Aleks Krotoski - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Aleks Krotoski
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 29, 2014
Nature, Aug 1, 2010
Interactive games such as Fate of the World foster learning by simulating climate-change decisions.
The Political Quarterly, Sep 8, 2011
The report was commissioned by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELS... more The report was commissioned by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) and co-authored with Hilary Ellis, Professor Stephen Heppell, Aleks Krotoski and Professor Angela McFarlane. The report presents an overview of gaming and the gaming sector, the theoretical foundations of how games can be used in learning, many examples of video game-centric learning in UK classrooms, but also some of the problems and obstacles with using this media in schools. The report also discusses games within lifelong and adult learning, examples of game-based learning outside the UK, and gaming within the context of technological changes and opportunities in the school sector.
Guide To Fashion Entrepreneurship, 2014
British Journalism Review, 2020
Podcasting is the thing on everyone's earbuds right now-little audio special deliveries of essent... more Podcasting is the thing on everyone's earbuds right now-little audio special deliveries of essential news updates, dramatic true crime, comedy gabfests and thought-provoking documentaries. By many accounts, radio is in its second golden age, with more opportunities to reach audiences who are hungry for more content. But what has inspired this switch to sound? And how are news organisations pushing the boundaries of what's possible? As with so many disruptive innovations, the answers lie at their heart in the democratisation ushered in by the digital revolution. A podcast is a thing made of the internet: something that could only exist because of the weirdness of the nature of internet-based things when compared to their pre-internet counterparts. To get back to basics, a podcast is a digital file made available on a server, just like a webpage. The publisher, however, also publishes an RSS feed-a very small file that points to a site's new content. Your podcast app only needs to check that RSS feed periodically, and then download any new episodes it finds listed there. The point here is that distributing audio content via an RSS feed, as a podcast does, combines the inexpensive, geography-ignoring, user-tracking, no-broadcast-licenceneeding nature of the internet with the immediacy of broadcast radio: a podcast app generally checks its feeds at least hourly. This hybrid nature was immediately appealing to its innovators. And while some people had been manually uploading audio files to their websites since the 80s, and streaming internet radio established its foothold in the alternative music and talk scene in the late 90s, both of these alternatives
Background Terrestrial Caenogastropoda form an important but threatened component of the Borneo t... more Background Terrestrial Caenogastropoda form an important but threatened component of the Borneo tropical rainforest malacofauna, where the group is nearly as rich in species as the Stylommatophora. They are, however, more sensitive to drought, temperature extremes and forest degradation. New information On a field course at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei Darussalam (Borneo), a new caenogastropod species, belonging to the genus Craspedotropis, was discovered by the course participants. The participants decided to name the species Craspedotropis gretathunbergae n. sp., in honour of the climate change activist Greta Thunberg, as caenogastropod land snails, such as this species, are likely to suffer because of climate change.
The Internet has challenged social psychological theories of influence that have focussed on inte... more The Internet has challenged social psychological theories of influence that have focussed on interpersonal perceptions of trustworthiness, expertise and similarity, and normative attributions of social identity. As knowledge is increasingly decentralised and user-generated, new questions arise about how online participants identify which information to adopt or reject. This thesis examines which social psychological and social network analytic features predict attitude and behaviour change using information gathered about 47,643 related avatars in the virtual community Second Life. Using data collected over three studies from online surveys and data accessed from the application's computer servers, it describes why the structure of a social system, an individual's position in a social group, and the structural content of an online relationship have been effective at predicting when influence occurs. The first study assessed the relationship between network strength and attributions of trust, credibility, social comparison and prototypicality. Results suggested that network theories that describe influence on the basis of network strength do so because it implicates interpersonal and normative features of influence,, evident in this community by the amount of offline information account holders disclose to online contacts. The second study examined the features that predicted attitudes to sexual activity in the virtual world. In the online space, perceptions of norms were the strongest predictors of personal attitudes, and network features identified how accurate and inaccurate they were. The third study followed the diffusion of the new voice service through Second Life over a nine-month period. Network features emerged as most important immediately before and after an innovation achieved critical mass, but the psychological features assured that diffusion persisted during periods of slow uptake. The results extended the theoretical understanding of the interplay between psychological and network processes in the adoption of attitudes and behaviour online. Krotoskj 2009 3 Statement of Originality This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any ideas, data, images or text resultingfrom the work of others (whether published or unpublished) arefully identified as such within the work and attributed to their originator in the text, bibliography or infootnotes. This thesis has not been submitted in whole or in partfor any other academic degree orprofessional qualification. I agree that the University has the right to submit my work to the plagiarism detection service Turn itin UKfor originality checks. Whether or not drafts have been soassessed, the University reserves the right to require an electronic version of the final document (as submitted) for assessment as above. Krotoski 2009 4 Acknowledgments This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people. I would like to give my sincere thanks to my supervisors, Dr. Julie Barnett and Dr. Evanthia Lyons. I am grateful that they had the faith in the project, and that they were patient with my impulsiveness. I learned more by watching them debate online environments than I did by logging in and studying them. I am thankful for their tolerance of my many other obligations and deeply obliged to them for the meticulousness, the rigour and the inspiration that they have instilled in me. I am indebted to the Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey for their financial support during the first three years of this process. This research would not have been completed without the skills of the talented technical people who contributed to this work. Many thanks go to John McMurtrie, Paul ConnelL and to the team who broke down the quantum of data from the Linden
Insights: the UKSG journal, 2012
Engineering Design research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to describe design-relate... more Engineering Design research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to describe design-related phenomena and prescribe improvements for design practice. Given data availability, privacy requirements and other constraints, most empirical data used in Engineering Design research can be described as "closed". Keeping such data closed is in many cases necessary and justifiable. However, this closedness also hinders replicability, and thus, may limit our possibilities to test the validity and reliability of research results in the field. This paper discusses implications and applications of using the already available and continuously growing body of open data sources to create opportunities for research in Engineering Design. Insights are illustrated by an examination of two examples: a study of open source software repositories and an analysis of open business registries in the cleantech industry. We conclude with a discussion about the limitations, challenges and risks of using open data in Engineering Design research and practice.
The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, 2015
Society and the Internet, 2014
Nature, 2010
Interactive games such as Fate of the World foster learning by simulating climate-change decisions.
Learning, Media and Technology, 2010
This special issue was inspired by an email exchange between two colleagues about an area of rese... more This special issue was inspired by an email exchange between two colleagues about an area of research that, at the time, demonstrated promise but was still in its infancy: learning and research in 3D virtual worlds. In 2007, the editors of this issue, Aleks Krotoski and Jeremy Hunsinger, were each studying these collaborative, media‐rich online communities in very different ways. Jeremy was exploring innovation in educational and research use of virtual worlds, while Aleks was examining the social psychological properties of influence ...
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 29, 2014
Nature, Aug 1, 2010
Interactive games such as Fate of the World foster learning by simulating climate-change decisions.
The Political Quarterly, Sep 8, 2011
The report was commissioned by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELS... more The report was commissioned by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) and co-authored with Hilary Ellis, Professor Stephen Heppell, Aleks Krotoski and Professor Angela McFarlane. The report presents an overview of gaming and the gaming sector, the theoretical foundations of how games can be used in learning, many examples of video game-centric learning in UK classrooms, but also some of the problems and obstacles with using this media in schools. The report also discusses games within lifelong and adult learning, examples of game-based learning outside the UK, and gaming within the context of technological changes and opportunities in the school sector.
Guide To Fashion Entrepreneurship, 2014
British Journalism Review, 2020
Podcasting is the thing on everyone's earbuds right now-little audio special deliveries of essent... more Podcasting is the thing on everyone's earbuds right now-little audio special deliveries of essential news updates, dramatic true crime, comedy gabfests and thought-provoking documentaries. By many accounts, radio is in its second golden age, with more opportunities to reach audiences who are hungry for more content. But what has inspired this switch to sound? And how are news organisations pushing the boundaries of what's possible? As with so many disruptive innovations, the answers lie at their heart in the democratisation ushered in by the digital revolution. A podcast is a thing made of the internet: something that could only exist because of the weirdness of the nature of internet-based things when compared to their pre-internet counterparts. To get back to basics, a podcast is a digital file made available on a server, just like a webpage. The publisher, however, also publishes an RSS feed-a very small file that points to a site's new content. Your podcast app only needs to check that RSS feed periodically, and then download any new episodes it finds listed there. The point here is that distributing audio content via an RSS feed, as a podcast does, combines the inexpensive, geography-ignoring, user-tracking, no-broadcast-licenceneeding nature of the internet with the immediacy of broadcast radio: a podcast app generally checks its feeds at least hourly. This hybrid nature was immediately appealing to its innovators. And while some people had been manually uploading audio files to their websites since the 80s, and streaming internet radio established its foothold in the alternative music and talk scene in the late 90s, both of these alternatives
Background Terrestrial Caenogastropoda form an important but threatened component of the Borneo t... more Background Terrestrial Caenogastropoda form an important but threatened component of the Borneo tropical rainforest malacofauna, where the group is nearly as rich in species as the Stylommatophora. They are, however, more sensitive to drought, temperature extremes and forest degradation. New information On a field course at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei Darussalam (Borneo), a new caenogastropod species, belonging to the genus Craspedotropis, was discovered by the course participants. The participants decided to name the species Craspedotropis gretathunbergae n. sp., in honour of the climate change activist Greta Thunberg, as caenogastropod land snails, such as this species, are likely to suffer because of climate change.
The Internet has challenged social psychological theories of influence that have focussed on inte... more The Internet has challenged social psychological theories of influence that have focussed on interpersonal perceptions of trustworthiness, expertise and similarity, and normative attributions of social identity. As knowledge is increasingly decentralised and user-generated, new questions arise about how online participants identify which information to adopt or reject. This thesis examines which social psychological and social network analytic features predict attitude and behaviour change using information gathered about 47,643 related avatars in the virtual community Second Life. Using data collected over three studies from online surveys and data accessed from the application's computer servers, it describes why the structure of a social system, an individual's position in a social group, and the structural content of an online relationship have been effective at predicting when influence occurs. The first study assessed the relationship between network strength and attributions of trust, credibility, social comparison and prototypicality. Results suggested that network theories that describe influence on the basis of network strength do so because it implicates interpersonal and normative features of influence,, evident in this community by the amount of offline information account holders disclose to online contacts. The second study examined the features that predicted attitudes to sexual activity in the virtual world. In the online space, perceptions of norms were the strongest predictors of personal attitudes, and network features identified how accurate and inaccurate they were. The third study followed the diffusion of the new voice service through Second Life over a nine-month period. Network features emerged as most important immediately before and after an innovation achieved critical mass, but the psychological features assured that diffusion persisted during periods of slow uptake. The results extended the theoretical understanding of the interplay between psychological and network processes in the adoption of attitudes and behaviour online. Krotoskj 2009 3 Statement of Originality This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any ideas, data, images or text resultingfrom the work of others (whether published or unpublished) arefully identified as such within the work and attributed to their originator in the text, bibliography or infootnotes. This thesis has not been submitted in whole or in partfor any other academic degree orprofessional qualification. I agree that the University has the right to submit my work to the plagiarism detection service Turn itin UKfor originality checks. Whether or not drafts have been soassessed, the University reserves the right to require an electronic version of the final document (as submitted) for assessment as above. Krotoski 2009 4 Acknowledgments This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people. I would like to give my sincere thanks to my supervisors, Dr. Julie Barnett and Dr. Evanthia Lyons. I am grateful that they had the faith in the project, and that they were patient with my impulsiveness. I learned more by watching them debate online environments than I did by logging in and studying them. I am thankful for their tolerance of my many other obligations and deeply obliged to them for the meticulousness, the rigour and the inspiration that they have instilled in me. I am indebted to the Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey for their financial support during the first three years of this process. This research would not have been completed without the skills of the talented technical people who contributed to this work. Many thanks go to John McMurtrie, Paul ConnelL and to the team who broke down the quantum of data from the Linden
Insights: the UKSG journal, 2012
Engineering Design research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to describe design-relate... more Engineering Design research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to describe design-related phenomena and prescribe improvements for design practice. Given data availability, privacy requirements and other constraints, most empirical data used in Engineering Design research can be described as "closed". Keeping such data closed is in many cases necessary and justifiable. However, this closedness also hinders replicability, and thus, may limit our possibilities to test the validity and reliability of research results in the field. This paper discusses implications and applications of using the already available and continuously growing body of open data sources to create opportunities for research in Engineering Design. Insights are illustrated by an examination of two examples: a study of open source software repositories and an analysis of open business registries in the cleantech industry. We conclude with a discussion about the limitations, challenges and risks of using open data in Engineering Design research and practice.
The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, 2015
Society and the Internet, 2014
Nature, 2010
Interactive games such as Fate of the World foster learning by simulating climate-change decisions.
Learning, Media and Technology, 2010
This special issue was inspired by an email exchange between two colleagues about an area of rese... more This special issue was inspired by an email exchange between two colleagues about an area of research that, at the time, demonstrated promise but was still in its infancy: learning and research in 3D virtual worlds. In 2007, the editors of this issue, Aleks Krotoski and Jeremy Hunsinger, were each studying these collaborative, media‐rich online communities in very different ways. Jeremy was exploring innovation in educational and research use of virtual worlds, while Aleks was examining the social psychological properties of influence ...