Three-dimensional context-aware tailoring of information

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 EmeraldPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of context in ubiquitous computing. Personal Information Managers exploit the ubiquitous paradigm in mobile computing to integrate services and programs for business and leisure. Recognising that every situation is constituted by information and events, context will vary depending on the situation in which users find themselves. The paper aims to show the viability of tailoring contextual information to provide users with timely and relevant information. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted after testing on a group of real world users. The test group used the application for approximately half a day each and performed a number of tasks. Findings – The results from the survey show the viability of tailoring contextual information to provide users with timely and relevant information. Among the questions in the questionnaire the users were asked to state whether or not they would like to use this application in their daily life. Statistically significant results indicate that the users found value in using the application. Originality/value – This work is a new exploration and implementation of context by integrating three dimensions of context: social information, activity information, and geographical position

Human computer interaction with a PIM application: Merging activity, location and social setting into context

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Springer VerlagPersonal Information Managers exploit the ubiquitous paradigm in mobile computing technology to integrate services and programs for business and leisure. Recognizing that every situation is constituted by information and events, this context will vary depending on the situation users are in, and the tasks they are about to commit. The value of context as a source of information is highly recognized and for individual dimensions context has been both conceptually described and prototypes implemented. The novelty in this paper is a new implementation of context by integrating three dimensions of context: social information, activity information and geographical position. Based on an application developed for Microsoft Window Mobile these three dimensions of context are explored and implemented in an application for mobile telephone users. Experiment conducted show the viability of tailoring contextual information in three dimensions to provide user with timely and relevant information

Innovation in Mobile Learning: A European Perspective

In the evolving landscape of mobile learning, European researchers have conducted significant mobile learning projects, representing a distinct perspective on mobile learning research and development. Our paper aims to explore how these projects have arisen, showing the driving forces of European innovation in mobile learning. We propose context as a central construct in mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. We also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Throughout, we identify lessons learnt from European experiences to date

Managing ubiquitous eco cities: the role of urban telecommunication infrastructure networks and convergence technologies

A successful urban management system for a Ubiquitous Eco City requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated, transparent and open decision making mechanism and necessary infrastructure and technologies. Rapidly developing information and telecommunication technologies and their platforms in the late 20th Century improves urban management and enhances the quality of life and place. Telecommunication technologies provide an important base for monitoring and managing activities over wired, wireless or fibre-optic networks. Particularly technology convergence creates new ways in which the information and telecommunication technologies are used. The 21st Century is an era where information has converged, in which people are able to access a variety of services, including internet and location based services, through multi-functional devices such as mobile phones and provides opportunities in the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities. This paper discusses the recent developments in telecommunication networks and trends in convergence technologies and their implications on the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities and how this technological shift is likely to be beneficial in improving the quality of life and place. The paper also introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for Ubiquitous Eco Cities

Towards a Tool-based Development Methodology for Pervasive Computing Applications

Despite much progress, developing a pervasive computing application remains a challenge because of a lack of conceptual frameworks and supporting tools. This challenge involves coping with heterogeneous devices, overcoming the intricacies of distributed systems technologies, working out an architecture for the application, encoding it in a program, writing specific code to test the application, and finally deploying it. This paper presents a design language and a tool suite covering the development life-cycle of a pervasive computing application. The design language allows to define a taxonomy of area-specific building-blocks, abstracting over their heterogeneity. This language also includes a layer to define the architecture of an application, following an architectural pattern commonly used in the pervasive computing domain. Our underlying methodology assigns roles to the stakeholders, providing separation of concerns. Our tool suite includes a compiler that takes design artifacts written in our language as input and generates a programming framework that supports the subsequent development stages, namely implementation, testing, and deployment. Our methodology has been applied on a wide spectrum of areas. Based on these experiments, we assess our approach through three criteria: expressiveness, usability, and productivity

A Framework for Evaluating Model-Driven Self-adaptive Software Systems

In the last few years, Model Driven Development (MDD), Component-based Software Development (CBSD), and context-oriented software have become interesting alternatives for the design and construction of self-adaptive software systems. In general, the ultimate goal of these technologies is to be able to reduce development costs and effort, while improving the modularity, flexibility, adaptability, and reliability of software systems. An analysis of these technologies shows them all to include the principle of the separation of concerns, and their further integration is a key factor to obtaining high-quality and self-adaptable software systems. Each technology identifies different concerns and deals with them separately in order to specify the design of the self-adaptive applications, and, at the same time, support software with adaptability and context-awareness. This research studies the development methodologies that employ the principles of model-driven development in building self-adaptive software systems. To this aim, this article proposes an evaluation framework for analysing and evaluating the features of model-driven approaches and their ability to support software with self-adaptability and dependability in highly dynamic contextual environment. Such evaluation framework can facilitate the software developers on selecting a development methodology that suits their software requirements and reduces the development effort of building self-adaptive software systems. This study highlights the major drawbacks of the propped model-driven approaches in the related works, and emphasise on considering the volatile aspects of self-adaptive software in the analysis, design and implementation phases of the development methodologies. In addition, we argue that the development methodologies should leave the selection of modelling languages and modelling tools to the software developers.Comment: model-driven architecture, COP, AOP, component composition, self-adaptive application, context oriented software developmen

The genesis and development of mobile learning in Europe

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European researchers’ conceptualizations of mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. The authors also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Finally, they suggest future challenges for researchers, developers and policy makers in shaping the future of mobile learning

An active, ontology-driven network service for Internet collaboration

Web portals have emerged as an important means of collaboration on the WWW, and the integration of ontologies promises to make them more accurate in how they serve users’ collaboration and information location requirements. However, web portals are essentially a centralised architecture resulting in difficulties supporting seamless roaming between portals and collaboration between groups supported on different portals. This paper proposes an alternative approach to collaboration over the web using ontologies that is de-centralised and exploits content-based networking. We argue that this approach promises a user-centric, timely, secure and location-independent mechanism, which is potentially more scaleable and universal than existing centralised portals

Harnessing Technology: analysis of emerging trends affecting the use of technology in education (September 2008)

Research to support the delivery and development of Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008–1

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives