Third Party Tracking in the Mobile Ecosystem

Third party tracking allows companies to identify users and track their behaviour across multiple digital services. This paper presents an empirical study of the prevalence of third-party trackers on 959,000 apps from the US and UK Google Play stores. We find that most apps contain third party tracking, and the distribution of trackers is long-tailed with several highly dominant trackers accounting for a large portion of the coverage. The extent of tracking also differs between categories of apps; in particular, news apps and apps targeted at children appear to be amongst the worst in terms of the number of third party trackers associated with them. Third party tracking is also revealed to be a highly trans-national phenomenon, with many trackers operating in jurisdictions outside the EU. Based on these findings, we draw out some significant legal compliance challenges facing the tracking industry.Comment: Corrected missing company info (Linkedin owned by Microsoft). Figures for Microsoft and Linkedin re-calculated and added to Table

Situating multimodal learning analytics

The digital age has introduced a host of new challenges and opportunities for the learning sciences community. These challenges and opportunities are particularly abundant in multimodal learning analytics (MMLA), a research methodology that aims to extend work from Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA) to multimodal learning environments by treating multimodal data. Recognizing the short-term opportunities and longterm challenges will help develop proof cases and identify grand challenges that will help propel the field forward. To support the field's growth, we use this paper to describe several ways that MMLA can potentially advance learning sciences research and touch upon key challenges that researchers who utilize MMLA have encountered over the past few years

Exercise as Labour: Quantified Self and the Transformation of Exercise into Labour

The recent increase in the use of digital self-tracking devices has given rise to a range of relations to the self often discussed as quantified self (QS). In popular and academic discourse, this development has been discussed variously as a form of narcissistic self-involvement, an advanced expression of panoptical self-surveillance and a potential new dawn for e-health. This article proposes a previously un-theorised consequence of this large-scale observation and analysis of human behaviour; that exercise activity is in the process of being reconfigured as labour. QS will be briefly introduced, and reflected on, subsequently considering some of its key aspects in relation to how these have so far been interpreted and analysed in academic literature. Secondly, the analysis of scholars of “digital labour” and “immaterial labour” will be considered, which will be discussed in relation to what its analysis of the transformations of work in contemporary advanced capitalism can offer to an interpretation of the promotion and management of the self-tracking of exercise activities. Building on this analysis, it will be proposed that a thermodynamic model of the exploitation of potential energy underlies the interest that corporations have shown in self-tracking and that “gamification” and the promotion of an entrepreneurial selfhood is the ideological frame that informs the strategy through which labour value is extracted without payment. Finally, the potential theoretical and political consequences of these insights will be considered

Tracking Data in Open Learning Environments

The collection and management of learning traces, metadata about actions that students perform while they learn, is a core topic in the domain of Learning Analytics. In this paper, we present a simple architecture for collecting and managing learning traces. We describe requirements, different components of the architecture, and our experiences with the successful deployment of the architecture in two different case studies: a blended learning university course and an enquiry based learning secondary school course. The architecture relies on trackers, collecting agents that fetch data from external services, for flexibility and configurability. In addition, we discuss how our architecture meets the requirements of different learning environments, critical reflections and remarks on future work

Web Tracking: Mechanisms, Implications, and Defenses

This articles surveys the existing literature on the methods currently used by web services to track the user online as well as their purposes, implications, and possible user's defenses. A significant majority of reviewed articles and web resources are from years 2012-2014. Privacy seems to be the Achilles' heel of today's web. Web services make continuous efforts to obtain as much information as they can about the things we search, the sites we visit, the people with who we contact, and the products we buy. Tracking is usually performed for commercial purposes. We present 5 main groups of methods used for user tracking, which are based on sessions, client storage, client cache, fingerprinting, or yet other approaches. A special focus is placed on mechanisms that use web caches, operational caches, and fingerprinting, as they are usually very rich in terms of using various creative methodologies. We also show how the users can be identified on the web and associated with their real names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, or even street addresses. We show why tracking is being used and its possible implications for the users (price discrimination, assessing financial credibility, determining insurance coverage, government surveillance, and identity theft). For each of the tracking methods, we present possible defenses. Apart from describing the methods and tools used for keeping the personal data away from being tracked, we also present several tools that were used for research purposes - their main goal is to discover how and by which entity the users are being tracked on their desktop computers or smartphones, provide this information to the users, and visualize it in an accessible and easy to follow way. Finally, we present the currently proposed future approaches to track the user and show that they can potentially pose significant threats to the users' privacy.Comment: 29 pages, 212 reference

The Role of Flow in Learning Distributed Computing and MapReduce Concepts using Hands-On Analogy

The expansion of technical concepts into everyday business practices suggests a need for effectively teaching difficult subjects to non-technical users. This paper describes hands-on analogy, an innovative method for teaching technically difficult concepts using interactive, experiential learning activities and a gamified exercise. We demonstrate our technique by investigating Hadoop Hands On, an exercise designed to teach MapReduce. Students experienced how MapReduce functions work conceptually by envisioning students as compute and tracking nodes in a Hadoop system and playing cards as data processed to complete two tasks of varying complexity. A study of 56 students was conducted to validate the exercise and demonstrated the impact of triggered flow on perceived understanding. The main contributions of this work are 1) an alternative learning approach that communicates a technically difficult concept through analogy and 2) the demonstration of the role of flow in facilitating learning using this approach. We recommend using this approach to teach technically difficult concepts to non-technical students who can more easily comprehend the benefits of distributed computing methods interactively in a way that complements the traditional lecture approach

Digital Orthopaedics: A Glimpse Into the Future in the Midst of a Pandemic.

BackgroundThe response to COVID-19 catalyzed the adoption and integration of digital health tools into the health care delivery model for musculoskeletal patients. The change, suspension, or relaxation of Medicare and federal guidelines enabled the rapid implementation of these technologies. The expansion of payment models for virtual care facilitated its rapid adoption. The authors aim to provide several examples of digital health solutions utilized to manage orthopedic patients during the pandemic and discuss what features of these technologies are likely to continue to provide value to patients and clinicians following its resolution.ConclusionThe widespread adoption of new technologies enabling providers to care for patients remotely has the potential to permanently change the expectations of all stakeholders about the way care is provided in orthopedics. The new era of Digital Orthopaedics will see a gradual and nondisruptive integration of technologies that support the patient's journey through the successful management of their musculoskeletal disease

Big data in higher education: an action research on managing student engagement with business intelligence

This research aims to explore the value of Big Data in student engagement management. It presents an action research on applying BI in a UK higher education institution that has developed and implemented a student engagement tracking system (SES) for better student engagement management. The SES collects data from various sources, including RFID tracking devices across many locations in the campus and student online activities. This public funded research project has enhanced the current SES with BI solutions and raised awareness on the value of the Big Data in improving student experience. The action research concerns with the organizational wide development and deployment of Intelligent Student Engagement System involving a diverse range of stakeholders. The activities undertaken to date have revealed interesting findings and implications for advancing our understanding and research in leveraging the benefit of the Big Data in Higher Education from a socio-technical perspective

Equivalent Mid-Term Results of Open vs Endoscopic Gluteal Tendon Tear Repair Using Suture Anchors in Forty-Five Patients.

BackgroundLittle is known about the relative efficacy of open (OGR) vs endoscopic (EGR) gluteal tendon repair of gluteal tendon tears in minimizing pain and restoring function. Our aim is to compare these 2 surgical techniques and quantify their impact on clinical outcomes.MethodsAll patients undergoing gluteal tendon tear repair at our institution between 2015 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Pain scores, limp, hip abduction strength, and the use of analgesics were recorded preoperatively and at last follow-up. The Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score Junior and Harris Hip Score Section1 were obtained at last follow-up. Fatty degeneration was quantified using the Goutallier-Fuchs Classification (GFC). Statistical analysis was conducted using one-way analysis of variance and t-tests.ResultsForty-five patients (mean age 66, 87% females) met inclusion criteria. Average follow-up was 20.3 months. None of the 10 patients (22%) undergoing EGR had prior surgery. Of 35 patients (78%) undergoing OGR, 12 (27%) had prior hip replacement (75% via lateral approach). The OGRs had more patients with GFC ≥2 (50% vs 11%, P = .02) and used more anchors (P = .03). Both groups showed statistical improvement (P ≤ .01) for all outcomes measured. GFC >2 was independently associated with a worst limp and Harris Hip Score Section 1 score (P = .05). EGR had a statistically higher opioid use reduction (P < .05) than OGR. Other comparisons between EGR and OGR did not reach statistical significance.ConclusionIn this series, open vs endoscopic operative approach did not impact clinical outcomes. More complex tears were treated open and with more anchors. Fatty degeneration adversely impacted outcomes. Although further evaluation of the efficacy of EGR in complex tears is indicated, both approaches can be used successfully