Vanessa Boothroyd

About

Vanessa completed her Master’s in Human Computer Interaction in 2014.

Her thesis was entitled “Older adults’ perception of online risk”

Research Interests

Vanessa conducted a qualitative study comparing older and younger adults’ understanding of online risks and their associated security behaviours.

Thesis abstract

Older adults are a growing group of Internet users, but they are also among the most vulnerable for attack. We examine how older adults perceive risks involved in email and Facebook and compare their perceptions to those of younger adults. We interviewed sixteen younger adults and fifteen older adults and found that older adults had roughly the same perceptions of email risks, however notably different perceptions
of Facebook risks than the younger users. Further, older adults’ understanding of available security and privacy tools in both email and Facebook was more limited than that of younger adults. We also determined that family and the media are the most prevalent sources of information regarding computer security for participants in both age groups. This study provides recommendations on communication of Internet security and outlines elements of email and Facebook that need further clarification for older users, such as Facebook’s privacy settings.

Publications

Conference Papers

• Vanessa Boothroyd and Sonia Chiasson. [Paper] Writing down your password: Does it help?. In Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST), page 267–274. IEEE, 2013.
  [Bibtex]

  @INPROCEEDINGS{boothroyd2013writing-pst,
  author = {Boothroyd, Vanessa and Chiasson, Sonia},
  title = {[Paper] Writing down your password: Does it help?},
  booktitle = {Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust ({PST})},
  year = {2013},
  pages = {267--274},
  organization = {IEEE},
  note = {Conference Papers}
  }

Posters and Others

• Vanessa Boothroyd, Andrew Patrick, and Sonia Chiasson. [Poster] Older adults’ perception of online risk. GRAND NCE Annual Conference, 2014.
  [Bibtex]

  @MISC{boothroyd2014olderadults-grand,
  author = {Vanessa Boothroyd AND Andrew Patrick AND Sonia Chiasson},
  title = {[Poster] Older adults' perception of online risk},
  howpublished = {GRAND NCE Annual Conference},
  year = {2014},
  note = {Posters and Others}
  }

• Vanessa Boothroyd and Sonia Chiasson. [Poster] How do older and younger adults perceive online risk?. ISSNet Annual Workshop, 2013.
  [Bibtex]

  @MISC{boothroyd2013perception-grand,
  author = {Vanessa Boothroyd AND Sonia Chiasson},
  title = {[Poster] How do older and younger adults perceive online risk?},
  howpublished = {ISSNet Annual Workshop},
  year = {2013},
  note = {Posters and Others}
  }

• Vanessa Boothroyd and Sonia Chiasson. [Poster] Writing down your password: Does it help?. ISSNet Annual Workshop, 2012.
  [Bibtex]

  @MISC{boothroyd2012writing-issnet,
  author = {Vanessa Boothroyd AND Sonia Chiasson},
  title = {[Poster] Writing down your password: Does it help?},
  howpublished = {ISSNet Annual Workshop},
  year = {2012},
  note = {Posters and Others}
  }

Theses

• Vanessa Boothroyd. [Thesis] Older adults’ perception of online risk. Master’s thesis, Human-Computer Interaction, Carleton University, 2014.
  [Bibtex]

  @MASTERSTHESIS{boothroyd2014thesis-carleton,
  author = {Vanessa Boothroyd},
  title = {[Thesis] Older adults’ perception of online risk},
  school = {Human-Computer Interaction, Carleton University},
  year = {2014},
  note = {Theses}
  }