Usability Study on Mobile Web Pre-Fetching

Web pre-fetching is a technique that can increase the speed of web loading process. It refers to the operation of fetching information from remote web servers even before it is requested. This research approves a web pre-fetching method that is capable to decrease user-perceived latency in web browsing for mobile environment, in which it is essential as mobile devices have several limitations compared to normal desktop PC. Advanced Keystroke Level Model (KLM) technique was used where it predicted the interaction time of user with Mobile Web Pre-Fetching (MWeP) prototype and it is validated through the statistical method of single factor controlled experiments where user testing was done. Facebook was chosen as the case study where the usability evaluation based on advanced KLM technique supported that user access time with MWeP prototype decreased considerably while the usability evaluation through user testing implied that the mobile web pre-fetching prototype was satisfactory to user in terms of learnability, efficiency of use, memorability, error frequency and satisfaction. This research indicated that the utilisation of web pre-fetching is recommended in mobile environment as it effectively decreases user interaction time during web browsing that enhances user’s overall browsing experience. Based on advanced KLM technique, the total access time for mobile application with MWeP method decreased than those without MWeP

MobilED – A Mobile Tools and Services Platform for Formal and Informal Learning

The MobilED initiative is aimed at designing teaching and learning environments that are meaningfully enhanced with mobile technologies and services. The MobilED deliverables are to develop a set of scenarios and guidelines of how mobile technologies could be used for teaching, learning and empowerment of students within and outside the school context; a set of concepts and prototypes that will be developed into a MobilED platform that facilitates and supports the scenarios and guidelines developed and testing, evaluation, dissemination and sustainability strategies for the MobilED platform in real contexts with real people. The first phase of the project included the design, development and piloting of a prototype platform where multimedia and language technologies (voice, text, images) are used via the mobile phone as tools in the learning process. The first 2 pilots focused on the use of low-cost mobile phones, which are readily available in the developing world. It consisted of the development of a mobile audio-wikipedia, using SMS and text-to-speech technologies to enable access to information as well as the contribution of information using voice. The application was tested and results compared between a poor, rural school environment and an affluent private school environment in South Africa. The second phase of the project looked at the use of more advanced mobile phones with multimedia capabilities. It consisted of a joint project between the “advantaged” and “disadvantaged” schools, called “Street Memory” which enabled learners to gather multimedia (sound, voice, video) information and make the results available to the community.Meraka Institute, CSIR, South Africa Media Lab, Helsinki University of Art and Design, Finlan

An Investigation into Game Based Learning Using High Level Programming Languages

Game-related education within mobile learning spheres is a matter of great debate for university students across the globe. It is the case that programming languages often pose a sizeable challenge for university students. This research paper aims to develop a game based learning platform “iPlayCode”, designed to offer a new and exciting method of learning programming language. Xcode 5.0.2 was used to develop the game by using the cocos2d-x development tool and the Adobe Photoshop graphic design tool. In addition, iOS 7.0.3 (11B508) Simulator was used to test the application and the application was deployed in different models of mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad. The application outcomes are presented by a mobile game that teaches programming languages in an easy, attractive and effective way

Web Service Testing and Usability for Mobile Learning

Based on the summary of recent renowned publications, Mobile Learning (ML) has become an emerging technology, as well as a new technique that can enhance the quality of learning. Due to the increasing importance of ML, the investigation of such impacts on the e-Science community is amongst the hot topics, which also relate to part of these research areas: Grid Infrastructure, Wireless Communication, Virtual Research Organization and Semantic Web. The above examples contribute to the demonstrations of how Mobile Learning can be applied into e-Science applications, including usability. However, there are few papers addressing testing and quality engineering issues – the core component for software engineering. Therefore, the major purpose of this paper is to present how Web Service Testing for Mobile Learning can be carried out, in addition to re-investigating the influences of the usability issue with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Out of many mobile technologies available, the Pocket PC and Tablet PC have been chosen as the equipment; and the OMII Web Service, the 64-bit .NET e-portal and the GPS-PDA are the software tools to be used for Web Service testing

A gentle transition from Java programming to Web Services using XML-RPC

Exposing students to leading edge vocational areas of relevance such as Web Services can be difficult. We show a lightweight approach by embedding a key component of Web Services within a Level 3 BSc module in Distributed Computing. We present a ready to use collection of lecture slides and student activities based on XML-RPC. In addition we show that this material addresses the central topics in the context of web services as identified by Draganova (2003)

Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India

Mobile content personalisation using intelligent user profile approach

As there are several limitations using mobile internet, mobile content personalisation seems to be an alternative to enhance the experience of using mobile internet. In this paper, we propose the mobile content personalisation framework to facilitate collaboration between the client and the server. This paper investigates clustering and classification techniques using K-means and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to predict user's desired content and WAP pages based on device's listed-oriented menu approach. We make use of the user profile and user's information ranking matrix to make prediction of the desired information for the user. Experimental results show that it can generate promising prediction. The results show that it works best when used for predicting 1 matched menu item on the screen