Current state of e-services in Saudi Arabia: the case of intermediaries in facilitating government services in Madinah city

The government of Madinah has launched ‘Khdamatec’ electronic Offices (e-Offices) concept under their national electronic Government (e-Government) modernisation agenda to facilitate service delivery to citizens and seamless interaction to communicate their needs. By offering e-Offices around the government departments, Madinah government hopes to increase accessibility of e-Government services and make steps forward to electronic age, encourage Medina' citizens to participate and use e-Services and bridging digital divide. However, the empirical findings illustrate that the adoption and diffusion of the e-Office concept and e-Government in the wider context at a lethargic pace. This paper highlights some of the challenges faced by the Madinah city in implementing the e-Office concept and e-Government

The role of intermediaries in facilitating e-government diffusion in Saudi Arabia

Recent studies of e-government activity have highlighted adoption and diffusion issues as important subjects for rating e-government success. However in developing countries inadequate resources and limited citizens’ capabilities regarding new e-government have resulted in low diffusion and adoption of e-government services. This paper examines the role of intermediaries, which can be played by a third party; in bridging the gap between e-government implementation and social reality, and looks at the roles a third party can add within the e-government services mechanism. This paper uses a case study approach in order to reflect e-government progress within the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as one developing country. The result of this paper shows that intermediaries play an important role in the diffusion of e-services in relation to improving the availability, accessibility and enhancing privacy and security

Economic location-based services, privacy and the relationship to identity

Mobile telephony and mobile internet are driving a new application paradigm: location-based services (LBS). Based on a person’s location and context, personalized applications can be deployed. Thus, internet-based systems will continuously collect and process the location in relationship to a personal context of an identified customer. One of the challenges in designing LBS infrastructures is the concurrent design for economic infrastructures and the preservation of privacy of the subjects whose location is tracked. This presentation will explain typical LBS scenarios, the resulting new privacy challenges and user requirements and raises economic questions about privacy-design. The topics will be connected to “mobile identity” to derive what particular identity management issues can be found in LBS

A monitoring approach for runtime service discovery

Effective runtime service discovery requires identification of services based on different service characteristics such as structural, behavioural, quality, and contextual characteristics. However, current service registries guarantee services described in terms of structural and sometimes quality characteristics and, therefore, it is not always possible to assume that services in them will have all the characteristics required for effective service discovery. In this paper, we describe a monitor-based runtime service discovery framework called MoRSeD. The framework supports service discovery in both push and pull modes of query execution. The push mode of query execution is performed in parallel to the execution of a service-based system, in a proactive way. Both types of queries are specified in a query language called SerDiQueL that allows the representation of structural, behavioral, quality, and contextual conditions of services to be identified. The framework uses a monitor component to verify if behavioral and contextual conditions in the queries can be satisfied by services, based on translations of these conditions into properties represented in event calculus, and verification of the satisfiability of these properties against services. The monitor is also used to support identification that services participating in a service-based system are unavailable, and identification of changes in the behavioral and contextual characteristics of the services. A prototype implementation of the framework has been developed. The framework has been evaluated in terms of comparison of its performance when using and when not using the monitor component

Leveling transparency via situated intermediary learning objectives (SILOs)

When designers set out to create a mathematics learning activity, they have a fair sense of its objectives: students will understand a concept and master relevant procedural skills. In reform-oriented activities, students first engage in concrete situations, wherein they achieve situated, intermediary learning objectives (SILOs), and only then they rearticulate their solutions formally. We define SILOs as heuristics learners devise to accommodate contingencies in an evolving problem space, e.g., monitoring and repairing manipulable structures so that they model with fidelity a source situation. Students achieve SILOs through problem-solving with media, instructors orient toward SILOs via discursive solicitation, and designers articulate SILOs via analyzing implementation data. We describe the emergence of three SILOs in developing the activity Giant Steps for Algebra. Whereas the notion of SILOs emerged spontaneously as a framework to organize a system of practice, i.e. our collaborative design, it aligns with phenomenological theory of knowledge as instrumented action

Online advertising: analysis of privacy threats and protection approaches

Online advertising, the pillar of the “free” content on the Web, has revolutionized the marketing business in recent years by creating a myriad of new opportunities for advertisers to reach potential customers. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure composed of a variety of intermediary entities and technologies whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded behind the scenes at an unprecedented rate. Despite the enormous value of online advertising, however, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prompt serious privacy concerns. This article surveys the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and presents a thorough overview of the underlying privacy risks and the solutions that may mitigate them. We first analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising. In particular, we examine the main components of the advertising infrastructure in terms of tracking capabilities, data collection, aggregation level and privacy risk, and overview the tracking and data-sharing technologies employed by these components. Then, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and compare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and impact on the Web.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Do On-Line Labor Market Intermediaries Matter? The Impact of AlmaLaurea on the University-to-Work Transition

This paper evaluates the impact of the availability of electronic labor markets on the university-to-work transition. In particular, we analyze the effect of the intermediation activity carried on by the inter-university consortium, AlmaLaurea, on graduates' labor market outcomes. The different timing of universities' enrollment in AlmaLaurea allows us to apply the difference-in-differences method to a repeated cross section data set. If the usual assumption concerning parallel outcomes holds, AlmaLaurea reduces the individual unemployment probability and improves matching quality. Interestingly, we also find that on-line intermediaries foster graduates' geographic mobility.

Collaborative design of educational digital libraries for African higher education

This thesis will develop a model that can be used to guide collaborative design of educational digital libraries that are relevant to the learning objectives and are appropriate to African Higher Education. Factors affecting connections between educational digital library capabilities, learning processes and learners’ needs in higher education will be identified and used to develop the model. These factors will be identified through qualitative studies with the key players (i.e. academics, information professionals, digital library technical designers and students). The model will be iteratively developed and later evaluated for correctness by some of the key players. So far a preliminary literature review has been done to locate related work and identify knowledge gaps. In addition, a pilot study has been carried out and identified some temporal factors that will be pursued further in the proposed study

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE SECURITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MEANS OF PAYMENT DEMATERIALIZATION

Some items regarding electronic commerce, electronic vulnerabilities, electronic means of payment, digital money and electronic micropayments are presented below. Then is presented a method of assessing the quality of applications and e-commerce Web sites. This method is then adapted from the operational point of view, developed and implemented in the study of the electronic micropayment systems’ security, in the purpose of analyzing and evaluating their security in the context of the means of payment dematerialization.e-commerce, micropayment, security, encryption, digital economy, EWAM