Mahara Platform

First established in mid 2006, the Mahara project started as collaborative venture funded by New Zealand's Tertiary Education Commission's e-learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF), involving Massey University, Auckland University of Technology, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, and Victoria University of Wellington. Continued development has been made possible by further support from New Zealand’s Ministry of Education and the application of Mellon Foundation funds from the Open Polytechnic’s winning a 2007 Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration.

Since July 2007, KineoPacific has worked with CatalystIT to guide the further development of Mahara. A first guiding principle with the development of the Mahara ePortfolio system is that it is learner centred – a form of Personal Learning Environment. This is in contrast to the more institution-centric Learning Management System (LMS). Mahara is a stand-alone system that can be integrated into a wider virtual learning framework. We believe the Learning Management System remains a highly useful application for delivering learning. We also believe the overall environment can be enhanced and complemented by a learner-centred personal learning environment such as Mahara. Pan-institutional learner communities can also be encouraged using Mahara. Mahara’s architecture is inspired by the modular, extensible architecture of Moodle. The Mahara team has also been heavily involved in the Moodle community, with recent work mostly focused on Moodle Networks. Similarly, Mahara systems can be networked together as well having single sign-on from Moodle 1.9 upwards. In a sense, we see Mahara as a ‘sister’ application although the two systems are not required to go together. Mahara will continue to evolve as a ‘pluggable’, modular e-Portfolio system designed to leverage Web 2.0 web services and built with interoperability in mind.

Foliotek

With the Web-based Foliotek, lecturers and students have the ability to: (a) import artifacts supported by a variety of file types; (b) align elements of their portfolios with standards and objectives applicable to their program and/or institution; (c) perform a gap analysis on their portfolio so they can see which standards might require further attention; and (d) create multiple portfolios to showcase and share with others through an online invitation process. The collaboration tool allows online messaging and comments integrated with e-mail for students and faculty within designated groupings and within the system. Additionally, portfolios can also be shared with peers to receive additional comments on artifacts; the online announcement tool allows program administrators to post announcements on student homepages; and internship evaluations can be created and submitted.

Foliotek allows users to structure portfolios around standards and objectives and supports online assessment with scoring rubrics built around standards. Student demographics, experiences, and academic progress are among the data collected. Online surveys can be administered to current students and alumni and the data collected can be exported to MS Excel or ASCII text format for use in other systems for statistical analysis. Academic advisement, template creation, resumes, discussions, and blogs and wikis are not supported.

The intended user is K-12 schools and institutions of higher education. Foliotek hosts and manages the system and has developed several pricing options. A 6 year student account can be purchased for $125, with this pricing structure there is no cost to the University. If the University would like to reduce the cost for students, program fees of $3,000-$5,000 approximately per year reduces the cost of the 6 year account to $96. A license transfer fee of $2,000 (portfolio design) is charged to institutions converting from a pricing schedule with no institutional fees to a pricing schedule with institutional fees.

LiveText

It is created for use within higher education primarily in pre-service teacher education, LiveText is a Web-based subscription service and support for teachers and teacher candidates which facilitates student portfolios, training strategy building, and also the delivery method of learning materials and resources associated with U.S. national, state, and local standards and facilitates step-by-step templates for building training strategy. LiveText is the system service provider which handles the hardware, manages the server and provides firewall security. For faculty, document templates are available for developing course syllabi, course materials, student projects, student exams, quizzes, forums and handouts, which multimedia may be embedded. LiveText enables faculty administrators to design and share lesson plans, tasks, programs, or even portfolios with colleagues, providing them with the opportunity to assess or adjust materials using a real-time sticky note feature that saves to the original document. It provides a good assessment feature that supports the creation of assessments that can be used by a course, program, department, college and university. In addition to formal assessments, LiveText provides reviewers the opportunity to post feedbacks and provide annotations on accredited materials.

Administrators in the faculty may determine, line up, and state requirements through course, program, deanship or college, along with, incorporate requirements into portfolios, project, assignments, and exams. In addition, it includes a big database of requirements and criteria. The actual offered service allows clients to show report of requirements usage online or export data to different e-portfolio applications. Also, an exhibit centre has developed that to permits administrators and deans in the faculty to build up and current proof and evidence for reporting and accreditation purposes such as course syllabi, program outcomes, course outcomes, student coursework, and student or lecturers portfolios, to personalize exactly how documents to be introduced, clustered, and documented. LiveText’s form building tool supports the creation of questionnaires and surveys that can only be distributed internally. It does not support student advisement, chats, blogs, wikis, message posting, internship evaluations, and resumes. Students can create presentation portfolios with a series of style templates that can be reviewed with a LiveText Visitor’s Pass or exported for personal or departmental archiving. LiveText is available to students for a membership term of $89.00. A membership term is valid for the entire time a student is registered and enrolled in an educational institution, plus an additional year after graduation. After graduation, the student may renew membership on a yearly basis.

TaskStream

TaskStream’s target market extends to individuals, higher education, secondary and elementary schools, content providers, business and industry, government agencies, and not-for-profits. It provides the means for a group of subscribers within an organization to submit work to other members of the organization for review and/or evaluation. Additionally, multiple portfolio types are supported. TaskStream’s assessment methods include rubrics, surveys, write-in scores, meets/does not meet requirement, and pass or fail. Requirements, evaluations, roles, and permissions can be designed and administered. As work is started, submitted, and evaluated, its status is tracked and made available to participants and administrators and the assessment system supports multiple evaluations for a single submission and reconciliation capabilities. TaskStream offers instructional design tools that include: a standards database, competency database; a tool that allows users to design, assemble, and sequence a series of learning activities as well as create design templates; and a rubric wizard that aggregates. This system also offers resource management and communication tools: that include management and storage capabilities of individual work; download ability; internal e-mail system; online instant messaging system; discussion board; announcements; and a calendar. TaskStream’s reporting capabilities manage, aggregate, and present assessment data. It does not support chats, blogs, wikis, academic advisement, and/or internship evaluations. TaskStream is hosted by the company and accessed online.
Tk20

Tk20 is an assessment system used to deliver e-learning as well as mentor and assess teachers in K-12 education or teacher education candidates. Tk20 is customizable to support the conceptual framework, artifacts, standards, rubrics, portfolios, transition points, surveys, and reports of the college. Students can create and submit standards-based reflective portfolios that are assessed by one or multiple faculty members, individually or collaboratively using customizable rubrics and assessment instruments and all data related to portfolios can be viewed as customized reports. Users can also export their portfolios to a CD-ROM for personal and/or professional use. The company that offers this product imports data from student information systems to set up course shells for instructors. Course websites include internal and external communications via an e-mail system, assignments submission and analysis, assessments, a grade book, syllabi and other document posting, and the management of teaching assistants. All course-based activity is managed through templates, which once built, can be reused for other courses in the same or other semesters. Artifacts can be assessed individually and also grouped into a portfolio. Tk20 includes a message board but does not support chats, discussions, blogs, or wikis. This platform provides the means for documenting candidate field experiences as well as customizing and collecting data for recording, aggregating and reporting. Field experience artifacts are set up to document activities, location, the name of the cooperating teacher and the university supervisor.

Additionally, teacher education candidates can record demographics and composition of students and any other relevant information. Candidates can create reflective journals about field experiences and receive feedback. Additionally, the system can be customized to contain a list of cooperating schools and teachers.

Academic advisors are provided with information about candidates’ academic progress and program requirements and can determine further requirements making notations to candidate advisement records.

Surveys can be created and distributed to faculty, students, and graduates that include text answers, multiple choice questions, and Likert scale forms. Built-in reports support the viewing of survey results as answers are automatically collated and aggregated. Surveys can be scheduled for launch and automatic reminders can be set. All data associated with course-based activity can be combined with other data in the system for reporting. Additionally, survey and other data can be imported and exported from other systems, and an exhibit room allows the grouping of documents for demonstrating artifacts during accreditation reviews.

Tk20/HigherEd is a licensable system that is hosted by the institution. It is available at a onetime fee of $10,000 that does not include the cost of the server but includes customization, reporting support and maintenance upgrades for the life of the system. Student users are required to pay a one-time fee of approximately $100 for use of the system, typically for seven years.

TrueOutcomes

TrueOutcomes supports student portfolios, faculty-controlled assessments, curriculum records, and surveys. It is designed for institution-wide implementation, customized to serve different disciplines, and can be used by student services, counseling, food services, housing, and other offices that impact the quality of student life. Student portfolios are a password protected, and it is a collection of academic and co-curricular work that students own and maintain which can be accessed over the Web or saved to a disk to hand out at career fairs and interviews. The portfolios can be assessed through rubric-based evaluation where teams of faculty and/or external stakeholders evaluate the assignments using rubrics. The evaluation and data from the portfolio reviews are reported and charted. TrueOutcomes survey module separates demographic information from survey opinion questions to preserve anonymity. Response scales are created using a form that allows for both quantitative and qualitative responses. It can be used for course evaluation, student/alumni/employer surveys, focus groups, and interviews. The data is analyzed in real time where graphs and tables are presented and can also be exported for further analysis. The Curriculum Record is the faculty’s plan for developing educational outcomes and a log of changes made. Faculty center descriptions of assignments and corresponding activities support the development of educational outcomes. This information is used to generate a matrix of courses vs. outcomes by academic major, along with a chronological report of curricular changes and justification for changes. The performance assessment module can be used for local or nationally-normed exams, rubric-based evaluation of student work, capstone project/senior thesis review, and other direct measures of student performance. Program-level assessments and reports can be generated showing the curriculum plan, student achievement against standards, and a record of changes to the curriculum. Faculty and administrators can aggregate the portfolios of groups of students or alumni for examination of curricula and assessment of educational outcomes to identify where in the curriculum the outcomes are developed. TrueOutcomes stores student demographic information and tracks student history while it collects evidence of learning mastery. The software comes with a library of standards, rubrics, and survey questions that can be customized. It is designed to be used in higher education and does not support discussions, chats, blogs, wikis, messaging, or lesson plans. TrueOutcomes is a 100% Java based licensed platform and must be hosted by the academic institution. The cost depends on the number of users and the level of support needed; however, the exact price structure was unavailable to these researchers.

Open Source System

Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) began in January, 2003. The OSP Initiative’s community is comprised of educational institutions, foundations, corporate investors and government agencies. The current activity-based features of the application include the Portfolio Studio, the Resource Tool (which is the result of combining Sakai resource tool with the OSP repository tool from previous versions), and the Report Designer. The Portfolio Studio is where the student or teacher creates portfolios using the portfolio designer or predefined templates. The portfolio designer allows the student or teacher to customize multi-pages using selective layouts and styles. This page also allows the student or teacher to manage all portfolios. The Resource Tool, which is displayed using a filing system of folders and sub-folders, allows the portfolio owner to collect, access, store, and organize data and digital items such as audio, video, and documents. The resource tool consists of the wizard page which contains guidance, forms, feedback, and evaluation items. The wizard page also supports reflective activities of the portfolio owner by providing tailored reflection forms and guided reflection activities. The Report Designer allows administrators, coordinators, and course instructors to generate reports using a filling report definition prompter. The results can be exported to other software applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel. OSP enables students, faculty, and administrators to collaborate and exchange ideas among each other. Course instructors can also provide feedback, formative and summative evaluations, and comments. A set of terms and definitions are provided system-wide via the glossary. The OSP supports an environment that is inclusive of national and international standards. Although OSP does not have all of the features that can be commonly found in the more commercially available products mentioned previously; features can be built and added overtime at the discretion of an individual institution. Technically, OSP runs on a server and can be accessed via any Web browser. OSP has the capability to operate as a standalone portfolio system or it can be interfaced with other course management systems, human resource, student information, learning management, and other enterprise-wide systems. OSP encourages open standards and specifications. Students are able to save their portfolios using removable media. The OSP software itself is free; however, there are discriminating cost constructs such as the hardware, installation, support staff, training, customization, application hosting, and the integration with other systems just to name a few.

Conclusion

While the notion of using portfolios as assessment tools is not new, many disciplines are just beginning to explore the advantages of electronic portfolios. Electronic portfolios are a unique way to document student progress, encourage improvement and motivate involvement in learning (Buzzetto-More, 2006). When thoughtfully implemented the benefits are numerous, serving a number of purposes and stakeholders (ePortConsortium, 2003).

There are any numbers of considerations that may influence the electronic portfolio adoption decision-making process. Uses, needs, and stratagem may vary and some features may be more important than others. As a result, when choosing an electronic portfolio system it is important to identify the following: the future users and uses, the desired benefits, whether the system will also serve as an online course management and delivery tool, technology requirements, cost, and what features are necessary to serve institutional/departmental objectives. To assist in this process, Jafari (2004) recommends the creation of a long-range plan that takes into account implementation, sustainability, and current and future needs.

This section has provided an examination of flexible and sophisticated systems for evaluating collections of student and lecturers work for the purpose of outcomes assessment. This section does not propose to tell universities or schools what they should require of an e-portfolio system; rather it has been designed as an unbiased report of popular e-portfolio platform features to help inform the decision making process. Following in below Table 2.1 below is a matrix that shows a side-by-side comparison of the features of the electronic portfolio platforms discussed in this section compared against select features discussed earlier.

Categorise of e-portfolio

When describing the various uses of e-portfolios, there are three broad categories appeared: student e-portfolios, teaching e-portfolios, and institutional e-portfolios. E-portfolios have six major functions and uses as follows: * Plan educational programs; * Document knowledge, skills, abilities, and learning; * Track development within a program; * Find a job; * Evaluate a course; and * Monitor and evaluate performance.

Numerous e-portfolio models combine these categories and functions. A student e-portfolio, for example, can be used to showcase accomplishments. It may be shared with a prospective employer or used to document specific learning outcomes in a course and can include description, rationale, and discussion of digitized artifacts, resulting in a powerful tool for representation, reflection, and revision. A teaching e-portfolio can be used in a similar fashion, to showcase a faculty member’s accomplishments for career-related purposes. It can also be a collection of course- or discipline related plans, strategies, and artifacts to be shared with colleagues, who often promote improved teaching and learning. At the broadest level, student and teaching e-portfolios can be aggregated into an institutional e-portfolio containing a wide variety of digitized representations that provide evidence for self-study and accreditation.

2.1.1 Student E-Portfolios

Student e-portfolios date back to the mid 1980s, where they emerged out of faculty-assigned, print-based student portfolios (typically in art-related programs and in disciplines with significant writing components, such as English and communication studies), and they gained prominence in higher education during the mid-1990s. In both the printed mode and electronic modes, students basically collect their work, select examples to showcase, and reflected on what they learn. Student e-portfolios are now mostly prevalent in education programs. Preserve teachers use them to provide evidence of competencies required to gain teaching licensure or certification. Student e-portfolios are gaining ground in general education courses where they can reveal skill levels and competencies in such areas as communications, math, or leadership. Other disciplines such as business, nursing, architecture, and engineering are also using them to record students’ learning experiences and skill sets.

In general, student e-portfolios are helping students become critical thinkers and aiding in the development of their writing and multimedia communication skills. They help students learn information and technology literacy skills and how to use digital media. Beyond academic evidence, they give students the opportunity to create a digitized showcase of their work and skills that can be presented to prospective employers. Some career services offices are providing an e-portfolio tool to students (and more recently to alumni). These e-portfolios provided students with temporary or lifetime access to their e-portfolios housed on the institution’s servers. This can be a free or fee-based (typically through alumni membership) alumni service, depending on the institution.

2.1.2 Teaching E-Portfolios

Teaching e-portfolios derive from paper-based teaching and course portfolios. Like student e-portfolios, teaching e-portfolios can serve as documentation of skills and accomplishments for career advancement. Teaching e-portfolios are also used for critical reflection and learning purposes; they make individual teaching practices public and therefore available for collective learning and knowledge sharing. Lecturers sometimes create e-portfolios to introduce themselves and showcase their accomplishments to students, as well as to share ideas inside a class or other community.

These types of teaching e-portfolios may be a collection of lecturers’ best instructional work and may include teaching philosophy, list of courses taught, lesson plans, and any special recognition or awards received. In fact, supporters of teaching e-portfolios are seeking effective ways to generate faculty buy-in and educate faculty on how to use e-portfolios to showcase their work and share best practices for teaching and learning. Seldin (2004) offered two pieces of advice related to adopting teaching e-portfolios. First, teaching e-portfolio adoption is likely to be more successful if it is a grassroots approach rather than a top-down administrative decision. Second, adoption is more successful when the pilot group is diverse; the group’s work should be public and shared in open, well documented meetings.

2.1.3 Institutional E-Portfolios

Institutional e-portfolios incorporate student and teaching e-portfolios as well as e-portfolios from a wide range of programs and departments. An institutional e-portfolio would typically present a focused selection of authentic work, data, and analysis that demonstrates institutional accountability and serves as a vehicle for institution-wide reflection, learning, and improvement. Material may include * Videotaped interviews, * Photographs, * Audio taped interviews, * Quotes in written form, and * Work samples.

Institutional e-portfolios are relatively new. The Urban Universities Portfolio Project (UUPP) was the first formal initiative to explore institutional e-portfolios (http://www.imir.iupui.edu/portfolio/). UUPP was collaboration among six urban public universities to develop institutional e-portfolio prototypes. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Portland State University (PSU), both UUPP institutions, are frequently cited for using institutional e-portfolios as in-depth self-study vehicles and as primary-evidence sources for reaccreditation. IUPUI used its institutional e-portfolio to support its successful reaccreditation review by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in 2002. PSU did the same in 2005 with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) has also begun to encourage institutions to build e-portfolios for accreditation purposes.

Institutional e-portfolios make the accreditation process more visible because the documentation is published on a Web site. This helps addressing public accountability concerns regarding educational effectiveness by allowing interested stakeholders (and anyone who has an Internet connection) easy access to what the institution is planning and how it evaluates itself.

Additionally, institutions seeking ways to demonstrate student learning outcomes to their governance boards and the public can find comprehensive and authentic data in student e-portfolios and include it in their institutional e-portfolios, provided that privacy and licensing issues are properly addressed. Data collected from e-portfolios can show how students have made progress collectively rather than individually. For example, preserves teachers build e-portfolios that have digital artifacts revealing their competencies, based on assignments and teaching practicum that are matched to state or national teaching standards. An institutional research office can aggregate a variety of data from all current and past preserves teacher e-portfolios to reveal how well their institution’s teacher candidates meet such standards.

2.1.4 Obstacles of E-Portfolio

Teaching E-Portfolios’ Obstacles

The effective construction and use of teaching e-portfolios exploits multimedia and the linking capabilities of electronic environments to provide an authentic representation of teaching and learning. The use of video, audio, and graphics, for instance, gives e-portfolio reviewers a clear window into what really happens inside the classroom. Developers of teaching e-portfolios face the following challenges:
Acceptance: Supporters of teaching e-portfolios are seeking effective ways to generate faculty buy in and educate faculty on how to use e-portfolios to showcase their work and share best practices for teaching and learning. (Seldin, 2004) offered two pieces of advice related to adopting teaching e-portfolios. First, teaching e-portfolio adoption is likely to be more successful if it is a grassroots approach rather than a top-down administrative decision. Second, adoption is more successful when the pilot group is diverse; the group’s work should be public and shared in open, well documented meetings.

Information overload: Readers can easily become overwhelmed with excessive, disorganized information in the electronic form.

Technology: Training lecturers in the way to use technology effectively is challenging.

Copyright and privacy issues: Providing authentic examples of student work poses legal issues.

Institutional E-Portfolios’ Obstacles

The issues and challenges of institutional e-portfolios go beyond those of individual e-portfolios.

• Use permission: Using authentic examples of student and faculty work inside an institutional e-portfolio raises confidentiality and permission concerns. These issues can be addressed through subject release forms in which students and faculty grant the university permission to use samples of their work. Permanent files of the release forms are then maintained in an electronic database of the participants’ names and their contributions.

• Complexity and scope of effort: Institutional e-portfolios require significant organizational development and maintenance efforts. Different organizations, spanning academic affairs and IT, must be involved. Such efforts must be sustained over time and across departmental lines.

• Assembling the right team: Building an effective institutional e-portfolio requires the active participation of institutional research staff, knowledgeable Web developers, graphic designers, and a technical staff with multimedia expertise, strong database construction competence and maintenance skills. The complexities of institutional e-portfolios have resulted in a slower adoption rate than for student and teaching e-portfolios; however, the growth of institutional e-portfolios continues to rise as accrediting agencies encourage institutions to provide tangible evidence of educational outcomes.

2.1.5 Discussion of E-portfolio Categories

People who adopted e-portfolios have indicated that e-portfolios are one of the major educational technological developments since the adoption of course management systems. There are a growing number of organizations becoming aware of e-portfolios; however, e-portfolios are not yet a common trend in higher education technology. E-portfolios have grown to be an initial method for students, teachers, and staff to record abilities, skills and reflect learning outcomes, achievements, and career goals. Educational institutions are starting to consider using e-portfolios as a viable and practical trend, which would help to strengthen lecturers’ performance and accreditation processes. As e-portfolio applications grow, they have to be generally integrated and incorporated throughout exiting campus applications. E-portfolios display guarantee throughout all types of higher education organizations, processes, and applications.

2.1.6 The Technology Acceptance Model 2

A widely known extended TAM model called TAM2 will be discussed. Venkatesh and Davis (2000) develop TAM2 by adding social influences (subjective norm, voluntariness, and image) and cognitive instrumental processes (job relevance, output quality, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use) to predict the adoption of an information technology Venkatesh and Davis (2000) use the construct of subjective norm to capture social influences. Their definition of subjective norm is consistent with that in TRI (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975, p.302). TAM2 suggests that in mandatory contexts, subjective norm has a direct effect on intention through the mechanism of compliance. If an individual perceives that an important social actor has the ability to punish non-behavior or reward behavior, the social influence of compliance effect will occur (French and Raven, 1959; Kelman, 1958; Warshaw, 1980). In voluntary contexts, social influences can influence intention indirectly through the mechanism of internalization and identification. Internalization refers to the process when an individual incorporates the important referent’s belief into his or her own belief structure (Kelman, 1958; Warshaw, 1980). Identification means that an individual can gain a membership in a social group or achieve a higher status within the group by performing a behavior (Blau, 1964; Kelman, 1958; Kiesler and Kiesler, 1969; Pfeffer, 1982).

TAM2 theorizes that there are four cognitive instrumental determinants of perceived usefulness: job relevance, output quality, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use. TAM2 retains perceived ease of use from TAM as a direct determinant of perceived usefulness. TAM2 theorizes that “people use a mental representation for assessing the match between important work goals and the consequences of performing the act of using a system as a basis for forming judgments about the use-performance contingency (i.e., perceived usefulness)” (p.191). Based on the theories on the mental matching process, a potential user’s judgment of job relevance goes through a compatibility test (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Job relevance is defined as “an individual’s perception regarding the degree to which the target system is applicable to his or her job” (p.191). TAM2 posits that job relevance has a positive effect on perceived usefulness. Output quality is another determinant of perceived usefulness. Output quality refers to an individual’s perception about how well the system performs the tasks. Venkatesh and Davis (2000) suggest that judgments of output quality take the form of a profitability test, “in which, given a choice set containing multiple relevant systems, one would be inclined to choose a system that delivers the highest output quality” (p.192). TAM2 posits that output quality has a positive effect on perceived usefulness. Result demonstrability is the third determinant of perceived usefulness. It is defined as the “tangibility of the results of using the innovation” (Moore and Benbasat, 1991, p.203). TAM2 posits that result demonstrability has a positive effect on perceived usefulness.

2.1.7 The Theory of Reasoned Action

In the view of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRI), an individual’s behavior intentions determine his or her actual behavior. Behavior intention is in turn determined by the individual’s attitude toward this behavior and subjective norms with regard to the performance of this behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). The Theory of Reasoned Action is based on the assumption that individuals are rational decision makers who constantly calculate and evaluate the relevant behavior beliefs in the process of forming their attitude toward the behavior. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) define attitude as “an individual's positive or negative feelings (evaluative affect) about performing the target behavior” (p. 216). Individuals form attitudes toward a behavior by evaluating their beliefs through an expectancy-value model. For each attitude toward a behavior, individuals multiply the belief strength by the outcome evaluation and then sum the entire set of resulting weights to form the attitude. Subjective norm is another important construct in TRI. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) define subjective norm as “the person’s perception that most people who are important to him think he should or should not perform the behavior in question” (p. 302). Individuals multiply the normative belief strength by the motivation to comply with that referent, and sum the entire set of resulting weights to determine their behavioral intention.

2.1.8 The Theory of Planned Behavior

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRI) is used to predict an individual’s behavior only in a real voluntary situation, not in a mandatory context. Ajzen (1991) develops the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to extend TRI to consider the mandatory situation (figure 5). He adds a new construct of perceived behavioral control in TPB. Perceived behavioral control is defined as “the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior” (Ajzen 1991, p. 188). In the context of IS research, perceived behavioral control is defined as “perceptions of internal and external constraints on behavior” (Taylor and Todd 1995, p. 149).

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is similar to TRI in that TPB also assumes that individuals are rational decision makers. Individuals assess perceived behavior control using a method similar to the expectancy-value model. For each in a set of control beliefs, individuals multiply the belief’s strength by the perceived power of the control construct. TPB has also been widely applied to understand the individual acceptance and use of different technologies (Harrison et al., 1997; Mathieson 1991; Taylor and Todd 1995b). Taylor and Todd (1995) develop a hybrid model by combining the predictors of TPB with the constructs of perceived usefulness and ease of use from TAM. This model is also called the Decomposed Theory of Planned behavior because the belief structure is decomposed in the model. The attitude is decomposed to include perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and compatibility. The normative belief structure includes peer influence and superior influence. The control belief structure includes self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions and technology facilitating conditions.

Triandis’ (1977) theory of attitudes and behavior is a competing perspective to TRI and TPB. Triandis (1980) makes a distinction between cognitive and affective components of attitudes. Beliefs belong to the cognitive component of attitudes. “Behavior is determined by what people would like to do (attitudes), what they think they should do (social norms), what they have usually done (habits), and by the expected consequences of their behavior” (Thompson et al., 1991). Thompson et al. (1991) refine Triandis’ model to predict PC utilization behavior. The major constructs in the model and their definitions include:
• Job-fit: “the extent to which an individual believes that using [a technology] can enhance the performance of his or her job”.
• Complexity: “the degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use”.
• Long-term consequences: “Outcomes that have a pay-off in the future”.
• Affect Towards Use: “feelings of joy, elation, or pleasure, or depression, disgust, displeasure, or hate associated by an individual with a particular act”.
• Social Constructs: “individual’s internalization of the reference group's subjective culture, and specific interpersonal agreements that the individual has made with others, in specific social situations”.
• Facilitating Conditions: “provision of support for users of PCs may be one type of facilitating condition that can influence system utilization”.

2.1.9 The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology

Based on the most significant constructs from the above eight theories and models, Venkatesh et al. (2003) formulate a new model called the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). UTAUT suggests that three constructs are the main determinants of intention to use an information technology. The three constructs are performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence. All of them are comprised of the most influential constructs of the eight models or theories discussed above. These three constructs are defined as follows:
• Performance expectancy is defined as “the degree to which the user expects that using the system will help him or her attain gains in job performance” (p. 447). This new construct has five root constructs: perceived usefulness (from TAM/TAM2, Combined TAM and TPB), extrinsic motivation (from the Motivational Model), relative advantage (from the Innovation Diffusion Theory), and outcome expectations (from the Social Cognitive Theory).

• Effort expectancy: “the degree of ease associated with the use of the system” (p. 450).

• Social influence: “the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe that he or she should use the new system” (p. 451). Venkatesh et al. (2003) also find that the influence of facilitating conditions on usage is moderated by age and experience of the individual. They define facilitating conditions as “the degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system” (p. 453). As a survey instrument incorporating the most influential constructs from the eight technology acceptance theories and models, UTAUT shares other TA models’ major assumptions.