Behavioural patterns for the analysis of creative behaviour.

Analysing human creativity has always been a difficult undertaking. The reason for this is the vagueness of the term creativity itself. Philosophers and Researchers have tried to unveil the secrets behind creativity since centuries. Besides some principles e.g. defined by Finke, Ward, and Smith, there is no holistic understanding about term creativity and there will always be discussions between researchers of different disciplines about how creativity is achieved. Current approaches try to understand creativity through studying the creative artifact or the creative human himself. These approaches have not lead to any promising results. Instead of focussing on creativity itself, it is more promising to look at the creative process of creators. Through this, it is possible to analyse what happened during the creation of an artefact. The aim of the analysis is the identification of certain behaviours within the creative process, which lead to very creative results or in opposite hinder creativity. The gained knowledge is used for the creation of patterns, describing this specific behaviour. The analysis of the creative process is not only interesting for artists, but also for engineers, researchers, students and many others. Important target groups for this approach are schools and universities. Being able to early recognise problems in the learning curve of a student will enable a directed support, in order to improve the student's performance. Until now, the main problem for analysing the creative process of a creator is the lack of information on how an artefact was created. Most creators tend not to make many notes during their creative phase, even if there are famous exemptions like Beethoven who left behind a huge amount of notices and marked changes in his work. Hence, the challenge is the development of a powerful framework, which can cope effectively with the recording and presentation of this creative process, in order to enable detailed analyses. Modern computer technology fosters the recording of the creative process of a person. Much of today's creative work is achieved with computers and powerful software applications. Computer networks and the internet enable new ways of collaboration. The creation of a flexible, collaborative tool-set is the ideal approach for the mapping and analysis of the creative process. A novel approach, based on these ideas, was developed by the members of the Creative Technologies Research Programme at the Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL). The central aim of the approach is the mapping of the human creativity with so-called creativity maps. A creativity map is basically transition system, which allows to store and represent the creative process as well as to hold each version of the artefact. The developed De Montfort Creativity Assistant (DMCA), is a collaborative, web-enabled state-of-the-art software framework, realising the theoretical concepts. This thesis represents a substantial contribution to the research project. The focus of the presented work lies on the analysis and the support of the creative process. Several novel techniques for the analysis of massive data sets have been developed. The presented techniques enable a domain-independent analysis and support of the creative process. This is huge improvement over previous concepts, which are highly specialised and focus on the creative artefact itself. The presented approach required the development of several novel techniques. The major contributions of the presented research are: - Behavioural Patterns Enable the description of constructs inside the creativity map. These constructs represent the creative behaviour of the creator. - Techniques for a Computer-supported Information Extraction A pattern description language enables the computer-supported information extraction from creativity maps. - Knowledge Repository Knowledge, gained through the analysis processes, is stored centrally and shared with other creators in order to stimulate further growing of knowledge. - Concepts for the Analysis and Support of the Creative Process Novel concepts allow the structured analysis and support of the creative process, regardless of the creator's domain. All developed techniques have been implemented in several tools, which aim to enrich the DMCA with the ability of a computer-supported analysis and support of the creative process

Cognition and the Web

Empirical research related to the Web has typically focused on its impact to social relationships and wider society; however, the cognitive impact of the Web is also an increasing focus of scientific interest and research attention. In this paper, I attempt to provide an overview of what I see as the important issues in the debate regarding the relationship between human cognition and the Web. I argue that the Web is potentially poised to transform our cognitive and epistemic profiles, but that in order to understand the nature of this influence we need to countenance a position that factors in the available scientific evidence, the changing nature of our interaction with the Web, and the possibility that many of our everyday cognitive achievements rely on complex webs of social and technological scaffolding. I review the literature relating to the cognitive effects of current Web technology, and I attempt to anticipate the cognitive impact of next-generation technologies, such as Web-based augmented reality systems and the transition to data-centric modes of information representation. I suggest that additional work is required to more fully understand the cognitive impact of both current and future Web technologies, and I identify some of the issues for future scientific work in this area. Given that recent scientific effort around the Web has coalesced into a new scientific discipline, namely that of Web Science, I suggest that many of the issues related to cognition and the Web could form part of the emerging Web Science research agenda

IFIP TC 13 Seminar: trends in HCI proceedings, March 26, 2007, Salamanca (Spain)

Actas del 13o. Seminario de la International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), celebrado en Salamanca el 26 de marzo de 2007, sobre las nuevas líneas de investigación en la interacción hombre-máquina, gestión del conocimiento y enseñanza por la Web

WWW.raising achievement: internet research resources on raising achievement in post-compulsory education; the agency comments

This report is designed to help practitioners and researchers find and use internet-based resources that deal with raising achievement. It contains a guide to useful research sources and organisations accessible via the internet; an introductory synthesis of research findings drawn from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and suggestions for applying American research findings to raising achievement in the UK

Informal eCollaboration Channels: Shedding Light on “Shadow CIT”

There is some evidence of the unabated proliferation of employee-autonomous, informal in an enterprise sense, collaborative information technologies (CITs) to perform collaborative activities despite huge investments in CIT enterprise systems. This article will introduce the metaphorical construct of “shadow CIT” (similar to “shadow IT” – Raden, 2005; Schaffner, 2007) to describe the strategic choice to use autonomous CITs instead of formal enterprise CITs. “Shadow IT” has been defined by Raden (2005) as a set of IT tools used “for performing IT functions but not part of the mainstream IT organization” (p.1). Similarly, “shadow CIT” solutions are employee-autonomous: they are not implemented as part of the organisational IT infrastructure, neither have they received any targeted organisational investment. Several research questions are explored in this paper. The existence of “shadow IT” has been argued to imply a failure on the part of enterprise IT to provide all of the services to meet their users‟ needs. Does the existence of “shadow CIT” imply a failure of enterprise CITs of a similar kind? If shadow CITs are found to be [capable of] filling gaps within enterprise CITs, what kind of gaps are these? Often, without being able to articulate why, users appear to shun solutions and good architecture within enterprise CITs in favour of the ability to get their work done through autonomous “shadow” solutions. What kind of motivation may be driving such decisions

METHODOLOGIES FOR DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING HYPERMEDIA APPLICATIONS

Hypermedia design, as any other design activity, may be observed according to two points of view: methods which suggest milestones to guide the designer's work and process which concerns the actual detailed behavior of the designer at work. Cognitive studies assess that mental processes involved in any design process show widely shared human characteristics regardless to the used design method. Thereby, they provide general keys to help designers. Thus, a hypertext design environment should equally consider the two dimensions of a hypertext design activity, in particular it should support the natural design process specificities, mainly the incremental and opportunist aspects. The paper focuses on the hypertext design as a computer supported human activity. It examines what is general both in the design methods and in the design process of hypertexts in order to determine which general features are helpful to designers. This analysis has raised from the observation of the behavior of MacWeb users during design tasks. It is related to sound and well known results in cognitive science. The paper also describes how the proposed features are implemented in the MacWeb system.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Writing for mobile media: The influences of text, digital design and psychological characteristics on the cognitive load of the mobile user

Text elements on the mobile smartphone interface make a significant contribution to the user’s interaction experience. In combination with other visual design features, these words curate the path of the mobile user on a journey through the information to satisfy a specific task. This study analyses the elements that influence the interpretation process and optimum presentation of information on mobile media. I argue that effective digital writing contributes to reducing the cognitive load experienced by the mobile user. The central discussion focuses on the writing of text for this medium, which I suggest forges an entirely unique narrative. The optimum writing approach is based on the multi-dimensional characteristics of hypertext, which allow the writer to facilitate the journey without the user losing control of the interpretation process. This study examines the relationship between the writer, the reader and the text, with a unique perspective on the mobile media writer, who is tasked with achieving balance between the functionality and humanity of digital interaction. To explore influences on the development of the relevant writing techniques, I present insights into the distinctive characteristics of the mobile smartphone device, with specific focus on the screen and keyboard. I also discuss the unique characteristics of the mobile user and show how the visual design of the interface is integral to the writing of text for this medium. Furthermore, this study explores the role, skills, and processes of the current and future digital writer, within the backdrop of incessant technological advancement and revolutionary changes in human-computer behaviour

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N