Landscape Study in Wireless and Mobile Learning in the post-16 sector

In the post-16 sector (further and higher education, and adult and community learning) there is a need to understand how wireless and mobile technologies can contribute to improving the student experience of learning, and help institutions fulfil their missions in an age of incomparably fast technological change. In the context of this interest and growing need, a Landscape Study project was commissioned by JISC through the Innovation strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme in 2004-5. Our project aims were to take a birds-eye view of developments and practice in the UK and internationally, and to communicate our findings to a broad and varied audience. The Summary report is accompanied by 3 associated reports on 'Current Uses', 'Potential Uses' and 'Strategic Aspects'. (The four reports are available in one single document here.

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Mobile News Service Adoption Framework: Insights from South Africa

The proliferation of digital news means that consumer can access news services via mobile services. Mobile news services (MNS) can support consumers in acquiring and sharing news content. The purpose of this study is to propose a theoretical framework that articulates factors influencing the adoption of MNS by citizens, in this case of South Africa. This study considers theoretical evidences and provides new empirical evidence to extend theoretical understanding. Multiple interpretive case studies were conducted to confirm and identify factors and relationships that could influence adoption of MNS. Subsequently quantitative analysis supported the identified relationships influencing the adoption of MNS. The proposed MNS adoption model offers new interpretive and sociomaterial insights into the adoption of MNS, encompassing both personal and social factors, attributes of news consumers and attributes of innovation

Exploring value co-creation within buyer-seller relationship in mobile applications services : a model development

Mobile phones have become an indispensable part of consumers’ life where they access core and supporting services via mobile applications services (m-applications). The focus of the present study is to explore dyadic buyer-seller roles in m-applications services’ value creation taking mobile banking applications services (MB-applications) as a case study. While prior research on value co-creation in service dominant logic (S-d logic) serves as a foundation for this study, it does not provide adequate guidance on how buyer and seller co-create value in m-applications services.To address this shortcoming, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 banks’ officials in banks’ headquarters of Saudi Arabia. Also, six focus groups were conducted; three with MB-application services users and three with non-users which were held in Riyadh College of Technology (RCT). In addition, a content analysis of MB-applications services was conducted to support suppliers’ perspectives regarding value propositions (service offering). A conceptual framework is developed for managing co-creation to illustrate practical application of the framework.The findings pointed to six factors that shape shape service suppliers’ ability to offer and deliver value via MB-applications, namely; brand image building, bank’s business vision, customer culture-orientation, bank’s internal environment, information technology system and positioning strategy. These factors combine to establish a value proposition for banks’ customers in the MB-applications services domain.Customer’s value creation as value in-use during usage emerged in different usage situations. A value framework incorporating value consumptions (Sheth et al., 1991a) is proposed. It identifies the main value-adding elements in m-applications and the primary drivers for adopting m-applications. Findings revealed that bank managers attempted to support customers’ value creation, which was reflected in MB-application content. However, support was constrained by some insufficient assumptions about customers and the m-commerce architecture. Factors that impede MB-applications use include consumers’ banking habits, perceived risk (security and privacy); usability hindrance, marketing and promotion, technical problems, and socio-cultural barriers. Implications are drawn for service delivery value perception and mobile marketing theory, and recommendations are made to service suppliers and commercial banks to achieve sustained returns of investment from MB-applications services

Digital touch: towards a novel user-experience design pedagogy

HCI and Industrial Design are both disciplines that are currently experiencing radical transformation in terms of their identity and scope. HCI has moved beyond its origins in human factors and cognitive psychology towards the proactive and generative design of experience. Industrial Design has similarly evolved from a concern with physical form and function-giving solutions to the holistic design considerations of the user’s experience. Given the complexity and scale of this shifting design landscape, the response of design education must shift in methods and learning and teaching objectives. This paper provides the Design and Technology Education community with a research case study of innovation within HCI education, here situated within the broader context of Industrial Design education. We present a novel pedagogy for designing digital touch communications, developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration of HCI, Industrial Design, and Social Science academics, and advanced through a coursework assignment for 64 undergraduate Industrial Design and Technology students undertaking a User-Experience Design module at the [AUTHOR] (UK). We discuss the role of low-fidelity experience prototyping of digital touch interactions beyond screens, and the limitations of such an approach when engaged with by novice designers with entrenched material science understanding. We conclude the paper with a call for new educational ‘tools’ to support and scaffold both the learning and teaching of design for digital touch experiences within a User-Experience Design context, and we offer our development of a Designing Digital Touch Toolkit as one such tool

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Technology Portfolios: A Metaphor For Usersʼ Technology Selections While Mobile?

Humans employ metaphors to understand, communicate and appropriate new, complex or perplexing aspects of their lives. This paper suggests that the rapid diffusion and widespread acceptance of mobile technologies have not been accompanied by a rich set of metaphors. Apt metaphors might help us to make sense of these technologies and the new practices that are emerging around them. The metaphor of a technology portfolio is proposed for users\u27 selections and deployment of technologies while mobile. Three case studies examining users’ technology selections while mobile are described. Observed practices can be understood and explained using the technology portfolio metaphor. The metaphor is particularly valuable given the changing nature of mobile technologies and the resulting difficulties in envisioning likely future needs and practice

The Virtual University and Avatar Technology: E-learning Through Future Technology

E-learning gains increasingly importance in academic education. Beyond present distance learning technologies a new opportunity emerges by the use of advanced avatar technology. Virtual robots acting in an environment of a virtual campus offer opportunities of advanced learning experiences. Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge time zones and ease professional constraints of mature students. Undergraduate students may use such technology to build up topics of their studies beyond taught lectures. Objectives of the paper are to research the options, extent and limitations of avatar technology for academic studies in under- and postgraduate courses and to discuss students' potential acceptance or rejection of interaction with AI. The research method is a case study based on Sir Tony Dyson's avatar technology iBot2000. Sir Tony is a worldwide acknowledged robot specialist, creator of Star Wars' R2D2, who developed in recent years the iBot2000 technology, intelligent avatars adaptable to different environments with the availability to speak up to eight different languages and capable to provide logic answers to questions asked. This technology underwent many prototypes with the latest specific goal to offer blended E-learning entering the field of the virtual 3-D university extending Web2.0 to Web3.0 (Dyson. 2009). Sir Tony included his vast experiences gained in his personal (teaching) work with children for which he received his knighthood. The data was mainly collected through interviews with Sir Tony Dyson, which helps discover the inventor’s view on why such technology is of advantage for academic studies. Based on interviews with Sir Tony, this research critically analyses the options, richness and restrictions, which avatar (iBot2000) technology may add to academic studies. The conclusion will discuss the opportunities, which avatar technology may be able to bring to learning and teaching activities, and the foreseeable limitations – the amount of resources required and the complexity to build a fully integrated virtual 3-D campus. Key Words: virtual learning, avatar technology, iBot2000, virtual universit

A framework to support the tourist’s information-needs based on a ubiquitous approach

Nowadays, tourists are increasingly thirsty for information on anything that surrounds him. With the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) evolution that supports the ubiquity, it is necessary to rethink the available models of information and services to tourists. With the evolution of mobile devices, with wireless access, together with the decreasing of the network traffic costs and with the increasing number of access points of wireless access, becomes more common and attractive. Therefore, in this paper we present an analysis of the state of the art of the support applications for tourists for mobile environments, setting them according to the development technologies. In addition, it is also presented a suitable framework to support the tourist’s needs based on a ubiquitous approach