Establishing the design knowledge for emerging interaction platforms

While awaiting a variety of innovative interactive products and services to appear in the market in the near future such as interactive tabletops, interactive TVs, public multi-touch walls, and other embedded appliances, this paper calls for preparation for the arrival of such interactive platforms based on their interactivity. We advocate studying, understanding and establishing the foundation for interaction characteristics and affordances and design implications for these platforms which we know will soon emerge and penetrate our everyday lives. We review some of the archetypal interaction platform categories of the future and highlight the current status of the design knowledge-base accumulated to date and the current rate of growth for each of these. We use example designs illustrating design issues and considerations based on the authors’ 12-year experience in pioneering novel applications in various forms and styles

Whither the Language Lab?

Language Labs have experienced many changes over thepast several years, from changes in names to changes in direction.This edited transcription of a panel discussion at the1994 TESOL conference by six experienced language lab directorsprovides an informal and free-wheeling discussionabout the following questions: (1) What's in a name (change)?(2) What is the most appropriate role for technology with respectto language learning and teaching? (3) What is the roleof the language lab vis-a-vis faculty and adminis tration? (4)What are students' perceptions of language labs? (5) Whathas had the greatest impact on language labs over the last tento twenty years? (6) What are the fundamental characteristicsof the ideal lab director? (7) What is the greatest challengefacing the language lab today, as well as into the next decade?(8) Whither the language lab? What direction do we see ourselvesmoving in the next generation

An explorative study of interface support for image searching

In this paper we study interfaces for image retrieval systems. Current image retrieval interfaces are limited to providing query facilities and result presentation. The user can inspect the results and possibly provide feedback on their relevance for the current query. Our approach, in contrast, encourages the user to group and organise their search results and thus provide more fine-grained feedback for the system. It combines the search and management process, which - according to our hypothesis - helps the user to onceptualise their search tasks and to overcome the query formulation problem. An evaluation, involving young design-professionals and di®erent types of information seeking scenarios, shows that the proposed approach succeeds in encouraging the user to conceptualise their tasks and that it leads to increased user satisfaction. However, it could not be shown to increase performance. We identify the problems in the current setup, which when eliminated should lead to more effective searching overall

An Exploratory Study of Online Information Regarding Colony Collapse Disorder

The cause or causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) are uncertain. CCD defines specific characteristics of the nationwide deaths of honey bee colonies in the last decade. Adult bees often disappear from the hive and die, leaving the colony weak and vulnerable to disease. Environmental scientists and agriculturalists have developed many different theories about CCD and its origins. The different theories create challenges regarding the effective dissemination of information about CCD to the different realms of public information seekers. There is a need for an exploration of the online communication of CCD information using federal environmental agency web resources. CCD research information dissemination practices are one example of the trans-disciplinary complexity surrounding many current environmental issues. The study addresses different information “packages” offered or not offered for different types of CCD information seekers. The goal of the study is to inform future research addressing the comprehensive construction of federal e-government science information by finding strengths and weaknesses in the current information landscape of CCD resources on the web

PLACE Events 2016-2017

This document describes PLACE events at Linfield College for 2016-2017

Can a workspace help to overcome the query formulation problem in image retrieval?

We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that incorporates a workspace where users can organise their search results. A task-oriented and user-centred experiment has been devised involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. We study the workspace’s effect on two aspects: task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful with respect to both of the above aspects. The proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience

Digital Anthropology: Projects and Platforms

pdf of website textMark Turin has agreed with the copyright holder the right to host a copy of this piece (whether audio, text or video) on University of Cambridge archives and servers.Article published 28 November, 2011. The article reports presentations given at the American Anthropological Association meeting. The article includes a review of Dr Mark Turin's presentation, entitled: 'Multimedia Archives for Anthropology of the Himalayan Region'. URL accessed week of 07/12/2011: http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2011/11/28/digital-anthropology-projects-and-platforms

A History of Journalism on the Internet: a state of the art and some methodological trends

La historiografía de los nuevos medios ha ido adquiriendo, sobre todo en la última década, una considerable importancia, especialmente aquella dedicada a la investigación histórica sobre la World Wide Web (vide Brügger, 2010). Peviamente, la hisotria de los medios de comunicación se había beneficiado de la perspectiva de la historia social y cultural, representada, entre otros, por Burke o Briggs. Desde esos puntos de vista, intentamos en este artículo explicar la historia de las primeras décadas de periodismo en internet, y poner de manifiesto algunos retos metodológicos relacionados con la investigación histórica sobre el tema.Historiography of new media has gained a remarkable importance in the last decade, especially that devoted to the historical research about the World Wide Web (i.e., Brügger, 2010). Previously, the history of the media was enforced by the perspective of the social and cultural history currents (Burke; Briggs). From these points of views, we attempt in this paper to trace the history of the first decades of online journalism, and to highlight some methodological challenges related to historical research applied to it

Multimedia Interface In Smart Home Monitoring

Smart home environment monitoring systems will incorporate more and more multimedia information and technology, bringing a sense of visual reality into the control room and providing more effective communication using a richer vocabulary of media This is a prototype system where the top 80%, approximately, of the window is associated with the console-based interface and the bottom 20% with the command based interface This Multimedia Interface (MUI) prototype is to convey as much possible information in the main screen display as possible, without forcing the user to burrow down through different layers of screens or menus Secondly to facilitate user-initiated changes to the system with minimal mouse/keyboard action (console) or keyboard (command-based) action on the user's part Lastly to facilitate rapid learning on the user's part, and to couple the visual feedback of both systems so that command-based system changes are indicated on the console-based system and vice-versa The console-based interface is activated by clicking on the appropriate widget like buttons in most cases, check boxes and radio buttons for a few systems The prototype command-based interface includes an edit box at the extreme bottom of the screen, where the user can type a command The user then clicks on the "Process Command Line" button to execute the command Immediately above the edit box is a list box (read only) in which the user's command is duplicated, and then followed by the program's response The results are based on analytical results, questionnaire analysis and console and command based interface results From the results tell that the prototype interface is very easy to use, and that no real major changes need to be made in order to increase learn ability The analysis also showed that the open standards and security is a priority of designing the multimedia interface of smart house