Document Archiving, Replication and Migration Container for Mobile Web Users

With the increasing use of mobile workstations for a wide variety of tasks and associated information needs, and with many variations of available networks, access to data becomes a prime consideration. This paper discusses issues of workstation mobility and proposes a solution wherein the data structures are accessed in an encapsulated form - through the Portable File System (PFS) wrapper. The paper discusses an implementation of the Portable File System, highlighting the architecture and commenting upon performance of an experimental system. Although investigations have been focused upon mobile access of WWW documents, this technique could be applied to any mobile data access situation.Comment: 5 page

Pervasive computing at tableside : a wireless web-based ordering system

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of this paper is to introduce a wireless web-based ordering system called iMenu in the restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; By using wireless devices such as personal digital assistants and WebPads, this system realizes the paradigm of pervasive computing at tableside. Detailed system requirements, design, implementation and evaluation of iMenu are presented.Findings &ndash; The evaluation of iMenu shows it explicitly increases productivity of restaurant staff. It also has other desirable features such as integration, interoperation and scalability. Compared to traditional restaurant ordering process, by using this system customers get faster and better services, restaurant staff cooperate more efficiently with less working mistakes, and enterprise owners thus receive more business profits. Originality/value &ndash; While many researchers have explored using wireless web-based information systems in different industries, this paper presents a system that employs wireless multi-tiered web-based architecture to build pervasive computing systems. Instead of discussing theoretical issues on pervasive computing, we focus on practical issues of developing a real system, such as choosing of web-based architecture, design of input methods in small screens, and response time in wireless web-based systems.<br /

Supporting searching on small screen devices using summarisation

In recent years, small screen devices have seen widespread increase in their acceptance and use. Combining mobility with their increased technological advances many such devices can now be considered mobile information terminals. However, user interactions with small screen devices remain a challenge due to the inherent limited display capabilities. These challenges are particularly evident for tasks, such as information seeking. In this paper we assess the effectiveness of using hierarchical-query biased summaries as a means of supporting the results of an information search conducted on a small screen device, a PDA. We present the results of an experiment focused on measuring users' perception of relevance of displayed documents, in the form of automatically generated summaries of increasing length, in response to a simulated submitted query. The aim is to study experimentally how users' perception of relevance varies depending on the length of summary, in relation to the characteristics of the PDA interface on which the content is presented. Experimental results suggest that hierarchical query-biased summaries are useful and assist users in making relevance judgments

Toward 2^W beyond Web 2.0

From its inception as a global hypertext system, the Web has evolved into a universal platform for deploying loosely coupled distributed applications. 2^W is a result of the exponentially growing Web building on itself to move from a Web of content to a Web of applications

WEST: A Web Browser for Small Terminals

We describe WEST, a WEb browser for Small Terminals, that aims to solve some of the problems associated with accessing web pages on hand-held devices. Through a novel combination of text reduction and focus+context visualization, users can access web pages from a very limited display environment, since the system will provide an overview of the contents of a web page even when it is too large to be displayed in its entirety. To make maximum use of the limited resources available on a typical hand-held terminal, much of the most demanding work is done by a proxy server, allowing the terminal to concentrate on the task of providing responsive user interaction. The system makes use of some interaction concepts reminiscent of those defined in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), making it possible to utilize the techniques described here for WAP-compliant devices and services that may become available in the near future

A Multi-Channel Approach for Collaborative Web-Based Learning

This paper describes an architectural framework and a prototype implementation of a web-based multi-channel e-Learning application that allows students, lecturers and the research communities to collaborate irrespective of the communication device a user is carrying. The application was developed based on the concept of ‘right once run on any browser’ for different range of devices including WAP Phones, Laptop/Personal Computer(PC), Pocket PC and Personal Digital Assistants(PDAs), on a three tier architecture – the client tier, web server tier and database tier. As supported in traditional classroom, some requirements for e-Learning were acquired and corresponding application modules to service each requirement were identified. A prototype application was developed for one of the modules – File Transfer module using Microsoft Visual Studio.Net platform. The architecture will serve as a reference for the research communities and software developers in the area of multi-channel support for e-Learning web application. The e-Learning application when fully implemented will provide a basic platform for learning and enable students in remote locations have access to costly and scarce scientific equipment for carrying out experiments in the laboratory

Implementing Mobile Environments using Learning Objects: The Athabasca University Digital Reading Room

Paper presented at the IEEE WMTE 2005.This investigation determined some of the better strategies for delivering educational resources to mobile devices from the Digital Reading Room (DRR) and the Athabasca University(AU) library catalogue using AirPac, making recommendations on the implementation of Mlearning as part of the AU e-learning strategy. The primary research question addressed in this short paper is What are the limitations and difficulties in delivering course materials to mobile devices