Accessibility of websites of the European national tourism boards

Purpose: The aim is to find out the current state of accessibility of the websites of European national tourism boards. Furthermore, the identification of the most common errors in terms of accessibility as well as recommendations leading to their correction is aimed for. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on methods of testing the availability of web systems. The testing included automated tools, namely AChecker and Accessibility Evaluation Tool, as well as the WCAG 2.1 checklist developed by WebAIM initiative. Findings: The research has shown a relatively high accessibility of those websites. Nevertheless, some accessibility violations have been identified that can significantly complicate the accessibility of those websites for users using various assistive devices or other alternative hardware or software means. The most commonly identified errors include: failure to use alternative text for content-relevant images, the absence of text or audio transcripts for videos shared via Youtube, missing descriptions for text form elements and missing label for search form. Practical implications: The results of the research can be used in the evaluation of web presentations at the level of tourism boards and destination management. Originality/Value: The main output of this article is the application of web testing methodology on a comprehensive set of national tourist boards.peer-reviewe

Towards Usability Guidelines for Mobile Websites and Applications

The market for mobile devices is growing rapidly nowadays. Constant technolog-ical improvements provide great opportunities for the creation of mobile applica-tions. For the success of a mobile application or website, one of the main con-cerns, besides security issues, is usability. Poor usability decreases user produc-tivity and consequently causes loss of users. In order to avoid these problems, usability aspects have to be considered already during the design phase of the ap-plication, e.g. by following predefined usability guidelines. Although usability guidelines for web development are already in place since the 1990s, structured and evaluated usability guidelines for mobile applications can rarely be found in scientific literature. Thus, in this paper we introduce a catalogue of usability guidelines for mobile applications and websites, and subsequently demonstrate their usage by applying them in two case studies: the development of a mobile application and a mobile website

Development and Deployment of Library Portal for Automating and Synchronizing Electronic Information Resources: An Adoptive Model

The emergence of Free Open Source Software (FOSS) created a slightly deviated approach to portals and web applications development and deployment because of their pre-packaged nature. The effort of this article is to present a working Portal Development and Deployment Model (PDDM) that prescribes Out-of-the-Box strategy and steps for designing, developing and deploying Library Portal using FOSS. Attempt is being made to showcase various System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models with their strengths and weaknesses. Librarians and Information Scientists are being encouraged to adopt PDDM to avoid the gap associated with SDLC weaknesses when using FOSS to automates and synchronizes electronic information resources in libraries to meet the needs of library clientele with ease. Keywords: Automation, Synchronization, Electronic Information Resources, Model, Library Portal, Free Open Source Softwar

Towards A Taxonomy of Emerging Topics in Open Government Data: A Bibliometric Mapping Approach

The purpose of this paper is to capture the emerging research topics in Open Government Data (OGD) through a bibliometric mapping approach. Previous OGD research has covered the evolution of the discipline with the application of bibliometric mapping tools. However, none of these studies have extended the bibliometric mapping approach for taxonomy building. Realizing this potential, we used a bibliometric tool to perform keyword analysis as a foundation for taxonomy construction. A set of keyword clusters was constructed, and qualitative analysis software was used for taxonomy creation. Emerging topics were identified in a taxonomy form. This study contributes towards the development of an OGD taxonomy. This study contributes to the procedural realignment of a past study by incorporating taxonomy building elements for taxonomy creation. These contributions are significant because there is insufficient taxonomy research in the OGD discipline. The taxonomy building procedures extended in this study are applicable to other fields

Accessibility Evaluation of Dubai e-Government Websites: Findings and Implications

Most governments today are promoting the transition of their countries towards an information society where e-Government websites are becoming the primary gateways to citizens and businesses for government information and eservice delivery. E-Government can be broadly defined as the unification of information and communication technologies, and administrative practices to provide government e-services to citizens, businesses and other e-Governments (Deakins and Dillon, 2002). The benefits of online government e-services include better efficiency, user convenience and more citizen political involvement (Freeman and Loo, 2009). To enable all citizens to benefit from the full potential of eGovernment services, it is important to secure universal accessibility. This accessibility enables persons with disabilities to take full advantage of the information and services offered by eGovernments; the same way a person with no disability would

The Hierarchic treatment of marine ecological information from spatial networks of benthic platforms

Measuring biodiversity simultaneously in different locations, at different temporal scales, and over wide spatial scales is of strategic importance for the improvement of our understanding of the functioning of marine ecosystems and for the conservation of their biodiversity. Monitoring networks of cabled observatories, along with other docked autonomous systems (e.g., Remotely Operated Vehicles [ROVs], Autonomous Underwater Vehicles [AUVs], and crawlers), are being conceived and established at a spatial scale capable of tracking energy fluxes across benthic and pelagic compartments, as well as across geographic ecotones. At the same time, optoacoustic imaging is sustaining an unprecedented expansion in marine ecological monitoring, enabling the acquisition of new biological and environmental data at an appropriate spatiotemporal scale. At this stage, one of the main problems for an effective application of these technologies is the processing, storage, and treatment of the acquired complex ecological information. Here, we provide a conceptual overview on the technological developments in the multiparametric generation, storage, and automated hierarchic treatment of biological and environmental information required to capture the spatiotemporal complexity of a marine ecosystem. In doing so, we present a pipeline of ecological data acquisition and processing in different steps and prone to automation. We also give an example of population biomass, community richness and biodiversity data computation (as indicators for ecosystem functionality) with an Internet Operated Vehicle (a mobile crawler). Finally, we discuss the software requirements for that automated data processing at the level of cyber-infrastructures with sensor calibration and control, data banking, and ingestion into large data portals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Disintermediation of traditional chemical intermediary roles in the Electronic Business-to-Business (e-B2B) exchange world

The traditional chemical distribution industry is a multi-billion dollar business and with the introduction of Electronic Business-to-Business (e-B2B) exchanges to the global chemical industry there is some concern about the future roles of traditional intermediaries (TI). The objectives of this research paper are to investigate the possibility of disintermediation of roles of TI by e-B2B exchanges and to identify the value adding role of TI as perceived by chemical distributors and buyers. If these value adding roles may be the key to future survival for TI in the marketplace. International data collected from e-B2B exchanges, chemical distributors and buyers are used. Content analysis of e-B2B exchanges was conducted while survey questionnaires were used for distributors and buyers using a cross-sectional approach. The research shows that whilst the e-B2B exchanges have a role to play in the chemical supply chain management there were still sub-functions which the buyers viewed that the TI could offer to them. So the supplier-buyer relationships could be maintained between the buyers and the TI, at least for the time being, until newer business models of e-B2B exchanges begins to compete with the TI's to offer these sub-functions. The research holds valuable implications for TI in the chemical industry regarding the need for differentiation with a view building new competences to survive the encroachment of their traditional business base by e-B2B exchanges. The impact of e-B2B exchanges on TI in the chemical industry has not previously been studied in-depth. This paper provides new knowledge and makes a contribution by providing evidence of evolution in the chemical distribution channels. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Revisión sistemática de los métodos de evaluación de experiencia de usuario de sitios web informativos

El presente trabajo de tesis consiste en una revisión sistemática, presentada como artículo científico, sobre los métodos de evaluación que son empleados actualmente para la evaluación de la experiencia de usuario en sitios Web informativos. El trabajo de investigación consiste en una revisión de la literatura para identificar los métodos, criterios y herramientas empleadas para evaluar la experiencia de usuario en sitios web de acuerdo a la definición planteada para ambos términos en la ISO 9241. Las investigaciones consideradas para la revisión fueron encuestas, estudios de casos, estudios comparativos y experimentos que incluyan la descripción de la metodología aplicada. El artículo fue publicado en Springer como parte de la participación en el evento "HCI International 2017", realizado en Vancouver (Canadá) en el 2017.Trabajo de Investigació

A Campus Portal Development Methodology to match Stakeholder Activity

Although introduced less than seven years ago, a Campus Portal (CP) can be considered as an emerging technological innovation within higher education institutions. A large number have already adopted the concept and are currently implementing some type of portal to extend the services of their Web site and information systems to support the activities of institutional stakeholders, especially students. There is some literature recommending sets of characteristics and functionality for successful CPs, in particular personalisation and customisation. However there is a lack of evidence on which aspects of core attributes lead to the failure of a portal to satisfy user requirements in regard to their personalisation and customisation functionality. This paper reports the findings of a CP study and discusses the importance of personalisation and customisation as part of the core set of portal functionalities. These should therefore be considered in the process of CP design and development and be included in any proposed CP Development Methodology (CPDM)