Small Screen Access to Digital Libraries of African Art

This paper looks at the possibilities of taking existing digital library technology and using it for educating those who do not normally have access to the Internet. Our solution is based on cellular telephone technology and we investigate the feasibility of a system for accessing the Greenstone digital library using WAP handsets

DIGITAL LIBRARIES IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Digital libraries (DL) are seen as a hope to developing countries in their struggle for accessing bibliographic resources, especially in a context where the traditional distribution mechanisms failed tragically. Several difficulties are however faced by these countries to build and use digital libraries, due mainly to its high development costs and to the poor existing ICT resources in these countries. This paper discusses the importance of digital libraries for developing countries and introduces the main challenges they face in building and using such libraries. The current alternatives and major initiatives for making digital information accessible to developing countries are also addressed.The Online Digital Libraries have the great advantage of making bibliographic resources, including the most recent publications, accessible anytime and anywhere as far as a computer with Internet access is available. This fact is considerably important for developing countries where the traditional mechanism for distribution such resources failed tragically (Witten, 2004). These libraries are therefore a very good alternative especially for regions and countries where there are difficulties in accessing bibliographic resources. Institutions and researchers in the developing countries frequently have no access to the research literature published in the developed countries due mainly to the high costs and inadequacy of the distributions mechanisms (Arunachalam, 2003). A study conducted in 2003 concluded that 56% of the institutions in the countries with less then US$1000 GDP per capita, have had no international journal subscription for the last 5 years and that 21are however high. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of money has been invested in such projects around the world. For example the Library of Congress invested initially US$60 million in the development of the American National Digital Library!1 US 24 million were awarded in the ambit of the First Digital Library Initiative and over US 50 million2 in the Second. The high building costs might hinder the construction of digital libraries in developing countries since the decision makers prefer to put their scarce resources in addressing the existing basic needs such as drinking water, health, sanitation, nutrition etc

Customizing Digital Libraries for Small Screen Devices

In this paper we present a system that allows users to access digital libraries using small screen devices. Instead of providing users with a single hard-coded solution, we allow them to customize how the content is structured, formatted and viewed on the small display. The centre of our system is a tool that can be used to customize Greenstone Digital Library collections for small displays. To lower the entry level, this tool has been designed to provide an abstraction from Greenstone’s low level architecture and other computing technologies, such as HTML and Java Script. We also place a strong emphasis on evaluation and incorporate users throughout the software development cycle. Lastly in the discussion, we speculate that by designing usable and customizable systems, there is the potential of breaking down the open source revenue model, which relies on providing services for systems that are hard to use and configure

Designing mobile access to DSpace-based digital libraries

Developing countries face serious problems on building and using digital libraries (DL) due to low computer and Internet penetration rates, lack of financial resources, etc. Thus, since mobile phones are much more used than computers in these countries, they might be a good alternative for accessing DL. Moreover, in the developed world there has been an exponential growth on the usage of mobile phones for data traffic, establishing a good ground for accessing DL on mobile devices. This paper presents a design proposal for making DSpace-based digital libraries accessible on mobile phones. Since DSpace is a popular free and open source DL system used around the world, making it accessible through mobile devices might contribute for improving the global accessibility of scientific and academic publications.http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2254556.225469

Usability Evaluation of Mobile Access to Institutional Repository

This paper investigates the usability of the core functionalities of an Institutional Repository on mobile devices. An EPrints-based repository (Covenant University Repository) was used as case study. The core functionalities of the Institutional Repository were modelled using the Unified Modelling Language and tested on five different mobile devices. Questionnaires were designed and administered to users of the repository based on known usability attributes and the results were analysed using SPSS software. Reliability and convergent validity of the questionnaire was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha and produced a result of 0.771, which is above 0.7 - the minimum recommended. Also, the results from the analysis of the usability attributes show that for all the attributes considered, each scored well above 4.00 on a scale of (1-5) which represents good usability. In essence, the results show that the current web version of the repository provides good usability when accessed from a range of mobile devices. The novelty of this work is that it presents a case study of mobile access to Institutional Repositories in an elegant and repeatable way

Achieving “One-Web” through customization and prioritization

Purpose – Accessing web sites from mobile devices has been gaining popularity but may often do not give the same results and experiences as accessing them from a personal computer.The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach – To address these issues, the paper presents a server-side adaptation approach to prioritising adaptive pages to different devices through prioritisation system. The prioritisation approach allows users to prioritise page items for different devices. The prioritisation engine reorders, shows, and removes items based on its priority set by users or developers.Findings – With this approach, the overall web page's structure is preserved and the same terminology, content, and similar location of content are delivered to all devices.A user trial and a performance test were conducted. Results show that adaptive page and prioritisation provides a consistent and efficient web experience across different devices.Originality/value – The approach provides advantages over both client-side and proxy and has conducted significant experimentation to determine the applicability and effectiveness of the approach

Customisation of web content for desktop and mobile devices

Accessing websites from mobile devices has been gaining popularity but may not give the same results and experiences as accessing them from a personal computer. Growth in the use of mobile devices is accelerating and therefore issues with accessing the web from them are becoming increasingly important. To investigate problems users encountered while accessing websites from mobile devices we conducted a series of surveys and conducted a user trial. Results showed that on mobile devices, users get pages with different structure, terminology, content, and location of content than those on the desktops. Each of these differences negatively impact on the user experience for the site. To address these issues, we present a server-side adaptation approach to prioritising adaptive pages to different devices through a prioritisation system. The prioritisation approach allows users to prioritise page items for different devices. The prioritisation engine reorders, shows, and removes items based on its priority set by users or developers. With this approach, the overall web page’s structure (the parent-child relationships) is preserved and the same terminology, content, and similar location of content are delivered to all devices. To evaluate the prioritisation system, we conducted user trials in a controlled lab-experiment evaluating the usability and user experience of adaptive pages developed for desktops and prioritised for mobile devices. We compared adaptive pages of a mock Facebook to the actual Facebook version. We also conducted a performance test analysing the performance of the prioritisation engine. Results demonstrate the usefulness of the Prioritisation engine and the adaptive pages. Participants preferred the Prioritised version and their performance and browsing experience on the Prioritised version is better than that on the Facebook mobile version. Results show that adaptive pages and prioritisation provides a consistent web experience across different devices

Assessing the suitability of user centric design methods when applied in a developing world context

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-233).The application of information and communication technologies to development (ICT4Dev) is widely believed to have the potential to improve livelihoods in developing regions. Within the field of HCI, it is recognised that user-centred design (UCD) methodologies need to be applied if ICT4Dev activities are to yield locally appropriate technologies. However, there is no overarching methodology or framework for the application of UCD within 4Dev design initiatives. This thesis sets out to explore which UCD methods best enable designers to work successfully outside their own contexts, what challenges arise and how UCD methodologies can be developed to support ICT4Dev designers. Two field studies were conducted, applying two UCD methodologies: An empathic and a technology probing approach. In each case the author designed an artefact, evaluated it in situ and reflected on the suitability of the design methods, tools and techniques employed. The design environments were the rural Eastern Cape Province and the township of Khayelitsha near Cape Town, both in South Africa. An empathic approach was found to have two major shortcomings: It was unable to overcome significant communication challenges and, partly as a result, it failed to identify major design problems until very late in the process. The major benefit of technology probing was its open-ended nature, which fostered user engagement and participation and yielded valuable design inspiration for future modifications of the probe. However, the emergent scenarios of use in the case of a technology probe were heavily influenced by the nature of the technology itself. We thus conclude that technology probing, while it has a valuable place in the ICT4Dev design toolbox, should be deployed in tandem with other techniques to ensure that important livelihoods problems are not overlooked