TY - JOUR T1 - Using natural language processing for qualitative data analysis JF - International Journal of Social Research Methodology Y1 - 2012 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Heckman, Robert AB - Social researchers often apply qualitative research methods to study groups and their communications artefacts. The use of computer-mediated communications has dramatically increased the volume of text available, but coding such text requires considerable manual effort. We discuss how systems that process text in human languages (i.e., natural language processing, NLP) might partially automate content analysis by extracting theoretical evidence. We present a case study of the use of NLP for qualitative analysis in which the NLP rules showed good performance on a number of codes. With the current level of performance, use of an NLP system could reduce the amount of text to be examined by a human coder by an order of magnitude or more, potentially increasing the speed of coding by a comparable degree. The paper is significant as it is one of the first to demonstrate the use of high-level NLP techniques for qualitative data analysis. VL - 15 IS - 6 ER - TY - Generic T1 - The under-appreciated role of stigmergic coordination in software development Y1 - 2010 A1 - Bolici, Francesco A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - Coordination KW - FLOSS KW - Stigmergy AB -

Coordination in software development teams has been a topic of perennial interest in empirical software engineering research. The vast majority of this literature has drawn on a conceptual separation between work and coordination mechanisms, separate from the work itself, which enable groups to achieve coordination. Traditional recommendations and software methods focused on planning: using analysis to predict and manage dependencies. Empirical research has demonstrated the limits of this approach, showing that many important dependencies are emergent and pointing to the persistent importance of explicit discussion to managing these dependencies as they arise. Drawing on work in Computer-Supported Collaborative Work and building from an analogy to collaboration amongst insects (stigmergy), we argue that the work product itself plays an under-appreciated role in helping software developers manage dependencies as they arise. This short paper presents the conceptual argument with empirical illustrations and explains why this mechanism would have significant implications for Software Engineering coordination research. We discuss issues in marshaling clear positive evidence, arguing that these issues are responsible, in part, for the under-consideration of this mechanism in software engineering and outlining research strategies which may overcome these issues.

ER - TY - Generic T1 - Using the service encounter model to enhance our understanding of business-to-consumer transactions in an electronic environment. T2 - Proceedings of the 16th Bled eCommerce Conference Y1 - 2003 A1 - Massad, Nelson A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - E-commerce AB - The aim of this paper is to provide an alternative perspective to enhance our understanding of the transactions between customers and service providers in an electronic environment. The service encounter literature is well established in the Marketing field and provides an alternative model to explore online business-to-consumer transactions. The taxonomy of antecedents of satisfaction developed from this model has been tested over time, across respondents (i.e., customers’ perspective vs. employees’ perspective), and across different settings. This taxonomy, however, has been mostly restricted to the bricks-and-mortar environment. Based on the analysis of a pretest sample of customer-reported online experiences, the taxonomy has the potential to enhance our understanding of business-to-consumer online transactions. The next step is to carry out a complete study in order refine the taxonomy to account for the electronic context. JF - Proceedings of the 16th Bled eCommerce Conference CY - Bled, Slovenia, 9–11 June ER - TY - Generic T1 - Use of the web for electronic commerce in real estate T2 - Proceedings of the Association for Information Systems Americas Conference Y1 - 1998 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Rolf Wigand KW - Real Estate AB - In this paper, we will explore the ways in which electronic commerce, the World-wide Web (WWW) in particular, is affecting the real estate industry. Real estate is a promising setting for studying electronic commerce because it is an information-intensive and information-driven industry; transaction-based, with high value and asset-specificity; market-intermediary (agents and brokers connect buyers and sellers rather than buying or selling themselves); and experiencing on-going information technology (IT) related changes. In this paper, we apply a coordination theory framework to suggest where IT might change the process of buying or selling a house. Electronic commerce applications have the potential to drastically change current practices in the real-estate industry, including the disintermediation of agents. Web-based commerce is eroding the long-enjoyed information monopoly of real-estate agents. We illustrate this potential by reviewing a number of existing real estate websites that demonstrate the possible impact of electronic commerce on this industry. JF - Proceedings of the Association for Information Systems Americas Conference CY - Baltimore, MD ER - TY - CONF T1 - Using a Process Handbook to design organizational processes T2 - Computational Organization Design: 1994 AAAI Spring Symposium Y1 - 1994 A1 - Dellarocas, C A1 - Lee, Jintae A1 - Malone, Thomas W. A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Pentland, Brian ED - Hulthage, Ingemar KW - Handbook KW - Process JF - Computational Organization Design: 1994 AAAI Spring Symposium PB - AAAI Press SN - 9780929280806 N1 - Technical Report SS-94-07 ER -