Smart-device Potential for Student Learning.

Smartphones/devices have become the ubiquitous tool of choice for professionals to support their productivity and are increasingly becoming more common on university campuses. Many of the advantages of these devices have the potential to support student learning engagement and provide new opportunities for learning. This paper reports on an academic study conducted over the last two years by two final year students, supported by two academic learning technology researchers, examining the level of student smartphone/device ownership on campus and the extent students are harnessed the use of these devices to support their learning. The research shows that student smartphone/device ownership is increasing; however, how students are using the devices to support their learning appears to narrowing as the year progresses and consequently the students are missing out on the learning opportunities these devices can provide. The paper finally presents an analysis of smartphone/device apps that have the potential to support student learning

Smartphones and tablets: take-up and use in Australia

Almost half of Australia’s adult population now own a smartphone. Take-up soared by 104 per cent to 8.67 million units over the 12 months to May 2012, according to research released today by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The report also found that 9.2 million Australians went online via their mobile phone and 4.4 million accessed the internet using a tablet in the six months to May 2012. The number of mobile internet subscribers increased by 22 per cent to 22.1 million subscribers at June 2012.Compared to other mobile phone users, smartphone users were: nine times more likely to go online via their handsets four times more likely to purchase goods online three times more likely to stream or download audio or video content three times more likely to pay bills online twice as likely to access social networking sites. This is driving broader innovations and emerging services, such as mobile payments—for example the report finds that ‘Digital wallet’ products are an increasingly popular method to pay for goods and services on the go. The report notes that continued rollout of mobile network upgrades, growth in 4G coverage and the increased use of WiFi hotspots are key drivers for the increase in smartphone ownership. In the June 2012 quarter, over two million Australians used a WiFi hotspot, 32 per cent up on the previous year. In addition, the huge range of apps available for smartphones and tablets has increased their ease of use and functionality. The number of applications downloaded by smartphone users increased by 85 per cent during 2011–12, with over 4.45 million smartphone users downloading an app during June 2012

A Comparative Usability Study of Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication (2F) aims to enhance resilience of password-based authentication by requiring users to provide an additional authentication factor, e.g., a code generated by a security token. However, it also introduces non-negligible costs for service providers and requires users to carry out additional actions during the authentication process. In this paper, we present an exploratory comparative study of the usability of 2F technologies. First, we conduct a pre-study interview to identify popular technologies as well as contexts and motivations in which they are used. We then present the results of a quantitative study based on a survey completed by 219 Mechanical Turk users, aiming to measure the usability of three popular 2F solutions: codes generated by security tokens, one-time PINs received via email or SMS, and dedicated smartphone apps (e.g., Google Authenticator). We record contexts and motivations, and study their impact on perceived usability. We find that 2F technologies are overall perceived as usable, regardless of motivation and/or context of use. We also present an exploratory factor analysis, highlighting that three metrics -- ease-of-use, required cognitive efforts, and trustworthiness -- are enough to capture key factors affecting 2F usability.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appears in USEC 201

Energy Efficiency Analysis And Optimization For Mobile Platforms

The introduction of mobile devices changed the landscape of computing. Gradually, these devices are replacing traditional personal computer (PCs) to become the devices of choice for entertainment, connectivity, and productivity. There are currently at least 45.5 million people in the United States who own a mobile device, and that number is expected to increase to 1.5 billion by 2015. Users of mobile devices expect and mandate that their mobile devices have maximized performance while consuming minimal possible power. However, due to the battery size constraints, the amount of energy stored in these devices is limited and is only growing by 5% annually. As a result, we focused in this dissertation on energy efficiency analysis and optimization for mobile platforms. We specifically developed SoftPowerMon, a tool that can power profile Android platforms in order to expose the power consumption behavior of the CPU. We also performed an extensive set of case studies in order to determine energy inefficiencies of mobile applications. Through our case studies, we were able to propose optimization techniques in order to increase the energy efficiency of mobile devices and proposed guidelines for energy-efficient application development. In addition, we developed BatteryExtender, an adaptive user-guided tool for power management of mobile devices. The tool enables users to extend battery life on demand for a specific duration until a particular task is completed. Moreover, we examined the power consumption of System-on-Chips (SoCs) and observed the impact on the energy efficiency in the event of offloading tasks from the CPU to the specialized custom engines. Based on our case studies, we were able to demonstrate that current software-based power profiling techniques for SoCs can have an error rate close to 12%, which needs to be addressed in order to be able to optimize the energy consumption of the SoC. Finally, we summarize our contributions and outline possible direction for future research in this field

Awareness and Usage of Mobile Technology in Real Estate Practice in Developing Countries: The Case of Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria

Mobile technology offers the opportunity for accurate, timely and quality service delivery; however, its adoption in real estate is limited. This study assessed the awareness and utilisation of mobile technology among real estate firms in Ikeja Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. This is with a view to provide information that is capable of increasing the awareness level and promoting the usage of mobile technology in real estate practice. Questionnaire were administered on 78 estate surveying and valuation (ESV) firms in the study area. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The result indicated that the level of awareness of ESV firms to mobile technology in real estate was somewhat high (mean=3.77 on a scale of 5) but its adoption was limited to few mobile applications such as social media apps, email, Google Earth and Google Map while others such as Sitegeist, Vert and Argus Valuation have not gained popularity among the ESV firms. The low level of adoption of mobile technology might negatively impact the service delivery of real estate firms in the future where such technology will become indispensable

The future of social is personal: the potential of the personal data store

This chapter argues that technical architectures that facilitate the longitudinal, decentralised and individual-centric personal collection and curation of data will be an important, but partial, response to the pressing problem of the autonomy of the data subject, and the asymmetry of power between the subject and large scale service providers/data consumers. Towards framing the scope and role of such Personal Data Stores (PDSes), the legalistic notion of personal data is examined, and it is argued that a more inclusive, intuitive notion expresses more accurately what individuals require in order to preserve their autonomy in a data-driven world of large aggregators. Six challenges towards realising the PDS vision are set out: the requirement to store data for long periods; the difficulties of managing data for individuals; the need to reconsider the regulatory basis for third-party access to data; the need to comply with international data handling standards; the need to integrate privacy-enhancing technologies; and the need to future-proof data gathering against the evolution of social norms. The open experimental PDS platform INDX is introduced and described, as a means of beginning to address at least some of these six challenges

Awareness and Usage of Mobile Technology in Real Estate Practice in Developing Countries: The Case of Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria

Mobile technology offers the opportunity for accurate, timely and quality service delivery; however, its adoption in real estate is limited. This study assessed the awareness and utilisation of mobile technology among real estate firms in Ikeja Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. This is with a view to provide information that is capable of increasing the awareness level and promoting the usage of mobile technology in real estate practice. Questionnaire were administered on 78 estate surveying and valuation (ESV) firms in the study area. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The result indicated that the level of awareness of ESV firms to mobile technology in real estate was somewhat high (mean=3.77 on a scale of 5) but its adoption was limited to few mobile applications such as social media apps, email, Google Earth and Google Map while others such as Sitegeist, Vert and Argus Valuation have not gained popularity among the ESV firms. The low level of adoption of mobile technology might negatively impact the service delivery of real estate firms in the future where such technology will become indispensable

Understanding the Role of Technology in the Development of Micro-Enterprises: Concepts to Study in Making a Better World

The concept of Development has alluded scholars and practitioners when information technology becomes prevalent. The majority of research in the Information Technology for Development (ICT4D) field is considered to be practice intended to make the world better with Information and Communications technologies (ICTs). In addition, a majority of well-intentioned ICT4D projects tend to fail, often due to unrealistic expectation set by development agencies responding to their political objectives. At the same time, Information Systems (IS) research is ripe with well-studied concepts that do little to make a better world. \ This paper investigates ICT interventions in three case studies of micro-enterprises operating in low resource environments. Two of the Native American micro-enterprises are taken through a set of technology and training interventions while one receives no interventions. The role of information technology in the development of micro-enterprises is analyzed to offer new concepts that can be studied to offer contributions to make a better world.

Harnessing Collaborative Technologies: Helping Funders Work Together Better

This report was produced through a joint research project of the Monitor Institute and the Foundation Center. The research included an extensive literature review on collaboration in philanthropy, detailed analysis of trends from a recent Foundation Center survey of the largest U.S. foundations, interviews with 37 leading philanthropy professionals and technology experts, and a review of over 170 online tools.The report is a story about how new tools are changing the way funders collaborate. It includes three primary sections: an introduction to emerging technologies and the changing context for philanthropic collaboration; an overview of collaborative needs and tools; and recommendations for improving the collaborative technology landscapeA "Key Findings" executive summary serves as a companion piece to this full report

Impact of switching costs and network effects on adoption of mobile platforms

Objectives of the Study: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the switching costs while adopting a new mobile platform and examine the network effects on the user switching behavior of the mobile platforms. In addition, this thesis examines whether it is more difficult to shift to a new cloud service provider or mobile platform. Windows, Android and iOS are the three platforms that are analyzed in this study. Academic background and methodology: To achieve the purpose of this study the qualitative research technique involving focus group interviews was utilized. The background literature outlined current understanding of the switching costs and divided them into five categories: search costs, costs of transaction, learning costs, complementary investments and brand relationship costs. Additional concepts were defined to get better understanding of the network effects, cloud services and mobile platforms. Three largest mobile platform providers, Microsoft, Apple and Google were analyzed using the (IISIn) model. The impact of the switching costs and network effects was analyzed from the user's perspective through four different focus groups with participants from different professional occupations. Thereafter the interviews were transcribed and qualitatively analyzed. The results of this study are presented in the form of propositions that can be tested in the future research. Findings and conclusions: The research shows that the most prominent barriers when adopting new mobile platforms are: time and effort required to learn how to use the new platform, loss of non-transferable goods and services, and emotional attachments to the brand. Furthermore, user's social circle, for example family and friends, play an important role in pre-adoption decision because of recommendations through word of mouth. Members that live in the same household might adopt the same mobile platform due to greater product compatibility. The high number of application developers in a platform is crucial to retain consumers in the post-adoption phase. Specifically, lack of available applications is one of the primary causes for negative user experience that can lead to switching. Finally, there is no consensus among users if switching mobile platform is harder than switching cloud service provider. There are multiple user characteristics that determine the outcome: extent of use of the cloud services, knowledge about converters to transfer data between cloud providers and monetary investments made into a mobile platform