Wi-com (FNS)

Project owner: Lorenzo Cantoni (USI), Siegfried Alberton (SUPSI)

Project staff: Giovanni Camponovo (SUPSI), Anna Picco (USI), Stefano Tardini (USI)

Period: 1 January 2010 – 31 December 2011

Funding agency: SNF – Swiss National Science Foundation

Project site: www.wi-com.org

Wi-com (Understanding Motivations of Wireless Communities Participants).
Wireless Communities are an interesting phenomena which recently emerged thanks to the wide-spread diffusion of private wireless networks and flat-rate broadband Internet connections. They aim at creating community networks by sharing private WLAN access points among their members. In this way, they offer a valuable alternative to the conventional operator-centric approaches for providing wireless internet services.
Aim of the project is to investigate the motivations that drive participants in wireless communities to join the community, keep on being part of it and share their wireless connection with other members. To do so, a blend of quantitative and qualitative methodologies will be used.

Understanding what motivates members to join and actively participate in a Wireless Community is a key research issue for identifying their possible developments and sustained existence as one of the major challenges of these communities is the ability to reach a critical mass of members and motivate them to share their access points and internet connections.

One of the main problems of the so-called “Pure” Communities (purely self-organized wireless communities) is the difficulty of attracting enough members and motivating them to share their resources with the community. As opposed to this a new “Hybrid” form of wireless communities is now emerging. These communities are still based on individuals who share their own network infrastructure, but they are supported by a firm that offers them incentives such as revenue sharing, security, equipment and free network access. In return the firm is allowed to exploit the network by selling connectivity to non members, selling hardware or advertising. The success of Hybrid Wi-Coms suggests the importance of overcoming the motivation issue by recompensing members with suitable incentives.

Existing research about this topic has several limitations which this project wants to address by focusing on:
1) Study “Hybrid” Wireless Communities (as opposed to “Pure” ones)
2) Develop a theoretical model to consider motivations for participating in a Wireless Community drawing on:
• existing motivation theories
• studies of other online community types
• interviews with members
3) Collect further empirical evidence in using a large-scale survey of active members of a large hybrid wireless community like FON and analyzing it using quantitative models
4) Look at how motivations evolve over time using a successive round of interviews with the same members interviewed before

Picco Schwendener Anna (PhD student)

Anna was born in Zürich and moved to Lugano in 1998 in order to study Communication Sciences. She graduated in 2002 with a major in Communication Technologies.
After her degree she worked for several years in the communication and IT field of an important steel trading company (Duferco SA), where she was responsible for the company’s Intranet, worked on Oracle Applications and was in charge of designing and teaching internal, IT-related courses.
Currently she is a junior researcher at the NewMinE Lab where she is involved in two projects:
Wi-Com, which aims at understanding motivations of wireless communities members and DICE, which studies digital copyrights for eLearning in Switzerland.
Her research interests go from Wi-Fi and mobile device usages to mobile learning, virtual communities, eLearning and usability.

Contact Anna at:

Tel.: +41 58 666 45 45
e-mail: piccosca@usi.ch
skype: schwendannina

Vannini Sara (PhD student)

Sara graduated in 2006 in Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Bologna, Italy, with a dissertation focused on the rescue of of the Mapuche aboriginal culture, in collaboration with the Universidad Católica de Temuco, Chile.

She has therefore accrued almost three years of experience working in the Internet field and developed a great interest in online communication, participative web and e-learning.

Since January 2010 she is part of the NewMinE Lab. She is currently working on the project Picture.

Contact Sara at:

tel.: +41 58 666 45 47
e-mail: sara.vannini [at] usi.ch

View Sara’s full profile at her personal website.
View Sara’s profile on LinkedIn.

Overcoming the “generation Y” perspective KFPE University Exchange Program

Involved Persons and Institutions: NewMinELab & UWIOC

@ New Media in Education Lab

Phd student- jeune chercheur: Emanuele Rapetti

Supervisor: Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni

Co-ideator: Isabella Rega

@ Open Campus – University of West Indies

Responsible: Prof. Stewart Marshall

Period: October 2009 to December 2009

Funding agency: SDC

Website: www.kfpe.ch

Project Goal

The project aims at investigating the actual uses of ICTs in learning experiences at the UWI and how eLearning is provided and perceived at UWIOC.

Two main research fields are concerned: ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) thread of studies and the “generation Y” and “digital natives” issues.

UWIOC is a really interesting reality because it provides online courses for the 15 nations of Caribbean which is, for some of them (e.g. Anguilla), the only available access to university.

PICTURE-Priests’ ICT Use in their Religious Experience (Mandate)

Project owner: Lorenzo Cantoni

Project staff: Stefano Tardini, Emanuele Rapetti, Sara Vannini

Period: October 2009 to June 2010

Website: http://www.pictureproject.info/

PICTURE – Priests’ ICT Use in their Religious Experience studies the usages of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and of the internet in particular, by the priests of Christian Catholic Church.

The Congregation for the Clergy of the Holy See has communicated interest and has endorsed this research project.

PICTURE is run by the NewMinE – New Media in Education Lab of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI – Lugano, Switzerland) in collaboration with the School of Institutional Social Communications of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (PUSC – Rome, Italy).

17.07.2009 – “Web as culture” conference

At this link the website: http://webasculture.de

take a look at the presentation showed by Emanuele: “New cultural spaces for learning”

some pics…

E-ethnography (Mandate)

Project owner: Emanuele Rapetti

Project staff: Snjezana Misic, Marina Butti Romanova

Period: October 2008 to June 2009

Funding agency: internal funding

Website

This research aims to study, with qualitative-ethnographic methodology, how people learn, in the knowledge society, observing e-learning experiences and studying ICT use at work.

The main goal is to understand deeply what has been changing in learning experiences ever and ever more technology addicted (at school as well as at job).

All the studies concerning generation of people born after 1980 (so-called “Y”), claim that these person should be really involved in the online world and well-skilled in using any kind of ICT.

We want to observe this dynamics in depth at the University and on the job. At the university, we have proposed the research proposed by JISC consortium aiming to listen and make hear the “learners’ voices”. The main question in “which ICT are used by learners and for which activities?”. The project is structured in two phases: quantitative (an online questionnaire) and qualitative (ethnographic interviews).  On the job, we’re working with Network USIMPRESA companies. The research’s goal is to describe how “gen Y” people learn to work in the knowledge society.

We have customized the LEGO SERIOUS PLAYING methodology ad hoc to discover the technological potential of the HR.

Download a short presentation for companies.

We should provide a customized lego session for HR needs…

Contact us at:

+41 58 666 4609

Theses

The NewMinE lab values the work of students as an opportunity to get new ideas, explore new fields and meet young talents. This page collects ideas and topics for possible bachelor or master theses.

• “New millennial learners” vs “Generation Y”: the US and UE way to be digital natives (contact Emanuele Rapetti)
• How it changes the way we learn, we learn to work, we work in the knowledge society (contact Emanuele Rapetti)
• Web culture(s) at university (contact Emanuele Rapetti)

This list is an ongoing work-in-progress. Check back to see updates!

Rapetti Emanuele (PhD student)

Emanuele graduated in Education in 2007 (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Milan – Italy). Member of Red-InK Doctoral School (Rethinking Education in the Knowledge Society, program funded by Swiss National Science Foundation), he’s having his PhD about e-learning, particularly studying how it’s changing the way people learn in the knowledge society.

Since 1 April 2008 he’s teacher assistant in faculty of Communication and researcher at NewMinElab, involved in several project; on of the most remarkable was Bridge4Peace. Previously, he worked as educator (in a community for risky children), media educator, teacher for handicapped people in a secondary school and teacher assistant at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

His research interests are: Pedagogy and Educational Issue for Third Millennium, E-learning, Media Education, E-ethnography, E-evaluation, Qualitative methods in educative-social research.

View Emanuele’s profile on red-ink.

View Emanuele’s page at USI.

Meet Emanuele on Linkedin

Contact Emanuele at

Tel. +41 (0)58 666 4547
Mobile: +41 77 461 43 66

Mail: emanuele.rapetti@usi.ch
Blog: materialieducativi.blogspot.com
Skype: emanuele.rapetti