Mobile support in CSCW applications and groupware development frameworks

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an established subset of the field of Human Computer Interaction that deals with the how people use computing technology to enhance group interaction and collaboration. Mobile CSCW has emerged as a result of the progression from personal desktop computing to the mobile device platforms that are ubiquitous today. CSCW aims to not only connect people and facilitate communication through using computers; it aims to provide conceptual models coupled with technology to manage, mediate, and assist collaborative processes. Mobile CSCW research looks to fulfil these aims through the adoption of mobile technology and consideration for the mobile user. Facilitating collaboration using mobile devices brings new challenges. Some of these challenges are inherent to the nature of the device hardware, while others focus on the understanding of how to engineer software to maximize effectiveness for the end-users. This paper reviews seminal and state-of-the-art cooperative software applications and development frameworks, and their support for mobile devices

Managing Distributed Teams Using Agile Methods: An Implementation Strategy for Regulated Healthcare Software

Omega is a small medical software company focusing mainly on highly customized software solutions around patient communities, telemedicine and workflow optimization. The company has been in operation for nearly 10 years, with many successful project implementations, but has had little growth in this period. A set of recommendations are established for setting up an offshore team for software development, as well as moving infrastructure to the cloud to decrease costs. An analysis of strategy and process revision is required to ensure that this risky transition is effective. This paper will analyze risks and objectives in regards to moving to offshore development for a portion of software development. It will dentify necessary corporate structure, roles and processes to ensure efficient development with virtual teams. It will outline the use of ‘agile’ methodologies for software development in regards to offshore teams, as opposed to traditional project management methodologies. In addition, it will establish an analysis of costs and return on investment for moving to cloud for server hosting and corporate IT infrastructure

Engineering Data Management

To support design decisions in the product development process, companies are increasinglyrelying on computer aided simulations. However, investments in simulation technologies can nottranslate directly into benefit without implementing a system able to capture knowledge and valueout of each simulation performed. To implement the switch from traditional product development to Simulation Based Design (SBD)and product development, a system that can efficiently manage simulation data is needed. Commonsituation in industry is to store everything related to simulations in the analyst’s computer or in ashared folder. Currently only CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) departments in aerospace andautomotive OEMs are early adopters of SDM (Simulation Data Management) technology.Commercial SDM systems are developed to suits the needs of big enterprises with repetitiveprocesses and product with broadly similar geometries. The cost for deployment and maintenanceof this kind of system represents a barrier for small and mid-size companies. The larger companiesmight not benefit from a system developed and tuned for the needs of the early adopters mentionedabove. In this thesis a SDM system has been developed based on Microsoft SharePoint, a general purposedocument management and collaboration platform widely used and deployed in enterprises. Themain reason for selecting this platform is because product development is a collaborative task, andSharePoint has excellent features to support this kind of collaboration. This thesis defines a set ofconfigurations for the selected platform needed in order to help analysts to store, share and reusetheir simulation models and knowledge. To understand the requirements of SDM a multidisciplinary design process has been implemented.The design process has been developed for diesel engine conceptual design. This processrepresents a proof of concept of how SBD can be implemented concretely. The design processcontains calculation of main parameters (executed with MS Excel), CAD-geometry creation (PTCPro|Engineer), Multi-Body Simulations to get dynamic loads (MSC Adams) and Finite ElementAnalysis (DS Abaqus) for strength and vibration analysis. The results are looped back into thecalculations spreadsheet with information regarding the behavior of the key engine parts. Anoptimization algorithm is used to drive and control the loop execution in order to find an “optimal” setof design parameters.Yhtiöt käyttävät yhä enemmän tietokoneavusteista simulaatiota voidakseen paremmin tukeapäätöksentekoa tuotekehitysprosesseissa. Kuitenkin investointeja simulaatioteknologiaan ei voidasuoraan hyödyntää ilman toteutettua järjestelmää, joka pystyy keräämään tietoa jokaisestasuoritetusta simulaatiosta. Siirtymisessä perinteisestä tuotekehityksestä simulaatiopohjaiseen suunnitteluun (Simulation BasedDesign, SBD), tuotekehitys tarvitsee järjestelmän, joka pystyy tehokkaasti hallinnoimaansimulaatiotietoa. Nykyinen käytäntö teollisuudessa on tallentaa kaikki simulaation liittyvä tietoanalyytikon omalle koneelle tai jaettuun kansioon. Suurien lento- ja autoteollisuuden toimijoidensuunnitteluosastot ovat edelläkävijöitä simulaatiotiedon hallintajärjestelmän (Simulation DataManagement, SDM) käytössä. Kaupalliset SDM-järjestelmät on kehitetty vastaamaan isojenyhtiöiden toistuvia prosesseja ja tuotteita samankaltaisine geometrioineen. Tämäntyyppistenjärjestelmien käyttöönoton ja ylläpidon kustannukset ovat rajoitteena pienille ja keskisuurilleyrityksille. Isotkaan yhtiöt eivät välttämättä hyödy järjestelmästä, joka on kehitetty ja räätälöitytäyttämään yllä mainittujen aikaisten käyttöönottajien tarpeita. Tässä diplomityössä on kehitetty SDM-järjestelmä pohjautuen Microsoft SharePoint:iin, laajaltiyhtiöissä käytettyyn yleiseen tiedostonhallinta- ja yhteistoiminta-alustaan. Pääasiallinen syy tämänalustan valintaan on se, että tuotekehitys on yhteistoimintaa ja SharePointissa on ominaisuuksia,jotka tukevat erinomaisesti tätä. Tämä diplomityö määrittelee joukon määreitä tähän alustaanauttaakseen analyytikkoa tallentamaan, jälleenkäyttämään ja jakamaan simulaatiomalleja ja-tietämystä. SDM-järjestelmän vaatimuksien tutkimiseksi toteutettiin monitieteellinen suunnitteluprosessi.Suunnitteluprosessi on kehitetty dieselmoottorin konseptuaaliseen suunnitteluun. Tämä prosessiedustaa, miten SDB voidaan konkreettisesti toteuttaa. Suunnitteluprosessi sisältää päämuuttujienlaskennan (toteutettu MS Excelissä), CAD (Computer Aided Design)-geometrian luomisen (PTCPro|Engineer), monikappalesimuloinnin dynaamisten kuormien laskemiseksi (MSC Adams) jalujuus- ja värähtelyanalyysit (DS Abaqus). Lujuus- ja värähtelyanalyysin tulokset liittyen moottorinpääosien käyttäytymiseen on takaisinkytketty laskentaan. Optimointialgoritmia on käytettyjohtamaan ja kontrolloimaan suunnitteluprosessia löytääkseen ”optimaaliset” arvotsuunnittelumuuttujille

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationClinical research plays a vital role in producing knowledge valuable for understanding human disease and improving healthcare quality. Human subject protection is an obligation essential to the clinical research endeavor, much of which is governed by federal regulations and rules. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are responsible for overseeing human subject research to protect individuals from harm and to preserve their rights. Researchers are required to submit and maintain an IRB application, which is an important component in the clinical research process that can significantly affect the timeliness and ethical quality of the study. As clinical research has expanded in both volume and scope over recent years, IRBs are facing increasing challenges in providing efficient and effective oversight. The Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) domain has made significant efforts to support various aspects of clinical research through developing information systems and standards. However, information technology use by IRBs has not received much attention from the CRI community. This dissertation project analyzed over 100 IRB application systems currently used at major academic institutions in the United States. The varieties of system types and lack of standardized application forms across institutions are discussed in detail. The need for building an IRB domain analysis model is identified. . iv In this dissertation, I developed an IRB domain analysis model with a special focus on promoting interoperability among CRI systems to streamline the clinical research workflow. The model was evaluated by a comparison with five real-world IRB application systems. Finally, a prototype implementation of the model was demonstrated by the integration of an electronic IRB system with a health data query system. This dissertation project fills a gap in the research of information technology use for the IRB oversight domain. Adoption of the IRB domain analysis model has potential to enhance efficient and high-quality ethics oversight and to streamline the clinical research workflow

Software Projects Risk Management Support Tool

Management projektů a jejich rizik je v současnosti rozvíjející se disciplína, která si získává stále větší pozornost a uplatnění v praxi. Tato práce popisuje úvod do problematiky řízení rizik, zkoumání metod jejich identifikace, vyhodnocení a managementu, předcházení jejich následkům a jejich zvládání. V další části práce byla provedena analýza vzorků rizik z reálných projektů, byly popsány metody pro identifikaci a vyhodnocení následků rizik v úvodních fázích softwarového projektu, taktéž byly popsány atributy rizik a navržen způsob jejich dokumentace. V závěrečné části zadání byl navržen a implementován prototyp modelové aplikace pro podporu managementu rizik softwarových projektů.Management of projects and contained risks is a fast developing discipline, which attracts increasingly broader attention and gets more prevalent practical implementation. This work describes introduction to the problem of risk management, examination of risk identification methods, risk evaluation and management, preventing risk consequences and their handling. Following part contains analysis of real projects risk sample, description of methods for risk identification and evaluation of risk consequences in preliminary phases of software project. In subsequent part, attributes of these risks were depicted and suggested a way of risks documentation. A prototype of application tool supporting software project risk management was designed and realized in the last part of this work.

Just-in-time Information Interfaces: A new Paradigm for Information Discovery and Exploration

We live in a time of increasing information overload. Described as “a byproduct of the lack of maturity of the information age” (Spira & Goldes, 2007), information overload can be painful, and harm our concentration - the resulting choice overload impacts out decision-making abilities. Given the problem of information overload, and the unsatisfying nature of human-information interaction using traditional browsing or keyword-based search, this research investigates how the design of just-in-time information services can improve the user experience of goal-driven interactions with information. This thesis explores the design of just-in-time information services through the iterative development of two strands of high-level prototypes (FMI and KnowDis). I custombuilt both prototype systems for the respective evaluations, which have then been conducted as part of a series of lab-based eye-tracking studies (FMI) as well as two field studies (KnowDis). The lab-based eye-tracking studies were conducted with 100 participants measuring task performance, user satisfaction, and gaze behaviour. The lab studies found that the FMI prototype design did improve the performance aspect of the user experience for all participants and improved the usability aspect of the user experience for novice participants. However, the FMI prototype design seemed to be less effective and usable for expert participants. Two field studies were conducted as part of a two-year research collaboration, which lasted a total of 10 weeks and involved approximately 70 knowledge workers overall from across the globe. As part of those field studies, 46 semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The field studies found that the KnowDis prototype design did improve the user experience for participants overall by making work-related information search more efficient. However, while the KnowDis prototype design was useful for some knowledge workers and even integrated seamlessly into their day-to-day work, it appeared to be less useful and even distracting to others

Mobile computing algorithms and systems for user-aware optimization of enterprise applications

The adoption of mobile devices, particularly smartphones, has grown steadily over the last decade, also permeating the enterprise sector. Enterprises are investing heavily in mobilization to improve employee productivity and perform business workflows, including smartphones and tablets. Enterprise mobility is expected to be more than a $250 billion market in 2019. Strategies to achieve mobilization range from building native apps, using mobile enterprise application platforms (MEAPS), developing with a mobile backend as a service (mBaaS), relying on application virtualization, and employing application refactoring. Enterprises are not yet experiencing the many benefits of mobilization, even though there is great promise. Email and browsing are used heavily, but the practical adoption of enterprise mobility to deliver value beyond these applications is in its infancy and faces barriers. Enterprises deploy few business workflows (<5 percent). Barriers include the heavy task burden in executing workflows on mobile devices, the irrelevance of available mobile features, non-availability of necessary business functions, the high cost of network access, increased security risks associated with smartphones, and increased complexity of mobile application development. This dissertation identifies key barriers to user productivity on smartphones and investigates user-aware solutions that leverage redundancies in user behavior to reduce burden, focusing on the following mobility aspects: (1) Workflow Mobilization: For an employee to successfully perform workflows on a smartphone, a mobile app must be available, and the specific workflow must survive the defeaturization process necessary for mobilization. While typical mobilization strategies offer mobile access to a few heavily-used features, there is a long-tail problem for enterprise application mobilization, in that many application features are left unsupported or are too difficult to access. We propose a do-it-yourself (DIY) platform, Taskr, that allows users at all skill levels to mobilize workflows. Taskr uses remote computing with application refactoring to achieve code-less mobilization of enterprise web applications. It allows for flexible mobile delivery so that users can execute spot tasks through Twitter, email, or a native mobile app. Taskr prototypes from 15 enterprise applications reduce the number of user actions performing workflows by 40 percent compared to the desktop; (2) Content sharing (enterprise email): An enterprise employee spends an inordinate amount of time on email responding to queries and sharing information with co-workers. This problem is further aggravated on smartphones due to smaller screen real estate. We consider automated information suggestions to ease the burden of reply construction on smartphones. The premise is that a significant portion of the information content in a reply is likely present in prior emails. We first motivate this premise by analyzing both public and private email datasets. We then present Dejavu, a system that relies on inverse document frequency (IDF) and keyword matching to provide relevant suggestions for responses. Evaluation of Dejavu over email datasets shows a 22 percent reduction in the user’s typing burden; (3) Collaboration: Even though many business processes within enterprises require employees to work as a team and collaborate, few mobile apps allow two employees to work on an object from two separate devices simultaneously. We present Peek, a mobile-to-mobile remote computing protocol for collaboration that lets users remotely interact with an application in a responsive manner. Unlike traditional desktop remote computing protocols, Peek provides multi-touch support for ease of operation and a flexible frame compression scheme that accounts for the resource constraints of a smartphone. An Android prototype of Peek shows a 62 percent reduction in time to perform touchscreen actions.Ph.D

The relationship between research data management and virtual research environments

The aim of the study was to compile a conceptual model of a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) that indicates the relationship between Research Data Management (RDM) and VREs. The outcome of this study was that VREs are ideal platforms for the management of research data. In the first part of the study, a literature review was conducted by focusing on four themes: VREs and other concepts related to VREs; VRE components and tools; RDM; and the relationship between VREs and RDM. The first theme included a discussion of definitions of concepts, approaches to VREs, their development, aims, characteristics, similarities and differences of concepts, an overview of the e-Research approaches followed in this study, as well as an overview of concepts used in this study. The second theme consisted of an overview of developments of VREs in four countries (United Kingdom, USA, The Netherlands, and Germany), an indication of the differences and similarities of these programmes, and a discussion on the concept of research lifecycles, as well as VRE components. These components were then matched with possible tools, as well as to research lifecycle stages, which led to the development of a first conceptual VRE framework. The third theme included an overview of the definitions of the concepts ‘data’ and ‘research data’, as well as RDM and related concepts, an investigation of international developments with regards to RDM, an overview of the differences and similarities of approaches followed internationally, and a discussion of RDM developments in South Africa. This was followed by a discussion of the concept ‘research data lifecycles’, their various stages, corresponding processes and the roles various stakeholders can play in each stage. The fourth theme consisted of a discussion of the relationship between research lifecycles and research data lifecycles, a discussion on the role of RDM as a component within a VRE, the management of research data by means of a VRE, as well as the presentation of a possible conceptual model for the management of research data by means of a VRE. This literature review was conducted as a background and basis for this study. In the second part of the study, the research methodology was outlined. The chosen methodology entailed a non-empirical part consisting of a literature study, and an empirical part consisting of two case studies from a South African University. The two case studies were specifically chosen because each used different methods in conducting research. The one case study used natural science oriented data and laboratory/experimental methods, and the other, human orientated data and survey instruments. The proposed conceptual model derived from the literature study was assessed through these case studies and feedback received was used to modify and/or enhance the conceptual model. The contribution of this study lies primarily in the presentation of a conceptual VRE model with distinct component layers and generic components, which can be used as technological and collaborative frameworks for the successful management of research data.Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2018.National Research FoundationInformation ScienceDPhilUnrestricte

Activity-Based Data Fusion for the Automated Progress Tracking of Construction Projects

In recent years, many researchers have investigated automated progress tracking for construction projects. These efforts range from 2D photo-feature extraction to 3D laser scanners and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. A multi-sensor data fusion model that utilizes multiple sources of information would provide a better alternative than a single-source model for tracking project progress. However, many existing fusion models are based on data fusion at the sensor and object levels and are therefore incapable of capturing critical information regarding a number of activities and processes on a construction site, particularly those related to non-structural trades such as welding, inspection, and installation activities. In this research, a workflow based data fusion framework is developed for construction progress, quality and productivity assessment. The developed model is based on tracking construction activities as well as objects, in contrast to the existing sensor-based models that are focussed on tracking objects. Data sources include high frequency automated technologies including 3D imaging and ultra-wide band (UWB) positioning. Foreman reports, schedule information, and other data sources are included as well. Data fusion and management process workflow implementation via a distributed computing network and archiving using a cloud-based architecture are both illustrated. Validation was achieved using a detailed laboratory experimental program as well as an extensive field implementation project. The field implementation was conducted using five months of data acquired on the University of Waterloo Engineering VI construction project, yielding promising results. The data fusion processes of this research provide more accurate and more reliable progress and earned value estimates for construction project activities, while the developed data management processes enable the secure sharing and management of construction research data with the construction industry stakeholders as well as with researchers from other institutions