Profiling Attitudes for Personalized Information Provision

PAROS is a generic system under design whose goal is to offer personalization, recommendation, and other adaptation services to information providing systems. In its heart lies a rich user model able to capture several diverse aspects of user behavior, interests, preferences, and other attitudes. The user model is instantiated with profiles of users, which are obtained by analyzing and appropriately interpreting potentially arbitrary pieces of user-relevant information coming from diverse sources. These profiles are maintained by the system, updated incrementally as additional data on users becomes available, and used by a variety of information systems to adapt the functionality to the users’ characteristics

Online tracking: Questioning the power of informed consent

Online tracking technologies have raised considerable concerns regarding privacy and the protection of personal data of users. In order to help users to regain control over their personal data, Europe has amended its ePrivacy directive towards an opt-in regime. There are however many open questions concerning its implementation, especially regarding the issue of informed consent. This paper explores how the new legal situation impacts on behavioral advertising practices via the storing and reading of cookies in the Netherlands. The results show that the majority of the surveyed parties involved in behavioural advertising do not inform users about the storing of cookies or the purposes of data processing of the subsequently obtained data, neither do they have obtained users' consent for the storage of cookies. We also found that the majority of users lack the skills and knowledge how to handle cookies. These findings critically question the wisdom of the informed consent regime which lies currently at the heart of Europe's ePrivacy directive. --Online behavioural advertising,profiling,cookies,informed consent,Do Not Track,ePrivacy Directive

An open learning environment for the diagnosis, assistance and evaluation of students based on artificial intelligence

The personalized diagnosis, assistance and evaluation of students in open learning environments can be a challenging task, especially in cases that the processes need to be taking place in real-time, classroom conditions. This paper describes the design of an open learning environment under development, designed to monitor the comprehension of students, assess their prior knowledge, build individual learner profiles, provide personalized assistance and, finally, evaluate their performance by using artificial intelligence. A trial test has been performed, with the participation of 20 students, which displayed promising results

From Personalization to Adaptivity: Creating Immersive Visits through Interactive Digital Storytelling at the Acropolis Museum

Storytelling has recently become a popular way to guide museum visitors, replacing traditional exhibit-centric descriptions by story-centric cohesive narrations with references to the exhibits and multimedia content. This work presents the fundamental elements of the CHESS project approach, the goal of which is to provide adaptive, personalized, interactive storytelling for museum visits. We shortly present the CHESS project and its background, we detail the proposed storytelling and user models, we describe the provided functionality and we outline the main tools and mechanisms employed. Finally, we present the preliminary results of a recent evaluation study that are informing several directions for future work

Precision cancer medicine and the doctor-patient relationship:a systematic review and narrative synthesis

Background: The implementation of precision medicine is likely to have a huge impact on clinical cancer care, while the doctor-patient relationship is a crucial aspect of cancer care that needs to be preserved. This systematic review aimed to map out perceptions and concerns regarding how the implementation of precision medicine will impact the doctor-patient relationship in cancer care so that threats against the doctor-patient relationship can be addressed. Methods: Electronic databases (Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Social Science Premium Collection) were searched for articles published from January 2010 to December 2021, including qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical methods. Two reviewers completed title and abstract screening, full-text screening, and data extraction. Findings were summarized and explained using narrative synthesis. Results: Four themes were generated from the included articles (n = 35). Providing information addresses issues of information transmission and needs, and of complex concepts such as genetics and uncertainty. Making decisions in a trustful relationship addresses opacity issues, the role of trust, and and physicians’ attitude towards the role of precision medicine tools in decision-making. Managing negative reactions of non-eligible patients addresses patients’ unmet expectations of precision medicine. Conflicting roles in the blurry line between clinic and research addresses issues stemming from physicians’ double role as doctors and researchers. Conclusions: Many findings have previously been addressed in doctor-patient communication and clinical genetics. However, precision medicine adds complexity to these fields and further emphasizes the importance of clear communication on specific themes like the distinction between genomic and gene expression and patients’ expectations about access, eligibility, effectiveness, and side effects of targeted therapies.</p

Precision cancer medicine and the doctor-patient relationship:a systematic review and narrative synthesis

Background: The implementation of precision medicine is likely to have a huge impact on clinical cancer care, while the doctor-patient relationship is a crucial aspect of cancer care that needs to be preserved. This systematic review aimed to map out perceptions and concerns regarding how the implementation of precision medicine will impact the doctor-patient relationship in cancer care so that threats against the doctor-patient relationship can be addressed. Methods: Electronic databases (Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Social Science Premium Collection) were searched for articles published from January 2010 to December 2021, including qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical methods. Two reviewers completed title and abstract screening, full-text screening, and data extraction. Findings were summarized and explained using narrative synthesis. Results: Four themes were generated from the included articles (n = 35). Providing information addresses issues of information transmission and needs, and of complex concepts such as genetics and uncertainty. Making decisions in a trustful relationship addresses opacity issues, the role of trust, and and physicians’ attitude towards the role of precision medicine tools in decision-making. Managing negative reactions of non-eligible patients addresses patients’ unmet expectations of precision medicine. Conflicting roles in the blurry line between clinic and research addresses issues stemming from physicians’ double role as doctors and researchers. Conclusions: Many findings have previously been addressed in doctor-patient communication and clinical genetics. However, precision medicine adds complexity to these fields and further emphasizes the importance of clear communication on specific themes like the distinction between genomic and gene expression and patients’ expectations about access, eligibility, effectiveness, and side effects of targeted therapies.</p

No Consumer Is an Island—Relational Disclosure as a Regulatory Strategy to Advance Consumer Protection Against Microtargeting

Presently, most business-to-consumer interaction uses consumer profiling to elaborate and deliver personalized products and services. It has been observed that these practices can be welfare-enhancing if properly regulated. At the same time, risks related to their abuses are present and significant, and it is no surprise that in recent times, personalization has found itself at the centre of the scholarly and regulatory debate. Within currently existing and forthcoming regulations, a common perspective can be found: given the capacity of microtargeting to potentially undermine consumers’ autonomy, the success of the regulatory intervention depends primarily on people being aware of the personality dimension being targeted. Yet, existing disclosures are based on an individualized format, focusing solely on the relationship between the professional operator and its counterparty; this approach operates in contrast to sociological studies that consider interaction and observation of peers to be essential components of decision making. A consideration of this “relational dimension” of decision making is missing both in consumer protection and in the debate on personalization. This article defends that consumers’ awareness and understanding of personalization and its consequences could be improved significantly if information was to be offered according to a relational format; accordingly, it reports the results of a study conducted in the streaming service market, showing that when information is presented in a relational format, people’s knowledge and awareness about profiling and microtargeting are significantly increased. The article further claims the potential of relational disclosure as a general paradigm for advancing consumer protection

Student Attitudes toward Learning Analytics in Higher Education: "The Fitbit Version of the Learning World"

Increasingly, higher education institutions are exploring the potential of learning analytics to predict student retention, understand learning behaviors, and improve student learning through providing personalized feedback and support. The technical development of learning analytics has outpaced consideration of ethical issues surrounding their use. Of particular concern is the absence of the student voice in decision-making about learning analytics. We explored higher education students' knowledge, attitudes, and concerns about big data and learning analytics through four focus groups (N = 41). Thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts identified six key themes. The first theme, “Uninformed and Uncertain,” represents students' lack of knowledge about learning analytics prior to the focus groups. Following the provision of information, viewing of videos and discussion of learning analytics scenarios three further themes; “Help or Hindrance to Learning,” “More than a Number,” and “Impeding Independence”; represented students' perceptions of the likely impact of learning analytics on their learning. “Driving Inequality” and “Where Will it Stop?” represent ethical concerns raised by the students about the potential for inequity, bias and invasion of privacy and the need for informed consent. A key tension to emerge was how “personal” vs. “collective” purposes or principles can intersect with “uniform” vs. “autonomous” activity. The findings highlight the need the need to engage students in the decision making process about learning analytics

Online advertising: analysis of privacy threats and protection approaches

Online advertising, the pillar of the “free” content on the Web, has revolutionized the marketing business in recent years by creating a myriad of new opportunities for advertisers to reach potential customers. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure composed of a variety of intermediary entities and technologies whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded behind the scenes at an unprecedented rate. Despite the enormous value of online advertising, however, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prompt serious privacy concerns. This article surveys the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and presents a thorough overview of the underlying privacy risks and the solutions that may mitigate them. We first analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising. In particular, we examine the main components of the advertising infrastructure in terms of tracking capabilities, data collection, aggregation level and privacy risk, and overview the tracking and data-sharing technologies employed by these components. Then, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and compare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and impact on the Web.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft