. Automation is critical to processes such as filtering and requires that humans try to anticipate the future and then give precise instructions to their email programs to deal with those future contingencies.
| Advanced effective internet communicators do not ignore automation, nor use it unthinkingly: they essentially negotiate arrangements with their communications software and review them as necessary. |
Searching for information can involve significant degrees of automation or, at least, surrendering control to seemingly ‘intelligent’ agents. The advantages are, of course, in time saved; and the obvious risk is that you will not get exactly what you want because the agent is less capable than it appears to be or cannot cope with the peculiarities of your specific request. A greater risk, however, is that, using various automated processes can make one question the reliability of the results you receive…by surrendering control over information finding to others we are either lulled into false security or constantly nagged by doubts that the process is time-efficient but quality-inefficient.” (Allen,n.d)
Automation and the internet are developing collaboratively. Automation can be applied in many different ways using many different systems. These systems rely on a concept called Artificial Intelligence (AI). This term is defined as the field within computing which is concerned with symbolic reasoning or problem solving (Turban, Aronson, Liang & Sharda 2007, p.753). AI is commonly used for decision support where an intelligent agent can make a decision in such a manner that it is replicating human thought process. Of course these AI systems do not obtain this ability on their own. The key to automation is having AI systems which have been pre-programmed with knowledge that can be applied to a decision making process. (Turban, Aronson, Liang & Sharda 2007, p.307)
Examples of such systems that can provide automation are neural networks and knowledge based expert systems. These are the cutting edge of the AI field. Such as system can be very complex. The relative capabilities of neural networks stem from their ability to learn both in an unsupervised and supervised manner. Once these training techniques have been completed and tested, a neural network has the capabilities to be applied in many areas of the internet (Turban, Aronson, Liang & Sharda 2007, pp.371-372).One specific capability of neural networks is pattern recognition that can be used to discover patterns in communication and automate many of these processes. An example of this is managing email spam. The cutting edge approach uses neural networks to recognise patterns within spam and through this learning process spam filtering can become intuitive.
A more common approach to mail filtering can be done using intelligence agents. These are the part of AI technology refereed to as Knowledge based expert systems. They are developed using shells which include an interface to input knowledge into which can then be applied by the expert system (Expert Systems, 2008). These expert systems are used across the internet as they are highly specialised and support automated decision making for a specific task or related set of tasks. An example of one of these systems is a program I used called Spam Butcher (Spamblocker, 2008). It automatically detects spam using a knowledge based expert system and applying technology described as fuzzy logic. This term denotes AI using logically consistent reasoning to apply to partial or uncertain information and in a sense replicating human decision making whilst filtering you email spam (Turban, Aronson, Liang & Sharda 2007, p.757). This type of technology sounds quite complex however it is in use widely across the internet. Most regular email users see this technology is use daily. How do you think that email ends up in your junk mail folder? Of course none of these systems are 100% accurate. In fact there are internet users that have concerns about the accuracy of replicating human through automated decision making tools. This is due to the complexities involved in replicating the human mind. Email filtering is only one function. Imaging how many systems it would take to replicate the entire human thought process. Internet automation is growing in many disciplines on the internet such as automated online Customer Relationship management Systems, voice recognition software or even its many uses in eCommerce. It is not surprising that some take a guarded approach to this discipline.
Additional Resources
Site 1: - AT&T’s Spam filter gets too aggressive
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080325/002950640.shtml
This site provides a valid example of when automation goes astray. In this article it talks about how genuine email communication is being blocked due to this ISPs email filtering system not only removing spam emails but also removing emails which are from a valid sender. The provider’s users claim that AT&T has a spam filter set up “that is apparently eating up a ton of legitimate emails with no indication to the receiving party”. This is one of the major risks associated with Artificial Intelligence. There is a highly level of complexity in programming these systems and when they go wrong they can leave ISPs culpable.
Site 2: - Windows Update, Automatic Updates, and Internet Communication
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc775792.aspx
One of the most common internet automation tools is actually built into Microsoft Windows. This article explains how your Microsoft Operating System automatically communicates with Microsoft servers to enable your computer to receive automatic software updates. Can you imagine if you had to install all updates manually to ensure your computers safety and continued operation? In this article we can see the benefit of automation. Microsoft also recognises that not all of its users are keen to accept this automated level of communication and offers the user the ability to turn these update off and receive a manual notification that an update is due instead. Microsoft has set the benchmark in this area and today we see many applications follow suit such as automated virus protection updates.
11. The relationship between data and meta-data
“Meta-data is, in essence, information about information. In electronic communication, it is mostly to be thought of as the information that locates data in a particular context. The obvious example is the 'header' in an email message, detailing who it is from, to whom it is addressed, when it was sent, and what it is about. Internet communication depends on this meta data as obviously as, say, the postal system or, indeed, face-to-face communication. But, whereas in most other communicative contexts metadata is often concealed, or inflexibly mediated (the postmark on an envelope is sometimes germane to its contents but rarely do we keep envelopes), on the Internet, the metadata is fully available. Moreover, it is tightly connected to its data and, without physical form, can be manipulated much more easily.
For example, if I file paper correspondence under 'sender', then it is no longer available for me to file under – say – subject matter. I could copy the correspondence and file it twice, or three times, or more, depending on the number of categories of metadata and the importance I ascribe to them. However, it is often the case that a category does not become important until after the initial filing. Electronic communication (say, email), can be filed in one place and then sorted and resorted depending on the needs of the moment.
| Advanced Internet users learn to intuitively conceive of any document, file, message or communication as consisting of metadata and data. They then can explore the functions of various communications/information software looking for how that software can assist them in using metadata to enable sorting, processing or otherwise dealing with that data. |
A great failing of most web browser and management software is its inability to allow people to easily organize and reorganise information, to catalogue and sort it, thereby attaching their own metadata to it. Without the physical ability to sort, annotate, sort and resort, it is harder to do the cognitive processing necessary to make the data ‘one’s own’, relevant to the tasks that you are using it for, rather than its initially intended uses. New forms of ‘organisation’ need to be found, and new software to make it work” (Allen,n.d).
My own experience in understanding the concepts is meta-data is being the description in which data is stored. I have seen how a Data Warehouse is established by using meta-data to organise information within a company in such as the way it represents its physical operational structure. The other instance in which I have seen meta-data at work is having been involved in a project where a search engine knowledge base was designed. This used keyword searching to display results about information stored in a database. This becomes far more difficult when using the internet due to the never ending branches of information.
According to (Elin L 2001, p.27) during the earlier days of the internet one major problem was navigation. This was especially an issue in designing interactive web sites. The internet user would go from one hyperlink to another. This was never a problem in a contained scenario such as a CD. Therefore many interactive internet products today allow the user to have a guided tour of a web site or have a search or browse function. From a meta-data perspective another key element in allowing the user to sort and tag information is the ability to customise your view of a web site. This is commonly known as creating your own profile which allows you to establish the view you require, develop your own links to information as well as filter your data using selected criteria.
However, there is now an emerging focus and an individual becoming able to manage their own meta-data. According to (Hugh, 2008) “The power of digital repositories lies in ubiquitous internet access”. The key to searching for information relies upon a strong meta-data indexing focus. When a search is performed on a digitized information source the outcome is either that meta-data architecture sources such as tags, subject, author will be used to locate the information. These are the traditional meta-data fields which have been in use prior to the internet. A newer addition in terms of meta-data functionality is the indexing of previous searches and the storage of this information as meta-data. When a search is preformed this meta-data information would be accessed first and in fact you may not even need to search the information itself.
Finally, those who are brave enough to enter the world of creating your own meta-data should consider a few points first. According to (US Geological Survey, 2008) on meta-data the important points to remember when creating meta-data is to use the pre-existing standards set out by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FDGC). Tools such as Xtme (Xt Metadata Editor) are available to create your meta-data. Additionally (US Geological Survey, 2008) recommends that you use tools such as mp to check the accuracy of the structure of your meta-data. It also explains that the overall context in creating meta-data is to:
· Collect information about the data;
· Create a properly structure meta-data file;
· Recheck the structure as it is critical;
· Review the meta-data content to ensure accuracy;
Additional Resources
Site 1: - What costs/benefits are associated with metadata?
http://www.sdvc.uwyo.edu/metadata/why.html
This article highlights the costs and benefits of meta-data and makes reference to the FDGC justification of meta-data in their brochure The Value of Metadata . It compares meta-data to the information on food labels and in the same way that it describes the contents of a food item in a standard structure. This article explains how there is a cost to the production of meta-data in that it is time-consuming and has a high level of complexity to produce and maintain. However the benefits outweigh the costs in that the efficiencies that it creates in locating data are far greater than the overheads in managing meta-data information.
Site 2: - Who will master meta-data?
http://www.networkcomputing.com/608/608business.html
The article discusses the ever increasing problem of managing meta-data. It illustrates the issues associated with the ever increasing amount of meta-data on the internet and that the current search engines that drill down to each link are not only becoming cumbersome but the amount of information that they are returning from searches is becoming unmanageable. Investigation is currently being performed at MIT to look into moving away from a central repository for meta-data and instead using objects with a wrapper to hold the information. However the key to solving this issue is in a well planned approach to managing meta-data.
26. Privacy and Security
“The Internet’s great strength is its openness. It would not flourish, nor work efficiently if it did not encourage people to share material, and to identify themselves for the purposes of networking people as well as computers. However, as a consequence, Internet users are vulnerable to various threats. They are, principally:
- viruses or other malicious programs, sent as attachments (most common) or as part of mail messages that contain HTML (growing in occurrence), or as files via real-time communications (also common) channels, or within pages served to a web browser (rare but possible)
- offensive, objectionable or unwanted content (generally known as SPAM), almost always via email but also through messaging systems
- The collection of personal data that is used either to further in the previous two problems or for other malicious or commercial ends.
But advanced Internet users know that, even without resorting to extensive and complex methods involving encryption, secure networks and the like (most of which are expensive, time-consuming and require detailed technical assistance), they can protect themselves by carefully guarding their personal data and only ever giving out information when absolutely necessary. Even then it is possible to subvert the system. For example at a website where you are registering for a free email newsletter, you might be asked your email address and some personal data for marketing. Obviously your email address must be given – but you can set up an anonymous account with hotmail or similar free mail provider and use that instead. Your personal details (age, location, gender etc) can be falsified.
| The Internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced Internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about them in any form. Conceptually, the Internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media.” (Allen,n.d). |
Internet crime is an ever increasing problem. The user or company is only protected from these cyber criminals by hardware or software in the form of a firewall or other intrusion detection systems (Stair & Reynolds 2008, p405). I know from personal experience that even the best anti-virus software cannot protect you from these attacks. The threats to the home user are similar to that of a business however the home user usually has a significantly smaller investment in protecting their computer. The main threats to an individual user in a virus or a Trojan. I have seen this occur a number of times where a computer can become infected and it can be very difficult to remove the virus. What I have observed is that these viruses can be removed by your anti-virus program however when you restart your computer they appear again and again and again.
Through my last experience about 3 weeks ago I found that the virus put registry entries into my computer which then uses the internet to surreptitiously download more viruses onto my computer and in many locations which inturn creates more registry entries. I am sure you see the havoc they can cause. To add to my frustration the viruses were being placed into an area of windows that is called System Restore which was recreating these files every time I logged on. I found a good antispyware program to remove these entries and hence my issues were gone. So, the question is, what these viruses do besides being an annoyance. According to (Lang J, 2008) a virus can destroy files and render your system unstable or in the form of malware or adaware it can record your computer activities and report them virtually to any source.
Other forms of internet crime can occur in the corporate sector. One specific target of internet crime is eCommerce, where the security risks are fraudulent transactions including credit card fraud. As well as theft other security concerns revolve around activities such as denial of service attacks where an attack occurs over the internet by overloading a server with requests until it becomes non-responsive. In fact this occurred on a large scale in April 2007 when the entire government and banking system of Estonia was shut down maliciously by a group of Russians as a revenge attack (Lauden & Traver 2008, pp.227-230). Privacy and Security are interrelated in many respects. An individuals’ privacy can be compromised in many different ways over the internet. In relation to the impact of viruses discussed in the previous paragraphs, programs such as Malware and files such as cookies provide your personal information to those behind the malicious infection on your computer. According to (Lauden & Traver 2008, pp.268-271) mail bot programs can infect your computer and distribute email address information to others on the internet. In addition spyware can be used to identify users’ keystrokes using a keylogging technique which can provide information such as passwords to online financial internet sites.
One of the most significant threats to your privacy is phishing. This is not a program but instead a socially engineered attempt to gain your private information. For example, an email may be sent to your addresses from a source that has misrepresented themselves and asks for confidential information. This is a significant risk to your privacy as this information may be used in attempt to steal your identity (Lauden & Traver, 2008 p.271).
Additional Resources
Site 1: - Internet Privacy
http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/publish.nsf/content/WIPP+Internet+Privacy
I found this article very interesting as it provides a specific example of how our well known banks are collecting information from us each time we access our online banking facilities. It talks about how Westpac delivers 2 types of cookies to your PC. The session cookie, which is used for security purposes to track your movements on the site as well as personalised cookies which provide your personalised preferences each time you logon. This article also mentions that they can track your movements on the website and record this statistical data but they will not identify you from this information. This article illustrates just how easily your information can be tracked without your knowledge.
Site 2: - IRC Information – Trojan, Virus and Worm Information
http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/trojan-virus.html
This article provides an overview of the different types of malicious software that your computer can be infected with as well as the potential impact that these may have. It also provides you with instructions on what to do if your computer is infected. From my experience the links that provide they point you to virus scanner software may actually be pointing you to virus files. I found the information on Trojans, Viruses and Worms useful but have some concerns about the credibility of the source. I clicked on this link as illustrated in this article and received an interesting response. You should try it as well.
Reference List:
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