New Version of the AGRIS Web Portal – Overcoming the Digital Divide by Providing Rural Areas with Relevant Information

The present paper brings the outcomes of the second stage of a complex AGRIS web portal upgrade (technological, functional, content and design upgrade) called Agris 5.0. The Agris 5.0 version is recently being tested and will be launched in January 2012 on http://www.agris.cz. Agris 5.0 is built and runs on Microsoft technologies (MS Windows Server 2008, MS IIS 7 web server, MS SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, SP2) using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) SW architectural pattern version 3, .NET framework 4, programming language C#, Razor template system, XML and XHTML 1.1 markup languages, CSS 2.1 styles and JavaScript encoding with the jQuery framework. From the user point of view, the Agris portal usability and availability meeting international standards were the utmost priority of the present upgrade.Agris, portal, MVC, digital divide, agrarian sector, rural areas, information resource., Agribusiness, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, GA, IN,

An Assessment of Use and Currency of Information on the Undergraduate Students’ Web Portal at the University of Ilorin

A portal is a public or private space that gives users the ability to organize information, readily access that information, manage documents, share calendars and enable efficient collaboration, all in a familiar, browserbasedenvironment. The introduction of web portal in Universities in Nigeria, especially at the University of Ilorin has been considered a worthwhile development. However, since the creation for the individual undergraduate students; no study has been carried out to examine its uses and the currency of information on it. In the light of this, this study examined the use and currency of information on the undergraduate students’ web portal at the University of Ilorin. The study adopted a survey design. The target population was the University of Ilorin Undergraduate students from which a total of two hundred and fourty (240) were selected through simple random sampling technique to represent the sample for the study. Four resesarch questions were developed. The results reveal among others that majority of the undergraduate students use the web portal to check their results, register their courses, print their school fees receipts and view their current session charges. Similarly, majority of the undergraduate students rated the contents on their web portal as excellent and agreed that the contents are always very current. An overwhelming majority of the  respondents (99.2%) were satisfied with the web portal at the University of Ilorin while the common problems encounter with the access to and useof web portal in the University include connection failure, slow server, power outage and processing errors. Base on these findings, the study  recommends that the University of Ilorin management should enhance theinformation content on the students’ web portal by including chatting icon so as to facilitate the exchange of information between the university management, the staffs and students as this would assist in adddressingimportant issues on time regardless of the users location. The study concluded web portal is a very nice discovery and very good information system which is contributing a great deal to the information disseminationbetween the university authority and the students and between the students and the authority

A web-based platform for people with memory problems and their caregivers (CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD): Mixed-methods evaluation of usability

Background: The increasing number of people with dementia (PwD) drives research exploring Web-based support interventions to provide effective care for larger populations. In this concept, a Web-based platform (CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD, 620911) was designed to (1) improve the quality of life for PwD, (2) reduce caregiver burden, (3) reduce the financial costs for care, and (4) reduce administration time for health and social care professionals. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the usability and usefulness of CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform for PwD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), informal caregivers, and health and social care professionals with respect to a wider strategy followed by the project to enhance the user-centered approach. A secondary aim of the study was to collect recommendations to improve the platform before the future pilot study. Methods: A mixed methods design was employed for recruiting PwD or MCI (N=24), informal caregivers (N=24), and professionals (N=10). Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction, the perceived usefulness, and ease of use of each function of the platform. Qualitative questions about the improvement of the platform were asked when participants provided low scores for a function. Testing occurred at baseline and 1 week after participants used the platform. The dropout rate from baseline to the follow-up was approximately 10% (6/58). Results: After 1 week of platform use, the system was useful for 90% (20.75/23) of the caregivers and for 89% (5.36/6) of the professionals. When users responded to more than 1 question per platform function, the mean of satisfied users per function was calculated. These user groups also provided positive evaluations for the ease of use (caregivers: 82%, 18.75/23; professionals: 97%, 5.82/6) and their satisfaction with the platform (caregivers: 79%, 18.08/23; professionals: 73%, 4.36/6). Ratings from PwD were lower than the other groups for usefulness (57%, 13/23), ease of use (41%, 9.4/23), and overall satisfaction (47%, 11/23) with the platform (

An exploratory study to design an adaptive hypermedia system for online-advertisement

The revolutionary world of the World Wide Web has created an open space for a multitude of fields to develop and propagate. One of these major fields is advertisement. Online advertisement has become one of the main activities conducted on the web, heavily supported by the industry. Importantly, it is one of the main contributors to any businesses’ income. However, consumers usually ignore the great majority of adverts online. This research paper studies the field of online advertisement, by conducting an exploratory study to understand end users’ needs for targeted online advertisement using adaptive hypermedia techniques. Additionally, we explore social networks, one of the booming phenomena of the web, to enhance the appropriateness of the advertising to the users. The main current outcome of this research is that end users are interested in personalised advertisement that tackles their needs and that they believe that the use of social networks and social actions help in the contextualisation of advertisement

Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

From ZigZag to BigBag: Seeing the Wood and the Trees

This paper reports on a one year speculative research project that sought to test the technical feasibility, practical implications and usability of transforming an XML Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aid into an XML ZigZag™ structure and applying a relational browser interface

Demographic Characteristics and Information Technology Competence Skills on the Use of E-Portal among Undergraduates in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo

This study investigated the influence of demographic characteristics and information technology competence skills on the use of E-portal among undergraduates in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo State, Nigeria. The findings revealed a positive significant relationship between IT competence skill and their use of e-portal (r= .190, p\u3c0.05). Gender has a significant influence on the use of e-portal (t=2.071, p\u3c0.05) also, respondents age has a significant influence on use of e-portal (F (3; 246) =2.892; p\u3c0.05). The study concluded that IT competence skills and demographic characteristics of undergraduates have an influence on the use of E-portal. It is recommended that higher institutions of learning in Nigeria should further explore the potentials of E-portal for its teaching, learning and research

Usability evaluation of the international FitBack web portal for monitoring youth fitness

Open access funding provided by Libera Università di Bolzano within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. This research was co-funded by the Erasmus + Sport Programme of the European Union within the project FitBack No. 613010-EPP-1-2019-1-SI-SPO-SCP and the Slovenian Research Agency within the Research programme Bio-psycho-social context of kinesiology No. P5-0142.Background FitBack is an international network established to support the creation of physical fitness monitoring and surveillance systems for children and adolescents across Europe. Aims As a part of the greater scope of the FitBack European project, the FitBack web portal was designed and tailored for various target groups, such as teachers, health professionals, policy makers, parents, and youths, with the aim to promote their physical and health literacy. Methods The FitBack web portal is a free and multilingual online resource, and two of its webpages were evaluated: “Make interactive report” was evaluated by 78 secondary school students and 27 physical education teachers, and “10 steps to design a physical fitness monitoring system” by 14 physical activity promotion policy makers. Validated scales and open-ended questions were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative responses. Results ‘Good’-to-‘excellent’ scores emerged for user experience (5.43–6.36 out of 7) and webpage usability (3.70–4.27 out of 5). Qualitative feedback highlighted positive comments and cues on how to improve website features. Conclusions Results indicate that the current FitBack web portal is a clear and user-friendly mobile health tool, which includes relevant information on how to use and implement youth physical fitness monitoring and surveillance systems.Libera Università di Bolzano CRUI-CARE AgreementErasmus + Sport Programme of the European Union FitBack 613010-EPP-1-2019-1-SI-SPO-SCPSlovenian Research Agency Research programme Bio-psycho-social context of kinesiology P5-014