- Slovenia
Alenka Baggia
University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Faculty Member
- Associate professor of information systems interested in research of digital technologies as enablers of sustainable development, technology acceptance and user experience.edit
Emoticons have become a common phenomenon in email correspondence between students and professors. Even though the use of emoticons in formal writing is considered inappropriate and unprofessional, more and more students are using these... more
Emoticons have become a common phenomenon in email correspondence between students and professors. Even though the use of emoticons in formal writing is considered inappropriate and unprofessional, more and more students are using these nonverbal communication tools to add context or emphasis to their email messages to professors. This paper examines the association between the use of emoticons and professors’ perceptions of higher education students’ email messages with and without emoticons in two countries, Serbia and Slovenia. The students’ emails were collected and assessed on several levels. The students’ messages were examined with particular attention to the appropriateness of the students’ writing style. In addition, the students’ level of digital literacy, their attitude toward a professor, and gender differences in the use of emoticons were examined. Furthermore, an online questionnaire was used to identify characteristic differences between students who use emoticons and students who do not. The results show that messages with emoticons are rated lower on several dimensions than messages without emoticons. In addition, students who use emoticons show lower digital literacy and perceive their professors as more understanding and helpful. Emoticon use is not related to gender. The results suggest that students should avoid using emoticons even if they have a positive attitude toward their professor.
Research Interests:
Background and Purpose: While there are many studies regarding the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID), only a few of them deal with RFID subcutaneous microchip (RFID-SM) usage by individuals. After the first in vivo... more
Background and Purpose: While there are many studies regarding the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID), only a few of them deal with RFID subcutaneous microchip (RFID-SM) usage by individuals. After the first in vivo tests conducted on volunteers from 1998 to 2000, the use of RFID-SM in healthcare remains limited.
This study examines the likelihood of adopting RFID-SM in healthcare from the end user’s point of view.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The aim of this paper is to develop and evaluate the model for analysing the acceptance of RFID-SM adoption. An extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for RFID-SM adoption is proposed and empirically tested in a cross-sectional study. Online survey was conducted using a convenience sample
of 531 respondents. In addition to the three original components of TAM (Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Behavioural Intentions to Use), three external variables (Health Concerns, Perceived Trust, and Age) were also included in the model. The model was validated with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques.
Results: Perceived Usefulness has a significant impact on behavioural intentions to adopt RFID-SM in the future, while the influence of Perceived Ease of Use is not significant. The most influential external variable is Perceived Trust, indicating the lack of confidence in personal data security ensured by the state and other institutions. As expected,
Health Concerns factor has a negative effect on the Perceived Trust and Perceived Usefulness of RFID-SM.
Conclusion: The results of the empirical study prove that all external variables considered in the model significantly influence the RFID-SM adoption. The Perceived Ease of Use is irrelevant to the attitude towards the RFID-SM adoption. In addition to the proposed model, the analysis of gathered data shows that the positive attitude toward the use of RFID-SM in healthcare is rising.
This study examines the likelihood of adopting RFID-SM in healthcare from the end user’s point of view.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The aim of this paper is to develop and evaluate the model for analysing the acceptance of RFID-SM adoption. An extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for RFID-SM adoption is proposed and empirically tested in a cross-sectional study. Online survey was conducted using a convenience sample
of 531 respondents. In addition to the three original components of TAM (Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Behavioural Intentions to Use), three external variables (Health Concerns, Perceived Trust, and Age) were also included in the model. The model was validated with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques.
Results: Perceived Usefulness has a significant impact on behavioural intentions to adopt RFID-SM in the future, while the influence of Perceived Ease of Use is not significant. The most influential external variable is Perceived Trust, indicating the lack of confidence in personal data security ensured by the state and other institutions. As expected,
Health Concerns factor has a negative effect on the Perceived Trust and Perceived Usefulness of RFID-SM.
Conclusion: The results of the empirical study prove that all external variables considered in the model significantly influence the RFID-SM adoption. The Perceived Ease of Use is irrelevant to the attitude towards the RFID-SM adoption. In addition to the proposed model, the analysis of gathered data shows that the positive attitude toward the use of RFID-SM in healthcare is rising.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Contemporary service oriented companies often offer call centre customer support. Since the call centre is usually the first contact of a customer with a company, the quality of a service and efficient performance of the call centre is of... more
Contemporary service oriented companies often offer call centre customer support. Since the call centre is usually the first contact of a customer with a company, the quality of a service and efficient performance of the call centre is of key importance to the company. An essential factor of the call centre efficiency is the optimal number of operators answering the customer's calls. Results of previous research show that stochastic queuing models can be used to analyse the efficiency of call centres. In the presented paper, a research was conducted on the case of Slovenian telecommunication provider's call centre, to demonstrate the usefulness of stochastic queuing models in optimization of call centre performance.
Decision support systems contribute to better quality of healthcare service. Important part of decision support is personnel scheduling system. Scheduling can be described as selection of an appropriate person for the given activity in a... more
Decision support systems contribute to better quality of healthcare service. Important part of decision support is personnel scheduling system. Scheduling can be described as selection of an appropriate person for the given activity in a time period, considering the constraints. There are many different constraints and other attributes of the scheduling problem to be described before scheduling. The article intends to present a personnel scheduling model, the part of scheduling problem that is often neglected when all the attention is focused on scheduling algorithms. Every personnel scheduling model should be described with standard language elements. A meta-language for personnel scheduling in healthcare is proposed. The described meta-language can be used in other personnel scheduling problems.
The presented research focuses on assessment of innovation potential in small and medium sized companies. The goals of this research are: a) to summarize previous assessments of innovation potential in the companies and countries, b) to... more
The presented research focuses on assessment of innovation potential in small and medium sized companies. The goals of this research are: a) to summarize previous assessments of innovation potential in the companies and countries, b) to explain the use of iScan methodology within Cross Inno project, c) to explore the innovation gap between companies in Gorenjska and Carinthia region, d) to examine several iScan variables and e) to construct new model for company innovation potential computation. The results of computation indicate strong differentiation of innovation potential among observed companies.
The establishment of shifts for every employee is the key problem with human resource scheduling in hospitals. General constraints on health care legislation have to be considered when scheduling. Constraints defined by hospital... more
The establishment of shifts for every employee is the key problem with human resource scheduling in hospitals. General constraints on health care legislation have to be considered when scheduling. Constraints defined by hospital management must also be included, while some attention should be paid to employee preferences. Golnik hospital and The Faculty of Organizational Sciences began cooperating in June 2002, when it was already known that healthcare legislation would be changed. The prototype for planning and monitoring of the workload was developed on the basis of current legislation and hospital rules. The goal was to develop a software prototype that would be easy to change when legislation changed. In the last months schedulers defined manual procedures to schedule with new legislation rules, so algorithms in stored procedures of the scheduling prototype could be changed accordingly. With minor changes the scheduling system could also be used in other hospital environments. T...
Resource scheduling methods are becoming more effective and refined. Different constraints and the importance of criteria are being considered. Usually, scheduling methods cannot be used for different resource scheduling problems. Some... more
Resource scheduling methods are becoming more effective and refined. Different constraints and the importance of criteria are being considered. Usually, scheduling methods cannot be used for different resource scheduling problems. Some scheduling problem researches discuss a problem description. Several languages for the definition of specific scheduling problems are also proposed in the literature. With a general scheduling problem definition language, a comparison of different scheduling algorithms is enabled and the most appropriate scheduling algorithm for specific problem can be chosen. The resource scheduling problem description language development procedure, including the syntax and semantic scheme of the language, is presented here. An object-oriented methodology is used for the presentation of the resource scheduling model.
Information technology and information systems, as well as business processes have a direct and enabling effect on the increase of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions. Green information communication technology has been an interesting topic... more
Information technology and information systems, as well as business processes have a direct and enabling effect on the increase of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions. Green information communication technology has been an interesting topic few years ago. In recent literature research, green information systems and sustainable business practices are becoming an issue which helps enterprises to embed sustainable practices into their activities or products and reduce their environmental impact. This paper presents enablers, barriers and opportunities for the introduction of green and sustainable business processes in small and medium enterprises.
In the paper a modified card sorting method used for the interaction design improvement of an educational institution's web site is presented. The characteristics of good websites and methods, enabling improvement of user experience... more
In the paper a modified card sorting method used for the interaction design improvement of an educational institution's web site is presented. The characteristics of good websites and methods, enabling improvement of user experience and interaction design are described. The results of user experience testing showed that the website menus are not intuitively arranged, causing prolonged search time and consequent user dissatisfaction. For the improvement of website content structure, a modified Card Sorting method was used since the number of elements considered significantly exceeded the recommended constraints for the implementation of classical Card Sorting method. The analysis of card-sorting results showed numerous irregularities, e.g. duplicate names of links, usage of different names for same links, missing useful linkd and others. A new structure of website menus with logical and content based structure is proposed.
Building effective teams and considering daily shifts for every employee are the major topic for management in every hospital. Individual's workload must obey legislation in health care as well other constraints, defined by management... more
Building effective teams and considering daily shifts for every employee are the major topic for management in every hospital. Individual's workload must obey legislation in health care as well other constraints, defined by management and employees. This paper reflects the development of the software prototype for planning and monitoring workload for Hospital Golnik. A formal analysis of the problem was carried out and the structure of the database was defined. Scheduling algorithms were implemented within stored procedures in Oracle database. A user-friendly graphical user interface, which enables human resource scheduling and monitoring of workload, was developed. Development continues with the introduction of new legislation into the algorithms. Minor structural changes will be introduced into solution according to new health care legislation in Slovenia.
Trade sectors, in particular large retailers, have a significant impact on territories in term of CO2 emissions. The main objective of the ZEROTRADE 1 project is to jointly develop, test and disseminate an innovative and effective... more
Trade sectors, in particular large retailers, have a significant impact on territories in term of CO2 emissions. The main objective of the ZEROTRADE 1 project is to jointly develop, test and disseminate an innovative and effective governance model where public bodies become drivers for low carbon economy implementing actions to reduce CO2 emissions in trade sector. Different types of actions are performed to promote the reduction of CO2 emission: sharing experiences from project partners, involving relevant stakeholders, encouraging retailers to perform environmental measures in outlets and raising environmental awareness of consumers. Stakeholders involved in the project promote environmental awareness of retailers and consumers and therefore increase the quality of offered goods. Response on the actions of the project from Slovenian large retailers was not promising, while engagement of small retailers in Gorenjska region was more successful.
User involvement in open innovation processes as a new trend has revitalized the Living Lab concept. Living Lab is a concept of user driven knowledge and experience exchange aiming to enhance innovation, inclusion, usefulness and... more
User involvement in open innovation processes as a new trend has revitalized the Living Lab concept. Living Lab is a concept of user driven knowledge and experience exchange aiming to enhance innovation, inclusion, usefulness and usability of ICT to create innovative business process. Concurrent Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are facing diverse problems in the area of sustainable energy consumption and improvement of energy efficiency. Modern ICT tools used for transferring and customizing knowledge and experiences (Logistic E-services, Distributed Planning, and Intelligent Data Capture) enable the application of Living Lab approach in the field of energy consumption. A concept of continuous transfer of innovation and knowledge aimed at efficient usage of energy based on Living Lab approach is presented in the research. Living Lab approach enables continuous user driven innovation process, application of innovation concepts in SMEs, reporting and improvements. A methodolo...
Research Interests:
Paper presents the results of surveys about the relation of secondary school students to the environmental problems and waste separation. This survey was as a part of the campaign "Attention towards Environment" in the school... more
Paper presents the results of surveys about the relation of secondary school students to the environmental problems and waste separation. This survey was as a part of the campaign "Attention towards Environment" in the school year 2012-13 performed for the third time. The comparison of answers on questions for particular years was done as well as the statistical analysis of the data. By several questions statistically important differences have been observed. Some positive trends can be recognized. The degree of waste separation showed continuous increase in the period 2010-12. Students are also more and more aware of their own responsibility for regular waste treatment.
The increasing pressure to deliver high quality service is forcing health care organizations to optimize their processes. Majority of the studies in this area is focused on the patient flow, emergency or surgical process optimization,... more
The increasing pressure to deliver high quality service is forcing health care organizations to optimize their processes. Majority of the studies in this area is focused on the patient flow, emergency or surgical process optimization, allocation of resources. The administrative processes supporting the health care system have not been widely researched and optimized. Discrete-event simulation (DES) was used to simulate and optimize administrative processes in a health care institution. Three clinical departments were included in the simulation models. Two simulation models were developed to model the behavior of present and proposed organization of administrative processes. Voice recognition solutions for smart phones were tested to decrease text entry time. The results of the simulation confirmed that the centralization of administrative processes would contribute to higher quality of service for patients.