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Title: A SOFTWARE-BASED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING NARRATIVE TEXTS.
Creator: McDaniel, Thomas Rudy, Dombrowski, Paul, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Technical and professional communicators have in recent research been challenged to make significant contributions to the field of knowledge management, and to learn or create the new technologies allowing them to do so. The purpose of this dissertation is to make such a combined theoretical and applied contribution from the context of the emerging discipline of Texts and Technology. This dissertation explores the field of knowledge management (KM), particularly its relationship to the...
Show moreTechnical and professional communicators have in recent research been challenged to make significant contributions to the field of knowledge management, and to learn or create the new technologies allowing them to do so. The purpose of this dissertation is to make such a combined theoretical and applied contribution from the context of the emerging discipline of Texts and Technology. This dissertation explores the field of knowledge management (KM), particularly its relationship to the related study of artificial intelligence (AI), and then recommends a KM software application based on the principles of narratology and narrative information exchange. The focus of knowledge is shifted from the reductive approach of data and information to a holistic approach of meaning and the way people make sense of complex events as experiences expressed in stories. Such an analysis requires a discussion of the evolution of intelligent systems and narrative theory as well as an examination of existing computerized and non-computerized storytelling systems. After a thorough discussion of these issues, an original software program that is used to collect, analyze, and distribute thematic stories within any hierarchical organization is modeled, exemplified, and explained in detail.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: CFE0000012, ucf:46117
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000012

Title: XML: Beyond the Tags.
Creator: Meloy, Christopher, Applen, John, Kamrath, Mark, McDaniel, Thomas, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: XML is quickly being utilized in the field of technical communication to transfer information from database to person and company to company. Often communicators will structure information without a second thought of how or why certain tags are used to mark up the information. Because the company or a manual says to use those tags, the communicator does so. However, if professionals want to unlock the true potential of XML for better sharing of information across platforms, they need to...
Show moreXML is quickly being utilized in the field of technical communication to transfer information from database to person and company to company. Often communicators will structure information without a second thought of how or why certain tags are used to mark up the information. Because the company or a manual says to use those tags, the communicator does so. However, if professionals want to unlock the true potential of XML for better sharing of information across platforms, they need to understand the effects the technology using XML as well as political and cultural factors have on the tags being used. This thesis reviewed literature from multiple fields utilizing XML to find how tag choices can be influenced. XML allows for the sharing of information across multiple platforms and databases. Because of this efficiency, XML is utilized by many technologies. Often communicators must tag information so that the technologies can find the marked up information; therefore, technologies like single sourcing, data mining, and knowledge management influence the types of tags created. Additionally, cultural and political influences are analyzed to see how they play a role in determining what tags are used and created for specific documents. The thesis concludes with predictions on the future of XML and the technological, political, and cultural influences associated with XML tag sets based on information found within the thesis.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFE0004138, ucf:49067
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004138

Title: Avatar and Self: A Rhetoric of Identity Mediated Through Collaborative Role-Play.
Creator: Andrews, Pamela, Pigg, Stacey, McDaniel, Thomas, Bowdon, Melody, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This project responds to a problem in scholarship describing the relationship between virtual avatars and their physical users. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle identifies points of slippage wherein the persona of the avatar becomes conflated with the user's sense of self to create an authentic self predicated on both real and virtual experiences (Turkle 184-5). Although the conflation of the authentic self with the virtual has provided various affordances for serious games or other...
Show moreThis project responds to a problem in scholarship describing the relationship between virtual avatars and their physical users. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle identifies points of slippage wherein the persona of the avatar becomes conflated with the user's sense of self to create an authentic self predicated on both real and virtual experiences (Turkle 184-5). Although the conflation of the authentic self with the virtual has provided various affordances for serious games or other pedagogical projects such as classrooms hosted through the game Second Life, the processes enabling identification with an avatar have been largely overlooked. This project examines several layers of influence that affect how users play with identity to create successful social performances within an online community connected to a work of fiction. In doing so, the user must consider his or her own motivations for creating a persona, how these motivations will allow the avatar to achieve social acceptance, and how these social performances connect to the scene created by the work of fiction. Using an online role-playing forum based on a work of fiction as a site of analysis, this project will borrow from game studies, dramatism, and identity theory to create a framework for discussing processes through which users identify with their virtual avatars.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004807, ucf:49735
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004807

Title: Exploring Theatre of the Oppressed and Media Synchronicity to Supplement Virtual Learning Environments: Experiences with Mados.
Creator: Silva, Pedro, Kim, Si Jung, Lindgren, Robb, McDaniel, Thomas, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis explored the application of Media Synchronicity Theory and its potential for translating Critical Pedagogy (specifically Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed) into a computer- supported collaborative work (CSCW) environment. It introduces the Maquina dos Oprimidos (Mados) prototype, a CSCW supplement to traditional asynchronous learning networks. Mados operates as a role-playing debate game, in which students debate a pre-selected prompt while performing assigned character roles. The...
Show moreThis thesis explored the application of Media Synchronicity Theory and its potential for translating Critical Pedagogy (specifically Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed) into a computer- supported collaborative work (CSCW) environment. It introduces the Maquina dos Oprimidos (Mados) prototype, a CSCW supplement to traditional asynchronous learning networks. Mados operates as a role-playing debate game, in which students debate a pre-selected prompt while performing assigned character roles. The study explores the prototype's potential to affect student's identification with their assigned character and personal attitude toward the prompt, as well as examining the effect of presence on students' performances.The study was performed with 38 8th grade students. Subjects debated a prompt which proposed a banning cell phones from classrooms. Results show that subjects collaboratively constructed solutions that compromised between both positions, while slightly favoring the anti- ban position. Results also show that subjects experienced gains in character identification after participating in the task regardless of assigned character, hinting at a separation between perceived similarity to characters and affinity for characters' position. The ability of subjects to defend their assigned character's position while inhabiting their own perspective, that of an 8th grade student, also hints at this separation. Additionally, results indicated correlations between subjects' control factors, a subset measure for presence, and total change in prompt agreement. Other positive correlation exist between subject's reprocessing attempts and task performance, as well as total presence and task performance.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004939, ucf:49627
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004939

Title: Capillarity: a Theory of mLearning and its Application Within Emerging Markets.
Creator: Rogers, David, Meehan, Kevin, McDaniel, Thomas, Pugh, William, Metcalf, David, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The theory of capillarity is an organic metaphor invoked to explore the role of network communications as a vehicle for education in a healthy society.Capillarity is offered as a theory in two parts: a mechanism for distribution and a method for engagement. Capillarity seeks to build an architecture that reflects radical humanism's emphasis on access and inclusion as a vehicle for classical humanism's emphasis on the individual expansion of potential and consciousness. The technical...
Show moreThe theory of capillarity is an organic metaphor invoked to explore the role of network communications as a vehicle for education in a healthy society.Capillarity is offered as a theory in two parts: a mechanism for distribution and a method for engagement. Capillarity seeks to build an architecture that reflects radical humanism's emphasis on access and inclusion as a vehicle for classical humanism's emphasis on the individual expansion of potential and consciousness. The technical instrument whereby this program of humanist education may be deployed is mLearning.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004925, ucf:49622
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004925

Title: Cooperative vs Competitive Goals in Educational Video Games.
Creator: Smith, Peter, Bowers, Clint, McDaniel, Thomas, Kincaid, John, Cannon-Bowers, Janis, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The concept of serious games, or using games and gaming technologies for purposes other than purely entertainment, became popularized with the creation of the Serious Games Initiative in 2002 and has continued to grow. While this trend may appear new, the use of games for learning has a rich history and the idea of using a game as a learning platform is an established concept that had has withstood the test of time. Research in this area must move from if games can teach, to how do we improve...
Show moreThe concept of serious games, or using games and gaming technologies for purposes other than purely entertainment, became popularized with the creation of the Serious Games Initiative in 2002 and has continued to grow. While this trend may appear new, the use of games for learning has a rich history and the idea of using a game as a learning platform is an established concept that had has withstood the test of time. Research in this area must move from if games can teach, to how do we improve games that do. Proponents of serious games suggest that they should improve motivation, time on task, motivation to learn, and a litany of other benefits based primarily on the thought that what works in an entertainment game will work in a learning game. Unfortunately, this might not always be the case. For example, a commonly held misconception in learning games is that competition will motivate learner to succeed, as it motivates players of an entertainment game to continue to play. This is, however, not well supported by the learning science literature. Cooperative goal structures commonly lead to increased motivation to learn as well as improved learning outcomes when compared to competition. This research seeks to provide a framework to view games for learning and more specifically explore the structure of challenge in the context of cooperative and competitive goal structures, as well as explore the use of the word game and how it could possibly modify the expectations of the learner.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004603, ucf:49913
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004603

Title: What Killed Interactive TV? An Exploration Of Why Interactive Television Has Not Been Successful.
Creator: Rogak, Reuben, Peters, Philip, McDaniel, Thomas, Kim, Si Jung, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The objective of this thesis is to investigate the history of interactive videos and examine some possible reasons as to why they have never been successful. Because the method of interactivity is often disrupting to the narrative, I wanted to make something that was much more fluid. To this end, I produced Man Alone Interactive, a branching story that allows users to choose their path without stopping the narrative.The purpose for creating it was to see if a different interactive mechanic...
Show moreThe objective of this thesis is to investigate the history of interactive videos and examine some possible reasons as to why they have never been successful. Because the method of interactivity is often disrupting to the narrative, I wanted to make something that was much more fluid. To this end, I produced Man Alone Interactive, a branching story that allows users to choose their path without stopping the narrative.The purpose for creating it was to see if a different interactive mechanic would aid in the user immersion. In order to fully test this, two versions of the movie were created. One with the relatively standard interactive technique of stopping the story to display the choices and another that had the choices onscreen as the video progressed. The two versions were then used in a study to determine which was more engaging to users. This paper examines the research that led to the design, the process by which the story and different versions were created and the results of the study.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005242, ucf:50587
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005242

Title: Psychomotor Skill Measurement of Video Game Players.
Creator: Carbone, Thomas, Hughes, Charles, McDaniel, Rudy, Smith, Peter, Smith, Roger, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Psychomotor skills are a combination of innate abilities as well as skills developed because of repeated actions. Researchers have dedicated many studies to understand the extent to which past videogame play contributes to psychomotor skills and fine motor control dexterity. However, not all gamers are created equal. With today's proliferation of platforms, many people are gamers who never pick up a controller. Grouping all gamers together forms dangerous confounds when trying to generalize...
Show morePsychomotor skills are a combination of innate abilities as well as skills developed because of repeated actions. Researchers have dedicated many studies to understand the extent to which past videogame play contributes to psychomotor skills and fine motor control dexterity. However, not all gamers are created equal. With today's proliferation of platforms, many people are gamers who never pick up a controller. Grouping all gamers together forms dangerous confounds when trying to generalize across a population as diverse as today's gamers.The current study aims to study a population comprised only of gamers to see if there are significant differences in their psychomotor skills. A psychomotor skills test has been developed, which is designed to simulate proven physical tests, with the express purpose of exposing differences between gamers. After filling out an extensive survey of gaming habits, participants completed the psychomotor skills test.Participants were then grouped by measured psychomotor ability and a selection of high and low performing gamers completed four tutorial exercises on the dV-Trainer by Mimic Technologies, a validated robotic laparoscopic training device.The study shows that the number of hours reported per week using analog controllers is correlated with the psychomotor score as measured by the newly developed simulation. In particular, the Purdue Pegboard and Finger Tapping simulation software is the best discriminator among members of the gamer population.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFE0007316, ucf:52131
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007316

Title: Explicit Feedback Within Game-Based Training: Examining the Influence of Source Modality Effects on Interaction.
Creator: Goldberg, Benjamin, Bowers, Clint, Cannon-Bowers, Janis, Kincaid, John, McDaniel, Thomas, Sottilare, Robert, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This research aims to enhance Simulation-Based Training (SBT) applications to support training events in the absence of live instruction. The overarching purpose is to explore available tools for integrating intelligent tutoring communications in game-based learning platforms and to examine theory-based techniques for delivering explicit feedback in such environments. The primary tool influencing the design of this research was the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT), a...
Show moreThis research aims to enhance Simulation-Based Training (SBT) applications to support training events in the absence of live instruction. The overarching purpose is to explore available tools for integrating intelligent tutoring communications in game-based learning platforms and to examine theory-based techniques for delivering explicit feedback in such environments. The primary tool influencing the design of this research was the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT), a modular domain-independent architecture that provides the tools and methods to author, deliver, and evaluate intelligent tutoring technologies within any training platform. Influenced by research surrounding Social Cognitive Theory and Cognitive Load Theory, the resulting experiment tested varying approaches for utilizing an Embodied Pedagogical Agent (EPA) to function as a tutor during interaction in a game-based environment. Conditions were authored to assess the tradeoffs between embedding an EPA directly in a game, embedding an EPA in GIFT's browser-based Tutor-User Interface (TUI), or using audio prompts alone with no social grounding.The resulting data supports the application of using an EPA embedded in GIFT's TUI to provide explicit feedback during a game-based learning event. Analyses revealed conditions with an EPA situated in the TUI to be as effective as embedding the agent directly in the game environment. This inference is based on evidence showing reliable differences across conditions on the metrics of performance and self-reported mental demand and feedback usefulness items. This research provides source modality tradeoffs linked to tactics for relaying training relevant explicit information to a user based on real-time performance in a game.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004850, ucf:49696
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004850

Title: GAYME: The development, design and testing of an auto-ethnographic, documentary game about quarely wandering urban/suburban spaces in Central Florida.
Creator: Moran, David, Moshell, Jack, Santana, Maria, Kim, Si Jung, McDaniel, Thomas, Vie, Stephanie, Pugh, William, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: GAYME is a transmedia story-telling world that I have created to conceptually explore the dynamics of queering game design through the development of varying game prototypes. The final iteration of GAYME is @deadquarewalking*. It is a documentary game and a performance art installation that documents a carless, gay/queer/quare man's journey on Halloween to get to and from one of Orlando's most well-known gay clubs - the Parliament House Resort. "The art of cruising" city streets to seek out...
Show moreGAYME is a transmedia story-telling world that I have created to conceptually explore the dynamics of queering game design through the development of varying game prototypes. The final iteration of GAYME is @deadquarewalking*. It is a documentary game and a performance art installation that documents a carless, gay/queer/quare man's journey on Halloween to get to and from one of Orlando's most well-known gay clubs - the Parliament House Resort. "The art of cruising" city streets to seek out queer/quare companionship particularly amongst gay, male culture(s) is well-documented in densely, populated cities like New York, San Francisco and London, but not so much in car-centric, urban environments like Orlando that are less oriented towards pedestrians. Cruising has been and continues to be risky even in pedestrian-friendly cities but in Orlando cruising takes on a whole other dimension of danger. In 2011-2012, The Advocate magazine named Orlando one of the gayest cities in America (Breen, 2012). Transportation for America (2011) also named the Orlando metropolitan region the most dangerous city in the country for pedestrians. Living in Orlando without a car can be deadly as well as a significant barrier to connecting with other people, especially queer/quare people, because of Orlando's car-centric design. In Orlando, cars are sexy. At the same time, the increasing prevalence in gay, male culture(s) of geo-social, mobile phone applications using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and location aware services, such as Grindr (Grindr, LLC., 2009) and even FourSquare (Crowley and Selvadurai, 2009) and Instagram (Systrom and Krieger, 2010), is shifting the way gay/queer/quare Orlandoans co-create social and sexual networks both online and offline. Urban and sub-urban landscapes have transformed into hybrid "techno-scapes" overlaying "the electronic, the emotional and the social with the geographic and the physical" (Hjorth, 2011). With or without a car, gay men can still geo-socially cruise Orlando's car-centric, street life with mobile devices. As such emerging media has become more pervasive, it has created new opportunities to quarely visualize Orlando's "technoscape" through phone photography and hashtag metadata while also blurring lines between the artist and the curator, the player and the game designer.This project particularly has evolved to employ game design as an exhibition tool for the visualization of geo-social photography through hashtag play. Using hashtags as a game mechanic generates metadata that potentially identifies patterns of play and "ways of seeing" across player experiences as they attempt to make meaning of the images they encounter in the game. @deadquarewalking also demonstrates the potential of game design and geo-social, photo-sharing applications to illuminate new ways of documenting and witnessing the urban landscapes that we both collectively and uniquely inhabit.*In Irish culture, (")quare(") can mean (")very(") or (")extremely(") or it can be a spelling of the rural or Southern pronunciation of the word (")queer.(") Living in the American Southeast, I personally relate more to the term (")quare(") versus (")queer.(") Cultural theorist E. Patrick Johnson (2001) also argues for (")quareness(") as a way to question the subjective bias of whiteness in queer studies that risks discounting the lived experiences and material realities of people of color. Though I do not identify as a person of color and would be categorized as white or European American, (")quareness(") has an important critical application for considering how Orlando's urban design is intersectionally racialized, gendered and classed.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005214, ucf:50641
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005214

Serious Games (2)	+ -
Classical Education (1)	+ -
Cognitive Load Theory (1)	+ -
Collaborative Learning (1)	+ -
Competition (1)	+ -

Cooperation (1)	+ -
Creativity Pedagogy (1)	+ -
DBMS (1)	+ -
DTD (1)	+ -
Distance Learning (1)	+ -
Document Type Definition (1)	+ -
Educational Games (1)	+ -
Embodied Pedagogical Agents (1)	+ -
Expectations (1)	+ -
Extensible markup language (1)	+ -
Feedback (1)	+ -
Feedback Modality (1)	+ -
Flow (1)	+ -
Game-Based Training (1)	+ -
Games (1)	+ -
Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) (1)	+ -
Goal Structures (1)	+ -
Humanist Education (1)	+ -
Immersion (1)	+ -
Instagram (1)	+ -
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (1)	+ -
Interactive Movie (1)	+ -
Kenneth Burke (1)	+ -
Laparoscopic Surgery (1)	+ -
Laparoscopic Training (1)	+ -

University of Central Florida (10)	+ -
McDaniel, Thomas (8)	+ -
Kim, Si Jung (3)	+ -
Bowers, Clint (2)	+ -
Cannon-Bowers, Janis (2)	+ -

Kincaid, John (2)	+ -
Pugh, William (2)	+ -
Smith, Peter (2)	+ -
Andrews, Pamela (1)	+ -
Applen, John (1)	+ -
Bowdon, Melody (1)	+ -
Carbone, Thomas (1)	+ -
Dombrowski, Paul (1)	+ -
Goldberg, Benjamin (1)	+ -
Hughes, Charles (1)	+ -
Kamrath, Mark (1)	+ -
Lindgren, Robb (1)	+ -
McDaniel, Rudy (1)	+ -
McDaniel, Thomas Rudy (1)	+ -
Meehan, Kevin (1)	+ -
Meloy, Christopher (1)	+ -
Metcalf, David (1)	+ -
Moran, David (1)	+ -
Moshell, Jack (1)	+ -
Peters, Philip (1)	+ -
Pigg, Stacey (1)	+ -
Rogak, Reuben (1)	+ -
Rogers, David (1)	+ -
Santana, Maria (1)	+ -
Silva, Pedro (1)	+ -

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